Burn Him Before They Burn Him

Back in June 2025, I gave a bit of unsolicited advice to AIPAC and DMFI types.

If AIPAC/DMFI sorts were smart (they’re not), they’d be advising Dems to chain themselves to ICE gates bc D voters are ready to oust anyone who doesn’t seem to be fighting tooth and nail and I guarantee the primary challengers will be more hostile to Israel than any current incumbent D.

The current crop of incumbent Dems is the traditional pro-Israel coalition’s last hope for any progressive influence whatsoever, and those incumbents only will survive their next primary election if D voters truly believe they’re going to burn MAGA to the ground and salt the earth beneath it.

I won't say I'm always the best political predictor, but on this one I feel like I was spot on. AIPAC and DMFI are indeed not smart, and Democratic politicians who were not perceived as ready to rip MAGA apart with their bare hands struggled mightily in the primaries against progressive challengers who were almost universally more Israel-critical than the men and women they defeated.

Fast forward to the next cycle, and we've already got our first challenger to perhaps the most-reviled and (most pro-Israel) Democratic incumbent, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman -- a Palestinian-American writer named Ahmed Moor.

Let's get one thing clear. Fetterman is toast. If he does decide to run for reelection (not foreordained) as a Democrat (also not foreordained), he will be demolished in the primary. The only real question is who will end up taking him out. And the first benchmark any viable challenger to Fetterman must clear in a Democratic primary is that they must, once again, be perceived as someone ready to burn MAGA to the ground and salt the earth beneath it.

I do not know anything about Moor, and in particular whether he personally is a real viable candidate. But I do know that Fetterman's eventual vanquisher will not be a fellow pro-Israel hawk. AIPAC and DMFI need to accept that reality. Yet there certainly are degrees of distance from the old-style pro-Israel consensus that's rapidly crumbling -- a major difference between, oh, I don't know, Tom Malinowski versus Chris Rabb. So once again, if AIPAC and DMFI were smart -- which they are not -- they would be encouraging "moderate" Democratic politicians to absolutely come out guns blazing about being ready to flambe the MAGA movement from now until the end of time, and they would be providing every bit of backup possible to buttress said politician in that endeavor. Because if their guy doesn't do it, someone else on the farther-left will.

Do I think they've learned a lesson from this cycle? They almost certainly have not. To the contrary, I suspect they will try to Malinowski the next Malinowski and so open the door for someone far more troublesome than Malinowski to be the one to claim Fetterman's head. But I will be like Cassandra, and continue to pour my good advice out into the world where nobody will listen to it. Such is my curse.

It's Not ALL Donald Trump's Fault

The fallout from the 2026 midterms continues, and the knives are out. Many Republicans are blaming Donald Trump for the bloodbath endured by Team Red. For example, Eugene Volokh recommends this essay by Bill Otis as "worth reading".

There is plenty in Otis' essay which I think is just plain silly. The notion that Republicans would have performed better had they committed to a land war in Iran, and that Trump's main failing there was that he didn't have the "statesmanship" to sell such a war to the nation, is, shall we say, dubious. But that meat of Otis' argument, and the part Volokh excerpts, is, I think more line with a common conservative refrain sung over the past few days:

In an election where overwhelmingly the preeminent issue was affordability — in other and more candid words, the increasingly obvious decline in the standard of living huge numbers of people are feeling — what has Trump been occupying himself with? Here's a partial list: Building the White House ballroom (from which, in a tone deaf rendition that defies description) he gave his election post-mortem; re-doing the East Potomac Golf Course to make it a "premium" experience; building a Triumphal Arch no one asked for or thought about when they elected him; demanding prosecutions for imaginary vandalism at the Reflecting Pool; invading Greenland; making Canada the 51st state; re-naming Lake Ontario; re-naming the Gulf of Mexico; and perhaps most prominently, making sure his name gets put on the Kennedy Center even though he had nothing to do with its creation. Then there are numerous other items: Trump passports, Trump one-dollar gold coins, and "commemorative" $100 bills, to name three.

Exactly what does this Adventure in Narcissism seem like to the voter — actually, the millions of voters — who feel like they're being stretched thin? You don't need a florid imagination to answer that one. They gave their answer last night.

I don't disagree that these Trumpian initiatives -- equal parts self-aggrandizing and utterly tone deaf -- played a substantial role in driving voter resentment against him and his party.

But here's the thing: Republicans could have stopped all of these things.

They had unified control of Congress. They had plenty of levers by which they could have pushed back. They exercised none of them. Acting like the Republican Party, as an electoral institution, had no agency at all in any of this is absurd. None of what Trump was doing was a secret, or activity that was wholly and totally insulated from political disapproval in spite of Congress' best efforts. To the extent that Trump was behaving like an "oaf" or a "child" or with "immaturity", it stands out that the consensus GOP response was to say "go right ahead sir" right up until the moment the election blew up in their faces. That's an independent moral failing by essentially every elected Republican, and one that voters could and did justly punish of its own accord. Why should any voter trust a Republican with power if they couldn't rouse themselves to oppose any of this?

In short, voters were not, in fact, just observing and rejecting Donald Trump. They were observing and rejecting the Republican Party for its fecklessness, obsequiousness, and subservience to Trump. And that all is indicative of basic character failings that go far beyond one man in the Oval Office.

2026 Was Not The Year

Every election cycle, commentators race to breathlessly declare that this will be the year that Jews stop voting Democratic. And then every year it doesn't happen. And then every year Republicans ... well, let me just reprint the chronology I identified way back in 2014.

1) (Non-Jewish) Republicans say they want to be Jews' best friends, particularly with respect to Israel.

2) Jews express policy positions with respect to Israel that differ from those advocated by Republicans.

3) Republicans, cognizant of the greater stakes Jews have in this issue and respectful of Jewish opinions generally, rethink their positions. Republicans accuse Jews of being delusional and/or betraying their own people.

4) Republicans express bafflement that Jews continue to vote Democratic.

We talked about it in 2014, and 2015, and 2017, and 2020. And so again today. 

Exit polling once again found that Jews voted overwhelmingly Democratic on their congressional ballot -- 72%, to be precise, against 24% GOP. That's a net 48 point margin, for those keeping track. It's also remarkably steady -- Democrats have been pulling at least seventy percent of the Jewish vote in every election since 2016 (they were in the mid-to-high sixties in the three before that). The absolute nicest silver lining you could give to the "Jexodus" narrative is that the Jewish Democratic vote didn't appear to spike this year in tandem with the broader Democratic wave. But the thing is that the Jewish vote is so overwhelmingly Democratic that it can sometimes be a bit countercyclical (for example, Jews voted Democratic at a slightly higher rate in 2016 compared to 2012 -- very much not in line with the national trend). And look -- at the end of the day, we're poking around the edges about electoral margins normally seen only by an Assad. There's only so much one can do to "complicate" the voting patterns of a 70+% Democratic constituency.

If we zoom in on Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed reportedly won 60% of the Jewish vote, against Mike Rogers 36%. That's still a crushing margin, albeit lower than the national average and far lower than the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Jocelyn Benson (who is Jewish) received. So if one wants to say that El-Sayed, specifically, underperformed with Jewish voters, I think that's fair enough, although again the difference is between overwhelming support and merely massive support. But it's also worth noting that El-Sayed underperformed Benson generally by about four points, so the gap there wasn't just among Jewish voters.

