Biden’s Warning About Misinformation is Offensive Given his Genocide Apologetics
During his farewell speech on the evening of January 15th, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden took aim at social media companies and what he called the “tech-industrial complex,” stating that they are leading to Americans being “buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation.” He blamed this deluge on social media companies, who are “giving up on fact-checking,” leading to the “truth [being] smothered by lies told for power and profit.”
For anyone attempting to hold accountable the most powerful liars in the world, this statement borders on infuriating. For 473 days, since October 7th, 2023 (but truly even before this date), Joe Biden and his administration have been responsible for a constant stream of disgusting lies aimed at covering up the truth about the Israeli genocide in Gaza. When a leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world calls out “lies told for power and for profit,” it’s enough to make your blood boil. The United States is a nation founded on and expert in lies used to build power at the expense of vulnerable people. Its own founding was built on lies used to incite genocide, so it should be no surprise that the DNA of such a malicious nation has produced the current state of affairs. Yet it is infuriating nonetheless.
The denial masterclass from Biden’s administration
Biden and his senior administration officials have stuck to their guns even as they exit official positions of power. In the aftermath of the brief ceasefire deal brokered between a few Middle Eastern nations, Israel, and the U.S., President Biden made remarks where he went out of his way to use strong language regarding hostages and two cursory mentions of Palestinian civilians. On January 8, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby insisted there is no genocide occurring in Gaza, arguing that the civilian toll is “unacceptably high… but that is not the same as saying genocide.” Rather, he argued that Hamas had “genocidal intentions” displayed by their October 7th attack. Secretary of State Antony Blinken likewise used a press conference on January 16 to defend the administration’s policies regarding Israel.
This tactic — focusing entirely on hostages, on Hamas as a terror organization, or blaming civilian murders on Hamas’ use of human hostages — has been unwavering since the beginning of the genocide. On October 18, 2023, just over a week after the initial attack, President Biden traveled to Israel and delivered remarks reaffirming U.S. support, and framed Palestinian deaths (which, on that day, in the Good Shepherd Collective’s dataset, was 3,478 total including 1,000 children) as “paying the price for Hamas’s terror and barbaric tactics.” Biden made an official statement on November 29, 2023, praising U.S. efforts to have hostages returned while condemning Hamas and its “brutal terrorist assault on Israel.” By that time, the death toll for Palestinians was 14,800. On the year anniversary of the October 7 attack, Biden’s briefing room reported his call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and “expressed deep sadness for the loss of innocent life in Gaza… as a result of the war that Hamas unleashed.” The same day, Vice President Kamala Harris made lengthy remarks on the unfolding genocide by focusing entirely on the hostages, condemning terrorism, and quoting several Rabbis in a fairly cringey gesture of support. At that time, the death toll was over 40,000.
Throughout the 473 days, there were also acute incidents of blatant lies that were subsequently disproved or even walked back. On October 11, 2023, Biden described having seen images of “terrorists beheading children” during the October 7 attacks. On October 12, he walked back those statements, saying that they were repeated from Israeli government claims, and were unverified. A week later, there was an explosion of media coverage over the devastating explosion at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City. Biden claimed publicly from Tel Aviv that “based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you” — arguing that it was a rocket from Palestinian militants. Subsequent investigations by The New York Times, Washington Post, Human Rights Watch, and Forensic Architecture have all disputed this claim based on extensive investigations. U.S. intelligence officials continued to argue that they had strong evidence that this was a Palestinian militant missile, despite further evidence of Israel bombing Palestinian hospitals and calling for erasure of Palestinians.
These tactics — invoking demonic behavior like beheading or murder of babies, only focusing on blaming the enemy even when they did nothing, relentlessly focusing on actions of Hamas, invoking “terror” — are all classic propaganda tactics that have been documented as systematically used since at least the first World War. The lies and reframings are purposely designed to defend Israel and cover up its obvious genocidal actions. Various rights groups and international bodies, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations, have concluded that Israel’s campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide. Early last year, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt military operations to prevent genocide. The International Criminal Court recently issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Several Israeli officials have been calling for genocidal action since October 7th. To systematically attempt to cover up such horrors should be a crime against humanity in itself.
