THE ELECTION AS A REFERENDUM ON THE PALESTINE GENOCIDE, NOT ON TRUMP

THE ELECTION AS A REFERENDUM ON THE PALESTINE GENOCIDE, NOT ON TRUMP

Issued November 7, 2024

Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. Our work continues.

Trump’s stances on Palestine, immigrant rights, unions, women’s and reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights and more, all stand in extreme opposition to our values. That’s the bad news, and it’s very bad.

The good news is we know that Trump’s values don’t actually reflect the values of the majority of people in the United States. After over a year of televised, U.S.-backed genocide, it was unavoidable that a significant section of voters would treat the election as a referendum on Gaza, by voting third party or abstaining. Trump’s win doesn’t show a mandate for his agenda – it merely reflects the unpopularity of the Biden administration, from which Harris and Walz failed to differentiate themselves.

Instead of appealing to Palestine supporters among progressives they sometimes claim as their base, Democrats tried to appeal to the “Moderate Republican” with rightward-drifting stances on border militarization, policing, and of course, foreign policy. Harris refused to offer any meaningful differences between her platform and the Biden administration’s support for endless war in Ukraine and endless genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.

Harris and Walz hoped voters would be so afraid of a Trump presidency that they would give their consent to a genocide. Clearly, they underestimated the willingness of voters to reject that kind of political blackmail. A second Trump presidency will no doubt bring immense threats to oppressed people both inside and outside U.S. borders. But the silver lining in this result is the knowledge that millions of people have the moral clarity to not vote for a genocide, and the courage to stand up and fight back in the streets when the ballot box fails.

We have a duty to stop the reactionary MAGA agenda. We either mobilize like never before, or we lose. Stand with Palestine, stand with Lebanon, stand with all nations under attack by U.S. imperialism. Stand with immigrants, workers, women, LGBTQ people, land defenders and everyone threatened by the Trump movement. The people united will never be defeated!