I would like to tack on an addendum to Charlie Cooke’s response to Noah Rothman’s original piece concerning Joe Biden’s endorsement of a cease-fire in Gaza. Noah declared it a “cave” (it was) and rhetorically asked why the Biden administration would do this — was it really just a nakedly political calculation about its domestic coalition? Charlie answered yes and noted that, aside from being all about politics, it was also bad politics, the politics of a warped far-left bubble.
I would qualify that. I agree that it is bad politics, but it also may be — from the perspective of a Democratic strategist who wants Democrats to win elections, or at least not lose too many — the least bad option currently available. This is clearly being done as a sop to the younger demographics in the Democratic coalition, men and women who are products of an educational system that teaches them that Israelis are permanent oppressors, molded by suffocatingly effective modern social pressures and incentives. (In other words, this isn’t a transient issue for the Democrats: An entire generation was raised this way.)
In general, administrations don’t tack so visibly and publicly to the wind, as events unfold, unless they’re reacting to something the rest of us cannot see. (The “dark matter” of politics, as I like to call it.) My bet is that Democratic internal numbers are showing that an already enfeebled and unpopular Joe Biden has such a weak grasp on his own coalition that shaking loose or depressing the turnout of any one element in it could destroy the entire party’s prospects in 2024.
And if Biden’s Democratic puppet masters think they must sell Israel out for even a futile attempt at saving their own hides . . . well, only a fool bets against the instinct for self-preservation.