Business as usual for the U.S.
At this point, it should surprise nobody that officials running the United States government are simultaneously enacting prodigious misinformation campaigns while condemning misinformation. There is plenty of documentation of historical propaganda campaigns waged on behalf of the U.S. government or major corporations, including the wars in Iraq, the World War II mobilization effort, or the climate change denial effort aided by the government. The nation itself was created through genocidal action, where Indigenous people in North America were painted as savages and brutes meant to be killed as part of Manifest Destiny or the Doctrine of Discovery.
As part of his warning about the “tech-industrial complex,” Biden evoked President Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex as an illegitimate center of power. Biden could not bring himself to also condemn the military-industrial complex because it is now a key part of every governing administration in the U.S. When it comes to the genocide in Palestine, the Council on Foreign Relations states that since October 7, 2023, the U.S. government has given at least $12.5 billion in direct aid to Israel. This material support for a genocidal state is at the center of the U.S. military-industrial complex, and the bombs and planes manufactured for the slaughter come from U.S.-based defense companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and more. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that the U.S. supplied 69% of Israel’s armaments imports in 2023.
Creating and spreading misinformation is a key part of the U.S. military-industrial complex. Its own departments of Defense, Foreign Relations, and State, are prolific misinformers. It also leverages its connections with major media outlets to propagate these lies, either directly or indirectly in processes eloquently described in Herman & Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, or Rampton & Stauber’s Weapons of Mass Deception.
But even more fundamentally ironic is Biden’s call to “protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power.” Democracy does not mean much when the active governing bodies and their powerful corporate partners go to such lengths to misinform their own populations. A key part of democratic governance is that the people have means to be adequately informed and properly educated about political affairs and the actions taken by our government. Without that, everyone can have the right to vote but their decisions can be controlled by those who want to maintain power and illegitimate agendas.
Hypocrisy is shaping our political environment
This all comes as official power is being transferred in the U.S. government, and Trump’s administration is incoming. Accompanying this is a healthy amount of despair and handwringing from those who support Democrat politicians — especially those who were hoping for Harris to win instead of Trump. There is a tremendous sense of irony in the air as Democrat supporters lament the fall of their party, question what happened, and ask how people could vote for Trump, a man who lies like no other.
Biden’s administration laid out a strong example of the hypocrisy from politicians that so many people are fed up with. Acting high and mighty, morally just, while supporting a genocide with words and billions of dollars, is so disgusting that it turns people away from supporting such liars. Without condoning any of his equally disgusting words and policies, Trump and his type of politicians have been able to tap into this feeling of anger borne by deep hypocrisy from other politicians who claim to be better serving our interests. The tech industry moguls, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and others, are equally preying on the atmosphere of anger towards hypocritical politicians by denouncing democracy and government as ineffective. The rise to power of forces who denounce democracy must be analyzed through a lens of the absolute failure of the “democratic” paradigm of the past decades.
Some may argue that condemning an entire platform for just one issue — Palestine — is disingenuous and not representing the whole picture, leaving out victories like rights won for minoritized groups, some legislation to address the climate crisis, or other markers of progress. Yet at the same time, it should be perhaps the lowest hanging fruit for a government to not actively support a genocide and deny they are doing so. The ardent defense of Israel’s crimes is too much for any empathetic person to handle and indicative of the moral rot of supposedly liberal democratic politics. The active manufacture of support for Israel should be a crime in itself, as German state propaganda was incriminated after the second World War during the Nuremberg Trials.
Until politicians begin acknowledging the truth, admitting to their manipulations, and prioritizing authenticity over power, we should expect that the frustrations politicians are creating will be used by those seeking illegitimate power. Misinformation is not the sole property of Trump and Republican politicians, nor of tech companies. It is a tactic that is tried and true, deeply ingrained into the fabric of our weak democracy. It is an issue that we need to take very seriously, but with clear eyes and skepticism to see anyone, including ourselves, who fall prey to it.
