On March 19th, we will join hundreds of thousands of voters across more than a dozen states – speaking for millions of Americans in all 50 states – by writing in “genocide” as a protest vote against Joe Biden in the Illinois Democratic primary.
We did not come to this decision easily, having voted for Biden in 2020 – based in large part on his Senate record in support of Armenia and his campaign promises to stop arming Azerbaijan. We were not alone in our community in backing the first Biden-Harris ticket, and we are certainly not alone in opposing his re-election.
Our reasons are as clear as they are compelling. Since taking office, he has turned his back on Armenia – shipping U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan’s genocidal Aliyev regime and abandoning the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh even as they were driven from their ancient homeland.
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Biden’s U.S. Agency for International Development, run by Samantha Power – who made her name pretending to care about Armenians – did not spend a single dollar in Artsakh for three full years when that assistance could have made the difference between survival and extinction. No airlift. In fact, no aid at all. After the ethnic cleansing last September, Biden did have his administration send a modest amount to refugees (estimated at about $100 per person) – symbolic flowers to the funeral – but on-the-ground reports reveal that almost none of this money actually reached families in need.
Even as Biden materially armed and morally emboldened Azerbaijan’s genocide of Artsakh, he has remained entirely silent on the fate of Artsakh – having his minions issue one anemic statement after another. Not once has he, in his own voice, condemned Azerbaijan or uttered even a word of sympathy for Armenians. Instead, he conducts business-as-usual with Azerbaijan’s genocidal government, refusing to enforce sanctions against its leaders. Worse yet, he has blocked U.N. initiatives to facilitate the safe return of Armenians to Artsakh under an international mandate.
Biden’s only claim for Armenian votes is his recognition of the Armenian Genocide – a move he opposed as Vice President – and one that he matched, within hours, with an official notification to Congress that he was – against his 2020 campaign pledge – green lighting new U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan. In effect, Biden used his remembrance of a past genocide against Armenians as political cover to arm Azerbaijan’s real-time genocide of Armenians. Add to this that his recognition came after our community and coalition partners – over more than half a century of relentless work – secured U.S. recognition of this crime by both houses of Congress and all 50 states. As they say: “Born on third, thinks he hit a triple.”
Our heritage as Armenians, our conscience as humans, our responsibilities as citizens will not allow us to cast a vote for a man who armed Azerbaijan’s genocide of Artsakh’s indigenous Armenians and abandoned helpless families to starvation and death at the hands of an oil-rich dictator. He could have stopped this evil but chose instead to arm it. That was his choice. This is ours.
We stand in solidarity with our fellow Armenian, Dzovinar Hatsakordzian, who wrote: “Together, we will send a message that crimes come with costs, and enabling ethnic cleansing is not ‘business-as-usual.’ To cast a vote for Biden is to endorse his actions. To support him as the lesser of two evils is to accept evil. I will not do that.”
We will not put our names behind Biden’s. We will not endorse, with our vote, policies that cost the Armenian nation yet more of our sacred lives and land.