In any event, the point is that we go through this every year. And every year the results don't change, which somehow doesn't stop us from going through the same this will be the year rigamarole in the next year. Yet ultimately, the basic explanation for why Jews vote Democratic remains as simple as it ever was:

First, on every issue aside from Israel, Jews prefer Democrats to Republicans.

Second, on the issue of Israel, Jews prefer Democrats to Republicans.

The end. 

(Oh, and incidentally, if you're looking for this year's "all the Jews who vote Democratic aren't real Jews" entrant, Inna Vernikov has you covered).

Initial Thoughts After the Tsunami

It went better than we thought.

Certainly, my predictions -- which still had Democrats taking back the House and Senate! -- were far too conservative.

The final tallies are still in the air. But even with what we know so far -- boy howdy.

Democrats don't just win the Texas Senate seat -- they win essentially every contested statewide race there is. Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Railroad Commissioner, four Supreme Court seats -- it's a wrecking ball.

Ohio? Flipped. South Carolina? Flipped. Iowa? Flipped. Kansas? Flipped. Mississippi?(!?!?) May well just flip. That doesn't even get into the races that we "expected" to win -- and isn't it fun to treat Georgia and North Carolina as "expected"? And let's not forget Maine. Perhaps Susan Collins should've been more concerned.

El-Sayed looks like he'll win Michigan, meaning my most pessimistic prediction (which I made pre-Stevens betrayal) didn't pan out. I'm glad to see it. Ironically, it kind of does seem like AES ran behind other Democrats in the context of this historic tsunami year (he's lagging Jocelyn Benson in the Governor's race by about four points), but it's still going to be enough for him to win.

Maybe there was still some meat on the bone. Florida and Louisiana were tantalizing close. Could some more national support have made the difference? Maybe. Hindsight is 20-20. I find it hard to wonder what could have been given the magnitude of the victory.

The House looks to be a complete landslide. A subtler pleasure of the evening was seeing Republican names I hadn't thought about for years pop up on the screen, only to learn they were losing races that weren't even seen as competitive. Scott DesJarlais, Ann Wagner, and Virginia Foxx, you're being paged.

Closer to home, there were fewer surprises. Tina Kotek's reelection was called early. My congresswoman, "Give 'em hell" Janelle Bynum, won reelection handily, as did Marie Gluesenkamp Perez across the river in Washington. We look set to reelect all our Portland city councilors, as I predicted. Shannon Singleton seems poised for an upset win to take the Multnomah County Chair, which I also predicted (probably my best "upset" prediction).

What am I still waiting on? Alaska, obviously; and the conclusion of the Mississippi race which seems almost sure to go to a recount (still can't believe that). Nevada hasn't reported any results for some reason. I'm really rooting for Scott Wiener to win his D-on-D matchup against Connie Chan to succeed Nancy Pelosi (he's up 10 with about half reporting).

But honestly? It's already a demolition derby. And the feels really good.

I do think we should take a moment to celebrate this outcome -- a victory shared by all factions of the party, from moderate to progressive. In terms of what's next, we're already hearing a lot of word salad about whether Democrats need to be bipartisan or "get things done" or cooperate or do this or that. My view is that Democrats need to be Democrats. Pass popular laws and dare Trump to veto them. Put Trump's criminal associates' feet to the fire. Show genuine oversight. Tackle corruption. And where Democrats have taken back power at the state level, do anything and everything possible to shore up democracy. These wins by no means show that the egregious attacks on our voting rights and our democratic system itself were irrelevant or overblown. 

The thing about once-in-a-generation tsunamis is that they don't typically last for an entire generation. Seize this opportunity to get things done, and show people that Democrats are a party worth voting for not in one election with one deeply unpopular president, but regularly, across many elections to come.

Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Wreck Free

Continuing on with the theme for the past few days, we can check in on what "Nonnegotiable" is up to in Michigan. For those who don't remember, Nonnegotiable is a group of Michigan Jewish Democrats who responded to Abdul El-Sayed's primary victory by sending him a list of five ultimatums nonnegotiable demands that are absolutely not ultimatums but only brook no argument or discussion and must be agreed to unconditionally before a conversation can even begin. This, unsurprisingly, did not engender a positive response, and Nonnegotiable has spent the ensuing weeks complaining about how they're being overlooked and marginalized while also promising to take their movement national.

Anyway, what they're proposing is that Jews cast a protest vote by writing-in "Emma Lazarus" on their Senate ballot. This is an interesting gambit, in large part because I can't see any universe in which it doesn't blow up in their faces. Let's run through the plausible outcomes.

Possibility 1: As polling predicts, AES wins handily in spite of this maneuver. People learn Nonnegotiable was all bark and no bite. Moreover, because Nonnegotiable helpfully suggested an identifying mark for its protest votes, we can see just how irrelevant they were when the final results come in and "Emma Lazarus" has some 850 votes out 4,500,000 cast.

Possibility 2: Mike Rogers wins, and Nonnegotiable gives him his margin of victory. It is subsequently showered with all the adoration and praise that flowed from Democrats to Ralph Nader and the Green Party in 2000 after they provided the margin that let George W. Bush win Florida and the presidency. I'm not sure how people haven't internalized this lesson yet, but "we're the reason why your mortal enemies are in office" does not result in Democrats wanting to appease you, it results in Democrats hating you with an incandescent fury and wanting to put your heads on spikes outside the castle walls.

Possibility 3: Mike Rogers wins by more than the "Emma Lazarus" margin. Then we're going to get some weird two-step where they simultaneously insist that they mattered to the outcome, but also that it's totally unfair to blame them for the outcome. This incoherency will not go well for them.

The broader point, and this something Scott Lemieux (I think, I can't find it) has argued, is that in broad coalition politics a faction gains influence by showing it can win races, not by sabotaging other members of the coalition and thereby losing races. "[T]hrowing a tantrum and 'withholding your vote' by refusing to support democrats just makes everyone mad at you and diminishes your influence." The near-uniform Democratic reaction (including by very pro-Israel Democrats) to Haley Stevens of "screw Haley Stevens"? Nonnegotiable can expect a similar reception, ameliorated solely by the fact of their comparative irrelevancy.

Likewise, one might also learn a lesson that engaging with fellow coalitional stakeholders via ultimatum (protestations notwithstanding, yes, that's what Nonnegotiable did) is not a good strategy either. Nonnegotiable, in particular, made the especially counterproductive choice to frame its ultimatums in the most confrontational language possible, and expressly sought to evade the possibility of agreement by preemptively deriding any plausible steps El-Sayed might take to try and create consensus or reassurance as a sort of cheating ("cleverly worded arguments"). Of course El-Sayed was not going to talk to these people, and I don't blame him -- they've made it quite clear they're uninterested in having a conversation on anything other that purely supplicatory terms.

Return of the Wrecker

Well, Haley Stevens crossed the Rubicon, officially endorsing Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race.

One doesn't need to say much more than what Chuck Schumer did: "A despicable betrayal." Stevens' Democratic career was already dead, but now it's ... extra dead? Dead-dead? Whatever. I find myself not caring about the verbiage.

A few more notes:

First, we should not downplay Stevens' tacit decision to give approval to the despicable Islamophobia that Republicans have been thrusting out against AES. That choice is made more salient, not less, by the fact that Stevens is framing her choice around opposition to antisemitism. Remember: the same logic that tells some it's okay to endorse Islamophobes in order to fight antisemitism, also licenses others to endorse antisemites in order to fight Islamophobia. This approach to "fighting antisemitism" remains one of the most obviously bone-headed and shortsighted political strategies I've ever encountered.

