English

After Vice President Harris doubles down on global war and genocide in Gaza, Uncommitted Movement commits to electing Harris

Last week, the Uncommitted Movement, which is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and sections of the Democratic Party, released a mealy-mouthed statement that, while not formally endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, nevertheless urged its supporters to “vote against” former President Donald Trump and “avoid third-party candidates.”

Uncommitted delegates hold a press conference outside the United Center before the Democratic National Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. [AP Photo/Matt Rourke]

In the September 19 statement, the Uncommitted group was forced to acknowledge that the Harris-Walz campaign has rejected their requests for a ceasefire in Gaza or any policy change whatsoever.

The group wrote, “Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing US and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her.”

Not only has Harris rejected all the policy proposals advanced by the Uncommitted Movement, the Harris campaign even refused to allow Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian American supporter of Harris and the Uncommitted Movement, to deliver a short speech at the DNC in support of Harris and a ceasefire.

Following the release of the statement, in a September 20 interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Lexis Zeidan, a co-founder of Uncommitted, explained that even after the Biden-Harris administration has overseen 11 months of ethnic cleansing that has officially killed over 42,000 Palestinians, a vast undercount, the group was willing to “mobilize” voters for a Harris-Walz ticket if they were given assurances.

“What we offered to VP Harris,” Zeidan explained, “is that either Harris is able to do two things, either change policy, as it relates to current US policy that backs bombs, or simply does the thing of ensuring and upholding current international and human rights laws, as it relates to Israeli … war crimes.”

If Harris agreed to this, Zeidan explained that Uncommitted was prepared to mobilize “1.5 million voter contacts” and “repeat what we did in Michigan to mobilize our base to go to the polls and vote for her come November. It was an offer we put on the table that was declined by Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign team.”

Despite Harris “declining” the offer and promising to continue the genocide in Gaza, which is now expanding to a regional war with Lebanon and possibly Iran, Zeidan emphasized the movement would continue supporting the Democratic ticket.

“We have to be very clear is that there are two options come November at the top of the ticket. It’s going to be Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump. So keeping that context in mind we had to make a decision of what that means to grow the power that we have already built within our anti-war organizing movement.”

Using the same language Democrats and their supporters have employed for decades to browbeat voters into supporting the “lesser evil,” Zeidan made clear they were “not recommending a third-party vote” because “we know that unfortunately a third-party vote is not viable in this broken electoral system and so, inadvertently, a third-party vote would support a Donald Trump victory.”

Zeidan added, “Our power lies in continuing to grow the anti-war organizing movement that we have to truly pressure the Democratic Party, the Democratic coalition, the Democratic administration to change policy…”

Far from growing the anti-war movement, Zeidan said the group would be focused on working to elect Democrats by “educating voters across the country” about the danger of a Trump presidency and to “keep pressuring the Biden-Harris administration.”

These statements completely confirm the analysis of the “Uncommitted Movement” made by the World Socialist Web Site early this year. As soon as the “Uncommitted Movement” emerged in February, the WSWS warned that it was a “pseudo-left ruse to swindle opponents of genocide into voting for Biden in November.”

The WSWS warned that the purpose of the Uncommitted Movement was:

… to promote the illusion that Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole can be shifted through pressure from below from their policies of global war and mass death—in Europe in the proxy war against Russia over Ukraine, in the Middle East in the genocidal onslaught against the Palestinians and war preparations against Iran, and in South Asia in the military preparations against China—and the accompanying attacks on democratic rights and the jobs and social conditions of the working class at home.

The latest statement from the Uncommitted Movement, which has been backed by prominent Democrats, such as Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, completely validates this analysis. Its promotion by the DSA and other pseudo-left groups has been aimed at channeling broad popular opposition behind the Democratic Party.

If the last 11 months of protests have shown anything, it is that the Biden-Harris administration will not be swayed by “pressure” from middle class activists to cease the slaughter. The fight against the genocide—and the broader imperialist war of which it is a part—must be developed as a movement of the working class, in opposition to the entire capitalist system and both its parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.

Loading