We’re not yet officially in the “silly season,” that cascade of bullshit that will dominate what passes for political discourse between Labor Day and the November midterms.
But as with Christmas, the silly season comes earlier and earlier with each election cycle, and one could argue that it kicked off unofficially last Tuesday, with the Michigan primary.
The silliness was, as usual, aided and abetted by the New York Times, in a series of disingenuous takes on the narrow victory of Abdul El-Sayed over Haley Stevens in the race for the Democratic Senate nomination.
The Times’ started hyperventilating over the rise of El-Sayed weeks ago, strongly echoing its equally biased misreading of the rise of Zohran Mamdani. Both candidates were Muslims with funny names who weren’t afraid to speak the word ‘socialist’ out loud. Even worse — even more likely to make the Times’ editorial board queasy — they were both willing to openly blast the conventional wisdom about Israel, which has turned politically toxic. Despite all these things, and despite both candidates being vastly outspent, they both won.
The fact that El-Sayed won by such a narrow margin has been taken by most of the mainstream media to be proof of how “divided” Democrats are. After all, El-Sayed’s lead in the polls had been touted as between five and eight points, so how could the actual race have turned out so close? Ignoring the fact that polls have become notoriously unreliable in recent elections, these media outlets have also minimized the last-minute infusion of $30 million into Stevens’s campaign by AIPAC, the Israeli lobbying group. If you’d seen the barrage of commercials she ran, it’s no surprise that she narrowed the gap.
But that didn’t fit today’s version of the Democrats-in-disarray narrative, exemplified by the Times’ headline “Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left.” This appeared a mere one day following El-Sayed’s victory.
The article seems almost knowingly dishonest, with the tone set in the opening paragraph:
“The embattled establishment of the Democratic Party searched furiously for a political reset after Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s progressive victory in Michigan handed the party’s long-dominant moderate wing its most painful defeat of the year.”
Wow. “Embattled,” “searched furiously,” “painful defeat.” That’s a lot of martial imagery for the day after a primary.
But when you read on, it turns out the so-called “moderate Democrats” preparing for “war” are not exactly an army. “They” are, in fact, the president of Third Way, an organization that has been around for decades without making any discernible dent in the national discourse. Like most third-party “centrist” movements, it raises money from “sensible” people upset with the performance of both major parties. It purports to spend those funds on research and “center-left” advocacy, whatever those things mean. Its accomplishments, if any, remain largely invisible, and I would not be the first to posit that their work is, in reality, a fund-raising scam.
Regardless, the article takes them at face value, lending them a credibility they hardly merit. The Times needed a “war” on short notice, and Third Way was happy to provide. The organization duly announced that it is earmarking $15 million between now and 2028 to “discredit democratic socialism:”
“…the effort would include opposition research into D.S.A. [Democratic Socialists of America], polling, social media programs and educating Democratic activists and leaders.”
Oh no, not polling!
Until Third Way actually spends some of that money, there is no reason to assume it will, or that the market for their findings will be brisk. Yet the Times, conflating intent with execution, reports it as if the war is already raging and that $15 million is already out there inflicting leftist casualties.
If you can hang in there for the entire article, you’ll notice that halfway through, the Times undermines its own thesis. It reports that within 24 hours of El-Sayed’s victory, virtually the entire Democratic establishment had lined up to endorse him, starting with Stevens herself:
“Most party leaders — from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York to former Vice President Kamala Harris — quickly embraced Dr. El-Sayed’s Senate candidacy, given the stakes of the Michigan seat at the play.”
They don’t mention that he was also endorsed by Kirsten Gillibrand — as “moderate” a senator as you can get without being a Republican — who happens to be head of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and will be tasked with getting El-Sayed elected.
To be sure, many of these less progressive Democrats are holding their nose, but they can also see the writing on the wall. All the real energy in the party is flowing leftward, and the “Israel-right-or-wrong” argument is well past its sell-by date.
Which doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a week of overwrought hand-wringing in Michigan, with Jews in particular lining up to denounce El-Sayed in quasi-apocalyptic terms. Not all Jews, to be sure. I’m guessing at least as many are fed up with Israel, disgusted by Gaza, and view Bibi Netanyahu as a genocidal monster.
There is a legitimate concern about how El-Sayed will fare in a general election in a purple state, and an alarming spike in overt antisemitism that seems to have been emboldened by his victory. But that said, there is little sign that the “war” being declared in the Times is a real one.
The split among Democrats is more in the minds of pundits than voters, and Michigan voters now have three months to realize that the real problem remains Trump and his determination to destroy our only planet, which he is pursuing with reckless abandon.
So let’s keep it in perspective. El-Sayed is vying to become a back-bench senator with little power to influence anything, least of all the course of U.S.-Israel relations. Those relations will take whatever course they’re going to take, whether he’s in the Senate or not, and at any rate, Israel is about the last thing on the minds of voters who can’t afford to eat.
Will he win? Michigan has disappointed before, but if this is really a wave election, then everything would seem to line up in his favor.
I am now going to give the last word to the venerable and inimitable CharlesP. Pierce of Esquire, who last week was observing the chaotic last days of the Michigan primary, and begging for a little sanity:
“Whoever wins this race … has one job and one job only: to repair the damage done to the republic over the past decade, to do it relentlessly and ruthlessly, and to shore up and reform the institutions of government so a similar pack of bastards can’t gather in those institutions again.
Jesus, eyes on the prize, people.”
Good summation of the situation! Votes for DSA candidates (which, although mostly aligned,, El-Sayed is not) are for the "grow a spine" portion of the Democratic party. For many decades, Democrats both in the executive and congressional branches of the federal government have stayed well within the bounds of proper behavior (no doubt because they almost always have the support of a majority of the citizenry).
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the Republican party has used every shortcut, dirty trick, and cheat code they could get their hands on. Those tactics have brought us here. Dems are going to need some dirty trickery of their own if they want to unwind this authoritarian takeover.