With a fascist regime in power, there are many, many ways to lose to fascism. One is, obviously, that the fascists stay in power indefinitely, either by continuing to win popular support or by cheating in elections, or by staging a coup. All of those possibilities are on the table right now, and all of them are horrible.
Another way to lose, though, is for the opposition party to acquiesce in fascist policies, cementing them as an uncontestable bipartisan consensus. There are a range of pundits and politicians who are recommending this on one issue or another—especially immigration and trans rights. They believe they are being savvy and clever, and that by triangulating against marginalized people, they can steal some of that sweet fascist hate vote for themselves.
The sweet fascist hate turns bitter quickly, though. It’s worth briefly looking at one policy area where Biden decided to embrace Trumpist policies rather than reversing them: namely, on Israel/Palestine. The outcomes were disastrous.
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Trump’s failure became Biden’s
In his first term, Trump adopted a rabidly Zionist policy. He acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, abandoning the bipartisan US stance that Jerusalem’s status should be part of an Israel/Palestine negotiated settlement. Trump also negotiated the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements normalizing relationships between Israel Arab countries including Bahrain, the UAE, and Morocco. Like the recognition of Jerusalem, the Abraham Accords were effectively a blow to Palestinians and the Palestinian cause, encouraging Arab leaders to abandon a two-state solution as a precondition for stability in the region.
Biden could have moved the US embassy back to Tel Aviv. He also could have reaffirmed the US commitment to a two-state solution by pushing for Israel to negotiate directly with Palestinians, or by insisting that further discussions with Arab nations include Palestinian representatives.
But he did neither of those things. Instead, he embraced Trump’s agenda and his approach of marginalizing Palestinians. He worked throughout his term to expand the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia. He made no effort to push for or advance a two-state solution, and little to advocate for Palestinian rights or freedom.
Biden’s administration claimed that their goal was stability in the region. It would perhaps have been more honest if they said that they were attempting to stabilize and perpetuate ongoing Israel dominance of the Palestinians. Life in Gaza before October 2023 was already a nightmare of apartheid, disenfranchisement, and subjugation. During Biden’s tenure, Israel continued an illegal, relentless blockade of Gaza which resulted in a humanitarian crisis. 62% of people in Gaza required food assistance; 78% of water was undrinkable; unemployment was 47% and youth unemployment was 63%. Israeli security forces killed 260 people in Gaza in air raids in 2021; they killed 30 Palestinians, including children, in 2022.
Trump, of course, has no humanitarian concerns about Palestinians; he is a fascist who glories in sadism and death. You would hope that a Democratic administration would have a different set of priorities.
But it did not. Instead, Biden—a longtime Zionist—seems to have seen Trump’s indifference to human rights and justice as an opportunity and an excuse. Under the guise of “normalizing” Arab-Israeli relations, Biden worked towards cementing a status quo of essentially eternal apartheid, misery, subjugation, and repression in Gaza and the West Bank.
Palestinians were understandably angry and terrified at the abandonment of even a pretense of movement towards freedom and independence. With no negotiations and no prospect of negotiations, Hamas could either drift into irrelevance or use violence to disrupt Arab-Israeli normalization. Hamas, unsurprisingly given its bloody history, chose violence. Prime Minister Netanyahu ignored his own intelligence warnings, and the result was the hideous slaughter of 10/7—and the even more hideous Israel retaliation and genocide, which is ongoing.
Hamas is responsible for its murders, and Israel is responsible for its genocide. In addition, though, America has long at least given lip service to a goal of justice and peace for Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East. The ongoing slaughter and starvation is, to put it mildly, a major failure of US foreign policy.
That failure was begun under Trump, as he turned his back on Israel-Palestinian peace efforts. But it was cemented by Biden, who chose to double-down on Trump’s reckless, cruel, and bigoted approach, and then to supply Israel with limitless weaponry to kill Palestinians without restraint. The peace and stability of fascism is not, it turns out, peace and stability at all. Following through on fascist policy leads to the inevitable fascist destination of injustice, nightmarish war, murder, and genocide.
Let’s not do this again
Trump, again, doesn’t really care that the Gaza is a ruin; he’s a fascist and enjoys mass death. Biden, though, presumably would have preferred not to oversee a genocide. At the least, he has to be vaguely aware that his shortsightedness, foolish acquiescence in Trumpism, and utter abandonment of a Palestinian-Israeli peace process created the conditions which led directly to 10/7.
Recklessly stoking hatred and abandoning humanitarian commitments tends to lead to disaster and atrocity. And yet, some Democrats continue to urge compromise with and adoption of Trumpism.
Gavin Newsom had right wing ghoul Charlie Kirk on his podcast and seemed eager to follow his lead on trans policy, pointing towards a Democratic embrace of Labour-like anti trans hatred and prejudice. Mayor Muriel Bowser in Washington DC is cooperating with federal troops on “crime prevention”— acquiescing in the fascist takeover of the district and buttressing Trump’s argument for his invasion of Chicago and other blue cities. In June, Democrats were still rushing to praise ICE, rather than abolish it. And of course Democrats like Chuck Schumer continue to blame Columbia and other universities for not cracking down even harder on pro-Palestinian expressions of free speech, even as Trump guts university funding and attempts to destroy any ideological resistance to fascism in higher ed.
The calculations here are transparent enough. Democrats worry that fighting for trans people or Palestinians, or criticizing Trump’s “anti-crime” initiatives, will be unpopular. And/or, they may feel that their own interests align with Trump’s to some extent. Just as Biden is a sincere Zionist, Newsom may well harbor sincere bigotry against trans people, and feel like the current fascist regime gives him a chance to put those ugly ideals into practice.
But the horrific, foreseeable, avoidable mass death in Gaza and Israel should serve as a warning. Fascism only leads one place. If Democrats ever manage to get back in power, they need to reverse Biden’s ugly errors, cease arming Israel, and demand freedom and justice for the Palestinian people. And they need to commit to reversing Trump’s policies—all of them. Biden tried to finesse that imperative, and the result was the result you can always expect from fascism: death, misery, evil, suffering, and failure.