Second, we also should not at all accept Stevens framing her treason around finding antisemitism unacceptable, because she doesn't. It bears repeating once more that just a few days ago one of Rogers' top surrogates, Ohio GOP Senator Bernie Moreno, told a crowd at a GOP rally that anyone who does not recognize that "Jesus came here for our salvation ... should be nowhere near Washington, D.C.." That is, to be clear, a declaration that no Jew (or Muslim) should be allowed to hold higher office in this nation. Even on the metric of "most antisemitic thing said by a surrogate" that dwarfs anything Hasan Piker has said -- and I say that with no love lost for Piker, but rather to underscore just how outrageous Moreno's comments are that they cleared even the bar Piker had set. And that doesn't even get into all the other standard-issue ways the MAGA movement threatens Jews.

Haley Stevens is not taking a stand against antisemitism and she's not trying to protect Jews. She is taking a stand for antisemitism -- and Islamophobia, and anti-democratic fascism -- to salve her own bruised ego. Don't get it twisted.

Third, over the past few days -- before the endorsement but while the Stevens/AES rift had exploded -- Rogers had started lavishing Stevens with praise ("courageous leader", "conducted herself with nothing but class"), and obviously that feting paid big dividends. From a campaign strategy standpoint, of course, this was very smart by Rogers. And one might notice that I'm not seeing a lot of angst from Rogers' voters mewling about "how dare he praise a Democrat" and "monoparty!" Cf. Liz Cheney. 

Finally, perhaps the most salient thing Stevens has "accomplished" is to completely invert the valence of who is a "wrecker" in Democratic politics. Up until a few days ago, if you had played word association around "which nominal progressives sabotaged Democratic chances in Michigan by refusing to support the Democratic nominee because of their views on Israel/Palestine", the general answer would have been Uncommitted sorts and other pro-Palestine activists. To be honest, in an era of nose-diving support for Israel, residual rage at that cadre for said wrecking behavior in 2024 might have been the main brake on burgeoning anti-Israel support. But now Stevens has turned that on its head and re-associated anti-Democratic (and anti-democratic) sabotage with pro-Israel and anti-antisemitism activists. Heckuva job, Haley!

Anyway, we should absolutely blame Haley Stevens for Haley Stevens' bad and immoral choices. The end.

The Empire Wrecks Back

The fallout from the deliberately inflammatory Rebellion PAC ad continues, as it seems to have created a massive rift between Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and his vanquished primary opponent Haley Stevens. Stevens, whose fiancé Jason Turkish already publicly announced he was endorsing AES' Republican opponent, came out with a lengthy list of demands for El-Sayed before she'd deign to appear with him. El-Sayed, who'd already disavowed the ad and was reportedly ready to more explicitly condemn it, bristled at Stevens' ultimatums. Now the unity event is off, and Republicans are salivating at another Dems-in-disarray opportunity.

First thing is first. While I agree with those who attribute this whole cascade to the fallout from that terrible ad, that in no way excuses Stevens' wretched choices here. She's responsible for her own choices, and these choices are pure wrecking behavior. It's all the more frustrating because Stevens' initial concession and endorsement after a bitter and disappointing primary loss to AES were model behavior, and earned plenty of justified praise by appearing to prove that "blue no matter who" wasn't just a demand put upon the left by the center, but applied reciprocally as well. Even many of her critics were lauding her and holding her up as a contrast to, say, Jasmine Crockett. For her to backslide now, so late in the game, is an act of pure ego. As far as I'm concerned, she and Turkish are no better than any other Michigan "progressive" who -- whether by explicit endorsement or tacit foot-dragging -- functionally sabotages the Democratic nominee in a progressive race (yes, I continue to think that the right analogue for these people are the folks who refused to back Biden/Harris in 2024, and yes, that comparison is meant to be a supremely negative one).

At the very least, I'd hope that Stevens (and Turkish) have rendered themselves personas non grata in Democratic politics going forward. Whether that actually will happen -- who's to say (Darializa Avila Chevalier didn't even vote for Biden in 2020 and now she's headed to Congress, so, you know, memories can be short). But for my part -- and I say this as someone who probably would have voted for Stevens over AES in the primary (albeit McMorrow over both of them) -- Stevens is dead to me, and I very much hope her career is indeed over.

David's Election 2026 Predictions!

We're a week out from election day, and Jill and I have submitted our ballots. But what will the nation do? I'll give my predictions below, in a fun, not-at-all-anxiety-laden game for everyone!

(One note: I'm historically pretty bad at this.).

U.S. House

Not going to do individual races here, but I will predict that Democrats retake the House, and by a pretty comfortable but not overwhelming margin. We'll go with a 25-seat Democratic majority when all is said and done.

Senate

Alaska -- Mary Petola (D-flip): She's well-liked in the state and has consistently led Dan Sullivan in the polls. I think she'll take more votes than both Dan Sullivans combined, making an already frivolous DOJ lawsuit even more pointless than it already was.

Florida -- Ashley Moody (R): Nixon may make it closer than some people expect, but Florida will still be Florida. I don't think Nixon's DSA affiliation seems to either be helping or hurting her in the general, so take from that what you will.

Georgia -- Jon Ossoff (D): If you had told me a few years ago that a Georgia Senate race would be a Democratic walkover, I'd have laughed. But here we are (and it's nice to be here!).

Iowa -- Ashley Hinson (R): This one really feels like a pure toss-up, and it's been a while since Iowa has felt like a pure toss-up. I can't quite bring myself to call the Democratic upset, but if Turek does win it really could augur a broader shift of the rust-belt midwest back to its at least swingier roots.

Kansas -- Roger Marshall (R): If "it's been a while since Iowa has felt like a toss-up", I'm not sure Kansas has ever felt like a toss-up. It'd be amazing if Hamilton can get over the hump though.

Maine -- Troy Jackson (D-flip): Jackson may not be the most inspiring candidate, but he's competent enough (and doesn't have any pesky Nazi tattoos). Susan Collins' luck will finally run out in a blue state with severe blue headwinds. Good riddance.

Michigan -- Mike Rogers (R-flip): This is a pure vibes-based call. I would not put money on this, and I'd be very sad at this outcome. But AES just doesn't seem like he's been able to close the show here. I'm not sure how much to take from the polls vastly overstating AES' support in the primary -- primaries are not general elections, so the same "mistake" doesn't necessarily cross-apply -- but it's another factor making me nervous. Of all my picks, this is the one I'm least sure about and will be least surprised to be wrong about. But if we see a "surprise" GOP victory anywhere on election day, this is where I think it'll be.

Minnesota -- Peggy Flanagan (D): A lot of polls have had this race surprisingly tight, but nobody is putting their money where their mouth is and actually acting like it will be close. Put me in the column that says this won't be end up being all that close.

Mississippi -- Cindy Hyde-Smith (R): Wow, this one would feel good. But I still can't fathom the GOP actually losing a race in this part of the country unless they run a literal pedophile. Which they have been dumb enough to do in the past, but not this time.

North Carolina -- Roy Cooper (D-flip): If it weren't for Georgia taking the crown of "I can't believe this state of all places will be a Democratic walkover!", it'd be North Carolina.

