Ignore the suffering and open hostility; it's clear skies for 2024
A comprehensive guide on how the Democratic Majority for Israel is tells voters to mortgage their economic future for the losing cause of saving the pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party.
The lowest form of political rhetoric is the type that makes an appeal to “our values”, but for the Democratic Party that worked very well when Donald Trump ran the country. “This is not who we are”, they would say pointing at the vulgar flush faced real estate mogul as the picture of immorality. I remember clearly when DNC Chair Tom Perez said “when we lead with our values, we succeed” as he vowed to lead the party back to victory along with his then-deputy Keith Ellison when they were both elected by party insiders in 2017.
Neither Perez nor Ellison ever have been able to spell out what those “values” actually are, which has been one of the secrets of success for the party. Despite how hollow these words are, there are many Americans that are passive enough to believe or even amplify the rhetoric in the name of an amorphous and unstated set of common values that Democrats cite while campaigning in minority constituencies.
The party has always utilized “big tent” coalition building strategies to attract voters from diverse backgrounds to support it by throwing various perks at each group in order to boost turnout in their community. This is why for many years it would campaign on issues like protecting abortion rights or the equality of marriage rights for same-sex couples - while not enshrining either into legislation. They knew they could go to these very active constituencies, pro-choice feminists and gay couples, and tell them that having a Democratic majority in Congress was their only safeguard against a theocratic takeover by the GOP. In the case of abortion this has already had disastrous consequences for them as Roe v. Wade is likely to be overturned shortly, but the party is already attempting to leverage that outcome into motivation for their November campaigns.
Similar to the strategy of the party proper, Jewish Americans are often lured into voting in Democratic congressional primaries through the use of scare tactics. Candidates that have professed anti-Israel views get painted as avowed Jew-haters and the specter of Israel losing the support of American foreign aid appropriations is dangled as the consequence of our apathy. These appeals are usually based on grossly exaggerated characterizations of the progressive candidate as being disloyal to the Democratic Party, and therefore unreliable for the party agenda. If organizations like AIPAC and DMFI (see below) were honest they would admit that the “bipartisan consensus” supporting the aid to Israel is - while not unanimous - in no danger of losing when up for vote. For example in September 2021, with all of the noise about “the Squad” and how dangerous they are for the America-Israel relationship, the bill giving supplemental appropriations for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system passed by a 420-9 margin. One of those voting “nay” is Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) who votes against foreign aid appropriations regardless of the country in question. Asking Jewish Americans to spend their vote in a primary election on Democratic congressional races is an overreaction that wastes a ballot that could otherwise be spent on crucial races for other positions such as governors, judges, and local officials that have much greater daily influence on citizens’ lives. The rest of this article is an exhaustive account of how not only is the price paid for this goal too much, but that the cause is already lost.
Hypnosis wearing off?
The fearmongering strategy is not working with other groups under the “tent”, as the Democrats have just received one of the more eyebrow raising defeats by losing the 85% Hispanic 34th Congressional District in Texas is behaving as if politics have nothing to do with the public’s economic reality. Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that guides efforts to elect Democrats to the House, predicted cockily that recently elected Republican neophyte Mayra Flores would “barely have enough time to set up her desk before South Texans send her packing again”.
Maloney is not alone, because there are even Democrats willing to dismiss the importance of the entire congressional election. Yesterday Mark Mellman’s opinion piece in The Hill made the case that even if the Democrats receive a major loss in the 2022 midterms, it doesn’t really reflect any major problem with the outlook for success of President Joe Biden. After all, Mellman says, presidents such as FDR (1938), Bill Clinton (1994) and Barack Obama (2010) came back from bad or awful midterm elections to win comfortable reelection campaigns just two years later. According to him all of the worry is overblown. Mellman’s article actually says that “history makes clear that 2022 will tell us nothing about the outcome of the next presidential election”.
The first takeaway from this is that after for months urging Jewish and other pro-Israel voters to invest their vote in Democratic primaries in order to prevent more anti-Israel types from being elected to Congress in deep blue districts, Mellman is priming the same group of voters for the likelihood that the Democrats will lose the midterms. Their primary votes will therefore be meaningless since virulent anti-Israel members like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) will be unable to advance bills beyond their committees. The second issue is that the elections he cites are a cherry picked sample. Mellman only looked at the Democratic presidents that he wants to pay attention to that got reelected. What about 1966 when Lyndon Johnson’s Democrats lost three Senate seats and 47 House seats without even flipping either chamber, and he was forced by 1968 to end his reelection candidacy due to his low intra-party popularity? Or Jimmy Carter’s 1978 midterm election in which they lost three Senate seats and only 15 in the House? In 1980 he was swept out by Reagan. He also omits the fact that Clinton after the midterms basically made a massive turn to the right by signing into law many bills on deregulation, entitlement reform, and spending cuts that the Democrats had rejected for years as betrayals of working class and consumer protections.
