In the wake of the carnival of reaction that was the Republican National Convention, at least a dozen Democratic Party officeholders have called on their presumptive nominee, incumbent President Joe Biden, to withdraw from the race.

The 81-year-old president is currently self-isolating at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware after contracting COVID-19 for the third time. Prior to and after the White House announcing his infection, Biden was recorded not wearing a mask.

Loading Tweet ...

Tweet not loading? See it directly on Twitter

Elected Democrats have unleashed a series of public statements calling on him to drop out, and it appears increasingly likely that this will happen.

Over the past several days, Senators Jon Tester of Montana, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sherrod Brown of Ohio have all called on Biden to step down. In addition to the senators, nearly a dozen members of the House issued public statements on Friday calling on Biden to end his campaign.

However, the incumbent president continues to receive outsized support from two of his most famous campaign surrogates, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

The various conflicts within the Democratic Party over Biden’s personal fate do not reflect policy differences. All factions, including that around Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, agree on the fundamentals. The internal divisions are over how best to preserve the Democratic Party and capitalist two-party system.

The full support for Biden from Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, however, does express their particular nervousness over the crisis in the Democratic Party. They want to prevent any circumstance where popular opposition escapes from its control.

In an over hour-long video posted on her social media on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez, in her typical word-salad, defended Biden’s record, attacked Democrats who spoke out against him, and stated her opposition to an open convention.

Before delving into some of her only cogent statements, it is important to make note of what Ocasio-Cortez did not say. In her defense of Biden, Ocasio-Cortez never once uttered the words, “Gaza,” “Palestine” “ceasefire” “genocide” or “war crime.” In fact, she purposely went out of her way to avoid talking about “substance, merits, policy, etc.” imploring her audience to “take that aside.”

In an expression of the ongoing internecine conflict within the Democratic Party and ruling class, Ocasio-Cortez lashed out at Democratic lawmakers anonymously making statement to the press, characterizing their actions with expletives.

While warning against replacing Biden, Ocasio-Cortez defended his “performance.”

“I do think that people underestimate Biden’s performance. I think that is how he became president is through a lot of people underestimating his performance with demographics that are not traditionally valued.”

Continuing to heap praise on the war criminal who is directly responsible for the Gaza genocide, Ocasio-Cortez said, “I think people see where he is weak, I don’t think people see where he is strong.”

Speaking in terms of “electoral” politics, Ocasio-Cortez added, “Whether you like it or not, whatever you think about it, Joe Biden kind of like, stomps with older people. Like electorally. Which is one of the strongest and most consistent electorates. And its actually a hard electorate for Democrats to win. You know? Those are not people who are on Twitter, but they vote more consistently than almost any other bracket.”

After praising Biden’s small, tightly controlled, rallies in North Carolina and Detroit, Michigan, Ocasio-Cortez offered a muddled critique of “the left,” saying, “And look listen, I’ve been on the left, I am on the left. I’ve seen the left be really wrong before electorally, and I’ve seen the left be really right electorally.”

She then noted Biden’s support among the trade union bureaucracies, claiming Biden “has very strong, broad union support and that is not something that just goes automatically to any Democrat as we’ve seen this week,” referring to Teamsters President Sean O’Brien’s speech at the Republican National Convention. Ocasio-Cortez did not attempt to explain to her audience how it came to be that O’Brien, who she previously supported and boosted, ended up at the RNC.

She ended the call reaffirming her support for Biden, “I’ll go out, and I campaign for the president and I stump for the president and I have done that because he is our Democratic nominee.” She added, “We have passed an insane amount of productive legislation.”

In her only, extremely oblique, reference to Biden and the bipartisan support for the genocide in Gaza, which a recent Lancet study found has led to the deaths of over 186,000 people, she said: “So there’s also a bunch of things that have happened that I don’t agree with, that I find morally horrific.”

Exuding pragmatism she said, “Complexity is the job. You may have, like, whatever opinions you have.”

As Ocasio-Cortez was stumping for Biden on the internet, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders advocated for Biden on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Sanders claimed that Biden “has been the strongest, most progressive president in my lifetime.”

Sanders added, Biden “has the record to run on.” What is this record? Sanders was polite enough not to mention Biden’s “record” military budgets, “record” disenrollment from Medicaid, “record” attacks on immigrants and “record” payouts for billionaires.

At the center of Biden’s “record” is global war. In addition to the Gaza genocide, hundreds of thousands of working class people have been slaughtered in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, which was provoked by the US-NATO powers who have systematically cultivated and armed neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine for over a decade.

In their unstinting support for Biden, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are being exposed as nothing more than propagandists for imperialism.

It has also exposed political organizations, such as the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Ocasio-Cortez is still a member, that claim the Democratic Party can be reformed or pressured to adopt anti-capitalist and left-wing positions.