I believe
that if you are elected to Congress, you have a responsibility to three
separate groups. The national interest, the political party you serve, and the
voters who elected you. If all things were equal – and we all know they’re not
– those would be the only groups you had to answer to.
Let’s take
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the favorite target of wrath for all things Democrat
and progressive (two groups that only occasionally intersect). Even the most
generous viewer of Greene as a Congresswoman – and there are practically none –
can that in Congress she has done anything to serve the national interest. How
much she has done to serve the interests of the Republican Party depends who
you ask: Democrats would argue she is the representation of everything the GOP
stands for while at this point there are few Republicans even in her caucus who
truly like that she’s one of them. But when it comes to answering to that third
group – the voters in her district– Greene has done that. If anything the
Democrats have made it easy for her to stand. In 2022, her democratic opponent
withdrew from the race in September of 2022. Considering how much they claim to
hate her, you’d think they would have at least put an opponent to run against
her but such was not the case. Greene will be up for reelection in 2024. If the Democrats claim to
consider her an enemy of democracy then it is their duty to have someone run
against her. (The fact that no one in the left mentioned this in 2022 does make
you wonder if they secretly like having her in Congress despite everything they
say.)
Progressives
have made it very clear that they shouldn’t have to answer to anybody. When
leftists publish books arguing that pushing against them is fundamentally wrong
then it explains why, for all the popularity of their positions, so few of them
every get elected to national office. Leftists seem to believe in their own
version of the grand unitary theory. In that version, every single elected
official from the President on down has only one obligation: to single-mindedly
devote every waking moment to every single element of the leftist agenda,
without a single compromise to the vision, regardless of whether it is possible
or feasible through democratic means and regardless of whether the voter
themselves wants it. None of this is possible in the real world and the moment
any elected official tries to do anything other than the progressive agenda,
they are de facto the enemy and must be considered ‘part of the system’. Even
those rare leftists who get elected to Congress or the Senate are subject to
the same impossible standards that the left holds. All the things that are part
and parcel with democracy – compromise and pragmatism the most important – are
neither obstacles to be overcome or even necessary evils but should in their
minds be completely irrelevant to any elected official. In their minds, the
only reason no President or Congress has ever enacted every single aspect of
the left’s agenda is some version of ‘they don’t want to.” That so much of what
the left asks for can only be done by dictatorship and not democracy never
enters in their thinking.
So when a
Congressman like Jamal Bowman managed to get elected in 2020 he was considered
a hero by the left not for any legislation he introduced nor for anything he
accomplished while he was in office but because he did what progressives have
done every time they are elected to Congress or the Senate: his entire term in
office was about performative politics and satisfying the progressive agenda of
being as much of a pain in the ass when you’re on the inside then the outside.
The fact that while he was doing so he chose to go against all three of his
constituencies – his district, his party
and the nation – not only was irrelevant but exactly why he was idolized in so
many circles. And it was approved of, tacitly and more outspokenly, by the vast
majority of leftists who work in academic journals or publications and think
for all intents purposes democracy is the worst form of government just like
all the others.
I have seen
it discussed outright in so many of the articles on this blog and I may deal
with it in a different way later on, but it is clear to me that as far as the
left goes their loyalty to Joe Biden ended the day he was sworn in as
President. They will acknowledge with every breath that the Republicans are
evil incarnate but that has never given them any loyalty to the Democrats
beyond that. Ever after everything during every single moment of the Trump
administration, even in the aftermath of the 2020 election, even after the
events of January 6th, for many of them, they owe no loyalty at all
to the Democrats, not even to vote to protect America from everything the
Republicans represent. They can say everything they want about MAGA being an
existential threat to America and democracy but to the left that’s lip service
because both before, during and after the Trump administration, none of them
really thought much of either of them as the institutions. For many, if not
most, their memories have been extremely short, with many going right back to
their old standby as early as fall of 2021 “that there is no difference between
the two parties”.
I’ve read an
article in the Daily Kos as recently as last Thursday basically saying
that not only was Trump going to win, but it was what America deserved. To be
clear, this is the most Democratic-progressive magazine online, one that had
endorsed Biden just a month ago, that never
misses a moment to tell you just how disastrous it will be for the nation and
the world if Trump is reelected – and
yet they were saying as clearly as possible that to them, it makes no
difference if Biden wins. This is one of the grimmest possible positions to
take – and yet it is one that most leftists basically take as gospel.
The Squad,
of which Bowman was an unofficial member, doesn’t hold as much to the drastic
positions of the leftists but they have all been given a disproportionate
amount of influence in Congress since they arrived in 2018. It’s worth
remembering just how massive a rejection of Trumpism the 2018 midterms were,
particularly in the House of Representatives. Just four years earlier the
Republicans had swept to their biggest majority in the House since 1928 with a
total of 247 seats in the House. In the aftermath of the 2018 midterms, the
Democrats had gotten the highest turnout for Congressional midterm in history
beating the Republicans by nearly ten million votes and gaining 41 seats.
