The irony of “Biden’s Vietnam”
There once was a conflict between hostile factions with differing political ideologies in a foreign country. Each side had elements bent on genocide. Each side had committed atrocities against the other. America’s solution was to send in troops favouring one of the sides, to answer rifle shots with bombs made with jellied gasoline. Fifty-eight thousand Americans lost their lives there and it sparked angry nationwide student protests across the United States. It was called the Vietnam War.
Today there is a conflict between hostile factions with differing political ideologies in a foreign country. Each side has elements bent on genocide. Each side has committed atrocities against the other. America’s solution is to counsel peace and keep American troops out of it. To date no Americans have lost their lives there, and yet it has sparked angry nationwide student protests across the United States. It’s called the Gaza-Israeli conflict.
I therefore put it to anyone, how then is it that this latter day conflict, according to some members of the mainstream media, is being called “Biden’s Vietnam?” More to the point, why are elements of this modern protest telling anyone who will listen that Biden has lost their vote because of his response to this Gaza-Israeli conflict?
The protests are factional, with most of the protesters favouring Gaza. The irony is especially thick when you consider the alternative. Biden is perperportedly going to lose the votes of the partisan protesters because of his policy. Those lost votes will help Donald Trump. And yet Trump’s “answer” to the problem is militantly pro-Israel. Trump posted a chillingly Hitlerian response to the conflict on “Truth” Social: “Israel has to finish the problem. FINAL SOLUTION!!”
The devil, as usual, is in the details. Protesters want President Biden to handle the conflict precisely according to their dictates. They are holding their votes hostage if he doesn’t. They are egged on by lunatics like Cenk Uygur. They are, in short, making their idea of perfection the enemy of the very best of two options.
It’s an insanity that’s impossible to fathom or explain with anything approaching rationality. From where I’m sitting the demonstrators look like a bunch of comfortable, middle-class spoiled brats playing 1960s college protester. They aren’t only out of their depth, they need a lesson in picking their battles wisely and a mandatory college course in the Dunning Kruger effect.
The problem here is one of simple arrested cognition. The protesters aren’t thinking clearly, or at all. The good news is that their insane position is unlikely to cause any harm. Most of the protesters reside in blue states anyway, and those states will overwhelmingly vote for Joe Biden in November.
Meanwhile many in the mainstream media are mired in covering the trees of the protests without any clear comprehension of the overall forest. Meanwhile we have a planet to save from global climate change and a madman intent on putting non-white Americans, liberals and journalists in concentration camps. What could possibly be more clear? Why does this even require an explanation? And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.