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.
Accepting supporters of genocide in any way is the kind of Faustian bargain that guarantees fascism’s rise. You have to understand almost all voters are not applying the game theory you’re holding so tightly to. You can’t convince the mass of voters to do that either. Instead, most people understand that someone who claims to have empathy but simultaneously supports genocide is an untrustworthy snake. That’s enough to kill any sort of enthusiasm the democratic base might have had for any particular candidate. You don’t win that enthusiasm back by saying that a snake is better than a shark. The only real way for democrats to win then if for them to renounce their support for genocide. As the only real opposition to Trump they’re responsible for the consequences if they choose not to.