Item one: If this war is still happening in October, Biden will lose. He’s finally showing signs of getting this.
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Finally, the Biden administration appears to be starting to get serious with Benjamin Netanyahu. The president’s 30-minute phone call with the prime minister on Thursday was tense. The same day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said with respect to Israel’s Gaza actions: "If we don’t see the changes that we need to see, there’ll be changes in our own policy."
It’s sad that it takes the tragic killing of seven workers for the great global humanitarian José Andrés, as opposed to the piles upon piles of dead Palestinian babies, to spur this change. And, of course, it’s not even really a change yet. It’s a threat of a change down the road if certain behaviors continue. As has been widely noted, on the same day the World Central Kitchen workers were killed by the Israel Defense Forces, the Biden administration approved sending more than 2,000 additional bombs to Israel. But this new tone from the White House is already yielding some results: Israel took immediate steps to increase the flow of aid to Gaza.
The invasion of Gaza is first and foremost a moral calamity. Alongside the wanton death, there is the imminence of massive famine (well, it was declared "imminent" in a March 18 report; it may be happening right now). A recent U.N. report calculated that the destruction of Gaza has been so severe that it will be—get this—2092 before Gaza is returned to its 2022 GDP levels.
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But it is also a potential political calamity for Joe Biden. If this war is still happening in October, he will lose the election. Democrats right now very strongly back a cease-fire. In a March 27 poll, both Democrats and independents disapproved of Israel’s actions; just 18 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents approve of how Israel is prosecuting the war.
Biden has stuck with Israel, and with Netanyahu, through all this. Partly this is sincere, driven by a combination of horror at Hamas’s savage attacks last October and views on Zionism formed decades ago when Israel was a liberal democracy surrounded by hostile, mostly illiberal neighbors.
But it’s probably part political calculation too, based on another reflex that goes back many decades in Washington: that to oppose an Israeli government’s actions is to risk being tagged as "anti-Israel" by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and thereby to risk losing Jewish votes.
That may still be true. AIPAC is still very powerful. But there are also a lot of reasons to think that the politics of this situation among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have changed dramatically in the last decade, especially among young people. And between 2020 and 2024 alone, eight million new voters are aging into the electorate.
But this isn’t just about people’s views on Israel. It’s about their views of Biden. He risks being seen here as not his own man. An old Bill Clinton quote has been kicking around in the media in recent weeks: After his first meeting in 1996 with an arrogant Netanyahu, Clinton asked his aides, "Who’s the fucking superpower here?"
Netanyahu has only grown more arrogant over the years, which is astonishing. Consider: He’s extremely unpopular in Israel. He’s running a hard-right government that was the target of massive demonstrations since the time it was formed. He’s holding onto his office—and thus prolonging the war—to stay out of jail. His government and military let October 7 unfold for hours with no response. Beyond that, he’s been fine with Hamas running Gaza and letting Qatar finance that for years.
And on top of all that, between now and November, he’s going to be playing a game of chicken with Biden. Cut me off, he’ll taunt, and I’ll be more open about my presidential preference (which, obviously, is Donald Trump).
Biden needs to show Netanyahu, to go back to Clinton’s question, who the superpower is here. It will be risky, sure. But I think at this point the greater risk is in the president of the United States looking like the prime minister of a country of fewer than 10 million people can push him around.
Presidents have stood up to Israeli prime ministers before. It’s not like it’s some outlandish, radical idea. As I write these words Friday morning, I just saw former TNR editor Peter Beinart on Morning Joe pointing out that Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush all attached conditions to aid to Israel when they felt Israel wasn’t acting in America’s interests—and that it usually worked.
In that last case, it was 1991 when Bush Sr. and his secretary of state, James Baker, held up $10 billion in aid that right-wing Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wanted to use for resettlement of Soviet Jews in the occupied territories. Bush and Baker said no. Things got intense. One Israeli Cabinet minister called Bush a "liar" and even an "antisemite." But Shamir backed down. (Yes, Bush lost the next election, but it wasn’t remotely because of Israel.)