Mellman and Maloney are both products of a Democratic Party that pays lip service to the voter while paying tribute to institutional power. The most iconic Democratic politicians built their visions on populist social welfare policies around which they constructed diverse coalitions. So whereas FDR’s New Deal appealed to unemployed destitute white southerners during the Great Depression, he also made sure to enlist blacks that were disenfranchised by Jim Crow policies by making modest advancements such as EO 8802 that attempted to eliminate racial discrimination in federal housing.
In 2022 Americans continue to live with the fall-out of Roosevelt’s legacy of a vastly expanded federal government with deep tentacles influencing the economy. But unlike in his time, the presidential administration that oversees it lacks any of the inspiration needed in order to administer, nor does it have the tact to earn the public’s trust. Democrats in Congress have endorsed his vaccine mandates, the disastrous handling of illegal immigration from the southern border, and his rapidly souring bet on Ukraine winning its defensive war against Russia. When asked about higher fuel prices Sec. of Energy Jennifer Granholm blamed Vladimir Putin and Sen. Debbie Stabenow simply responds that Americans should invest in an electric vehicle.
All of these facts are irrelevant to people like Mellman, a former congressional aide and campaign manager for several Democrats at multiple levels and now the president of Democratic Majority for Israel, a critical advocacy group tied with its own powerful Super PAC. Mellman is also the political pollster for the Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the head of a center-left political party roughly analogous to the Democrats in Israel and the incoming acting prime minister of Israel. DMFI PAC has spent more than $6.4 million already in 2022 and has waded into many hotly contested Democratic primaries. They did succeed in holding off radical Democrats like Nida Allam in North Carolina and Nina Turner in Ohio. Having done regular Israeli military service, I don’t begrudge Mellman of his connection to a cause so dear to his heart. However, it is degrading and shameful that DMFI in the name of defending Israel in Congress is supporting some of the most unsavoury characters in Congress or resorting to petty mudslinging. Libertarians like me have almost no common ground with Nina Turner, but in order to defeat her the DMFI pumped in millions of dollars in advertising during the Ohio 11th CD special election in 2021 in order to dishonestly portray her as not being a Democrat because she voted against the 2020 DNC platform. They omitted the reasons which included the fact that the platform left out some of her core issues such as a Medicare for All healthcare policy.
When criticized for the amount of campaign cash poured into the race DMFI’s allies like the Anti-Defamation League often characterize the complaint as “anti-Semitic”, yet the group boasted during the 2022 Turner rematch with Rep. Shontel Brown that they spent more than $1 million on their primary. All of that effort went to elect a reliably pro-Israel candidate (Brown) in a solidly Democratic district who is otherwise unremarkable and votes lockstep with party leadership.
The backing of Brown was significant in that she was able to win decisively against a nationally known progressive with the backing of much of the local press largely thanks to DMFI’s help. Brown had few other accomplishments besides holding the county party chairperson’s role and being the personal pick of the previous occupant, current Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge.
However, some of the other candidates that DMFI has backed induce facepalms, the best example being Robert Mendendez, Jr. His father Sen. Bob Menendez, Sr. has served at almost every level of government since 1986 for the Garden State. Bob, Sr. earned infamy for his association with the criminal Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen who was sentenced to 17 years in prison for defrauding elderly patients*. There are no qualifications for Bob, Jr., who is an attorney and recent appointee to the NY-NJ Port Authority, for Congress other than his pedigree.
Much of DMFI’s mission seems to be a rearguard action to preserve a position within the Democratic Party that is increasingly unwelcome. While many times they have been successful in getting their preferred candidate like Shontel Brown or Lucy McBath of Georgia, every time they come up short presents further evidence that the pro-Israel position is in retreat. In May the PAC endorsed Steve Irwin in the Pennsylvania 12th CD primary against the progressive Summer Lee who had made statements in support of the Palestinian cause in the past. Ultimately Lee prevailed by a razor thin margin and is a lock for winning in November. In Oregon’s 5th CD a similar gambit blew up in DMFI’s face as incumbent Kurt Schrader, their preferred candidate, was portrayed by opponents as an obstructionist and Joe Manchin style character. He lost in embarrassing fashion by a 14.2% margin to his progressive challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner. DMFI has removed all reference to Schrader from their website.
A similar situation could play out next month in Maryland. DMFI is supporting Glenn Ivey, a former state’s attorney, in a primary against former Rep. Donna Edwards who is seeking to return to the House after a six year hiatus. During her previous stint Edwards had taken positions at odds with AIPAC’s on issues such as a resolution supporting Israel’s right to defend itself during 2008’s Operation Cast Lead. DMFI’s efforts to attack Edwards based on her accessibility to constituents have led to the unexpected result of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stepping in to defend her. As Pelosi is herself one of those supported by DMFI this puts them in an unenviable position. Another Maryland Democrat, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, issued a letter this week with 23 Democrat and independent Senate colleagues urging Pres. Biden to intercede with the Israeli government in the investigation into whether its troops were responsible for the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The letter echoed media reports that agree with this premise.
