November 21, 2024 1
MONDOWEISS
ANTI-PALESTINIAN ZIONIST AMERIKAN
MONDOWEISS
ANTI-PALESTINIAN ZIONIST AMERIKAN
Pennsylvania (D) Senator John Fetterman
(Photo: Flickr/Governor Tom Wolf)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but a number of pundits are attempting to blame the left for Kamala Harris’s loss.
In this narrative, it’s not the highly-paid Democratic consultants or the donor class who helped deliver another four years of Trump. No, the blame should be pinned on activists and progressive groups.
One such argument was put forward in a recent New York Times op-ed by Adam Jentleson, “When Will Democrats Learn to Say No?”
According to Jentleson one of Harris’s big problems was the fact she backed handful of progressive positions five years ago.
“To cite a few examples, when Kamala Harris was running for the Democratic nomination in 2019, the A.C.L.U. pushed her to articulate a position on surgeries for transgender prisoners, needlessly elevating an obscure issue into the public debate as a purity test, despite the fact that current law already gave prisoners access to gender-affirming care,” writes Jentleson. “This became a major line of attack for Mr. Trump in the closing weeks of this year’s election. Now, with the G.O.P.’s ascent to dominance, transgender Americans are unquestionably going to be worse off.”
“The same year, a coalition of groups including the Sunrise Movement and the Working Families Party demanded that all Democrats running for president embrace decriminalizing border crossings,” he continues. “When candidates were asked at a debate if they would do so, every candidate on the stage that night raised a hand (except Michael Bennet). Groups like Justice Democrats pushed Democrats to defund the police and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Positions taken a few years ago are fair game in campaigns, and by feeding into Republican attacks these efforts helped Mr. Trump and left the people and causes they claim to fight for under threat.”
His conclusion is straightforward: Democrats need to reject calls for progressive reforms and champion “heterodox” politics in order to win the 2026 midterms. In other words, they have to throw vulnerable populations under the bus and abandon any kind of commitment to combatting climate change.
There’s a lot missing from Jentleson’s analysis, but let’s start here: the progressive stances endorsed by Democratic candidates during the 2020 primaries did not materialize out of thin air.
The first Trump presidency was greeted by immediate protest and vast organizing, which led to some of his most draconian policy plans being blocked. We went on to watch the government botch the public health response to COVID and leave workers hung out to dry. People flooded the streets and demanded change after watching George Floyd get murdered by a police officer on camera. By some metrics, they were the most attended protests in the history of the United States and the actions led to a wider national conversation about race, history, and policing. We also saw millions of young people enthusiastically support the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, who ran on the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and higher taxes on the rich.
The fact that Democrats publicly endorsed some of these positions is a testament to the hard work of activists who helped shift the public discussion through organizing. This is one of the ways that progress has historically worked in the United States. Jentleson’s assertion that this ended up being a big problem because there was Republican backlash could be used to throw water on virtually every social movement ever. That’s how it always works. In his book The Reactionary Mind political scientist Corey Robin writes that conservatism is a meditation on the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.
Jentleson neglects to point out that Harris openly abandoned all the progressive positions she embraced while running to be the 2020 nominee during her 2024 presidential campaign, but maybe that goes without saying. Perhaps it also goes without saying that Harris’s presidential campaign was partially geared to win over Republicans, by touting an endorsement from Dick Cheney, promising a tough border policy, and failing to articulate any kind of robust plan for the working class. Maybe it doesn’t have to be pointed out that Harris vowed to continue weapon sales to Israel, despite continuous left-wing pressure calling on her to change course.
However, I think Jentleson should remind readers that Harris was one of the first Democratic candidates to withdraw from the 2020 primary. In fact, she quit the race in 2019.
This certainly wasn’t because Harris was “too woke.” In fact, it’s pretty easy to make the opposite argument. A former prosecutor who presided over a truancy crackdown simply didn’t have a lot of appeal at a time when many people were already reading books like The New Jim Crow and talking about decarceration, partially because of Ferguson, Baltimore, and a number of other recent uprisings. Within six months over half the population believed burning down the Minneapolis police precinct was justified.
But let’s leave all that aside and talk about the elephant in the room. How does someone write a piece about groups having too much influence on the Democratic party and not mention pro-Israel lobbying organizations? AIPAC spent over $100 million on the last election cycle and ousted multiple progressives with massive help from GOP donors. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they are a more relevant target when we’re assessing what’s wrong with the Democrats.
The real punchline of this Op-Ed is revealed in the author bio section at the end. Jentleson is the former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a guy who has spent the past year enthusiastically celebrating the genocide in Gaza. He’s even positioned himself to the right of the Biden administration on the issue, criticizing the White House for briefly threatening to condition military aid. Last week Fetterman attacked The Pope for calling for an investigation into Israel’s genocide.
When he originally ran for Senate Senate Fetterman was insufficiently anti-Palestinian by the standards of lobbying groups, so he allowed Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) to write his position paper on the issue.