There’s an argument the Democrats should have focused on the ruby red sections
of America where the Democrats had made gains, particularly in Oklahoma and
Kansas. The most remarkable defeat may have come to Mia Love in Utah. The first
Haitian born member of Congress elected as Republican, in 2015 she had been
seen by some as the future of the GOP. That she had lost – particularly in a
state as rock red as Utah - should have
been a clear sign as to how much the public was rejecting Trumpism and it was
clearly more important then four Congressional wins in deep-blue districts.
But the
reason that the Democrats chose to anoint Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan
Ohmar, Ayanna Presley and Rashida Taib really
had nothing to do with their wins in some of the bluest states and most
Democratic leaning districts in the
nation or their agenda. What mattered was that they were all young, female and
minorities, all vital demographics the Democrats were going to need to win the
White House back in 2020. They were also photogenic and active on social media,
things the party was going to need. And perhaps most importantly, they drove
the right wing media and Republicans insane, a quality that the Democrats
honestly cared the most about. As a party on the outside, the Democrats needed
them for all of those things.
And because
the left has always chosen to read into any election as to a mandate for their
agenda – a loss for Democrats is because they weren’t left wing enough; a win
for Democrats is because they have the left’s support - their members, including Bowman, when he was
joined their numbers in 2020 believed that their elections – again in deep blue
districts and blue states – were a mandate for their agenda to be accepted by
not only the Democratic party, but the entire nation. Therefore like of the
members of the Squad, moderation, pragmatism and compromise – all things the
left excoriates Republicans when they don’t do – were not rules that they had
to follow or even guidelines. Like all leftists they find it easier to ask for
forgiveness then permission, but in their minds they will act without
permission and when the rest of the world realizes all the good things they
have done, they will beg for the left’s forgiveness for doubting them.
That this has yet to happen is another minor detail; they are on the right side
of history, after all.
So by those
standards the fact that well before his primary Bowman had on numerous
occasions ignored the wishes of his party, the nation and the voters of his
district was in the eyes of the left a
sign that he was a great Congressman, not a failure.
I remember,
well before Bowman’s vote in the House against the Build Back Better Plan, how
angry so many people on the left were after Biden had compromised with Senate
Democrats, particularly Joe Manchin. One writer argued that neither FDR or LBJ
would have even listened to the demands of DINOs like Manchin when they passed
the New Deal or the legislation of the Great Society.
I could have
reminded them that Biden had before becoming President Biden had served six
terms in the Senate and was a firsthand witness and participant in the amount
of compromise one has to do to get any bill passed, much less landmark
legislation. That these people thought from the benefit of their academia that
they knew better is ludicrous. I did argue that in the cases of both FDR
and LBJ, they had enormous margins in both the House and the Senate when they
began to work on their legislation: in FDR’s case, the Democrats had close to a
three to 1 advantage in both Houses of Congress when he first was elected and
with LBJ it was nearly two to one in both house after his landslide victory in
1964. Biden, by contrast, would only be able to get any legislation in the
Senate passed through a tie-breaker vote and if Manchin chose to vote against
the bill in its current form, it would be dead and nobody would get anything.
None of this
mattered to the left who were fine when progressives such as Bowman chose to
cast votes that killed the bill. Daily Kos was certainly willing to defend it.
When a weaker bill was introduced and this time Bowman and his fellow
progressive voted for it, there were people on this site who were angry at them
for compromising and voting for this bill. To be clear by doing so Bowman’s
and his fellow progressive actions at the time went against both the President
and Democratic leadership – in other words, they were going against their
party. These actions would end up making Biden look weak going into an already
difficult midterms in 2022, not to mention giving the party less to run on. But
none of this mattered either to Daily Kos or leftists on this blog and
certainly not Bowman and his ilk. They demonstrated the true directive for the
progressive that compromise, the necessary work for any democracy, was
incompatible with the leftist agenda in which half a loaf is somehow worse than
nothing.
During the
crisis involving the debt ceiling in 2023 when the Republicans, and
specifically the Freedom Caucus were doing everything to hold the nation
hostage, Bowman performed what was his most famous act: pulling the fire alarm
in the House of Representatives. Now I believe the Republicans motion to expel
Bowman was as performative as Bowman’s actions but his stunt was as ludicrous
as so many of those performed by the hardline Republicans during this era
including Nancy Mace’s wearing a scarlet A after voting to remove Kevin
McCarthy from the speakership. Considering how high the stakes were - the possibility of default or a shutdown if
things failed – Bowman’s actions did nothing to resolve the issue and only caused
those on both sides to consider him not taking the situation seriously. But in
the eyes of progressives, this was a profile in courage because he was saying
the quiet part out loud.
