Jamaal Bowman Must Go

National Review Online

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

 

Jamaal Bowman, representative of New York’s 16th congressional district (including Westchester County and parts of the Bronx), rallied in the South Bronx ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Swinging a barstool onstage with a visibly twitchy anxiety meant to simulate political conviction, he stood alongside his fellow Democratic “Squad” member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and screamed, “We are gonna show f***in’ AIPAC the power of the motherf***ing South Bronx! People ask me why I got a foul mouth. What am I supposed to do? You comin’ after me! . . . We gonna show them who the f*** we are.” He then performed spastic jumping jacks whilst wearing a lemon yellow T-shirt to try and hype the (small) crowd to cheer louder at what he said.

 

It did not work, and it does not deserve to. Bowman’s vulgar, quasi-paranoid tirade — delivered now, at the end of an embarrassing campaign — is merely the final, tired wheeze of an intellectually bankrupt progressive who thoroughly deserves to lose his race on Tuesday when the Democratic voters of New York’s 16th district register their votes. Bowman faces longstanding Westchester County executive George Latimer in his Democratic primary — and as an incumbent underdog, if current polling is to be believed — and while National Review holds no brief for Latimer or his reliably Democratic politics, we do know this: Jamaal Bowman must go.

 

We are fully aware that the world of Democratic politics is well-stocked with fools. But Bowman’s behavior has been far worse than mere comic folly. First of all, he ranks uniquely in the annals of United States Congress as the only member to be charged, to have pled out, and to later be censured by the House for yanking a fire alarm in order to delay a key vote in Congress. In late September of last year, then-speaker Kevin McCarthy was trying to pass a funding bill at the last minute to avoid a government shutdown. McCarthy, having counted his numbers, called a surprise vote. Bowman, for reasons that can remain known only to him, first tried to trigger a fire alarm to prevent the vote by pushing open a door; when that failed, he yanked a nearby fire alarm. He denied all of this initially; next, he claimed it was an accident; then, he quietly admitted guilt and answered all further questions about the incident by saying, “We’ve talked about this already.”

 

But as disgracefully juvenile as this is, it pales in comparison to the antisemitic rhetoric that has poured forth freely from Bowman’s mouth ever since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. He has revealed himself to be a staunch friend of Hamas and an opponent of the Israeli state’s right to exist. Little more than a month after October 7, Bowman appeared with Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to call for a “cease-fire now,” informing his Jewish constituents who might object that “by me calling for a cease-fire with my colleagues and centering humanity, I am uplifting deeply what it actually means to be Jewish.” During one pro-Hamas rally, Bowman denied that the terrorist group raped Israeli women, claiming the well-documented atrocities were a “lie” and “propaganda” — a statement which he ham-handedly apologized for only recently. In an interview with Politico, he lamented that in his district, “There’s certain places where the Jews live and concentrate” — ignoring their need to be near synagogues, Kosher supermarkets, and other institutions essential to practicing Judaism. Now, in his final electoral agony, he is shrieking obscenities in public about AIPAC, fulminating about shadowy conspiracies against him and his family. It is a disgraceful denouement.

 

In an age when Congress is increasingly a repository for publicity-seeking fools and venal pocket-liners rather than legislators, the Democratic voters of New York’s 16th congressional district have a rare opportunity to exchange a clown and antisemite for a more standard-issue liberal. We encourage them to do so. We know the district will not be represented by someone aligned with us politically. All we ask for is simple decency, of which Jamaal Bowman has proven himself incapable.