Fetterman beat TV personality and snake oil salesman Dr. Oz in that election. Now Trump has nominated Oz to oversee Medicare and Medicaid.
“If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude,” tweeted Fetterman.
When Will Democrats Learn to Say Yes, indeed.
Bernie Resolutions
This week the Senate rejected a series of resolutions that would have blocked some arms sales to Israel.
The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) were introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders last month and applied to tank ammunition, fighter jets, and other weapons.
The first resolution, on tank ammunition, was rejected by a vote of 18-79. Here’s the Democrats that voted for it:
Dick Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
Sen. George Helmy (D-NJ) joined his 18 colleagues in voting for the resolutions on military equipment and mortar rounds. It’s unclear why someone would support sending Israel more tank ammunition, but draw the line at other kinds of ammunition, but I digress.
There was no chance of this thing passing. It was never going to clear the Senate and even it had by some miracle, it would have still had to make it through the House and ultimately be signed by the president. We know Biden and Trump do not want to condition military weapons to Israel.
Having said all that, this was an historic moment as it was the first time the Senate had ever voted on the issue.
I have few takeaways:
1.) Despite the fact this wasn’t going to pass, we saw a full-court press from pro-Israel lawmakers and groups to limit the amount of Senators who endorsed it.
The White House circulated talking points on Capitol Hill, Chuck Schumer worked to whip votes, and AIPAC lobbied its supporters on the issue. I believe this speaks to a deep concern about Israel’s diminishing reputation. An impressive vote would simply the latest example that ironclad support for Israel is starting to crack.
2.) I was surprised to see Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey vote for the resolutions, as he’s been a staunch supporter of Israel for his entire political career. I believe it’s important to look at the increasing local pressure he’s faced on the issue.
In 2022 I wrote an article about activists targeting Markey over his stance. “Liberation politics are not a buffet, but an ethos,” one of them told me. “Senator Markey has made it clear that the ‘progressivism’ he claims to support – rights to healthcare, ending racial violence, and economic freedom – shouldn’t extend to Palestinians under occupation. That is racist, and progressives in Massachusetts should see it for what it is.”
3.) Tammy Baldwin just narrowly won her election, but voted “present.” It will be interesting to see what kind of pressure she’ll face from the left in Wisconsin.
4.) We constantly hear about how lawmakers have to unequivocally support Israel in order to stay in power, so how do we explain the fact that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff felt compelled to back the resolutions? They represent a 50/50 state that just flipped back to red in the presidential election and are probably two of the more vulnerable members of their caucus.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but a number of pundits are attempting to blame the left for Kamala Harris’s loss.
In this narrative, it’s not the highly-paid Democratic consultants or the donor class who helped deliver another four years of Trump. No, the blame should be pinned on activists and progressive groups.
One such argument was put forward in a recent New York Times op-ed by Adam Jentleson, “When Will Democrats Learn to Say No?”
According to Jentleson one of Harris’s big problems was the fact she backed handful of progressive positions five years ago.
“To cite a few examples, when Kamala Harris was running for the Democratic nomination in 2019, the A.C.L.U. pushed her to articulate a position on surgeries for transgender prisoners, needlessly elevating an obscure issue into the public debate as a purity test, despite the fact that current law already gave prisoners access to gender-affirming care,” writes Jentleson. “This became a major line of attack for Mr. Trump in the closing weeks of this year’s election. Now, with the G.O.P.’s ascent to dominance, transgender Americans are unquestionably going to be worse off.”
“The same year, a coalition of groups including the Sunrise Movement and the Working Families Party demanded that all Democrats running for president embrace decriminalizing border crossings,” he continues. “When candidates were asked at a debate if they would do so, every candidate on the stage that night raised a hand (except Michael Bennet). Groups like Justice Democrats pushed Democrats to defund the police and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Positions taken a few years ago are fair game in campaigns, and by feeding into Republican attacks these efforts helped Mr. Trump and left the people and causes they claim to fight for under threat.”
His conclusion is straightforward: Democrats need to reject calls for progressive reforms and champion “heterodox” politics in order to win the 2026 midterms. In other words, they have to throw vulnerable populations under the bus and abandon any kind of commitment to combatting climate change.
There’s a lot missing from Jentleson’s analysis, but let’s start here: the progressive stances endorsed by Democratic candidates during the 2020 primaries did not materialize out of thin air.
The first Trump presidency was greeted by immediate protest and vast organizing, which led to some of his most draconian policy plans being blocked. We went on to watch the government botch the public health response to COVID and leave workers hung out to dry. People flooded the streets and demanded change after watching George Floyd get murdered by a police officer on camera. By some metrics, they were the most attended protests in the history of the United States and the actions led to a wider national conversation about race, history, and policing. We also saw millions of young people enthusiastically support the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, who ran on the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and higher taxes on the rich.