Nebraska -- Pete Ricketts (R): I've been burned too many times thinking that "this will be the year a Nebraska independent upsets the apple cart!"

New Hampshire -- Chris Pappas (D): Republicans have a far-above-replacement level candidate here, but I can't imagine New Hampshire bucking a Democratic wave trend this year (and it's not like Pappas is some wounded bird either).

Ohio -- Sherrod Brown (D-flip): What I don't think Turek can do in Iowa, I do think Brown can do in Ohio. It would be hilarious of Vivek Ramaswamy's late campaign implosion gave Brown enough reverse-coattails to carry him to victory.

South Carolina -- Darlene Graham (R): Another race that really shouldn't be competitive but has an intoxicating brew of terrible GOP candidate and terrible GOP national environment. Here, too, though, I dare not believe.

Texas -- James Talarico (D-flip): The theme of the Senate predictions, you may have noticed, is David being unwilling to believe that Democrats can crawl across the finish line in historically GOP territory. There have been too many times where we've thought "maybe Iowa is close" or "maybe Florida is swingy again", and it hasn't panned out -- and Blue Texas is probably the apex of that. But eff it -- here's where I'll decide to believe. Ken Paxton is a generationally-terrible candidate, and Talarico is more than strong enough to take advantage. Add that to a collapse in GOP Latino support, and I'm willing to ignore all of my doomer instincts and say this will, indeed, be the year.

Net: D+4

Most Likely To Be Wrong: (1) Michigan, (2) Ohio, (3) Texas, (4) Iowa, (5) South Carolina, (6) Kansas, (7) Alaska, (8) New Hampshire, (9) Maine.

Governor

Alaska -- Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D-flip): The Alaska Senate race so overshadowed the governor's race that I didn't even fully realize this contest was competitive. And in fairness, it may not be: the most recent polling has Kreiss-Tomkins holding a double-digit lead. He even got a cross-party endorsement from Lisa Murkowski!

Alabama -- Tommy Tuberville (R): I love Doug Jones, but sadly America's dumbest Senator will soon become America's dumbest Governor.

Arizona -- Katie Hobbs (D): I can still see this race being maybe a bit closer than folks predict, but Hobbs should take it home.

Florida -- Byron Donalds (R): Donalds has been struggling more than I'd expect to lock this race down. Racism? Maybe! But like with the Senate, I ultimately expect Florida to be Florida, and put the Republican into office.

Georgia -- Keisha Lance-Bottoms (D-flip): Late polling has seen this race tighten up considerably, which I don't love, but the enthusiasm still seems to be with Democrats.

Iowa -- Rob Sand (D-flip): I know what I said about Iowa re: the Senate race, but I think for a state position Democrats are better positioned to compete, and Sand's consistently led this entire race.

Kansas -- Ty Masterson (R-flip): Weird to write "R-flip" for Kansas. Even weirder given how badly Marshall is struggling in the Senate race. It'd be wild if Kansas elects a Democrat Senator while also swapping parties for Governor in the same cycle.

Maine -- Hannah Pingree (D): Much less stressful than the Maine Senate race.

Michigan -- Jocelyn Benson (D): John James seems set to take up the Martha McSally award for "candidate who seems good on paper but can't ever seem to, you know, win."

Minnesota -- Amy Klobuchar (D): Amy Klobuchar has always curb-stomped any Republican dumb enough to face her. That streak will not end now.

Nebraska -- Jim Pillen (R): Haven't heard a peep on this one, which is good news for the GOP.

Nevada -- Aaron Ford (D-flip): Nevada's purple in the sense that Republicans can still squeak out victories in very good GOP years. This is not going to be a very good GOP year.

New York -- Kathy Hochul (D): It's cute how some people think this race will be close.

Ohio -- Amy Acton (D-flip): I'm not sure why any part of me thinks "surely, this behavior by [GOP candidate] is so viscerally repulsive that the voters will recoil", given, you know, a lifetime of experience. But somehow, I do believe that regarding Vivek Ramaswamy! Even though as far as I can tell, polls have not actually picked up a dip following his horrific "being raped as a child makes Amy Acton damaged goods" closing pitch.

Oklahoma -- Mike Mazzei (R): It'd take something extraordinary for a Republican to lose in Oklahoma, and if something extraordinary was afoot you'd think I'd at least recognize the candidate's name.

Oregon -- Tina Kotek (D): Kotek may not be inspiring the most adoration from voters right now, but this is not going to be the year Oregon puts a Republican into office.

South Carolina -- Alan Wilson (R): A lot more low-key than the Senate race.

Texas -- Greg Abbott (R): It's amazing what running a normal terrible Republican, as opposed to a cartoonishly corrupt mob boss figure Republican, can do for Republican chances in Texas.

Vermont -- Phil Scott (R): Just change parties, man. Or at least call yourself an independent.

Wisconsin -- David Crowley (D): Given the insane ending to the Democratic primary here, I'm surprised I haven't heard more about the general. I guess that's good for Crowley, though?

Net: D+4

Most Likely To Be Wrong: (1) Ohio, (2) Wisconsin, (3) Nevada, (4) Iowa, (5) Georgia, (6) Texas, (7) Arizona, (8) Florida, (9) Vermont.

Bonus Local Races!

Multnomah County Chair -- Shannon Singleton: I voted for Julia Brim-Edwards. But I don't know -- it feels to me like Singleton might have the momentum. It's another vibes pick, and I wouldn't be surprised to be wrong, but it would be an interesting upset.

Portland City Council District 3 -- Steve Novick, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo: First thing's first: all the councilors in Portland are Democrats, but there is a divide between a more mainline liberal caucus and a lefty caucus ("Peacock" -- "progressive caucus"). Koyama Lane and Morillo are Peacocks, while Novick is considered the main swing voter on the council.

Now, onto the predictions. Everyone hates the incumbents, and all the incumbents win. That's my prediction for all Portland city council races, and it's my prediction here. If there is to be any shakeup, though, it's possible that Kellie Torres -- who'd align with the mainline liberals -- could dislodge either Koyama Lane or Morillo.

Portland City Council District 4 -- Olivia Clark, Eric Zimmerman, Mitch Green. Everyone hates the incumbents, and all the incumbents win. The most likely "shakeup" here, I think, is if Eli Arnold slips in at the expense of Eric Zimmerman. "Shakeup" is in quotes because I view Arnold and Zimmerman as essentially indistinguishable (both are, along with Clark, in the mainline liberal camp; Green is a Peacock DSAer).

Wreckers Gonna Wreck

There's an ad going around in Michigan, nominally in support of Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, that's generating quite its share of controversy in a race where there's concern that El-Sayed may not be able to lock down support from the normally stalwart-blue Jewish community.

The ad comes from Rebellion PAC, which is fronted by left-wing political commentator Cenk Uygur. It depicts a couple in a supermarket saying they cannot afford groceries because they have to set money aside “for killing Palestinians.” It concludes by stating that the Michigan Democrat’s GOP opponent “is for they/them,” referring to Israelis.

The ad actually apparently is a "repurposed" piece from Uygur's absurdist vanity run for President, with the bonus content at the end attacking Mike Rogers. Both Uygur and Rebellion PAC spokeswoman Kara Eastman* took a similar line on the controversy, which was to accuse their critics of mental illness:

“If you think this ad is antisemitic, you’ve lost your mind and you don’t know it,” the Rebellion PAC spokesperson, Kara Eastman, told JTA. “It’s saying we’re giving too much money to a foreign nation — and they’re misusing it. There’s nothing more normal than that. But when someone criticizes the government of Israel, and you hear ‘they hate all Jews,’ get clinical help.”

