Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP
A Palestinian flag is displayed in front of the White House during a protest against the Israeli attacks on civilians in Rafah, May 28, 2024, in Washington.
Erik Larson begins his new best-selling book, The Demon of Unrest, which recounts the agonizing six months between Lincoln’s election in November 1860 and the rebel attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, with these words: “I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021 took place. I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged.”
One vivid way that present and past had merged was that it fell to the vice president to certify the Electoral College results. In January 1861, the outgoing vice president, a pro-slavery Democrat, was John C. Breckinridge, who came in second to Lincoln in the 1860 election. As with Mike Pence, there was no assurance that Breckenridge would certify the results. But he did.
The broader parallels between 1860 and 2024 are far more alarming. Now as then, the nation seems divided between two irreconcilable publics. Now as then, the future of the American Republic is at stake. Trump and his surrogates repeatedly use the language of war, warning of insurrection if Trump is not declared the winner in November, just as the rabid slaveholders of 1860 called for war if Lincoln should be elected.
Larson’s book recounts an unfolding catastrophe in slow motion. For all of his political gifts, Lincoln, who took office only in March 1861, was unable to prevent secession and civil war. The war claimed the lives of close to a million American soldiers and civilians, North and South, about 3 percent of the entire U.S. population in the 1860 census. Lincoln did save the Republic, though white resentments continue to reverberate and animate Trumpism.
Joe Biden, on whom the future of the American Republic rests, is no Lincoln. We are witnessing another catastrophe in slow motion, that could well end with the election of Donald Trump and the permanent end of the American Republic.
There is much to admire about Biden. He has done well getting us past the COVID recession and inflation. His administration has revived the progressive uses of government, with smart policies ranging from antitrust to industrial policy and trade. He has appointed good people to serve.
But all of this and much more will be washed away if Trump is elected. A Trump victory will destroy the American Republic even more definitively than if the Confederacy had been able to secede. The U.S. will simply become a fascist state.
There was nothing Lincoln could do in early 1861 to prevent the Confederacy from seceding. But as a wartime president, Lincoln was a brilliant moral leader, tactician, and commander in chief, keeping border states loyal to the Republic, holding together a fractious team of rivals, blocking pressure for a premature deal to end the war on terms that would retain slavery, and timing Emancipation for maximal advantage. He had wisdom and above all courage.
Biden, for all his decency, is deficient in both. But one Biden blunder surpasses all others, and it could well cost him the election and America its democracy.
AS ISRAEL CONTINUES TO DESTROY GAZA, in open defiance and ridicule of Biden’s pleas, Biden continues to back Netanyahu. Biden’s belated pause in shipments of bombs meant nothing. The New York Times reported that in Israel’s latest killing of dozens of civilians (“a tragic accident,” according to Netanyahu), the attack used American bombs.
Once again, Biden went out of his way not to break with Netanyahu. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Biden “is standing with Israel as they fight the Hamas terrorists who committed the hideous Oct. 7 attacks, and is making clear that how Israel defends itself matters because we do not want to see any civilians killed.” In short, there is no red line. Humiliate us again.
Consider the knock-on effects of Biden’s temporizing. One is that the demon of antisemitism has been loosed. Another is chaos at major universities. A third is that the most radical version of pro-Palestinian sentiment has gained the upper hand. All of this is a gift for the American far right, and of course the ultimate gift will be the election of Trump.
Take these in turn. Until October 7, antisemitism was mostly on the right. On the left, the demands of anti-Zionist efforts like the BDS movement had only limited spillover into antipathy toward Jews generally.
Now, for many on the far left, Jews are presumed to be defenders of Israel’s war crimes until proven otherwise. The Times recently ran a piece describing in detail the attacks on PEN and on Jewish writers as presumed Zionists. On the cultural left, antisemitism has gone from being abhorrent to being almost cool. None of this would have happened without Netanyahu’s inhumanity and U.S. government complicity.
The story on campuses is similar. Most student protesters began by simply being disgusted by the brutality of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. The question of Israel’s right to exist was not at issue. But over the ensuing months, as Netanyahu’s government killed more and more Palestinian civilians with U.S. support, the most radical of the pro-Palestinian campus activists deftly gained control of the narrative. The media has reinforced this frame by describing the demonstrations as “pro-Palestinian” and only infrequently as “anti-war.”
In all this revolting chaos, Republicans are now posturing as being better friends of the Jews than Democrats, hauling hapless college presidents before committees, demanding total loyalty to the worst Israeli government ever, and defining antisemitism in a fashion that conveniently discredits the liberal university.
Biden’s paralysis seems one part reflexive support for the heroic Israel of his youth, one part fear of AIPAC and Jewish donors, and one part concern that if he breaks with Netanyahu, Republicans will attract more Jewish voters. All of this is perverse reasoning. The Israel of half a century ago is not the Israel of today. Most American Jewish voters (as opposed to donors) would welcome a Biden break with Netanyahu. Biden would at last win support for resolute leadership. And he would stand a chance of winning back disgusted young people and people of color. Yes, he would lose some “Israel right or wrong” donors. But there are plenty of other donors.
Lincoln is rightly remembered as our greatest president. If Biden continues temporizing on Israel and loses the 2024 election and with it American democracy, he will be remembered as our worst.
