Biden’s Legacy Is Written In Blood

Last week, aerial photos from Los Angeles with blocks of homes reduced to ash hit social media timelines, leading people to understandably draw comparisons to Gaza. Destruction of entire neighborhoods is always heartbreaking. Home, where most of us spend a great deal of our time, shapes who we are. The memories and love a home can hold are much larger than whatever the square footage may be. Behind all the devastation are all the people in power that make all of this tragedy and grief possible in the first place.

Joe Biden’s term as president ended on Monday, and the world doesn’t have to guess what his legacy will be. The crimes he is responsible for are written into history with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, each one coming from a neighborhood his administration helped turn to ash. The drone images from Gaza and Los Angeles share the same hues of grey and heartache, and originate from the same flavors of greed and contempt for human dignity. And now, all of a sudden, we have a cease-fire, with no thanks to Biden. When I think of Joe Biden, I will think of every child I’ve seen dismembered and every home I’ve seen destroyed while I scrolled through social media for the last 15 months. And I will remember that none of it needed to happen; he greenlighted and funded the genocide of the Palestinian people. He, and powerful people like him, let insurance companies back out of insuring homes and fueled the climate crisis for decades to come.

Another clear demonstration of his inaction occurred last week, when he suddenly removed Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, a demand we’ve been making to his administration for four years. The designation, along with the U.S. embargo, has caused levels of deprivation the country hasn’t seen since the Soviet collapse. People in Cuba were starving because of Joe Biden’s decision to keep them on the SSOT list, and he only removed them on his way out the door.

I hope our impact eventually defines the legacies of the warmongers like Biden and Trump, so that the world cannot forget who they are or what they did.

A small part of accountability for Biden and his partners in genocide like former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, former State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, and others will be remembering the people that were killed in Gaza with their weapons shipments or because of their lies. Like George W. Bush, the man responsible for the death of a million Iraqis and the country’s destruction, who took up painting in his old age to make people forget what he had done in their name—Biden has time to change what people may think of him. We owe it to the Palestinian people to not develop amnesia while bombs could still rain over their heads. Biden could have ended the genocide at any moment, and he chose not to. And because of that, tens of thousands of children are dead, the only reason being that they were born in the largest open air prison in the world.

It’s hard to speak of legacies when the dust from the bombs dropped on Iraq hasn’t even settled. Babies are still being born in Fallujah with life-threatening deformities and diseases. For over a year, Israel continued to drop U.S.-made bombs and, on multiple occasions, chemical weapons on the people of Gaza. From the environmental impact of the nonstop bombardment to the public health outcomes of living without proper shelter for so long, the extent of Biden’s crimes in Gaza won’t be understood entirely for decades.

It’s also hard to speak of legacies as a new president who has promised to stay the course of genocide takes office. In reality, the genocide of Palestinians will be several U.S. presidents’ legacies—even before Biden.

Evaluating Biden’s legacy on the domestic and international stages shouldn’t be done separately. In fact, the struggles faced by regular people all over the world and across the country make a whole lot more sense when you realize our issues are inseparable. As homelessness reached an all-time high in the United States, Biden and Congress sent billions of dollars in “aid” to Israel and Ukraine. As homeless encampments were swept in Los Angeles as the city burned, Biden notified Congress of another $8 billion in weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military. People are anxious every day about whether or not they will be able to pay rent, afford groceries, or their children’s medicine. While the people suffer, there only seems to be one thing that the people in power (no matter who it is) care about—maintaining global hegemony no matter the human cost. Every year of his presidency, just like every other president, Biden signed a Pentagon budget that allocated more money to war than ever before and failed to improve the lives of the masses. Biden’s legacy as a whole is a disdain for Palestinian life, and to some lesser degree, American life.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about what people like myself, in the belly of the beast, ought to do to take responsibility for all the suffering our government, regardless of the president, has caused. I think of Che Guevara, who once said, “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all—you live in the belly of the beast.” As President Donald Trump returns to office to build his own legacy, and as Biden leaves behind four years and decades of consequences, I try very hard to remember that to be in this struggle is a privilege of mine. If I abhor the suffering forced on the Palestinians in Gaza, then I realize I live in the perfect place to do something about it. Trump and his new agenda are obstacles, but we’ve confronted plenty of obstacles under this system, which mobilizes all of its resources against the movement for peace.

When we finally win, I hope people remember our movement as one that took responsibility for our situation and found power when we thought we couldn’t. I hope our impact eventually defines the legacies of the warmongers like Biden and Trump, so that the world cannot forget who they are or what they did. Remember: It’s the people who can really define a president’s legacy. Let that propel you to take action and organize. Let that give you a glimmer of hope.