The powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) formally endorsed Joe Biden’s re-election campaign on Wednesday at the union’s national community action program conference in Washington DC.
Both the US president and rival Donald Trump have courted the union and supported its successful strike action against the US’s big three automakers last year. Biden became the first president to walk a picket line in support of the union.
“Joe Biden bet on the American worker while Donald Trump blamed the American worker,” UAW president, Shawn Fain told the conference. “If our endorsement must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it.
“Donald Trump is a scab. Donald Trump is a billionaire and that’s who he represents,” Fain said. “This election is about who will stand up with us and who will stand in our way.”
I’m not sure why what’s going on in Gaza has any bearing on who you choose to vote for in the upcoming election. It’s not a wedge issue. There are no opposing viewpoints. Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee and he supports Israel. Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee and if he can manage to dodge prison and get elected again he will also support Israel. I’d be willing to bet money that if there were any 3rd party or independent candidates that even had a shadow’s chance of winning, they’d be in support of Israel too.
This is not a flippant political stance that can be changed on a whim, it’s decades of foreign policy in motion, stuff that was agreed upon long before this particular conflict erupted.
Not casting a vote for Joe Biden when you otherwise would (either by not voting or voting for 3rd party) due to the situation in Gaza is not going to send the correct message. The message that they will get if/when he loses is “The right had a better platform than we did” because they aren’t going to see the issue of Gaza as being significantly different enough to cause voters to flee the party, especially when the alternative is literal fascism.
Republicans love this narrative right now and are hammering away at it at every opportunity. They are hoping that Democrats do themselves in by depressing their own voter turnout so they can win with their razor thin margins in gerrymandered districts.