President Joe Biden gave a middling performance Thursday night in a press conference intended to assuage widespread worries about his age and mental competence — another twist in the saga of the Democratic Party’s elites’ realization that Biden may be too visibly senile and physically in decline to beat Donald Trump. At the same time, many socialists and antiwar activists are also making the case for Biden to drop out, arguing that his enabling of the war in Gaza disqualifies him from serving another term. A recent Lancet report suggests that since no one knows how many bodies are buried under the rubble, the Palestinian death toll could prove to be far higher than previously estimated.

Since no one on the Left wants to see Trump become president — a scenario that looks harrowingly possible especially after Saturday night’s assassination attempt — in this view, Biden is dangerous win or lose: he could continue to kill Palestinian children, or he could lose to Trump, a Benjamin Netanyahu fan who will provide even less of a check on Israel’s genocide than Biden, and whose presidency would be catastrophic at home and around the rest of the world as well.

Since October, Gaza has damaged the president’s image among crucial groups, including young people, progressives, and Muslims (the latter a small part of the US population but key to his victory in Michigan, a critical swing state). Because of Gaza, the Uncommitted coalition has joined the calls for Biden to drop out. The campaign had some success organizing people to pressure elected officials to support a ceasefire; during the primary, Uncommitted was an astonishing success, particularly in Michigan. “It blew holes in the media narrative about Biden being the presumptive nominee,” says Ashik Siddique, cochair of the Democratic Socialists of America’s National Political Committee. (DSA has joined Uncommitted efforts around the country.) Now that Biden’s own rapid decline has shredded that narrative still further, the campaign sees an opportunity to continue to push Gaza to the center of American political discourse.