"The president centered his 2020 campaign on a 'Battle for the Soul of the Nation,' but it seems as though the administration is currently in a battle for its own soul," a high-ranking Democratic National Committee member told Axios.
Indeed, the entire Democratic Party and the entire American left are currently embroiled in a battle over whether evil should be countenanced or destroyed, whether there should be any moral judgment made on important issues at all, and whether Israel has a right to exist or not.
The divide on the left is almost entirely generational. Older Democrats were brought up and educated to adopt traditional ways of thought. That traditional way of thinking helped bring Israel into existence in 1948 and supported the Jewish state through the war of independence, the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, two wars with Lebanon, two intifadas, and more. These older Democrats did it all without losing sight of what the Arab states wanted to do with the state of Israel and its people: annihilate them.
The newer way of thinking by younger leftists sees Israel as an "occupying power." This new way of thinking tags Israel as genocidal, cruel, and without honor. It also excuses the worst atrocities by Hamas, justifying them as part of the "resistance" to "occupation."
There will be no reconciling these two schools of leftism. What that might mean politically is hard to say. There may be an effort to form a third party, but that never works. A more likely outcome is that the younger generation just waits for the older generation to die off.
Related: Tlaib and CAIR’s Awad Threaten Biden Where It Hurts: No Votes for You Without Ceasefire
Meanwhile, the Democrats have an election to run. And the schism is only making a hard job next to impossible.
The 2024 cycle "promises to be a long, grueling campaign, and the president is making it even harder," the high-ranking DNC official said.
On Friday, 51 DNC staffers — about 17% of the DNC's roughly 300 employees — signed a letter to DNC leaders saying that "we feel it is the DNC's moral obligation to urge President Biden to publicly call for a ceasefire," The Huffington Post first reported.
The staffers also wrote that they were “shocked and heartbroken by the unfathomable loss of life in the brutal attack on Israeli civilians" and were grieving "for the thousands of Palestinian civilians who have lost their lives during the Israeli government's military response."
It's not just the DNC that's arguing about the war. Democrats in Congress are starting to divide on the issue.
Former staffers for the presidential campaigns of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have penned letters urging the senators to call for a ceasefire.
Warren called two of the organizers of the effort to hear them out, a person familiar with the matter told Axios.
Sanders' communications director did not respond.
Several House Democrats told Axios they expect more of their colleagues to begin speaking out about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
"It's going to be very, very hard for Democrats, given what we are seeing on cable news ... about what's happening in Gaza to just turn a blind eye," said one lawmaker, a supporter of Israel.
Here's a suggestion: stop watching cable news. It's beneath contempt for a lawmaker from either party to be influenced by the talking heads on cable news. Or other Hamas propagandists.
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