People are questioning Biden’s ability to lead at his age. He may lose some Jewish votes in standing up to Netanyahu—although it’s hard to see a state where any such losses would make a difference in Electoral College terms (Biden is not going to lose New York or California, and no, despite this week’s little hypelet, he’s not winning Florida). But if he doesn’t draw a line, and this war is still happening and the United States is still seen as complicit in all this come the fall, he’ll likely lose a lot more.
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{{#if }}
Editor Michael Tomasky talks with two veteran analysts about what they learned in their deep dive into rural America.
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{{/if}}
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Item two: "Animals" and "bloodbath"
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Remember when Trump used the word "bloodbath" not long ago, and everybody on the right went crazy because many media outlets decontextualized the word and failed to note that he was talking about the auto industry? How dare you!, they thundered. He wasn’t talking about a general bloodbath, you Trump Derangement Syndrome sickos!
Well … flash forward, and this week, Trump gave a speech in Michigan about immigration, and the poster on his podium read: "Stop Biden’s Border Bloodbath." So there’s a second use. But still, MAGA land will insist he wasn’t threatening a bloodbath of his political enemies once he takes office, or calling for a bloodbath if he loses. He was describing an ongoing bloodbath caused by Sleepy Joe!
A bloodbath that, as my colleague Greg Sargent wrote recently, is not in fact happening. But clearly, the use of the word is intentional. Trump and his people saw the freak-out over his use of the word last time and thought that was great, so they did it again. And they’ll do it again and again. Eventually, if he becomes president next year, or if he loses narrowly and riles up the troops, we’ll get around to the real bloodbath.
Also in that speech, he referred to undocumented immigrants as "animals." He said: "Democrats said, ‘Please don’t call them animals.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re animals.’"
Now that Trump has gone there so directly, dozens of Republicans will too. This will become standard GOP rhetoric. And of course, odds being what they are, they’ll find a crime committed by an undocumented person often enough between now and November for the right-wing media to make it seem like we’re all living in Chicago in the 1920s.
The rhetoric is going to get darker and darker—more blunt, more emphatic, more designed to shock. That’s where the MAGA movement gets its energy—in trolling the libs harder and harder; in taking one step out on the rhetorical plank, then another, then another. We could wave it away, but rhetoric has consequences. In the present case: Once a movement has agreed that a certain group of people are not people but animals, harsher ways of dealing with said "animals" become more acceptable.
Imagining how far down this road Trump and his people will have traveled by November.
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Join TNR at these upcoming events:
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Item three: A brief but depressing meditation on the low-information voter
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Reflecting on the start of the baseball season, I was seized by a thought midweek about the low-information voters who are likely to decide democracy’s fate this November.
I know very little about baseball. I know the teams and the divisions, dating back to when I used to pay close attention. I know Shohei Ohtani, and I get what a freaky superstar he is. But I doubt I can name, oh, 15 players. Or a single manager. Or tell you who led either league in batting average last year. What I know, I know from being an insomniac and watching SportsCenter at 3 a.m., which is to say, I know some things, but really very little.
Given that, imagine two things. Imagine asking me my opinion of matters pertaining to baseball. And imagine sports journalists taking me seriously! It’s preposterous. And yet, that’s what happens in politics. It’s defensible, of course, because these people are citizens, and "citizen" is all you need to be to be able to have an opinion and go exercise it in the voting booth, and thank God for that fact, since we all know very well of the times in our history (and maybe our present!) when certain citizens have been denied this basic right. At the same time, it’s a little weird.
Second, just imagine how muddled and twisted politics must seem to people who follow it the way I follow baseball. Oh yeah, that Schumer … which team is he on again? Kind of a depressing thought. Very hard to imagine what kind of information gets through to such voters.
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Last week’s quiz: "On the avenue, Fifth Avenue…" A quiz about Easter.
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1. Easter was a pagan holiday before it was a Christian one. Where does the word Easter likely come from?
