Joe Biden is squandering a chance to make North Carolina purple again | Opinion

President Joe Biden should keep his phony anger to himself instead of leaking it to all-too-compliant media outlets. It’s the kind of phoniness that will make it harder for him to pull off what Barack Obama did, turn a state like North Carolina into a true tossup.

With an extreme Republican candidate running for governor, another trying to take over an N.C. public school system she seems to despise, and the potent issue of abortion, the Tar Heel state should be as gettable in 2024 for a moderate Democrat as Georgia was in 2020, or in 2008 when Obama won North Carolina by about 14,000 votes.

But Biden is squandering that confluence of events in service of the far-right Israeli government. The latest evidence of that is how he reacted when Israel once again attacked civilians during its months-long bombing campaign of Gaza — this time killing seven humanitarian aid workers from World Central Kitchen.

“President Joe Biden was privately enraged by the deadly strike and in a public statement upbraided Israel for it, calling for ‘accountability’ to those responsible and demanding more humanitarian assistance be allowed into Gaza,” Politico reported.

Biden’s expression of behind-the-scenes anger comes across as phony because he continues to go along with Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands.

Biden’s self-proclaimed “outrage” this week follows a campaign during which the Israeli military has killed several thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children. This week, the IDF dropped bombs on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza despite the vehicles being clearly marked and the charity notifying the Israeli military in advance of its movements. Among the seven aid workers killed was an American with dual Canadian citizenship. An estimated 200 aid workers have been killed by Israel’s military so far.

Biden’s response to all of these actions by Israel resembles the cowardly way Republicans of a particular sort acted during Donald Trump’s four years in the White House. They repeatedly expressed concern about him — but only in private. They publicly supported and helped him with his agenda. They whispered about how disturbed they were about his ugly rhetoric and behavior to show they still had a soul, but never wanted to get crossways with Trump.

Biden’s continues sending weapons to Israel with no strings attached and is reluctant to call their actions immoral. He refuses to express the obvious — that while Israel has a right to defend itself and go after Hamas after its Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, that does not give the country a right to wantonly kill innocent Palestinians.

Biden’s base of supporters is supposed to be mollified by an image of the president passionately stamping his feet in the Oval Office, or having stern words in private conversations with Netanyahu. But they won’t be. And they shouldn’t. That’s a shame because Gaza might soon be declared a famine area, which would be a designation declared by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification organization for only the third time in the 21st century, according to Axios.

We were rightly horrified by Hama’s killing of children and other innocent Israelis during the horrific October attack. We can’t look away or remain silent as Israel kills so many children and innocent Palestinians.

Biden is hurting his reelection chances by giving into the far-right in Israel. He is squandering a chance to make North Carolina purple again. It’s not as far-fetched a possibility as some might proclaim. I remember when S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham laughed when told Obama might win North Carolina.

“I’ll beat Michael Phelps in swimming before Barack Obama wins North Carolina,” Graham declared.

Obama won North Carolina largely by energizing young voters — the very voters who are expressing, in no uncertain terms, their disdain for how Biden has handled Israel’s war in Gaza.

Biden can benefit politically by doing the morally right thing. Instead, he resembles Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy’s football. Only, his gullibility doesn’t mean he lands on his butt after yet another whiff. It means Israel gets to continue dropping U.S. bombs on the heads of innocent people.

Issac Bailey is a Carolinas opinion writer for McClatchy.