In Truthout

There can be no doubt that while Biden rhetorically discussed a more humane approach to the border, his actual tenure has been devastating for migrants. Biden deported 271,484 people in 2024 alone — the highest number of any year since 2014. He maintained Trump-era border restrictions, such as the misuse of the Title 42 public health statute to deny migrants access to the U.S. and violate due process of asylum seekers. In its opening days, the Biden administration detained 14,000 Haitian migrants seeking asylum, and summarily deported them en masse. The devastating episode involved U.S. border agents on horseback whipping Haitians, producing photos reminiscent of slavery.

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Will Trump be worse than Biden? This has been a complicated question to answer for many on the left in light of Biden’s unwavering participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. For sections of the population, there will be a dramatic, catastrophic change from Biden to Trump. The new attacks on reproductive rights, LGBTQ folks and women, immigrants and Muslims should not be underestimated. We should also prepare for a new round of attacks on organizing, beginning with especially vulnerable activists, such as international students, Muslim and immigrant organizers. But such attacks are already happening under Biden, who has presided over mass arrests of student protesters and the criminalization of organizing for Palestine.

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This continuity between Biden and Trump — and convergence between the Democratic Party and MAGA — complicates an assessment of Trump and made it difficult for many progressives to support Kamala Harris’s campaign.

The reported cancellation of Hasan’s show has similarly caused outrage, with left-wing commentators saying that Hasan was both a unique on screen talent and a critical voice on the left and on the topic of Gaza in the sphere of corporate media.

“[MSNBC], make this make sense,” wrote human rights lawyer Noura Erakat. “[Mehdir Hasan]’s program has felt like an oasis on air and more needed than ever. His program with Mark Regev was a whole class on journalistic method. He should be amplified, not shut down.”

“It is bad optics for MSNBC to cancel [Mehdi Hasan]’s show right at a time when he is vocal for human rights in Gaza with the war ongoing,” wrote Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California). “MSNBC owes the public an explanation for this decision. Why would they choose to do this now?”

New polling finds that President Joe Biden’s approval rating has hit an all-time low amid a groundswell of support for Palestinian rights among young voters.

According to an NBC poll released on Sunday, a whopping 70 percent of voters aged 18 to 34 say that they disapprove of how Biden is handling Israel’s massacre and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The findings come as Biden has been giving Israel military assistance and political support with no red lines, despite a deluge of historians, human rights organizations and advocates for Palestinian rights warning that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and creating a humanitarian crisis of astronomical proportions.