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A. From the Russian возрождение (vozrozhdeniye, or "rebirth"), transmuted over the years from Eastern (that is, from the East, from Russia) rebirth, and eventually shortened to just Easter
B. From the old High German word Essentren, a flower that was among the first to sprout every March
C. From the name of the English pre-Christian goddess Eostre, the goddess of fertility and spring
D. From the Norse god Estrehin, the god of sunshine and flowing water
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2. A Roman soldier ran a spear into Christ’s torso just after he’d expired on the cross. That spear, the so-called Spear of Destiny, has been coveted over the ages by any number of generals and tyrants, right up to Adolf Hitler, who had it seized from a Viennese museum in 1938 for use in occult ceremonies. Where is the spear today?
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A. The Vatican
B. The Hofberg Treasure House, Vienna
C. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
D. Mar-a-Lago
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Answer: B, Vienna. I know, it should have been D; but you know, it’ll probably end up in D someday. Anyway, here’s a video on Hitler’s obsession with the spear.
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3. This artist’s dramatic, circa-1600 rendering of Christ’s crucifixion departed from custom by having no other human figures in the scene—no Virgin Mary, no Roman soldiers—and by showing the dying Christ alone, in the dark, body twisted, skulls and crossbones at his feet.
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A. El Greco
B. Tintoretto
C. Raphael
D. Caravaggio
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Answer: A, El Greco. Here is the canvas to which I refer. Amazing work. I bet a lot of you guessed Caravaggio.
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4. In the song "Easter Parade" by Irving Berlin, the man sings to his female companion: "On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us, and you’ll find that you’re—" what?
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A. dressed in Christian Dior.
B. more beautiful than before.
C. full of grace and l’amour.
D. in the rotogravure.
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Answer: D, in the rotogravure. But what, Tomasky, is a rotogravure? Look it up!
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5. Who originated the role of Jesus in Jesus Christ, Superstar?
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A. Ian Gillan, lead singer of Deep Purple
B. Murray Head, who’d been in a London production of Hair
C. Michael D’Abo, lead singer of Manfred Mann
D. Ian Hunter, lead singer of Mott the Hoople
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Answer: A, Ian Gillan. Close your eyes and think of the "Gethsemane" vocal and some of those plaintive wails on "Smoke on the Water." Same cat.
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6. The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania–based Just Born Confections is known for what Easter treat?
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A. White chocolate bunnies
B. Malted milk eggs
C. Pastel-colored jellybeans
D. Marshmallow "Peeps" shaped like chicks and other animals
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Answer: Peeps! God, the shit I used to eat.
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This week’s quiz: "Span"ning the globe: In the wake of the Baltimore tragedy, I’ve been thinking about bridges. So here we go.
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1. The two towers of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York are:
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A. Coated with a very hard vulcanized rubber to reduce vibration.
B. Not the same height, but are the same weight.
C. Exactly 1 5/8 inches farther apart at the top than the bottom, to account for the curvature of the earth.
D. Four degrees away from being parallel, the better to bear the weight of the traffic.
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2. The world’s oldest known bridge, dating to 1,300 BCE and still used by pedestrians and agricultural traffic, is in what country?
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A. Greece
B. China
C. Iraq
D. Peru
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3. The Ponte dei Sospiri in Venice was nicknamed the Bridge of Sighs because it was the bridge convicts walked across on their way to prison; it was said that this last look at Venice made them sigh. Who came up with the name?
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A. Thomas Mann
B. Rainer Maria Rilke
C. Henry James
D. Lord Byron
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4. What city is said to have the most bridges in the world?
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A. Taipei, Taiwan
B. Hamburg, Germany
C. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
D. Panama City, Panama
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5. Match the well-known U.S. bridge to the city it serves.
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Brent Spence Bridge
Ambassador Bridge
Betsy Ross Bridge
Peace Bridge
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Philadelphia
Buffalo
Detroit
Cincinnati
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6. The famous "bridge too far" in World War II, which the Allies failed to capture in their ambitious Operation Market Garden, is located where?
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A. Arnhem, Netherlands
B. Antwerp, Belgium
C. Bremen, Germany
D. Rotterdam, Netherlands
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Hairiest bridge experience in America: The Goethals, connecting New Jersey and Staten Island. Those lanes are so narrow! Wait—I just googled it and see that it was widened a few years ago! You go, Port Authority. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com.
—Michael Tomasky, editor
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