International Socialism Project

A commitment to arming Israel and to providing it impunity to violate international law is a bipartisan pillar of U.S. foreign policy. On that score, Harris is and will be no different from her predecessors. But many ordinary Democrats and activists—including many on the marches outside the convention center—will be encouraged to believe otherwise.

The reality is that there is no evidence, no serious reason, to believe that Kamala Harris will have a better or different approach to Palestine than Joe Biden. Fortunately, large sections of the movement understand this very clearly.

Throughout US history, the only way democratic rights have been expanded is through mass struggle—from the Civil War to the labor upsurge of the 1930s; from the Civil Rights movement to the fight for marriage equality—and it’s the only way they can be won today. 

The Republicans are the right-wing party akin to the Liberals or the Nationals, and the Democrats are the “center-left” party like the Labor Party. While this is a quick way of sorting out the two main parties in the US bipartisan system, it doesn’t adequately account for what is unique about the Democrats in the taxonomy of political parties across the democratic world.

Harris’ rhetoric has tended to be more progressive than Biden’s, but Biden’s policies are very likely to be Harris’ policies in a future presidency because Harris has never strayed far from them—whatever language she has used.

The country was built on the violence of chattel slavery, the extermination of the native population, and wars of conquest. It fought a bloody civil war that killed the equivalent of seven million people, in today’s population.