Shortly after Eastman’s response to JTA, Uygur himself added on X, “If you think this ad is antisemitic, you’re in a cult and don’t know it. You think Israel is owed all the money it wants from US and if Americans don’t hand it over — without complaint — they’re antisemites. That’s insane, but you don’t realize it because you’ve lost your mind.”

For his part, El-Sayed has disavowed the ad.

This is obvious wrecker behavior -- which makes sense, since it's, you know, Cenk Uygur. Indeed, apparently Rebellion PAC is spending a whopping $1,000 (no, I'm not missing any zeros) on this advertisement -- effectively nothing. It's not actually going to be seen by Michigan voters. Its only purpose is to stir up antagonism and controversy, of a sort that I'm confident neither the Jewish community, the Democratic Party, nor El-Sayed have any desire to deal with a week out of election day. Which again, is entirely in line with Uygur's whole MO.

So to be clear -- this ad is trash, and it's designed to be trash. But we shouldn't make it out to be a bigger investment in trash than it is. It's a known wrecker trying to wreck things. Don't give him the oxygen, and don't pretend it's some prominent intervention.

* That name rang a bell, and it is indeed the same Kara Eastman who was the 2018 and 2020 Democratic nominee for the swingy 2nd Nebraska District House seat currently held by Don Bacon. Eastman defeated Brad Ashford, a Democrat who had held the seat for a term in 2014 (he lost it in 2016), in the 2018 primary, then proceeded to lose to Bacon by an even larger margin than Ashford did despite 2018 being a much better year for Democrats than 2016.

AIPAC Ends Direct Contributions, Endorsements

The big news in money and politics is AIPAC's announcement that it will no longer issue endorsements or make direct contributions to candidates. This marks a substantial retreat -- AIPAC only began giving direct donations in 2021. (AIPAC will continue to operate its SuperPAC however).

Needless to say, this decision is generating plenty of crowing on behalf of AIPAC's adversaries, who've labored hard to turn it into a toxic brand amongst Democrats (and, to a lesser but not negligible extent, Republicans). That crowing is certainly justified, and I have no doubt that the degree to which AIPAC has become a boogeyman (and thereby hurting the politicians it nominally wishes to help) is playing no small role in the organization's decision. But I'll do my own crowing here as well, as from the outset of AIPAC's foray into direct contributions (so well before it became super toxic) I was telling anyone who'd listen that it was a dumb strategy that would backfire on them in spectacular fashion. AIPAC made the choice to initiate an unprecedented foray into partisan politics at the precise moment such an intervention was most fraught -- it's no accident that the just months into the program AIPAC crashed into a PR buzzsaw by endorsing a slate full of insurrectionists. 

Worse, from AIPAC's vantage point, is that their choice to join hands with the most vile Republicans imaginable irreparably damaged their credibility in Democratic primaries even though probably the most important bang-for-buck AIPAC could get is in protected moderate pro-Israel Democrats from leftier challengers. Again, I called it:

The most likely place where we're liable to see a contested race where one candidate has (from AIPAC's vantage) a much worse Israel record than their competitor is in Democratic primaries where a strong pro-Israel Democrat might face a challenge from their left that AIPAC would want to fend off (the reason this doesn't apply to Republican primaries is that I doubt there is any rightwing position on Israel -- at least that which nominally drapes itself as "pro-Israel" -- that is too extreme for AIPAC to accept. But remember, they support a two-state solution!).... But it's far from clear that AIPAC's endorsement is even beneficial these days in a Democratic primary, and associating AIPAC with GOP insurrectionists makes the brand even more toxic. If the top priority is keeping pro-Israel Democrats secure against flanking attacks, the main effect of AIPAC's endorsement list is to kneecap their own credibility.

Used to playing the game on easy mode, AIPAC proved almost comically inept at effectively interceding in progressive the moment the political waters grew choppy. And that's the generous interpretation -- the more cynical one is that they purposefully sacrificed solid pro-Israel Democrats who weren't willing to completely kowtow to a Bibi-or-bust line in favor of more radical antagonists because the latter made for better fundraising foils. Even in the brief window where AIPAC's interventions were not completely toxic amongst Democratic voters, their net effect still was to strengthen overt anti-Zionists at the expense of liberal Zionists, and it's not to see that as intentional. Either way, the lesson liberal Zionists in particular learned loud and clear was that "if you at all think of yourself as in the lane of 'I care about Israel but they, and we, need to change course substantially to align with basic liberal values', AIPAC is your mortal enemy trying to destroy your movement."

Let's Kill Domestic Spam/Scam Texters

I hate scammers. And I hate spammers. I know, controversial opinion. But seriously, I do think I harbor an outsized rage towards them, at least for someone who's never been a victim of a serious scam (save that one time with Lego).

My understanding is that many of the various scam phone and text operations operate out of organized criminal compounds in southeast Asia, making them relatively impervious to American law enforcement (germane to the aforementioned hatred, I'd mostly-earnestly support orienting our entire foreign policy towards those countries towards finding and decapitating these scam operations).

But some seem to be U.S. based. A few years ago, I alluded to the "jury service" scam call I received, where the caller on the other end of the line claimed to be from the sheriff's office. His accent was decidedly southern-American in character, which I guess doesn't preclude it coming out of a Cambodian compound, but I think more likely suggests the culprit was based somewhere in the United States (it was, I think, a little early for AI-generated deep faking, though of course that's on the horizon). More recently, I've been hit with a flurry of spam texts offering roof repairs; reading up on the angle, it seems that the perpetrators offer a deceptively low rate to "fix your roof", then do intentionally shoddy work while identifying more and more "problems" to try and drain more money out of you. That, too, is a scam which cannot be done entirely remotely, which means the operators have at least some American boots on the ground.

So if there is at least something of a domestic American spam/scam text industry, why does it not seem law enforcement is going after it with any vigor? If I were a DA, I'd answer all those texts and try to arrange meet ups where I'd toss as many people as possible in jail (this is a domain where I am 100% carceral and punitive in character). This seems like such an obvious quality-of-life "win" -- everyone hates these calls -- that any politician or public attorney that was able to really take a high profile crack at it would I think get a ton of positive attention and accolades.

Tell Me Who To Vote For (Portland Edition 2026)

I'll confess, I haven't been following local politics as much as I should. Like many, I'm frustrated with the gridlock and dysfunction on the city council, which seems to be a majority view (though of course, fracturing badly on the "who is to blame" question). But I don't have big opinions on many of the local issues of the day. And since everyone is a Democrat (at least at the municipal level), I don't even have that heuristic.

So I'll do my best, but I'm still quite persuadable. Have at me in the comments.

Governor: Tina Kotek

I guess I can understand being underwhelmed by Tina Kotek, though I think the issues in Oregon's government go well beyond her. What I don't understand is the appeal of Christine Drazan. I guess some people never get tired of thinking "things aren't great now -- maybe if we elect someone worse, they'll get better!" They won't. They'll get worse. That's how it works.

Congress: Janelle Bynum

She's doing fine. I live in a swing district now, so I couldn't do the purity-politics thing right now even if I wanted to, which I don't.

