Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman sealed their own fates.
When Cori Bush’s constituents gave the far-left congresswoman the bum’s rush last week, I made the following prediction: “The far-left activists whose anti-Israel advocacy is too often indistinguishable from apologia for terrorism will be tempted to salve their wounded pride by blaming Bush’s defeat on Jewish money.” It didn’t take long for this forecast to come to pass.
“Progressives face an existential threat from AIPAC,” read a Tuesday headline in Politico. “And there’s nothing to stop it.” The pernicious influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s assets helped transform both Bush’s race and outgoing representative Jamaal Bowman’s reelection campaign into two of the “most expensive House primaries ever.” Don’t blame the candidates for that condition. Blame those who objected to their monomania and opposed it.
As foretold, the far-Left progressives who chose to take a position on Israel’s defensive war in Gaza that is at odds with American public opinion — elevating the issue over the pocketbook concerns that typically enthuse voters — are telling themselves that they are the real victims here. And these two unseated progressives won’t be the last to be crushed by the combined muscle of America’s Zionist financiers:
After both Bowman and Bush crumbled under that avalanche of spending, prompted by their criticism of Israel in the country’s war with Hamas, progressive Democrats have awoken to a bleak new reality that could haunt them for years to come: They have no organized way to counter that kind of money. And they fear AIPAC and allied groups will be more empowered to take on even bigger targets next cycle and beyond because they know their strategy works.
Politico isn’t alone in mourning the extent to which pro-Israel capital mobilized to rob Bowman and Bush of their seats. In addition to funding for phone-banking and direct-mail campaigns (the cads), AIPAC was accused by the Intercept of “racism” in its targeting of Bush.
AIPAC’s relatively recent interventions in American electoral politics are Pyrrhic victories, argue the Quincy Institute’s Eli Clifton and Guardian contributor Ben Davis. What the organization claims are funds provided by Israel’s supporters are, in fact, Republican contributions laundered into politics amid an insidious conspiracy of silence orchestrated by the highest echelons of American society.
The sound thrashing to which their voters treated Bowman and Bush even has some pro-Israel Democrats “grumbling” about the mesmeric power AIPAC exerted over their party’s rank and file. “Even some lawmakers who are generally supportive of Israel say the money is meant to intimidate Democrats away from criticism of the Jewish state,” Axios reported.
Yes, well, that is the point, isn’t it? Rather than having to spend gobs of money in every primary race, AIPAC would be better served by creating the conditions in which Democratic lawmakers recognize that it is in their interest to avoid running afoul of the American consensus on Israel in the first place. There’s nothing underhanded about that unless you find the conventional conduct of politics malignant when its practitioners are, you know, the wrong sort.
As National Review explained twice now, neither Bowman nor Bush was undone by AIPAC’s capital alone — as some of the organization’s critics tacitly admit, given the paltry number of lawmakers on AIPAC’s target list who lost their primaries. Their political careers were ended by their voters in response to the actions they took in office. Both of these “Squad” members indulged in a highly ideological flight of fancy that conflicted with their voters’ priorities, and they were subsequently handed their hats as a result.
No one did this to Bush, Bowman, or the anti-Israel protesters who have made a hideously unattractive spectacle of themselves. They sealed their own fates. If their antics drew opposition from the interest groups they actively sought to antagonize, that isn’t untoward. That’s how the game of American politics is played. It isn’t the Jews’ fault that these candidates were just bad at it.