The fact that Democrats publicly endorsed some of these positions is a testament to the hard work of activists who helped shift the public discussion through organizing. This is one of the ways that progress has historically worked in the United States. Jentleson’s assertion that this ended up being a big problem because there was Republican backlash could be used to throw water on virtually every social movement ever. That’s how it always works. In his book The Reactionary Mind political scientist Corey Robin writes that conservatism is a meditation on the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.
Jentleson neglects to point out that Harris openly abandoned all the progressive positions she embraced while running to be the 2020 nominee during her 2024 presidential campaign, but maybe that goes without saying. Perhaps it also goes without saying that Harris’s presidential campaign was partially geared to win over Republicans, by touting an endorsement from Dick Cheney, promising a tough border policy, and failing to articulate any kind of robust plan for the working class. Maybe it doesn’t have to be pointed out that Harris vowed to continue weapon sales to Israel, despite continuous left-wing pressure calling on her to change course.
However, I think Jentleson should remind readers that Harris was one of the first Democratic candidates to withdraw from the 2020 primary. In fact, she quit the race in 2019.
This certainly wasn’t because Harris was “too woke.” In fact, it’s pretty easy to make the opposite argument. A former prosecutor who presided over a truancy crackdown simply didn’t have a lot of appeal at a time when many people were already reading books like The New Jim Crow and talking about decarceration, partially because of Ferguson, Baltimore, and a number of other recent uprisings. Within six months over half the population believed burning down the Minneapolis police precinct was justified.
But let’s leave all that aside and talk about the elephant in the room. How does someone write a piece about groups having too much influence on the Democratic party and not mention pro-Israel lobbying organizations? AIPAC spent over $100 million on the last election cycle and ousted multiple progressives with massive help from GOP donors. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they are a more relevant target when we’re assessing what’s wrong with the Democrats.
The real punchline of this Op-Ed is revealed in the author bio section at the end. Jentleson is the former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a guy who has spent the past year enthusiastically celebrating the genocide in Gaza. He’s even positioned himself to the right of the Biden administration on the issue, criticizing the White House for briefly threatening to condition military aid. Last week Fetterman attacked The Pope for calling for an investigation into Israel’s genocide.
When he originally ran for Senate Senate Fetterman was insufficiently anti-Palestinian by the standards of lobbying groups, so he allowed Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) to write his position paper on the issue.
Fetterman beat TV personality and snake oil salesman Dr. Oz in that election. Now Trump has nominated Oz to oversee Medicare and Medicaid.
“If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude,” tweeted Fetterman.
When Will Democrats Learn to Say Yes, indeed.
Bernie Resolutions
This week the Senate rejected a series of resolutions that would have blocked some arms sales to Israel.
The Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) were introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders last month and applied to tank ammunition, fighter jets, and other weapons.
The first resolution, on tank ammunition, was rejected by a vote of 18-79. Here’s the Democrats that voted for it:
Dick Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
Sen. George Helmy (D-NJ) joined his 18 colleagues in voting for the resolutions on military equipment and mortar rounds. It’s unclear why someone would support sending Israel more tank ammunition, but draw the line at other kinds of ammunition, but I digress.
There was no chance of this thing passing. It was never going to clear the Senate and even it had by some miracle, it would have still had to make it through the House and ultimately be signed by the president. We know Biden and Trump do not want to condition military weapons to Israel.
Having said all that, this was an historic moment as it was the first time the Senate had ever voted on the issue.
I have few takeaways:
1.) Despite the fact this wasn’t going to pass, we saw a full-court press from pro-Israel lawmakers and groups to limit the amount of Senators who endorsed it.
The White House circulated talking points on Capitol Hill, Chuck Schumer worked to whip votes, and AIPAC lobbied its supporters on the issue. I believe this speaks to a deep concern about Israel’s diminishing reputation. An impressive vote would simply the latest example that ironclad support for Israel is starting to crack.
2.) I was surprised to see Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey vote for the resolutions, as he’s been a staunch supporter of Israel for his entire political career. I believe it’s important to look at the increasing local pressure he’s faced on the issue.
In 2022 I wrote an article about activists targeting Markey over his stance. “Liberation politics are not a buffet, but an ethos,” one of them told me. “Senator Markey has made it clear that the ‘progressivism’ he claims to support – rights to healthcare, ending racial violence, and economic freedom – shouldn’t extend to Palestinians under occupation. That is racist, and progressives in Massachusetts should see it for what it is.”
3.) Tammy Baldwin just narrowly won her election, but voted “present.” It will be interesting to see what kind of pressure she’ll face from the left in Wisconsin.
4.) We constantly hear about how lawmakers have to unequivocally support Israel in order to stay in power, so how do we explain the fact that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff felt compelled to back the resolutions? They represent a 50/50 state that just flipped back to red in the presidential election and are probably two of the more vulnerable members of their caucus.
