Our freedom to protest U.S and/or Israel policy toward the Palestinians may be temporary
It is pretty much assured under President Biden, but severely in doubt if Trump regains the Presidency. I hope those who might consider withholding their votes from Biden in November keep that in mind. Trump is already threatening to take over Democratic run cities to fight crime. He has plans to use the U.S. military to crush "civil unrest". To Trump that means suppressing and criminalizing overwhelmingly peaceful protests. Trump also wants to reinstate his Muslim ban. With some window dressing changes and a more sympathetic Supreme Court he probably can if he wins in November. He is not at all sympathetic to Palestinians, nor to those who protest on their behalf.
White Americans, and to a significantly lesser extent non-White Americans, take for granted. certain liberties. Anti-establishment protestors here face harassment (and in relatively rare instances much worse) but we do not live in anything resembling Putin's Russia, or Xi's China. Yet.
There are many things wrong in America. They will not improve if our ability to freely protest and organize is crushed by an authoritarian regime. When dictators come to power they tend to stay in power for a very long time. Think Franco in Spain. Think Pinochet in Chile. Think Putin in Russia. There are literally dozens of examples.
We have so much work to do; work to establish racial justice, work to combat economic inequality, work to restore reproductive rights, work to prevent runaway climate change, solidarity work for oppressed people of this world. But protecting our democracy underlies all of it. In my youth I protested the foreign policy of a Democratic President; LBJ. And yes, under similar circumstances I would do so again if necessary. But I then watched as Richard Nixon succeeded LBJ in the White House. I didn't do enough to prevent it, and much harm came from that. Little did I know at the time that many decades later an authoritarian threat far greater than Richard Nixon would threaten our very democracy.
I would have had to be 21 in 1968 to vote for Hubert H. Humphrey, and I wasn't. Most likely though I wouldn't have even if I was eligible to vote. I probably would have backed a left wing protest candidate. I still remember having felt that way then, and why. I get why someone might do that, but I wouldn't make that mistake now. We can't let the next Supreme Court Justice be another right wing ideologue. We can't squander the critical next four years with a pro fossil fuel energy policy. And we can't risk losing our democracy in the 2024 elections. There is no promise that we could win it back four years later if we do.
It is not essential that anyone who does not feel so inclined show personal loyalty to Joe Biden. But it is essential that he win a second term. In a democracy, should we still be blessed to have a fully functioning one come this time next year, we can work to change U.S. policy, we can even oppose our President regarding it. In a dictatorship we can't, not without the very real threat of long term imprisonment or death. My message to disillusioned leftists is simple. Protest every other day of the year if your convictions demand it, but on November 8th vote for Joe Biden.
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