We Have Two Weeks To Help Gaza
The fortnight before the election is the only time they will listen. We have to speak.
The October days are dwindling—there are just two weeks left before the election. . We’re not waiting for just any result; we’re waiting for a verdict on something much bigger than the names at the top of the ballot. This election is about the soul of a nation.
But know this: The fate of the American soul is bound up in the fate of Gaza. We can't turn away and pretend what is happening over there is some distant moral problem to intellectualize and compartmentalize. We can’t just dismiss it as “complex”. We can’t just feel bad about it all and do nothing.
Gaza isn't just a foreign policy problem, it's a reflection of the contradictions and compromises that define American society. The destruction there, the suffering, is a result of the daily collapse of all the things we claim we are standing for by supporting Kamala Harris against Donald Trump — freedom, democracy, human rights. We’re in the paradox of believing we stand for those things while being complicit in their erosion.
And America, with all its ideals and promises, is implicated in Gaza's wounds not just geopolitically but morally, like how a sickness in one part of the body inevitably spreads to the whole. To pretend otherwise is to ignore that the line between "here" and "there" is moot, and what happens in Gaza reverberates to the soil beneath our feet. The soul of America is tied to Gaza not because of some abstract globalism but because the walls of our world are thinner than we think.
As the days tick down, the margins remain razor-thin between Harris and Trump. There is a real sense that she is the only firewall between the world and, Trump, and whatever comes next. Yet that barrier is already crumbling with each new bombing campaign, each new stretch of civility turned to dust in Gaza. And the West Bank. And Lebanon. And, soon Iran.
This is why those refusing to pressure Harris on her stance toward Israel are making a big mistake. Not only strategically - her stance on Israel could well lose her the election — but we are mistaking her potential victory for a real win, when it is at best a victory for the status quo of steady decline. We have to be brutally honest with ourselves. There are no real differences between the candidates when it comes to foreign policy and the ceaseless military machine. So should you vote her?
Yes. Harris is better for the future of democracy. She is, after all, not the Orange Tyrant. This claim is true, but it demands accountability. And what does it mean when her policies mirror his? On deportation, war crimes, incarceration—there’s no significant daylight between them. And the military budget bloats under her boss, swelling like the tumor it is, feeding off the carcasses of endless war.
We say rightly that Trump is a fascist, a danger to everything America stands for. But he is not the only one. How do we explain the fact that Mickey Edwards, a founding member of the very think tank that birthed Project 2025, has thrown his weight behind Harris? Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Liz Cheney? How do we reconcile this growing list of lifelong hawks and hardened right-wing strategists supporting her? The same people who engineered a blueprint for an authoritarian future seem to think that Harris is their best bet now. Is it because they have had a spiritual awakening? A moral evolution? Or is it because they see in her a more efficient executor of their goals?
Fear has done its work well, silencing critique, dulling the edges of outrage. We whisper instead of shout. We placate ourselves with the notion that “anyone but Trump” is enough. But the longer we hold on to that notion, the further we fall into complacency. Harris and Biden have been given a free pass on their policies regarding Palestine by the vast majority of their supporters, not because people agree with the policies, but because they fear the alternative. It’s a passive endorsement of genocide.
Two weeks. That’s all the time we have to try and push her to a different path. But the momentum is not on our side. Once she’s elected, if she is elected, the window of leverage slams shut. She will no longer need to answer to those who demand a shift in policy. She will have her mandate, and with it, the ability to act with impunity, just as her two predecessors did. The American electorate will have once again sent the message that it is willing to tolerate any amount of suffering, any amount of violence, as long as it is done in the name of defeating someone worse.
And this is the absolute tragedy of American politics: we are trapped in a cycle where each election becomes an exercise in damage control, rather than an opportunity for true change. The Democrats rely on the existence of Trumpism to justify their every failure, their every concession to the war machine, to the prison industrial complex, to the borders that cage and kill. And as long as Trump or his likeness looms large, they will continue to play this card, and we will continue to fold.
The issue is not that Trump will be worse for Gaza than Harris. It’s that in the grand scheme of the cynical, self-propelling machinery that is U.S. foreign policy—especially where Gaza and, frankly, the entire Middle East are concerned—it makes absolutely no difference at all. You could swap out Trump for Harris or Harris for Trump, and the fundamental power dynamics, the violence, the endless looping of history's ugliest tapes, would just keep on playing. This is because the decisions that impact Gaza are not made by singular figureheads but by a latticework of interests and imperatives that have more to do with oil, arms, and keeping voters comfortably detached from the reality of suffering.
A Slim Window
But here is where there is a hint of possibility. The two weeks before the election is when everyone’s paying attention. This is when the only real leverage the public has exists, and it’s a slim window, sure, but it’s the only time when the narrative can shift, even momentarily, before everything slides back into the usual, suffocating status quo. These two weeks are vital. For a fleeting moment, the decisions you make—what you say, who you push, how loudly you scream—actually matter, even if it is just shifting the margins. Because there are Palestinians who live in those margins. We must help them.
We can’t wait until after the election to start asking hard questions, to start demanding real answers about Harris’s stance on Palestine and the endless support of a genocide that is spreading to the region. The time to act is now, before the polls close, before we lock ourselves into another four years of moral erosion. If Harris wins without changing her position, it will be another confirmation to the Democratic Party that nothing needs to change. That as long as there’s a boogeyman on the other side, it can continue to push policies that would make even the most cynical neocon smile.
The next two weeks are a test, not just for Harris, but for all of us. Will we resign ourselves to another cycle of lesser evilism, or will we demand more? Will we let the fear of Trump silence us, or will we find the courage to confront the painful truth that the fight doesn’t end when the votes are counted?
The real danger is not just losing to Trump. It’s losing ourselves in the process of trying to defeat him. As a parent of a trans kid, I am terrified of the Christofascism in the GOP. We must do everything in our power to stop Trumpism, and that means voting for Harris. But we must also resist the temptation to simply accept any alternative, no matter how brutal. We have two weeks to make our voices heard. If we don’t speak now, we might not get another chance.
POEM OF THE WEEK: Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
Until next week - Be Excellent To Each Other 🤘 dg
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