President Joe Biden launched a TikTok account this week to connect with young voters, and the pro-Palestinian protests that have beset his recent in-person events are now following him online.
The TikTok account @bidenhq has posted nine videos since its launch Sunday. Many of those comment sections are flooded with notes about Gaza, airstrikes on Rafah and Palestinians who’ve been caught in the crossfire of the Israel-Hamas war.
The comments are a digital manifestation of what the Biden campaign has been facing on the campaign trail for months now. At a reproductive rights rally in Manassas, Virginia, in late January, the president was interrupted by protesters calling for a cease-fire over a dozen times.
Since then, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have confronted Biden at a campaign stop in Michigan, chanting “Genocide Joe.” And protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza have waited outside Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s home to have their gripes heard.
Protesters and commenters don’t represent the full measure of the American electorate — but they do represent a real current of displeasure with Biden regarding his policy and rhetoric on Israel and Gaza right now. The latest NBC News poll of registered voters showed that only 15% of respondents ages 18-34 approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The number was even smaller among young voters who use TikTok, one potential reason the Biden campaign has chosen to engage on the platform.
For Jeannie Niusulu, 43, a stay-at-home mother of eight from Aurora, Colorado, online protest is her way of communicating her frustration to the Biden administration.
“Thoughts on Rafa?” Niusulu wrote on a @bidenhq video on Monday, in the hope of getting the president’s attention.
“I didn’t do it for any other reason than I hope maybe we are heard,” said Niusulu, who became involved in social activism following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Niusulu, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, says the president is losing her support in 2024 over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
“I just can’t in good conscience vote for that,” she said.
On a separate Biden TikTok, she called on the president not to take Democratic votes for granted. “@Biden-Harris HQ are you listening yet? You’re losing votes for this complacency don’t you see? Please don’t think blue is our only option it’s not,” Niusulu wrote Tuesday morning.
But speaking to NBC News just a few hours after posting her comment, Niusulu said Biden can still regain her vote so long as he sanctions Israel, cuts off aid and reigns in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“He needs to get control of Netanyahu,” said Niusulu. “We have been hand-feeding him everything he’s needed over the last 16 years. He has gotten all the weapons he’s needed,” she added. “Biden needs to pull that back.”
For Rania Ayyoub, a 35-year-old Palestinian American who commented, “What do you have to say about Rafah?” on a recent Biden TikTok, nothing Biden does can ever regain her vote.
“It’s past the point of no return,” said Ayyoub, who not only voted for Biden in 2020 but worked in her community in Phoenix to convince others to do the same in battleground Arizona.
“The Biden administration and Joe Biden himself has shown us all, and including myself as an Arab American, that he doesn’t see us as important,” she said. “Except when it comes to his polling.”
The Biden campaign declined to comment.
Jack Lobel, 19, the national press secretary for Voters of Tomorrow, a nonprofit young-voter engagement organization, said the humanitarian crisis in Gaza still hasn't shifted the "fundamental choice" of the 2024 election.
“While this crisis has led to more posts on TikTok … it’s not changed the fundamental choice that our generation faces,” Lobel continued. “Donald Trump goes against everything Gen Z stands for, so that’s really going to be the bottom line when it comes to November.”
But for Ayyoub, who said she feels the crisis in Gaza viscerally, “these are not just TikTok comments.”
“It’s an expression. It’s a real expression of our anger and our frustration,” she said, before adding that there are “absolutely real people” behind the comments left on social media.
Prior to this election cycle, Ayyoub considered herself highly politically involved in her swing state of Arizona. In 2020, she encouraged her friends to head to the polls and vote for Biden and for Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Democratic congressman from her district who’s now vying for independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat.
This time around, however, because of the war in Gaza, Ayyoub doesn’t plan to vote for either Biden or Gallego because of their policy on Israel.
“It was a no-brainer in 2020. We absolutely could not have a Trump administration. So I voted for Biden, and I encouraged a lot of people to do the same,” she said.
“This time around, the lesser of two evils is committing a genocide,” Ayyoub added.
Calling Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza a “genocide” is controversial, with various experts opposing that view and the United Nations’ high court in the Netherlands hearing a case on the issue.
“I’m not voting for any of them, any of them," said Ayyoub, ruling out voting for Trump or Biden. "We deserve better choices, and that’s not on me.”
