By Charles Sykes
Friday, August 09,2024
Cori Bush was not a happy warrior.
The second Squad member to be ousted by Democratic
primary voters this year, the Missouri congresswoman was bitter and defiant in
defeat. In striking contrast to the “joyful”
vibes at the top of the Democratic ticket, Bush promised vengeance against
the pro-Israel groups she blamed for her defenestration.
“All they did was radicalize me, so now they need
to be afraid,” she
declared Tuesday night. “They are about to see this other Cori, this other
side,” she said before directly addressing the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, a pro-Israel group that backed her opponent. “AIPAC, I’m coming to
tear your kingdom down.”
It was unclear how she intended to do that.
Bush was handily defeated in the high-profile primary by
St. Louis County District Attorney Wesley Bell, and she follows Jamaal Bowman—a
fellow member of the progressive Squad that also includes Reps. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar—into involuntary retirement. On
the eve of his own defeat in June, Bowman also launched
an angry rant against AIPAC.
“We are gonna show f—ing AIPAC the power of the
motherf—ing South Bronx!” Bowman shouted during a rally headlined by
Ocasio-Cortez.
Bowman lost by nearly 17 points to fellow Democrat George
Latimer after the most
expensive primary campaign for a House seat in American history.
But it was Bush’s defeat that highlighted the apparent
cognitive dissonance in the Democratic Party.
On Tuesday, the same day Bush lost her race, progressives
in the party cheered Kamala Harris’ choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her
running mate—bypassing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who had drawn the ire of
the party’s anti-Israel left. Progressives looked triumphant and ascendant,
just hours before Bush made their alienation from the party’s mainstream clear
with her angry display.
Remarking on the mixed message, Josh
Kraushaar, the editor-in chief of Jewish Insider, noted that the
controversy over Shapiro demonstrated that “pockets of anti-Israel activism
within the party are now a factor that any Democrat (Jewish or not) has to
confront.” But Tuesday’s primary, in which actual Democratic votes were cast,
“also shows that these radical voices, disproportionately represented among
young Americans, are still a small minority within the party.”
Indeed, these are muddled days for the progressive left
and its anti-Israel wing. While many regard Harris-Walz as a dream ticket, both
Harris and Walz have solid records of support for Israel. As Kraushaar noted,
Walz’s record in Congress—he served in the House from 2007 to 2019—and as
governor has been solidly supportive of Israel. At an AIPAC conference, Walz called
Israel “our truest and closest ally in the region, with a commitment to
values of personal freedoms and liberties, surrounded by a pretty tough
neighborhood.”
In June, Walz
declared: “The ability of Jewish people to self-determine themselves is
foundational. … The failure to recognize the state of Israel is taking away
that self-determination. So it is antisemitic.”
During campus protests this year, Walz defended Jewish
students. “I think when Jewish students are telling us they feel unsafe in
that, we need to believe them, and I do believe them,” he said. “Creating a
space where political dissent or political rallying can happen is one thing.
Intimidation is another.”
While left-wing activists freely tossed around epithets
about “Genocide Joe [Biden]” and “Genocide Josh [Shapiro],” drawing a
comparison between the war in Gaza and the Nazi atrocities of World War
II, Walz actually wrote
a master’s thesis in which he urged greater attention to teaching about the
actual Holocaust.
Contrast that with the rhetoric of the ousted Squad
members.
After the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, Bush
refused to call Hamas a terrorist group, suggesting instead that there was
some sort of moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel. “Have they hurt
people?” she asked of the terror group. “Absolutely. Has the Israeli military
hurt people? Absolutely.”
Despite mounting evidence, Bowman claimed that reports of
systematic sexual violence by Hamas against Israel were “propaganda” and
“lies.” While he later walked
back those comments, he accused Israel of waging an “ethnic cleansing
campaign” and “collective
punishment against Palestinians for Hamas’s actions.” Days before his primary
defeat, Bowman escalated his rhetoric. “We are not gonna stay silent while the
U.S. tax dollar kills babies and women and children,” he told rallygoers. “My
opponent supports genocide. My opponent and AIPAC are the ones destroying our
democracy.”
Meanwhile the progressive left’s losing streak—in local
Democratic primaries—continues. After a smattering of early victories,
progressive-backed candidates lost
all but one of their challenges against moderate incumbents in 2022. (According
to 538, the progs won just one of 11 in races for the House, Senate,
and governor.)
Democratic voters also appear to be turning against
soft-on-crime politicians and prosecutors. Bush was one of her party’s most
outspoken advocates for “defunding the police” and insisted on using the
slogan, despite
having her own private security detail. It is not a coincidence that she
was defeated by a local prosecutor.
Voters have also soured on progressive prosecutors, even
in solidly blue areas. In 2022, Democratic voters in San Francisco ousted left-wing
District Attorney Chesa Boudin in a recall election. In May, Democrats in
the ultra-woke Portland area voted out their
progressive district attorney, Mike Schmidt. And, as Politico notes,
soft-on-crime prosecutors throughout the West Coast—including Alameda
County DA Pamela Price and Los
Angeles County DA George Gascón—find themselves under siege.
This push-pull between the party’s center-left and
far-left is likely to be on display at the upcoming Democratic National
Convention, at least outside the convention hall.
Those tensions flared Wednesday in Michigan, when
anti-Israel protesters briefly disrupted Kamala Harris’ rally speech. Despite
Harris’ decision to meet with a pro-Palestinian group before the event, a small
gaggle of protesters interrupted her, chanting, “Kamala, Kamala you can’t hide!
We won’t vote for genocide.”
Harris tried to be conciliatory. “I’m here because we
believe in democracy. Everyone’s voice matters,” she said. “But I am speaking
now. I am speaking now.”
But the heckling continued, and Harris’ tone sharpened.
“You know what?” Harris said as she stared
down the hecklers, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that.
Otherwise I’m speaking.”
The crowd roared. The protesters were escorted out.
But they’ll be back, because the fight for the soul of
the Democratic Party is far from over. And it won’t necessarily be joyful.
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