Joe Biden needs a Sister Souljah moment

At the risk of alienating my (few) progressive friends, I have diagrammed an end-around play to save Joe Biden’s floundering presidential campaign.

He needs to create a Sister Souljah moment: Kick the Squad and the extreme Left to the curb, occupy the center and double down on unqualified support for Israel.

I know that last one is controversial, but he did it the other day in utterly rejecting the International Criminal Court’s plan to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders as well as the Hamas terror masterminds. 

Israel’s actions are “not genocide,” he firmly said, and there is “No equivalency” between Israel and Hamas.

Remember Sister Souljah? It’s been a while since her 15 minutes of infamy. Bill Clinton was sailing in rough seas in his 1992 campaign when he brilliantly isolated and condemned the Black hip hop star, author and activist known as Sister Souljah, who had advocated killing white people.

That is now known as a “Sister Souljah moment,” in which a politician castigates an extremist person on the same side of the political divide. And all this was before CRT, Woke, and DEI took their places in the public consciousness.

Over the years, the Left has invented many good ideas, from Social Security to equality, but too often has taken a good idea and pushed it too far, into absurdity. An example is “equity” replacing “equality.” ‘Equity” wants defined outcomes, while “equality” demands equal opportunity and treatment. “Equity” makes decisions based on race, and that should be a no-no. (Cue Dr. Martin Luther King “content of character” speech.)

Biden should sing the song of equality, as American politicians have for generations. It is in our national DNA. 

With rare exceptions, America has been a centrist country, sometimes leaning left, sometimes tipping right. You can see it in who we elect President. Since 1960, the longest a political party has held power was three terms.

I know progressives say the cure is to go further left. I think they are reading the room wrong.

Support for Israel seems to be a touchy subject now, but not as touchy as some think. 

This gets a little tricky. 

We have been hearing for a while that a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s Mideast policy. That has been widely interpreted as providing too much support for Israel. 

A recent Fox News poll, however, shows 62% of Americans think Biden got it wrong, but that 62% splits almost evenly between those who think he gives too much support to Israel, 32%, compared to the 30% who feel he gives too little support.

A March Gallup poll shows that 58% of Americans have a favorable view of Israel, as opposed to 18% with a favorable view of the Palestinian Authority. (The favorable view of Israel was 68% last year, no doubt down because of the deaths in Gaza.)

The point being that a good majority of Americans prefer Israel to the Palestinian Authority/Hamas and Biden should use that as a hammer, as he does with abortion, and with lesser success, the economy.

Even among the young and ignorant, even there more favor Israel than the Palestinian Authority. That number takes in all young people, not just college students.

And do keep in mind that the college students in tent cities are just a fraction of all students on campus.

Like Sister Souljah, they have been radicalized and speak for  very few of the youth (who vote in distressingly low numbers anyway).

Biden can condemn Hamas, and the keffiyeh-wearing student minority, and find success in his own Sister Souljah moment.