Progressives acknowledging the fact of genocide is a good first step, and it’s useful that Ocasio-Cortez and others have done so — “I think [unconditional aid to Israel] enabled a genocide in Gaza,” she said in Munich — but it is not in and of itself sufficient. Before anyone in the party can move on to selling a post-Biden vision of human-rights-first foreign policy, they must address what accountability for the war criminals in the Biden administration — those who aided, armed, and funded genocide — should look like.
Biden still allowed for family separation during deportations alongside the whole remain in Mexico thing for asylum seekers. Democrats also consistently voted in favor of giving more money to DHS. Foreign policy didn’t change much under Biden. He continued the trade war against China, Trump’s designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terror, and unlimited support for Israel’s genocide. He also decided to keep Space Force and maintained a lack of transparency around drone strikes that Trump initiated. That’s not the end of it either. There’s a litany of other disgusting Trump policies Biden’s administration also decided to embrace.
A lot of what I listed is pretty easy to verify. It’s also not unique. Obama oversaw the expansion of the surveillance state that started under Bush. Clinton continued rolling back welfare programs just as Bush and Reagan had. This is just what politicians do. They pretend to be opposed to everything their opponents do and then when they get into office they just put a fresh coat of paint on some deeply inhuman policies.