In another cruel irony, the redistricting of New York’s congressional map has pitted two current incumbents together in the new 12th CD, Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney. In this race the DMFI endorsed Maloney, who according to Mediaite has now rewarded them by accusing Nadler of “wielding his Jewishness as a divisive tactic”. Gone are the days when such a bizarre statement would be greeted by a big ADL condemnation. Instead they are busy mourning the decision by the Supreme Court to rule that voucher programs may not discriminate against religious schools, including Jewish ones, which the organization said “deeply disturbed” it.
The Tent is Burning
In 2020 the Democrats took back the White House, but that did not mean a meaningful victory for every constituency within the party. College students are still awaiting loan forgiveness, black activist leaders are still awaiting a slavery reparations bill, and the pro-choice crowd has spawned an offshoot that has encouraged violent acts.
DMFI is still singing the tune that the Democratic Party is the natural home of Jewish citizens and that they need to fight to keep it. But all evidence shows that the house’s foundation is rotten. Whereas the media focuses on newer and more obnoxious anti-Israel Democrats such as Rashida Tlaib, there are others with longer records in that department such as Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) or Hank Johnson (D-GA) who has called Jewish settlers of the West Bank “termites”. Keith Ellison was deemed to be so hostile as a congressman that Alan Dershowitz threatened to leave the party were he to be voted chairman of the DNC in 2017. In his case the issues are way beyond mere hostility to Israel - which can be construed as a geopolitical issue - given Ellison’s past associations with the Nation of Islam and its openly anti-Jewish leader Louis Farrakhan. Perez won the nod for DNC Chair, so instead the people of Minnesota have Ellison as their attorney general thanks to the 2018 midterms when the Washington Post deemed his denials of Farrakhan ties worthy of four Pinnochios. Since 2006 Ellison has denied both his prior affiliation with Farrakhan as well as allegations that he has secretly met him since then, yet there has been no effort this year by either DMFI, Dershowitz or any other pro-Israel Democratic group to unseat him during the upcoming August primary when he will be running for reelection. As a state AG Ellison has much more influence over the lives of his constituents than any of Minnesota’s members of Congress, but American Jewish leaders, clergy, and activists have collective amnesia over his record.
DMFI and Mellman also have the glaring blight on their record of endorsing Rev. Raphael Warnock in 2020 for Georgia’s runoff election to one of its US Senate election seats. As of this writing they have not re-endorsed Warnock who is running for his first full term this year. In 2020 they were fully aware that only two years earlier he had signed on to a letter that compared Israel’s presence in the West Bank to the apartheid regime systems in Namibia and South Africa, and delivered a sermon that likened Israelis to “birds of prey” shooting unarmed “Palestinian brothers and sisters”. But Mellman claimed that he “straightened out” the Warnock’s positions during a joint Zoom call, so he went ahead with the endorsement. Warnock triumphed over Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler.
“Don’t you dare tell me to vote R—”
Many who read this might dismiss it as a partisan appeal. It isn’t. The Democratic and Republican parties are like two jars of the same condiment with different food colourings, and the pandering by DMFI to Jewish voters is being played by Democrats in similar ways to other communities. The act of voting for either is just one small way to influence how our lives are managed by the government, but when it fails us we have to adapt. So I’m not asking you to vote, let alone telling you for whom to vote. As America’s economic downturn continues, the best thing to focus on is networking with others to survive its effects. While some of you may interpret it as alarmism, take a quick glance at this Prepper’s Guide for what to buy before a recession, and let’s all just hope that I’m wrong and you’ll never need them.
*Among the perks Menendez received from Melgen were alleged to be sexual favours from underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. Menendez was eventually able to beat the charges in 2019 after a long drawn out trial. Melgen received a last second pardon from Pres. Donald Trump on Jan. 20, 2021.
**Warnock was also arrested for interfering in a police investigation into child abuse at a Maryland summer camp affiliated with his Baltimore church in 2003 long before he moved to Atlanta. “Fact checks” attempt to paint this as “mostly false” given that he was never prosecuted, but legal action led to the accused person being punitively fired, the camp being denied health code permits, and Warnock leaving the church in 2003 after it came to a legal settlement with the victim. He is also accused by his ex-wife of running over her foot while fleeing an argument in March 2020.
Sharp and to the point, as always. 👌
Good piece. How much money does Mellman have or plan to spend in Nov? Or are they only spending in Dem primaries?