So, Jamaal Bowman lost his primary against George Latimer. I know I havent covered this story much, but this is what happened. Jamaal Bowman is a progressive in congress. He's a member of the squad, and more recently, he's been a thorn in the side of the democratic party, and especially Israel.
Now, there were a lot of conspiring interests that wanted him out. You had the DNC who doesnt like progressives in congress in the first place and likes corporate democrats, and you had AIPAC, who REALLY wanted him gone because they apparently have insane amounts of power and can run people out of office who dont toe the party line. Anyway, establishment dems fell in behind Latimer with Hillary Clinton endorsing him, and then again, AIPAC threw tons of money at Latimer to get him to dethrone Bowman. And it worked. We just lost one of our most progressive members of congress.
As you can imagine, I'm understandably kinda pissed. As we know, I'm typically on the progressive side of the democratic party. I hate the establishment, I hate corporate influence, and them displacing a progressive to get a corporate dem in makes my skin crawl. it's that sort of crap that makes me not wanna vote for them in November. Not that I'm in a position to withhold my vote this election with donald trump and the religious nutcases on the ballot on the right.
And on the Israel thing, look, my views on israel are nuanced, but as far as AIPAC goes, I DONT like how much power a foreign government wields over our own politicians. I mean, in Washington, Israel is so aggressive with lobbying that it seems like going against them is pretty much political suicide. I'm not saying this is right. I actually hate this and wish we could curtail this influence. I think it's unhealthy for our democracy.
But, at the same time, I also have to project some ire at my fellow progressives. Look, it's been quite clear that since 2016, we've been fighting an uphill battle to gain influence within the democratic party. And we havent gotten much of anywhere. There's like 9 people in the squad, we just lost one of them. Some of the others like Rashida Tlaib are fricking hated over this Israel stuff, and we're spending all of this political capital on this Israel issue, for what, exactly? What is this getting us? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Yet, for some reason, the left seems to be deciding that THIS is the hill that we must die on. That we must go all in against Israel to save Palestine and honestly? It's just destroying our credibility and setting us backwards. I'm actually pissed at my fellow progressives this election cycle for being so narrow minded on this issue. I hear it again and again about how this is our red line of red lines and this is the only issue that seems to matter this election cycle.
And in doing so, we're literally shooting ourselves in the foot, destroying any influence we have in congress, and getting the wrath of fricking Yahweh brought down on us....over this.
I've always said it with the purity testing thing. Sometimes you gotta figure out what issues youre willing to stick your neck out on, and stick to those, but on other stuff, you gotta give a little. You're never gonna get your way 100% of the time. You gotta prioritize what issues you're for. Like with me, I'm for UBI, universal healthcare, free college, a climate bill, reducing the work week, that sort of thing. I have a clear vision with a clear set of issues that are "my issues". And then on other issues, I'm more flexible. I'm willing to bend on things for electability. Some examples of this are on immigration, where I'm perfectly fine going along with Biden basically being a trump lite to get reelected. Or alternatively, I'm willing to overlook a lot of pandering on the issue from the left that I find cringe as well. Or on israel, you think I like what Israel is doing? Because I really don't. But am I gonna stand up to Israel and get thrown out of office over this crap? HELL NO!
And that's something I wish the left would learn. The left is being irrationally morally inflexible this election cycle. And it's actually problematic for us. We're literally LOSING ELECTIONS over THIS crap. And I wish that we'd stop and back off and stop being such morally self righteous morons over this issue. Out of all of the issues in the world, THIS IS THE ONE WE CHOOSE TO DIE ON THE HILL OVER? REALLY? Come on.
I hope the left gets its crap together, fast, realizes that this is literally a LOSING ISSUE for us, and gets its head out of you know where. Because we could literally be purged from congress in a systematic fashion over this. For as much as you guys care about this issue, so do the zionists, and they have far more money and resources and organization to get us thrown out of power over it. So just keep your heads down, concede on this one, and live to fight another day.
And that's what I'm going to say on this one. I expect this to be yet another unpopular take among the modern left, but someone has to say it, because you guys are like a suicidal cult on this issue these days.
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