{"id":466,"date":"2023-12-29T12:19:21","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T06:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlinepeoplesnews.com\/?p=466"},"modified":"2024-01-07T14:39:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T08:54:48","slug":"biden-wraps-up-another-dismal-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlinepeoplesnews.com\/?p=466","title":{"rendered":"“Challenges Persist: Biden Navigates a Complex Year, Facing Criticism and Calls for Change”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“‘Genocide Joe’ Faces Criticism for Unconditional Support for Israel, but Failures Extend Beyond Recent Controversy”<\/p>\n

\"\"
Protesters march down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, NYC with a puppet of Joe Biden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Biden is about to wrap another dismal year as his administration\u2019s participation in the genocide in Israel is set to wreak havoc on his 2024 presidential campaign. People across the US have been taking to the streets, protesting the ongoing Israeli\u2019s siege on Palestinians in Gaza since October 8. As the death toll in Gaza nears 22,000, the United States and the Biden administration continue to unconditionally support Israel.<\/p>\n

As a result, voters, especially Arab-American voters, have abandoned their support for Biden and the Democratic Party\u00a0in droves<\/a>. But Biden is no stranger to neglecting the demands of his base, as his record as president has shown:<\/p>\n

1. Mass protests condemn Biden\u2019s participation in genocide<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Biden administration as directly and indirectly facilitated the genocide in Gaza. Biden himself has\u00a0bypassed Congress<\/a>\u00a0to send weapons to Israel, and continues to push for massive Israel military aid packages at the legislative level. The seven-day pause in Israeli aggression ended following Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u2019s visit to the state, when he essentially gave the\u00a0greenlight<\/a>\u00a0to Israel to resume strikes on Gaza. Biden has participated in pro-genocide rhetoric, openly\u00a0questioning<\/a>\u00a0the validity of the Palestinian death toll. The White House went as far to condemn the progressive congress members calling for a ceasefire, calling the pressure for peace\u00a0\u201crepugnant\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cdisgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Working class in jeopardy as social safety net destroyed\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Biden\u2019s domestic policy is a reflection of overzealous military spending and a willingness to neglect the needs of his own people. Biden has allowed for the further destruction of the COVID-era social safety net during his presidency.<\/p>\n

Due to the so-called \u201cunwinding\u201d of pandemic-era public healthcare expansion,\u00a0at least 2.2 million children<\/a>\u00a0have been removed from the government insurance program Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program\u2014although the real number could be\u00a0closer to 3 million<\/a>. Experts say that Biden\u00a0has not done enough<\/a>\u00a0to stop the purging of up to 30 million people from public health insurance programs. It is not only states with Republican leadership that are some of the worst offenders in \u201cpurging\u201d people off of Medicaid roles\u2014states with governors\u00a0from Biden\u2019s own Democratic Party<\/a>\u00a0are also doing the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same Congress where the Democrats control the Senate, the Republicans barely control the house, five million people, and more than 1.5 million of them are children, who can no longer go to a doctor because Congress has decided that Medicaid expansion, which took place during COVID has been rescinded,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0socialist leader Brian Becker at the Dilemmas of Humanity conference in Atlanta this summer. \u201cIt\u2019s not because they don\u2019t have the money, they decided to do this. They decided to do this. I mean they just spent\u00a0880 billion dollars<\/a>\u00a0for the next military budget for one year. 880 billion dollars. And they\u2019re saying we don\u2019t have the money for low income families and their children to go to a doctor?\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Cost of living squeezes workers as Biden looks on<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Meanwhile, conditions remain dire for working people, with\u00a0over half of those surveyed<\/a>\u00a0by the US Census having some difficulty affording basic weekly expenses. Food prices have risen dramatically during Biden\u2019s administration, rising by\u00a010.6%<\/a>\u00a0from November 2021 to November 2022, and continuing to rise by\u00a02.9%<\/a>\u00a0from November 2022 to November 2021\u2014in part due to the ongoing war in Ukraine that Biden only wants to continue.<\/p>\n

4. Student loan borrowers granted no relief due to Biden\u2019s failures<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Federal student loan payments, which had been on pause since March 2020, resumed on October 1 of this year following a series of failures by the Biden administration and Democrats to enact significant debt relief. In August of 2022, Biden\u00a0launched a student loan debt relief program that<\/a>\u00a0would have zeroed out the debts of 20 million people. However, conservatives led legal challenges against the program that immediately halted it before anyone\u2019s debt could be forgiven. The case against the program was taken up all the way to the conservative Supreme Court, which\u00a0struck down<\/a>\u00a0the measure in June. The Debt Collective, a group which organizes student loan borrowers into a \u201cdebtor\u2019s union,\u201d claims that Biden had executive authority to\u00a0do far more<\/a>\u00a0to keep college grads out of debt.<\/p>\n

5. Building on a legacy of broken promises<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Biden started off his presidency breaking major campaign promises to the people of the US. One major promise was to raise the federal minimum wage from a paltry USD 7.25 an hour to USD 15, a goal of the organized labor movement for many years. Instead, only a few months into his presidency, he gave up all pretenses of a fight by surrendering to a technicality in the Senate proceedings, which his administration\u00a0could have easily bypassed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also early into his presidency, Biden\u00a0shorted<\/a>\u00a0the people of the United States on stimulus checks. In the version of Biden\u2019s American Rescue Plan that was finally passed by Congress in March of 2021, the originally planned COVID-19 stimulus check was brought down from\u00a0USD 2,000, as promised by Biden and the Democrats during his election campaign, to USD 1,400. The additional weekly unemployment benefits of USD 300 passed in the Plan were much smaller than the USD 600 that was previously afforded in the CARES Act, passed in March of 2020 during Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

Biden\u00a0put up zero fight<\/a>\u00a0in September of 2021, when expanded pandemic-era unemployment benefits expired for 7.5 million people.<\/p>\n

It is highly likely that the candidates from the two major parties in 2024 will be Biden and Trump\u2014two presidents who oversaw the deterioration of the living conditions of the vast majority of people in the US. Many are looking for an alternative to the Republican and Democratic tickets. Several strong contenders for President have emerged, including the socialist and anti-imperialist campaign of Claudia De La Cruz, which has been openly challenging Biden\u2019s policy regarding Israel, among other things.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

This Christmas Eve, may the world remember that Genocide Joe and the settler colonial state of Israel have killed over 10,000 Palestinian children. They have killed baby Jesus 10,000 times over. They have taken the holy out of Christmas Day. <\/p>\n

May we continue to fight for a free\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/mCEaIn7hMw<\/a><\/p>\n

— Claudia (@Claud9_) December 24, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n