FULLERTON, California. It is official: Joe Biden has terminated his run for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential nomination. This presidency, plagued by sky-high inflation, the suppression of workers’ rights, escalated government funding of the genocide in Palestine, and Biden’s own physical and cognitive decline, will end at noon on January 20, 2025.
His exit from the race follows months of work from across the progressive spectrum and the Palestinian liberation movement. The DROP OUT JOE! campaign, which Titan YDSA participated in through our local members of Congress, brought together socialists (especially from DSAs) from New York and Pennsylvania to Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
While we have no appreciation for Biden after his presidency, we are glad that he has finally stepped out of the race. He had no chance of beating Donald Trump and the far-right, who would have attacked the fundamental civil rights and liberties of marginalized groups (especially LGBTQ+ people) across the country, killed reproductive rights, escalated American imperialism (further bolstering the genocide in Palestine), and imposed a fascist order on America.
With Biden’s endorsement and that of other top Democratic officials, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, Vice President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. An outcome feared since she was nominated in 2020, we must make it clear: Kamala’s track record shows that, without major shifts in policy, she will continue to be a corporate-serving neoliberal with a general disregard of civil rights.
She may claim to support LGBTQ+ Americans, but in her time as California Attorney General, she did anything but. Her office worked to block Michelle-Lael Norsworthy, an incarcerated transgender woman in the state prison system, from receiving gender-affirming care. She also fought hard against sex workers, opposing a ballot proposition to keep sex workers safe in San Francisco and advocating for the deeply harmful SESTA and FOSTA which only further endangered the lives of sex workers.
As California considers Proposition 6, which would ban all slavery and involuntary servitude in California, it will be ironic that Kamala shares a spot on the same ballot. Proposition 6 is primarily aimed at forced prison labor, which unlike in most states, is legal in California; prisoners are often paid cents per hour, if anything at all, and can face sanctions and added time for refusing to work, with “disciplinary measures” often turning violent. When the California Supreme Court (and later a federal court) ordered that many nonviolent prisoners be released due to unsafe and unjust prison overcrowding, Kamala fought to keep them in.
Her justification was not based on any claims regarding public safety; no, she explicitly wanted to continue to provide corporations with the slave labor they were using to make substantial profits. This drew her strong corporate support that propelled her political career to make her now the presumptive presidential nominee; even Donald Trump himself was donating thousands to keep her in office.
As an Attorney General, and as a District Attorney, Kamala’s role was always the “top cop,” a nickname that has followed her around over time. Her policies and actions have kept her consistently aligned with the police, perpetuating the anti-public “tough on crime” policies of Governor Jerry Brown, who she served under. She has worked to crack down on asylum seekers, threatening them in a speech with the President of Guatemala. When the death penalty came up for judicial review, she worked to defend it, keeping it legal until Governor Newsom issued the currently active moratorium.
With all this considered, we must look forward to the future, and the actions that we can take to protect civil rights and fight for Palestine. The next major move is in her selection of a Vice Presidential candidate. We call on Harris to select a candidate for Vice President who opposes the genocide in Palestine, including through supporting an immediate and permanent ceasefire, and who recognizes the July 19 ICJ ruling as authoritative on international law. Further, such a candidate must also commit to not backing down on reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, including the rights of transgender children, and must commit to fully supporting the labor movement, rejecting anti-worker behaviors like Biden’s shutdown of the rail workers’ strike.
We must also continue to organize. Everyone should be looking toward their communities for how to build local solidarity and power. Titan YDSA will be stepping up its work at California State University, Fullerton, and across Orange County, to build community power; those who are not students here can still join in with our work, and we highly recommend that those looking to organize in Orange County join Orange County DSA. Students can find information about officially joining Titan YDSA here, and anyone can join our Discord.
Be on the lookout for more actions from Titan YDSA, from court reform and defending our unions to fighting for Fullerton divestment and other agitation for Palestine. We have nothing to lose but our chains; together, a better world is possible.