As I write this, we find ourselves at a critical point in both domestic and international affairs. At home, President Joe Biden has laid out the case for his re-election in November, reminding us during his State of the Union address on March 7 that nothing less than the future of democracy is at stake. On domestic policy, the President, frankly, knocked the ball out of the park, leaving no doubt about who is the better—and only competent—candidate in the race for the White House.
On the other hand, with the holy month of Ramadan beginning as this issue goes to press, Palestinians in Gaza face an ongoing catastrophe that appears to have little chance of improving. According to UNRWA, extreme hunger is spreading, and twenty-five Palestinians in Gaza have already died from malnutrition, Al Jazeera reported. Additionally, a potential ground invasion of Rafah is still possible, the toll of which is almost incomprehensible. “Palestinians,” as Palestinian Egyptian American professor Eman Abdelhadi told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, “literally have nowhere left to go.”
Yet Biden’s comments on the Israel-Hamas war were tepid at best and fell far short of assuaging any concerns about the possibility of a meaningful and lasting ceasefire anytime soon. This is despite a recent poll finding that the majority of Americans believe the Biden Administration should stop sending arms to Israel. This position was supported in the poll by 62 percent of respondents who voted for Biden in 2020. And in Minnesota’s recent Democratic primary, a whopping 20 percent of voters chose to send Biden a strong message by marking “uncommitted” to protest his policies toward Israel and Gaza.
As media critic Adam Johnson observed, there is an explanation for Biden’s weak response to Israel’s ongoing atrocities: “The Biden Administration is, by all available metrics, all in on Israel’s ‘war’ on Gaza. This much is clear. They may have process critiques and may put up some barriers to Israel expressly driving the population of Gaza into Egypt, but they’re 95 percent committed, and there’s no evidence this will change . . . . The real objective—as has been clear for months—is, at best, to ‘thin out’ the population of Gaza and administer Bronze-Age collective punishment, and, at worst, to carry out full-blown genocide marked by a clear-as-day ethnic cleansing campaign.” The rest, sadly, is just public relations window dressing.
I mention all of this because these are important factors to consider come November. While we must ensure that Donald Trump never again sets foot in the White House, we also have a responsibility to continue pressuring the Biden Administration to change course in Gaza by demanding a lasting ceasefire, the return of the Israeli hostages that Hamas and other groups captured during the October 7, 2023, attacks in southern Israel, an end to U.S. weapons supplies to Israel, and the immediate delivery of badly needed humanitarian aid.
In this issue of The Progressive, we set out to take a snapshot of the current political realities heading into November, along with other pressing matters like migration, environmental protection, and the strategy of rightwing billionaires to hijack the country and its institutions.
Claudia Villalona offers the latest news on the migrant crisis in Southern California, where tens of thousands of people from Latin America, Africa, and Asia have crossed through a border wall gap seeking asylum, only to be held in makeshift camps in the desert, “without access to adequate food, water, shelter, sanitation facilities, or medical services.”
Robert Davis reports on how migrants are faring in cities like Denver, Colorado, where many of them ended up after being sent on buses by the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. More than 38,000 immigrants have arrived in Denver over the past fourteen months alone.
Lisa Graves takes a deep dive into how the current agenda of the rightwing Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court is deeply intertwined with the goals of billionaire Charles Koch. “These consolidated [Supreme Court] cases should really be called Koch v. America, because the plaintiffs are being used as fronts for Koch’s extreme agenda,” Graves writes.
John Nichols discusses the fight for democratic socialism with Bernie Sanders, independent U.S. Senator from Vermont, who emphasizes the importance of understanding our history: “One of the ways you maintain the status quo is by denying many aspects of our history. They don’t want these discussions about our past or what’s happening now.”
Richelle Wilson shares an eye-opening account of the ongoing nightmare for many Wisconsin residents whose water supply has been contaminated by PFAS, which are nicknamed “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment and can accumulate in the human body over time. This fight for clean water is one of the many things in this issue of the magazine that puts clearly into perspective what’s at stake in November. As always, we hope you find it insightful, thought-provoking, and inspiring.