Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.
Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.
You haven’t engaged with a single word from my comment, just repeated the same old “vote” spiel. Your mantra doesn’t work. Voters are emotional and tune out people who don’t offer anything more to respond to their personal anger than “but it could be worse”. You simply aren’t going to track down all the disaffected voters and berate them into voting how you think they should objectively vote.
Tlaib and the uncommitted campaign are trying to convince Biden this is a problem that needs addressing. Material change is what can reach the masses, not lectures to political junkies on how the genocide could be worse or how not-voting will get you genocide AND other bad things rather than just genocide.
Maybe I just expect better from people on the left. But you’re right… Why should they be different?
But still. If one cares about one topic so much that they would not vote for someone because of it. Then why would they not go the extra mile and think about what the consequences of their decision will be with regard to that topic? And I don’t think that you have to be a political junkie to have such thoughts. It’s no rocket science at all.
You’re totally right that material change is needed. I just doubt that there’s so much Biden can do until next year. Even if such decisions were made right now, it would take a while until the effects would be felt. And if changes are not enshrined in law, they’ll be gone soon. But there’s no perspective to achieve that as long as you don’t control house, senate and presidency.