"As a former staffer, I feel betrayed by Harris. But Trump would be catastrophic" by Lily Greenberg
"Progressive movements and Palestinians will suffer the most under Trump. We cannot abdicate our power within the Democratic Party, limited as it may be."
The following article was written by Lily Greenberg Call who “is a former special assistant to the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of the Interior. She worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign and served in the administration until resigning to protest US policy in Gaza.”
Progressive movements and Palestinians will suffer the most under Trump. We cannot abdicate our power within the Democratic Party, limited as it may be.
Former President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at the Israeli American Council National Summit, Dec. 7, 2019. (Joyce N. Boghosian/Wikimedia Commons)
For over a year, we have watched as Israel has carried out a genocide in Gaza with the backing of the American government, and we have been unable to stop it. Now, mere days away from the U.S. election, we find ourselves teetering on the verge of fascism yet again — in large part because Vice President Kamala Harris has refused to distance herself from President Joe Biden’s disastrous, unconditional support for Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians.
Four years ago, I was working as an organizer in Arizona for the Biden campaign. Biden was not my choice in the primary, but I felt like we were making a necessary compromise: Biden, a moderate Democrat, would stave off a second term under Donald Trump. Many of my colleagues and I imagined that, by 2024, we would be in a very different position. The Democratic presidential candidate would run on a bold platform that included climate action, Medicare for All, and progressive foreign policy — not dissimilar from Vice President Harris’ original 2019 campaign, and that of several other candidates in that year’s primary.
Nor did this current moment seem inevitable — or even likely — just months ago. In May, I resigned from the Biden administration to protest its indefensible policy of continuing to bolster and subsidize Israel’s war on Gaza. So when Biden stepped aside and Harris became the Democratic Party standard-bearer in July, many of us saw an opening to change course. The success of the Uncommitted movement in Democratic primaries across the country made it clear that voters wanted Harris to break with Biden, and we believed we could pressure her campaign to come out in favor of an immediate ceasefire and stopping weapons transfers to Israel as long as they continued to violate US laws.
Instead, Harris has merely expressed slightly more empathy for Palestinian suffering, while showing no indication that she will compel Israel to end its war if she assumes the presidency. Her campaign has refused to meet the Palestine solidarity movement’s most basic requests: in August, I attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where I spent a night sleeping on the pavement with my Palestinian friends and colleagues, protesting the Harris campaign’s refusal to allow even a single Palestinian speaker on the convention stage.
Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate ahead of the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 18, 2024. (Courtesy of Uncommitted National Movement)
This decision felt like a personal betrayal: five years ago, I upended my life to drive to Iowa and organize for Harris’ first presidential campaign, only to be shunned now when I tried to speak up for Palestinians. I know I am not the only former Harris staffer who feels this way.
Meanwhile, the genocide continues to escalate. As I write this, my TV screen displays footage of Palestinians forcibly displaced from the ruined city of Jabalia in northern Gaza, carrying whatever belongings they still have along with white flags and their IDs. I spent 20 years of my life in Jewish schools and synagogues learning about the Holocaust; when I see these images from Gaza, the resemblance is impossible to ignore.
Trump’s promised crackdown — from the U.S. to Palestine
After this past year, it is hard not to feel utterly demoralized about the state of American politics. The movement for Palestinian rights has made tremendous strides in this country, and sympathy for Palestinians’ plight and opposition to Israeli military action in Gaza are at all-time highs among Democratic voters. But there remains a large gap between winning people’s hearts and translating that popular sentiment into a change in policy — and that gap seems increasingly insurmountable.
In the weeks leading up to this election, I have grappled with the sad truth that neither Harris nor Trump care about the Palestinian people, but one of them will be president in January. Clearly, a Harris administration is not going to be the panacea for the systemic inequalities and injustices we face here at home, nor for America’s disastrous decades of foreign policy across the Arab world. However, a second Trump term would be catastrophic not only for Palestinians, but also for progressive movements for justice and equality across the country.