County Executive: Julia Brim-Edwards

Probably the race I'm most unsure about. Last time around, I voted for Sharon Meieran, who lost to Jessica Vega Pederson. Given how much everyone thinks JVP has been a trainwreck, I'm feeling pretty good about that call. But despite that, I'm less keen on Meieran now than I am the first time around. What once was a useful penchant for hard-truth-telling now seems like a near-Joker-like desire to burn everything to ground in a cleansing fire. There's no way that doesn't turn out to be a disaster.

So that leaves Brim-Edwards, who has locked up most of the institutional Democratic endorsements, and Shannon Singleton, who is occupying the left lane and is seen as the closest thing to JVP's successor. The latter gave me a lot of pause, and that pause coupled with the aforementioned endorsement parade for Brim-Edwards almost made this a walkover. But I was surprised to see Singleton earn the endorsement nod from the Willamette Week, and they make a good case for her both as a leader and as someone who really shouldn't be seen as JVP 2.0. That reverted what was an easy pick back into a hard one.

Ultimately, what's driving me right now is I've heard the "yes, she's aligned with X faction, but she's actually thoughtful and independent!" spiel before, and it keeps on breaking apart once people occupy higher office. Maybe Singleton will be different -- after all, she has shown more of an independent streak in her current role on the county commission. But I'm not sure it's a risk worth taking.

City Council (District 4): Olivia Clark, Eric Zimmerman, Eli Arnold

The city council race is weird. Everyone seems to hate how the council is performing, and yet our shiny new electoral system seems tailor-made to ensure all the incumbents will win again. So I don't know why I'm stressing about this.

The last time around -- which is to say, the first time we got to vote under the new city government system -- there were approximately six trillion candidates vying for three seats. Nonetheless, all three of the eventual winners -- Clark, Zimmerman, and Mitch Green -- were in my top six. Since then, the council has been effectively deadlocked between a mainline liberal faction (including Clark and Zimmerman), and a DSA-aligned left faction (including Green) known as the Peacocks (short for "progressive caucus"). The two factions are not friends, and both blame the other for the animosity.

As far as animosity goes, I'm sure there's blame to go around. But despite ranking Green last time, I'm loathe to do so again. A lot of attention has centered around some poor choices Green has made outside the council chambers -- setting a fire in his yard in defiance of a "burn ban", missing some taxes, and some pretty vitriolic anti-police social media posts from before he was elected. I'm more concerned about some of his grandstanding in the room. As an academic freedom guy, I'm particularly incensed about his threat to withhold funds from Portland State unless they bent their school conduct disciplinary process to his political will -- a move taken directly out of the Trumpist playbook. That's just unforgivable to me.

Of course, none of this will matter. The system is designed to promote "pluralism", and I have no doubt there is at least a substantial minority of D4 voters who like Green's style of politics and want more of it. In concept I guess he could be replaced by a different DSA-aligned politician. In practice, none of them seem especially viable. As for Clark, Zimmerman, and Arnold; I ranked them all last time and I've been satisfied with how the former two have performed on the council (Clark more than Zimmerman). The pro and con of Arnold is that he's viewed as essentially a Zimmerman clone, which isn't a sterling recommendation as far I'm concerned, but it beats the alternative (except, it won't actually beat the alternative).

Ballot Measure 26-267 (Community Budgeting): No

Seems like a classic Portland case of "this issue is far too important to care about doing it well." First, it's far from clear to me that budget decisions should be devolved to direct democracy (a position I've held since back when I lived in California). Moreover, in practice, it's almost assured that this fund will not be especially democratic at all be taken over by an opaque mix of lobbyists and hardcore activists with bizarre and embarrassing hobbyhorses. When even the Portland Mercury can't bring itself to give it a nod, you know there's a problem.

Consistent Enforcement of Campus Speech Rules? No, Disparate Treatment!

David Bernstein replies to an Amnesty International/ACLU report decrying crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech on campus. The report particularly hangs its hat on the issue of double-standards: many of the "rules" pro-Palestinian activists were alleged to have broken were ones the university rarely if ever enforced when flouted by other activists and protesters.

Bernstein concedes that there "is some truth to that conclusion," but ultimately dismisses the "claim that alleged viewpoint discrimination required universities to stand down, for three interrelated reasons." But of these three reasons, two are manifestly unpersuasive. The third, by contrast, has some force but is considerably more limited in scope than he lets on.

Here's objection number 1:

First, arguing some sort of estoppel for cracking down on rule-breaking is a bad legal argument. "But your honor, the government did not prosecute the last ten rapists" isn't going to get you far.

This is a baffling argument to make in the context of free speech in particular. The entire point of the rule against viewpoint discrimination is that it nullifies government actions* even in circumstances where a content-neutral rule, evenly enforced, would be perfectly justified. Bernstein's objection is tantamount to saying that entire doctrine against viewpoint discrimination should be jettisoned.

It's notable that to make this argument even marginally plausible, Bernstein has to reach to an extreme example (rape), one where we cannot imagine a well-ordered society permitting the conduct and "leveling down" is not an option. Of course, the overwhelming majority of speech-rule violations are more analogous to civil infractions or misdemeanors at most, for which systemic under- or nonenforcement is an entirely plausible policy choice. If we adopt the hypothetical to a more analogous example -- a "no parking" sign that is routinely ignored, but suddenly gets resurrected to only tow away cars at the Trump or Harris rally, then I think the "estoppel" argument might get you pretty far indeed. And all the more so in the core speech-regulation context, where the rule demanding viewpoint neutrality is about as central a lodestar as exists in First Amendment law.

Now objection number 2:

Second, the failure of universities to properly punish misbehavior by, say, climate activists was itself viewpoint discriminatory. One can hardly imagine, say, Columbia University, acting with equanimity if anti-abortion or anti-affirmative action protestors engaged in the illicit shenanigans that leftist protestors have engaged in.

This argument drives me nuts, because it asserts as fact something it admits is speculation. The failure to regulate climate activist speech was viewpoint discriminatory because we can't imagine the same administrators wouldn't have punished conservative activists for similar behavior. A version of this argument was trotted out by the conservative judges advocating an academic boycott of Columbia, and I hated it there too: 

It has become clear that Columbia applies double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct.  If Columbia had been faced with a campus uprising of religious conservatives upset because they view abortion as a tragic genocide, we have no doubt that the university’s response would have been profoundly different. 

Again, note the assertion that Columbia flatly has adopted a double-standard, based not on anything it actually did, but on how its critics imagine it would have behaved in a hypothetical-but-not-actually-real scenario ("if ... we have no doubt"). Columbia is being punished for a story the judges literally invented so they can be mad about it.

Of course, since the argument by its terms doesn't require grounding in reality, it is absolutely impossible for a university to rebut it. And I'll say flat out that I'm not at all convinced that universities have applied or would apply a "double-standard" in such cases. When David Horowitz started plastering campuses with flyers targeting student pro-Palestinian activists as "Jew-haters" (cf., recent posters at the University of Oregon assailing the campus Hillel director), I don't recall there being any attempt to impose consequences on campus constituents who may have taken part, even though I have no doubt that a diligent administrator could've dug up some rule or another they were violating. Why not? Well for one, had they done so Horowitz and his backers would've thrown a fit about liberal censorship yadayadayada. But for two, if campuses hadn't historically enforced whatever rules limiting flyering in other cases, they'd be in choppy waters if they tried to suddenly start enforcing them against the likes of Horowitz. Which is to say, they abide by a rule against viewpoint discrimination.

