Senator Bernie Sanders was featured on “Face the Nation” this morning to redouble his support for Biden, amidst the escalating genocide in Gaza and the expanding US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine.
Shedding crocodile tears, Sanders stated that what is happening in Gaza is an “unprecedented crisis”—deliberately avoiding the use of the term genocide, as he has done whenever speaking of Israel’s actions.
“The United States of America cannot be complicit in this mass slaughter of children,” Sanders said. But the American ruling class—and the Biden administration—is not only complicit in the slaughter, it is arming, financing and politically justifying it.
Sanders said that what he advocates is telling Netanyahu that “If you want any money you have to change policy. Allow trucks in to feed the children.” In other words, he would support continuing to funnel billions to Israel if they allow in more aid trucks—while the genocide goes on.
Asked whether he still thinks a full ceasefire is “unrealistic,” as he has stated repeatedly, Sanders said that he proposes “ceasefire tomorrow” to allow in aid trucks, but not a permanent ceasefire. “Hamas is dedicated to destroying Israel,” he said.
Then he turned to the question of Biden. Responding to a statement from Biden that “I’m never going to leave Israel,” even if it carries out a raid on Rafah, Sanders insisted that workers and youth had to back Biden in the elections.
“If you believe that climate change is real, you’ve got to vote for President Biden... If you think that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, you don’t give trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the one percent... If you believe in democracy.... you have to vote for Biden.”
Sanders insisted that young people and workers outraged by the support for genocide in Gaza should vote for the person responsible for it. Moreover, the claim that a government and a party that is supporting the genocide is going to defend democracy and oppose inequality is a lie.
The war abroad is at the same time a war on the working class at home, requiring a massive assault on the democratic and social rights of all workers.
The Democratic Party is a party of Wall Street and the military-intelligence agencies. The Biden administration’s support for the genocide in Gaza is part of an expanding global war of American imperialism, including the escalating US-NATO war against Russia, which risks nuclear annihilation, and which Sanders fully supports.
Millions of workers and young people voted for Sanders in 2016 and 2020 because he claimed to be leading a “political revolution” against the “billionaire class.” His current role as chief campaigner for Biden exposes him as the “left wing” of genocide and imperialism. It exposes as well the futility of all efforts to “reform” the Democratic Party.
The Democrats and Republicans represent two intersecting paths to capitalist barbarism. The real alternative for the working class and youth is the fight for international socialism. In this election campaign, Jerry White and I are fighting to build a socialist leadership in the working class.