The Monsters Come for Their Creators

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, June 03, 2026

 

Democrats can blame themselves for tolerating a species of “anti-Zionism” so radical that their voters are now willing to overlook a few contributions of material support to al-Qaeda.

 

The Democratic primary voters in New Jersey’s twelfth congressional district elected last night to back Adam Hamawy, a former U.S. Army combat surgeon who once volunteered in Bosnia with a group that was subsequently exposed as a “front” for the terrorist outfit that executed the 9/11 attacks. That was after Hamawy served as a witness for the defense in the trial of the “Blind Sheik,” Omar Abdel Rahman, the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

 

Lest anyone conclude that Hamawy’s dalliance with Islamist terrorism was a youthful indiscretion, he defended Rahman in a recent interview with the New York Times even as he condemned “violent rhetoric and actions.”

 

“He wasn’t preaching death and destruction all the time,” Hamawy said of Rahman. “He had certain views that he spoke in certain forums, but that’s not what he did every single day.” It’s nice to know that the man partly responsible for six American deaths also had other interests.

 

Hamawy defeated his more conventional Democratic opponents with the backing of progressive firebrands like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — an endorsement he earned through his consistent opposition to the “genocide,” among his other far-left views. Democratic establishmentarians withheld their support for Hamawy, but that didn’t matter to the voters in New Jersey’s twelfth district. They knew who the true radical in the race was, and Democrats can chalk Hamawy’s victory up to their conspicuous toleration for a level of hostility towards Israel that often verges on the monomaniacal.

 

The party’s institutionalists cloyingly sought the favor of the mobs who never had any love for Democratic institutionalists (indeed, they tore at the security fencing and attacked the police who separated them from the Democratic lawmakers they despised). All the while, the likes of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz bent over backward to lend moral authority to their tormentors. Hamawy’s likely election to Congress in November is a result of that calculus. Abdul El-Sayed’s nomination to the U.S. Senate in Michigan, after having agonized over how to handle the apparently somber occasion of Iranian theocrat Ayatollah Ali Khameni’s death, may be another.

 

The Democratic Party may regret unleashing the forces that are contributing to the rise of radical Islamist elements, but its leaders lack the spine to reassert their control over the party’s destiny.

 

Similarly, Republican voters in Iowa, of all places, put an end to the formerly unbroken series of victories enjoyed by figures who earned Donald Trump’s endorsement.

 

By the narrowest of margins, outsider businessman Zach Lahn defeated longtime Republican Congressman Randy Feenstra in the race for the Hawkeye State’s Republican gubernatorial nomination. It was a significant upset and a rare defeat for a candidate who portrayed himself as one of the president’s most loyal supporters.

 

The press is attributing Lahn’s victory to his backing by the “political arm of the “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement.” As a candidate, Lahn pledged to “break up” the “monopolies” run by “big ag cartels” — presumably by adopting Elizabeth Warren and Lina Khan’s expansive view of the government’s anti-trust powers. In addition, he has called for an outright ban on Covid vaccines and a total moratorium on the construction of new data centers. Democrats are certain to make hay of the GOP nominee’s theories about the link between cancer and Parkinsons rates and pesticides, which he shared with Tucker Carlson.

 

Whoever convinced Donald Trump to endorse Feenstra was right to worry that Lahn would have a tougher time winning the general election. But the president has only himself to blame for incepting the MAHA movement into existence in the first place. That populist-inflected paranoid streak might have remained relegated to the fringes of the American left had Trump not thrown his arms around longtime Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Now, the monster he midwifed into existence is coming for its creator.

 

Indeed, the forces both parties have heedlessly unleashed are slipping from their control. Those forces are certain to shape our politics for years to come.