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Democrats have their own worries

There’s no way to quantify this, but, suffice it to say, reams and reams of column inches have been gobbled up as reporters chronicle the continuing dramatic soap opera — now in its second year — within the state Republican Party concerning who is the legit party chair.

So how ’bout a little equal time for the Democrats, who have their own internal headaches to sort through.

Some party dissidents, who consider themselves to be well-meaning, are mounting a full-throttled effort to send the sitting president a message regarding his handling of the Gaza-Israeli war.

Their message is: Knock it off and demand a ceasefire to end the brutal human carnage, which is now in its fourth month. One hundred and fifty thousand phone calls in one week on that, and 87,000 to be contacted via email soon.

With the Feb. 27 Michigan presidential primary just around the corner, the anti-war group is urging fellow Democrats to vote “uncommitted,” rather than vote for President Joe Biden.

“This is not anti-Biden,” one of the national consultants who is working with Michigan Democrats to pull that off explains.

It’s aimed at getting him to change course now.

But folks like the current Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Gov. Jim Blanchard are worried that, when the dust settles, that effort will play into the hands of the Donald Trump forces who will use it against Biden by suggesting that “many of Joe Biden’s Democrats are deserting him.”

Blanchard figures that “threat on Biden won’t work,” which means it won’t result in a policy shift, but it could cost the president even more votes in November.

At the vanguard of the effort in Michigan is former Oakland County progressive Democrat and former Congressman Andy Levin, who believes the effort will work if enough of his compatriots send a strong message by withholding their votes.

Part of the coalition to do so includes Arab Americans, Muslim activists, and young Democrats, and Levin believes the president is at risk of losing the state in November if those folks stay home.

“They are not going to vote for Trump,” he reassures the White House, but, if they stay home, others figure that is indirectly a vote for Trump, because it’s one less vote for the incumbent.

Levin describes that very serious internal revolt in terms of a loving marriage in which you work out your differences in a peaceful give-and-take, with the goal of not only staying together but making the relationship stronger. He thinks that, if 20% or more of the voters vote uncommitted, Biden will eventually “be the peacemaker” and go around the Israeli leader who is hellbent on destroying the enemy and a ceasefire be damned.

Levin also believes that, after making their protest known, those Democrats will come home to the president.

But what if they don’t?

Whitmer reminds the malcontents that that could help Trump regain the White House, and “this would be bad for your communities” of Dearborn and other districts where concern over the war is off the charts.

Levin counters he does not want to see the situation evolve into another anti-Vietnam nationwide protest, and, given the number of demonstrations on college campuses and the like, that notion does not appear to be that far-fetched.

“The young people are very worried,” he reports.

And, just like the Republicans, now the Democrats have something to worry about, too, i.e. a loss to Trump aided and abetted by members of their own party.

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