Bowman’s
actions made me wonder that whether so many on the left really do view the many
shutdowns or showdowns over the debt ceiling over the last several years with
any of the seriousness they claim to or if it just another thing they use to
fundraise off of. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve gotten
fundraising emails from both the left and the Democratic Party using these
examples of shutdowns as an excuse to raise money to elect more Democrats. I
think that people like Pelosi and Jeffries might feel like the Republicans
don’t take these things seriously; it doesn’t help them when one of their
members performs a stunt that seems he’s not taking it seriously either.
This brings
me to the voters. I’m not going to express what I think or feel about October 7th
and everything that’s happened in the Middle East and across the country since.
Instead, I’m going to tell you how Bowman, the Squad and so many leftist
journals view it. And that is the same way they view everything: they view as
both a moral issue and have a binary view towards it. Their position is the only acceptable one, and
anyone who sees it when anything other than total acceptance of it is the enemy
and must either be shouted down or completely ignored. The fact that not only
that other people have an opposing opinion and that many of them vote – and
perhaps most importantly that there are probably more of them than there are on
their side – is completely irrelevant to the issue.
That Bowman,
like so many of the Squad, decided to take a firmly pro-Palestine stand, either
endorse or march with so many Palestinian supporters and somehow decide that
American Jews – who last I checked, vote too – might have opinions that aren’t
in alignment with them and take it out on the party that they are a member of
in an election year – is irrelevant to
them. They view this as something needs to be resolved based on their moral
point of view, regardless of the political or geopolitical realities. That they chose instead to frame the
opposition as a political action committee rather than any realistic debate
about their position is telling. That Daily Kos half-hearted attack on the
pro-Palestinians was not against their rhetoric but the fact that they weren’t
raising money for Bowman speaks volumes.
But even
before Bowman began to run for reelection in earnest, it was clear to people in
his district - which again, contained a
substantial Jewish demographic – that he had decided that he didn’t owe the
people who got him elected anything on this issue. Many prominent Jewish
leaders made multiple attempts to reach out to him during the months leading up
his primary and many were willing to make introductions if he was willing to
either temper his rhetoric or do the necessary groundwork among his voters to
explain his position. He did neither and understandably they gave on him and
endorsed his opponent George Latimer.
Bowman’s
campaign reaction to his ever decreasing poll numbers in his district was not
to moderate his viewpoints or indeed to do the work against the vulnerabilities
in his time in Congress. Instead I saw countless ads in the weeks leading up to
the primary arguing that George Latimer was ‘being financed by MAGA extremists’
and that if elected ‘he would be a foe to Biden’s agenda.’ There is no proof to
the former allegation and considering Bowman’s own actions in the last four
years, the latter is a huge joke. Many of the comments, I should add, were
quoted by Jacobin which as I keep mentioning, is the magazine for
American Marxists.
And despite all the evidence that these things
had hurt him, he continued to double down on his progressive bona fides and
being part of the Squad as well as amplify his own rhetoric. There is no
evidence that in the weeks leading up to his primary he made any effort to even
meet with the leaders of the Jewish community in his district, the very people
who had the power to vote him out of office.
Bowman’s
entire career in Congress is an encapsulation of how leftists view both
politics and democracy: it is only a good thing as long as it meshes with their
own views, otherwise it’s a complete failure and they don’t have to bother to
take it seriously as a form of governing. For all their shouting at how a
return to office by either Trump and the Republicans are an existential threat
to democracy and the world, like everything else they view it with an
incredible amount of detachment at best and almost anticipation at worst. For
decades America has been a failed state in all but name. A victory by the
Republicans in November would just confirm it and as we all know by now when it
comes to progressives, all that matters is that they are right. Not the
real-life consequences to it, but they’re being right about it happening.
However, the
fact that Bowman lost his primary actually gives me a source of optimism that
most of this year’s election cycle hasn’t. We keep hearing the phrase elections
have consequences and the reverse is true at times. In so much of our politics
today, we see over and over that you can say and do whatever you want and you
will face no electoral consequences. This has been true more for the right, but
it has also been true for much of the Squad. Bowman’s defeat in the primary –
and an overwhelming one at that - shows
that not being loyal to any of the three masters I listed above can leads to
the third and most important group – the voters in your district – will make
you pay for it.
No matter
how Daily Kos or his fellow progressives try to frame it, Bowman’s defeat in
his primary shows democracy in action. Bowman lost his primary because he chose
to take extreme positions that so many people in his party and his district
held against him and he has paid the electoral consequences. I’m not naïve
enough to believe it will necessarily end his political life – this is New York
after all - but the voters have sent a
message that progressives and the Democratic Party would be wise to take note
of.
In the
conclusion to this article, I intend to make an argument involving what George
Latimer represents and how his victory is a path forward both for Democrats and
democracy alike.
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