American leftists are facing a question that has become a perennial bugbear. Come November, should they support the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump? Or, given their profound reservations about both candidates, should they abstain from voting at all?
Biden’s support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza has given the conundrum special urgency this year, but the question has become exhaustingly familiar. Four years ago, the country’s largest leftist organization, the Democratic Socialists of America, loudly declared that it was not endorsing Biden, despite his backing by a coalition that included Bernie Sanders, Angela Davis, the DSA’s own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, most major trade unions, and, implicitly, The New England Journal of Medicine. When some in the DSA’s leadership suggested that the organization could at least call on its members in swing states to consider voting for Biden, the majority voted down the proposal. Biden went on to win without any organized help from the DSA.
