As President Joe Biden navigates the funding of an increasingly indefensible war in Gaza, he faces a pivotal opportunity as he prepares to deliver his State of the Union address Thursday. It’s one reminiscent of his early days in the Senate.
In July 1986, President Ronald Reagan announced he would not impose additional sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. A few days later, when Reagan’s secretary of state, George Schultz, testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a young senator from Delaware joined the hearings and made passionate remarks criticizing the Reagan administration’s stance on the apartheid government.
According to December’s New York Times/Siena College pole, Trump led Biden among young voters by a 6% margin. A majority of those young voters oppose additional weapons aid to Israel.
“Dammit, we have favorites in South Africa. The favorites are the people who are being repressed by that ugly, white regime.”
It was Joe Biden, then 43 years old, demanding that the Reagan administration place a timetable on South Africa to end apartheid.
How strange it is then that for five months now the Biden administration has repeatedly said it has zero red lines or restrictions for the funding American taxpayers provide the Israeli military as it carries out its war against Hamas in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
As Biden prepares to address the nation Thursday, he is faced with a crucial opportunity to connect with the many young voters who, like him early in his career, are rallying behind people facing oppression.
It’s not an easy task, for sure. But to lock in a win in 2024, Biden would do well to unite a Democratic Party that has fractured over funding Israel’s disastrous war. Appealing to millions of young voters to turn out for him in November is an important part of that process.
Reports already show millennial…
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