Now, the final objection:

And finally, civil rights law require[s] universities to take action against illicit hostile environments. Climate change activists may have broken university rules, but they did not intimidate, harass, and engage in violence against any identifiable group protected by civil rights laws. 

This is the one objection that has some purchase. I agree with it insofar as I agree that otherwise-protected speech can nonetheless be probative of motive with respect to non-protected conduct. And I also agree that some defenders of the campus protesters have undersold or been apologists for aspects of the protest that were not simply inflammatory or offensive speech but were violent, harassing, or otherwise destructive.

But the reality is that the vast majority of campus pro-Palestinian speech -- even that which was understandably offensive, even that which formally may have violated university rules -- was not violent or harassing in a legally-cognizable way. The defense of universities cracking down on actual instances of actionable harassment is fine as far as it goes, but the more numerous instances of universities cracking down on non-harassing speech cannot justify itself via stolen valor. And while I'm not so naive as to think that people would stop being fair weather friends of free speech if universities didn't try to cloak the latter in the aura of the former, there's little doubt that the draconian hyperpolicing of protected speech did more to delegitimize legitimate university interventions than the instances of legitimate intervention did to justify the hyperpolicing.

* For purposes of this post, I'm treating all colleges as if they are akin to government actors, as many private universities at least purport to extend First Amendment-inspired free speech protections that are meant to guard against collegiate administrative overreach.

The Disappointment of a Man-Child

Last year, as I approached forty years old, I mused about one of the things I missed most about being a kid -- enthusiasm. Not having it, but people being responsive to it. Everybody loves when a kid is excited about something, and they'll often go out of their way to indulge in that excitement. The kid who loves flying gets a tour of a cockpit; the kid who loves cooking might get some tips from a chef. Adults don't get that. That's not wrong -- it's wholly understandable why not -- but it is something I miss.

The other day, I was reflecting on a corollary to that thought, which is as an adult, people don't typically care if you're disappointed. For example, I think the Supreme Court is doing a lousy job. Worse than that: I'm heartbroken at how they have, in my view, being downright cruel and capricious, wrecking lives in pursuit of a narrow partisan agenda. I also know that John Roberts does not care that I think that. Even if I were in a position to confront him (and I swear I was thinking about this before the NYT posted that article about John Roberts getting protested at his vacation island), he wouldn't really care. He'd think I was a schmuck. By contrast, if a child expressed disappointment, or fear, or grief -- "you made my friend's mom disappear" -- I think that would cut different. I'm not saying his heart would grow three sizes that day, but knowing that a kid sees him as their monster-under-the-bed would I bet affect him in a materially different way than knowing that I see him that way.

One of the shortfalls of modern democracy is that, even when we have (deservedly) big feelings about things, it is very hard to feel heard. We feel like we're screaming "this is hurting me", and it's impossible to get anyone to care. In the legal space, I'm more qualified and connected than 99% of Americans, and it's still impossible for me to imagine that my opinions could ever influence anyone with influence one whit. That's incredibly draining. It's also, again, largely unavoidable. This a problem that's been addressed by everyone from federalism enthusiasts to Michael Sandel's "Democracy's Discontent". But it's hard not to miss the sense that people care when you hurt.

Harris Be Harris

For folks of a certain age, it was a bit amusing watching the post-retirement revival of longtime ADL chief Abe Foxman as a progressive mensch. In his dotage, he became unsparing in his criticism of a Jewish establishment that had (in his fabulous coinage) "Washington Post syndrome" (a maddening refusal to take on mainstream conservatives no matter how extreme they get, coupled with hyper-policing of the mainstream left). You loved to see it.

Sadly, if this article on J Street's newly emergent clout amongst old-school Jewish establishment "heavy hitters" is any indicator, ex-AJC chieftain David Harris will not be undergoing a similar redemption arc.

An influential vote against J Street at that meeting [on whether to admit J Street to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations] was the American Jewish Committee, which nullified the nod J Street had received from other mainstream groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Reform movement. 

David Harris, then the AJC CEO, said he doesn’t regret the way his group voted then and that he would recommend the same vote now. 

“I don’t believe it is the role of American Jews — who live thousands of miles from Israel, reject aliyah, don’t face life-and-death military service and don’t have to take their children and elderly to bomb shelters day and night — to seek to influence existentially important issues affecting Israel and its vital link with the United States,” he said. 

He added that such lobbying for U.S. pressure on Israel is “inappropriate and, yes, harmful.” The same goes, he said, for right-wing groups that seek U.S. pressure on Israel for their favored outcomes.

Ah yes, a principle that applies exactly same for right-wing and left-wing groups, with the small exception of it absolutely never applying to right-wing groups.

Anyway, as much as I enjoy one last opportunity to be cranky at David Harris, the article is actually one of general good news, in that Harris position is increasingly an outlier, and other bigwigs with impeccable "establishment" credential are stepping up to give J Street their hechsher. Long past due, of course, but progress is progress.

The Power of Positive Thinking

My wife and I are finally watching Season 4 of Ted Lasso. Much has been written about the show's relentless positivity, and the degree to which it is or isn't an appropriate message for the present moment (even with Season 3's attempt to complicate the roots and results of Ted's positive affect, I still do think the fundamental message of the show is pro-positive).

It did feel to me like, as a show Ted Lasso was the apex of a particular type -- the response to the anti-hero era of Peak TV television that wanted to show the virtues of optimism and doing the right thing without being hokey about it. But now that I think about it, was that ever really a "trend"? What other shows fall into the category (one can't have an "apex" of category with only one member)?

The obvious answer, and what I'd deem the inaugurator of the style, is Parks & Rec. And another I'd argue for is The Good Place, whose underlying ethos did seem view trying to be good as a force which, if persistent and relentless enough, could conquer all things. But what else? Community? It's a sweet show at root, but I think its core is less human decency and more the joy of whimsy and absurdism. Brooklyn Nine Nine? Maybe -- one could argue that its positive core is what made the show "work" as a cop show in the middle of the Black Lives Matter era. But still, I feel like I must be missing something -- more than one something, in fact. But I'm drawing a blank.

Ousting Netanyahu Will Not Be a Reset

An Israeli election is coming up, and while the polls remain tight, the betting edge seems to be that an opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot will be able to oust long-reigning incumbent Bibi Netanyahu (though -- despite protestations to the contrary -- likely not without help from Arab parties).

This is a result that would not be unwelcome amongst American Jews. Netanyahu has a dismal -27 favorability gap, with two-thirds of American Jews hoping he gets replaced after the next election. It's not hard to understand why. Netanyahu was at the helm for the worst military disaster in modern Israeli history, then followed it up with a spree of reckless militarism whose main motivator was neither entrenching Israeli security nor securing the safe release of the hostages but rather lay solely in keeping himself out of prison. He's blatantly corrupt, joined at the hip with far-right extremists both domestic and international (including but not limited to price tag terrorists running riot through the West Bank), and launched a veritable tsunami of attacks on Israel's democratic institutions. And of course, there's the fact that he's precipitated a catastrophic, across-the-board collapse in Israel's public support in America and elsewhere in the west. 

