After Michigan

Two views from the ground on the "uncommitted" campaign that is seeking to push President Biden on Israel and Gaza

On Tuesday Joe Biden won the Michigan Democratic primary decisively, with more than 81 percent of the vote. And yet more than 101,000 voters — 13 percent of participating Democrats — marked their ballots “uncommitted” as part of a campaign organized by Listen to Michigan in protest of the Biden administration’s policies on Israel and Gaza. The protest’s numbers — and the pressure they put on the Democratic Party — are significant because Biden carried the state by 154,188 votes in 2020 — and Clinton lost by only 10,704 votes in 2016. 

We had questions: Will withholding support for Biden move him? What about the risks of re-electing Donald Trump? How can a coalition divided over such fundamental questions hold together? Is this a turning point in U.S. foreign policy?

We put these questions and others to two people who are seeking to influence the Biden administration’s calculus, albeit in different ways — one more from the outside, the other more from within. One is progressive strategist Waleed Shahid, who has been involved with Listen to Michigan; the other is Congressman Ro Khanna, who spent time in Michigan last week meeting Democratic voters and who has been something of a broker between disaffected Democrats in the state and the Biden administration, for which he is a surrogate.

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Rep. Ro Khanna: “We have to earn people's vote, not tell them how to vote.”

You’ve shared very clearly with the Biden administration what you saw on the ground in Michigan this past week, and you’ve expressed the need for a fundamental shift in the status quo if the election is not going to be a disaster. Have you gotten a response, or have you seen any kind of recognition of what you have been saying?

The president using the word “ceasefire” is a recognition of the voices of a diverse coalition and an acknowledgement that Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, young voters of color, young progressives are hurt and upset.

But I think we have to go much further. We need to use the language of a permanent ceasefire with the release of all hostages. We need to make it clear to Netanyahu that there won't be more shipment of weapons if he goes into Rafah or defies the United States direction. The president, once the war ends, needs to call for an end to the occupation.