Who, Exactly, Does the Hezbollah-Flag-Waving Dirtbag Represent?

By Seth Mandel

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

 

Yesterday an array of protesters spouting anti-American and anti-Israel slogans stopped highway traffic en route to Chicago’s O’Hare airport, on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, and in other cities. In Chicago, some residents had to get out of their cabs and walk to the terminal or to a tram stop where they could get a ride to their terminal. This type of protest is obviously not legal. But if you want to know what a public that is conditioned to take their medicine from these vigilante dopes looks like, here’s a lady who told the Chicago Sun-Times: “This was an inconvenience. But in the grand scheme of things going on overseas, it’s a minor inconvenience.”

 

Sure. Unless you live in Gaza, you really can’t complain about common criminals pushing you around a bit.

 

I only assume she meant Gaza, by the way. She only said “overseas,” which could mean anything. If someone stole her car, that would also be nothing compared to plenty of events going on overseas. The same would be true if she were robbed at gunpoint or had her credit card stolen or if someone followed her around all day telling her she was a disappointment to her parents who wanted her to become a doctor. Any indignity for the cause.

 

But there’s an important lesson in her choice of words: “overseas” is her way of saying “I have no idea what this is about, nor do most of the protesters apparently, but they seem to have the right politics.”

 

Who do all these pro-Hamas demonstrators represent? It’s not a rhetorical question, it’s an important one that I wish members of Congress, especially Democrats, would start asking.

 

President Biden is spooked by them; the rest of his party is outright terrified of them. This week Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party and given the national attention that comes along with that status, refused to say whether Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. “I’m not going to weigh in,” she said. That sort of answer is usually a coward’s way of saying: I’m not an idiot, and therefore no, I do not think what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. But the people who do think it’s a genocide will come to my house and yell at me if I publicly register my disagreement with their psychotic anti-Zionist crusade.

 

Let’s be clear about the people whom she is kowtowing to. The New York City contingent of yesterday’s fascist pawn brigades could be seen waving a Hezbollah flag. Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy militia that has been at or near the top of global terrorist threats for decades. It has killed its fair share of Americans and Israelis. It is an oppressive, colonialist project whose main goal is to undermine the world’s democracies and raise up authoritarian rulers who hang gays from construction cranes and beat women in the streets for having their hair uncovered.

 

Politicians used to chase the Soccer Mom vote. Now they appear to be chasing the Execute-the-Soccer-Mom vote.

 

Also among the demonstrators were those wearing Hamas headbands. Hamas is the Gaza-based version of Hezbollah and it started the current war by murdering and kidnapping Americans and Israelis. These protesters are ostentatiously anti-American: They were burning American flags and yelling “death to America.”

 

Again, non-rhetorical question for the politicians who cower before those who yell “death to America”: How many of your constituents do they represent? What is it you stand to lose by forfeiting their vote? What slice of your political coalition chants “death to America”? And why, pray tell, are the opinions of Lebanese terrorists so important to your assessment of the war in Gaza?

 

We hear a lot about the way these folks intend to deter President Biden’s reelection prospects, which is why the president sent his aides to try to placate a large group of them in Michigan. Can the president explain why he wants the vote of somebody who burns American flags on behalf of a group holding Americans hostage?

 

The political behavior of a fair number of Democrats has changed in accordance with the demands of these groups of protesters. That is what you do when you must be inclusive of all parts of your electoral coalition. So don’t just obliquely refer to the demonstrators; claim them. Tell us what they mean to you, and why you need them, and why U.S. policy should be shaped by them.

 

Or stop running from them and start standing up for yourselves.