Trump’s promised crackdown on civil liberties would devastate many communities already under threat. His administration would fast-track mass deportations, which are more popular than most people realize. It would gut support systems for asylum-seekers and legal resources for immigrants, leading to more family separations and incarceration. Restrictions on medication abortion, abortion care access in emergency situations, and access to contraception would result in unnecessary deaths across the country. Queer and trans people would face an assault on healthcare, legal protections, and marriage rights.
A large billboard posted by the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv, in support of Republican presidential nominee and former US president Donald Trump, October 30, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
It is also important to note that, under a Trump presidency, the movement for Palestinian rights could be prosecuted out of existence. Earlier this month, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank that authored the controversial Project 2025, unveiled a blueprint for the Trump administration to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement within two years. Under Project Esther, the U.S. government would equate all anti-Zionism and anti-war protests with antisemitism, and move to infiltrate, surveil, and take legal action against groups like Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and American Muslims for Palestine — all of whom it tarnishes as a global “Hamas support network.”
Members of Congress have already introduced legislation to curtail Palestine solidarity activism, but Project Esther relies on a willing and supportive executive branch. Its implementation would be a massive setback for the pro-Palestine movement in the United States, crippling the organizing capacity that is essential to change political incentives in Washington and create real policy change. Instead of building on the momentum of the last year, movements would be fighting for their very survival.
It is too late to save the potentially hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza. But there are still people to be saved. Trump recently told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “do what you have to do” in Gaza. In his first term, Trump became the first U.S. president to authorize Israeli annexation of the West Bank, recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, and move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The unrestrained, total annexation of and potential genocide in the West Bank has not begun in earnest, but Netanyahu knows it will be easier to achieve under Trump and a virulently pro-Israel Republican Party.
A chance to build progressive political power
Harris has not been the candidate many of us wanted. Her candidacy is historic, but she and the Democratic Party have failed to champion a truly progressive agenda — one needed not only to motivate her base, but to take on the right wing’s increasingly fascist policies and rhetoric. It has been devastating to see Harris refuse to break with Biden on Israel, adopt xenophobic talking points about immigration policy, and campaign alongside hawkish, pro-war Republicans.
And yet, if Harris wins, she will be leading a coalition with an expanding progressive base and a growing number of legislators who are demanding an end to unconditional support for Israel. Several Democratic senators have co-sponsored legislation to block weapons transfers to Israel, and all 94 Congresspeople who have called for a ceasefire are Democrats — not a single Republican has done so.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Washington demonstrate against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to the U.S. Congress, July 24, 2024. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
From my own experience in the administration and in Democratic politics, I know that there are many staffers of all rank and background who agree not only with the demand for an immediate ceasefire, but who also want the U.S. government to follow its own laws — which could result in shutting off the flow of offensive weapons to Israel.
By resigning from the Biden administration, my hope was that others would be motivated to speak out against U.S. complicity in Israel’s genocide, both from within and outside the government. Under a Harris administration, we would need to keep up and expand this momentum.
The shift in public sentiment toward Palestine can be used to build real political power and incentives for politicians to reconsider unconditional support for Israeli war crimes. There must be a massive effort on all fronts, including education, organizing, and fundraising.
There is no guarantee that we will be able to overcome the incentives that exist right now for our political leaders to constantly make war, or that it will happen soon enough to save Palestinian lives. But such efforts will only be possible with a Democrat in the White House. Under a Trump administration, I fear that we will lose even our ability to try.
The painful reality is that the movement for Palestinian rights has not acquired the political power necessary to stop the genocide that we have all watched unfold over the last year. And ultimately, it is progressive movements — not Harris and the Democrats — who will suffer the most under a second Trump term. We cannot abdicate our power within the Democratic Party, limited as it may be, for the sake of trying to punish the party’s leadership. We must block Trump and the fascist right, while at the same time demanding change from our leaders, continuing to agitate for an arms embargo with every resource we have.
Lily Greenberg Call is a former special assistant to the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of the Interior. She worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign and served in the administration until resigning to protest US policy in Gaza. She has appeared as a guest on MSNBC, CNN and NBC and given commentary for the Washington Post, Politico and the AP.
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I don’t understand why you have to vote for one genocide or the other? Vote for Jill Stein. This lesser evil s**t is unacceptable.
Really?
The democrats have shown themselves to be the party of destruction.
All of them.