Genocide Joe Biden has dropped out the presidential election, cementing his bloodthirsty legacy as the butcher of Gaza, the armorer of the modern day US-Israel holocaust against the people of Palestine with a body count well over a hundred thousand. The tragedy of today’s announcement is that Biden remains peacefully in the White House at the head of the US empire, and not where he belongs, handed over to the people of Palestine or Yemen for a richly-deserved trial for his crimes against humanity. 

Without Genocide Joe as the head of the ticket, and with the Death and Nakba Coronation (DNC) less than a month away, the Democratic Party is going to take this opportunity to attempt to tell everyone who hates the genocide in Gaza that now they need to fall in line with the same murderous program that old Genocide Joe was peddling, just now with a different face. 

Before he was assassinated by Israeli bombs, the Palestinian teacher and poet Refaat Alareer addressed his last tweet to Killer Kamala Harris, writing simply, “The Democratic Party and Biden are responsible for the Gaza genocide perpetrated by Israel.” Whether the Democrats nominate Killer Kamala or someone else, whoever replaces Biden on the ticket will be someone guaranteed to fall in line with the wholesale slaughter in Gaza, someone who will commit to keeping the weapons and funds flowing smoothly to Israel, perhaps while making a mealy mouthed appeal to winding down the genocide. 

The fact that one of the two parties of US imperialism, and the one currently in power, is in a state of chaos could be favorable for the struggle to end the genocide in Gaza and bring down US imperialism if people move to take advantage of the situation. The Chicago DNC in August will be a critical moment for the party to try to stitch itself back together and rally behind the new nominee. People with a conscious must take the opportunity, not just to protest, but to crash that party, doing everything possible to disrupt and shut down the convention. The DNC must not simply be protested with the all-too-typical approach of “boring protest and we’ll vote for you anyway”, or a wooden denunciation of electoral politics in general, but through a combination of creativity, mass participation, and strident militancy, give voice to the discontent with the genocide in Gaza and aim to manifest a political force that can pull people away from the Democratic Party and into anti-imperialist resistance. 

For our part, in Behind Enemy Lines, we have been going out all over Chicago for months now, protesting the DNC, disrupting their events, holding neighborhood speakouts, putting up posters, and talking to thousands of people in Chicago about why we stand with Palestine and are working to drive the DNC out of our city. We’re welcoming dozens of volunteers to roll with us in August, to increase this outreach to the people and push the protests in as militant a direction as possible. Genocide Joe dropping out of the election doesn’t change that mission. 

In fact, it gives us more of an opportunity to throw a wrench in the gears of the war machine. The anti-war protesters who gathered to confront the Democratic Party convention in 1968 faced a similar situation. Lyndon Johnson had dropped out of the race. But it was impossible for anyone to vote against an unpopular war of aggression, and the Democratic Party was ready to gather (in Chicago!) to try and restore faith in their party and their system. Those defiant protests in 1968 exposed for the world that the Democrats and their candidate were illegitimate, and were not going to end the Vietnam war.  We should aim for nothing less this summer. 

Come to Chicago and shut down the DNC!
We choose the world! 

Behind Enemy Lines 
7/21/24