When President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was no longer running for reelection and was endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place, an immediate wave of euphoria swept across the broad spectrum of the Democratic coalition. In an instant, an 81-year-old white man who frequently struggled to form complete sentences was out and a 59-year-old multiracial woman who communicates in the crisp language of an experienced prosecutor was in. Harris raked in a record $81 million in just 24 hours and Republicans started openly panicking. Across Blue America, everyone is coconut-pilled.
That includes the left, or, more precisely, the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party—progressive millennial voters such as myself who were grudgingly welcomed into Biden’s big tent four years ago. On issues like labor, climate, and student debt, Biden delivered far more for us than anyone anticipated. In the process, he earned the loyalty of Sanders and his heir apparent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom were among Biden’s staunchest defenders as calls for him to step down grew over the last month following his humiliating performance in last month’s debate.
For rank and file leftists, however, any goodwill Biden might have banked on domestic policy had long since been squandered. For more than nine months following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, Biden has fully enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reprisal campaign and his genocidal war crimes against the Palestinians of Gaza. At the same time, he and his allies have arrogantly dismissed a wave of activism driven by young leftists demanding an immediate ceasefire. These activists never wanted Trump to return to power, and, for the most part, understood he would be at least as bad as Biden on Palestine—and worse on everything else. Still, it was impossible to muster any grassroots enthusiasm for reelecting “Genocide Joe” amid the daily flood of horrific videos, images, and reports from Gaza. Biden’s stance on Palestine wasn’t the biggest reason he was struggling in the polls even before the debate fiasco. But it undoubtedly hurt him at the margins, and especially in the must-win state of Michigan, with its sizable Arab American population.
No one on the left expects Harris to be perfect, but there are already reasons to think she could be an improvement. Back in March, she was out ahead of Biden in both calling for a ceasefire and sounding the alarm about famine and inhumane conditions in Gaza, which she explicitly blamed on the Israeli government. This week, as Netanyahu visits Washington for a joint address to Congress, she’s skipping the speech (which she would normally be expected to preside over in her role as president of the Senate) and will instead meet with Netanyahu one-on-one to demand an end to the war. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that she would likely replace National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, both of whom are deeply implicated in Biden’s disastrous Middle East strategy. (Harris also has a personal connection to left-wing activists that Biden lacks: Her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, who is Jewish, is an active presence in........