So safe to say, Netanyahu's political death will not be mourned. But there is a sense I'm getting amongst some American Jews who genuinely detest Netanyahu who seem to think that this election could be a big reset button. If Israel can just get rid of Bibi, things will go back to the way they were. Indeed, there's almost a sense that if the election doesn't mark off that sort of reset, it'd be a form of cheating, or (depending on one's point of view) vindication: You said your problem was just that Bibi was a monster, but now he's gone and you're still mad at Israel!

What this misses, of course, is that the ascendant tide of Israel criticism is not, at root, an issue of a personality conflict. It stems from real objections to real policies. If you have a problem with settler terrorism, then the Israeli government has to actually start tackling settler terrorism. If you think the occupation is unlawful and that Palestinians deserve independence and self-determination yesterday, then you'll need to see tangible steps towards effectuating a real Palestinian state. If you think the Israeli military has been reckless (to say the least) in targeting civilian infrastructure, then you'll need to see actual restraint in Israel's military adventurism. If none of that changes, the fact that a different butt is in the PM's chair won't alter anything.

The counter to that is that for many years Israel was occupying the Palestinian territories, had a problem with settler violence, etc. etc., but there still was widespread support for Israel -- so the policies cannot be the issue. But what that misses is a matter of inertia. There was a lot of ambient support for Israel in America for basically my entire lifetime, and it accordingly took a lot of energy to dislodge that boulder and get it rolling in a different direction. It is testament to Bibi's, er, "abilities", that he was able to accomplish that -- it was no small thing, and it's reasonably likely that Israel under different and even marginally-competent leadership these past few years wouldn't have seen this collapse in public esteem. But expecting Bibi's ouster to put things back to where they were is like shoving a rock down a hill and then expecting it to teleport back to the top once you stop pushing. No -- now you've got to deal with momentum in the opposite direction, and it will take a lot more than simply freezing Bibi's most offensive and inflammatory policies to undo the damage he's caused.

This doesn't mean that I'm one of those people who thinks this election is irrelevant, or that any of the opposition party leaders are materially indistinct from Netanyahu. I don't believe that (indeed, I think it's a cousin to the same lazy "both parties are the same" BS one sees in American politics). As pessimistic as I may be that Eisenkot will do all the things it would take to fully right ship when it comes to Israel's democratic future, he still will be an incalculable improvement over Bibi and his gang of incompetent fascists -- an assessment which should underscore just how wretched Bibi's reign has been. But the belief that ousting Bibi is all it will take to put things back the way they were is cope, not reality. Whether they like it or not, Israel under any leadership is going to have to deal with a new global orientation that increasingly is not going to tolerate endless occupation, accelerating illiberalism, and infinite disregard for Palestinian human rights. You can thank Netanyahu for that -- it's a legacy that will long outlast his tenure.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXXII: "The Rise in Transgenderism"

 

Some folks decided to check in on former U.S. Representative and Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney.

Admittedly, for me "Jews are playing a disproportionate role in fostering social acceptance of transgender youth and adults" is less of a "blame" and more of a "credit". Still, this is part of a long, not-especially-slow slide by McKinney into the depths of far-right antisemitism.

While it was not this explicit, even as a congresswoman McKinney definitely set off my and many other Jews' antisemitism radars. But precisely because it wasn't this explicit, there was also that sense of anxiety: am I just seeing things? Am I too sensitive? After all, for all the talk about how Jews toss out antisemitism allegations at the drop of the hat, there's also, well, a lot of talk and pressure that presumes Jews toss out antisemitism allegations at the drop of the hat. 

In that context, the one silver lining I have from watching McKinney's progression regression is that it validates those instincts. We were not, in fact, seeing things, we were onto something real, and maybe our intuitions -- even when not fully formed -- are worth paying attention to after all.

Nonnegotiables

A new group of Michigan Jews has released what they call a list of "nonnegotiables" they're demanding out of Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed before they'll give him their support. This is nominally a different and unrelated group from those who are actively urging a vote for El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, though to my mind the difference seems thin. In general, I think the absolute nicest thing one can say the people making these demands is that they are comparable to Muslim and Arab voters who either refused to vote for, or dragged their feet on supporting, Biden/Harris over Donald Trump because of their concerns about Israel/Palestine, and if you're like me that's not a very nice comparison at all.

Anyway, the letter's "nonnegotiables" are listed as follows:

• “Jewish safety — including for Zionist Jews — in Michigan and across America”; 
• “Our right to define our own Jewish identities”; 
• “Jewish sovereignty in Israel”; 
• “Welcoming our full participation in American political life”; and 
• “An affirmative vision for a better future in the Middle East.” 

One could do a line-by-line parsing of what these demands actually mean, but I think the best way to think about it is to envision what would happen if Abdul El-Sayed paired acceptance of these premises with a companion list of additional "nonnegotiables" which also must be accepted:

• “Palestinian safety — including for anti-Zionist Palestinians — in Michigan and across America”; 
• “Our right to define our own Palestinian identities”; 
• “Palestinian sovereignty in Palestine”; 
• “Welcoming our full participation in American political life”; and 
• “An affirmative vision for a better future in the Middle East.”

Now, to be clear, I am not suggesting that the El-Sayed campaign respond to this petition with this companion list. Such a response would undoubtedly be viewed as inflammatory and a provocation. But that itself is revealing -- why would this be viewed as a provocation? More broadly, what can we learn from the likely response to this hypothetical initiative?

Well, for one, the last bullet point is vague to the point of meaninglessness. If it is meant to be a palette cleanser demonstrating that this is not just about punching left, it doesn't work. And most of the other bullet points lie in that interstitial space where either they're banal and obviously accepted by any mainstream Democrat (of course nobody should be subjected to violence due to their identity) or are trying to smuggle in considerable more controversial premises under the guise of the aforementioned banality (e.g., presenting certain forms of speech or political advocacy -- particularly condemnations of Israeli or Palestinian actors deemed overly harsh -- as a safety threat).

This is most obvious in the third bullet point. I have no doubt that a "nonnegotiable" demand to recognize "Palestinian sovereignty in Palestine" would be viewed as extraordinarily provocative by the signatories of this letter, because it at the very least raises the question "what counts as 'Palestine'?" Are we demanding one state from the river to the sea, the entirety of which must be under Palestinian rule? Or is this a two-state solution, with Palestine comprised of the West Bank and Gaza and existing alongside Israel -- in which case stating that the the former should have "Palestinian sovereignty" is perhaps simply a vindication of Palestinian's equal rights to national self-determination? But the thing is, that same ambiguity exists in "Jewish sovereignty in Israel", which also does not clearly delineate if we're talking about a Jewish majority in pre-67 Israel or also a right to rule over the West Bank and Gaza. The former is something that sits well within the norms of contemporary nation-states, the latter is a demand for formalized apartheid. That's a rather large gap, and so one can understand those who are skittish about issuing an unqualified endorsement without having certainty of what exactly is being endorsed. On this point, it is especially notable that while the letter stresses sovereignty as a "nonnegotiable", it does not speak of democracy at all; the only substantive mention of democracy is when it calls the vision of "'one democratic state' between the river and the sea, with 'equal rights for everyone'" a smokescreen for the destruction of Israel.

The reality is that, if these Jews can understand why they might hesitate before unequivocally signing on to supporting "Palestinian sovereignty in Palestine" as "nonnegotiable" -- even if they truly have no quarrel with a sovereign Palestinian state that sits side-by-side with Israel -- they should understand why an El-Sayed might insist on a bit more clarity regarding "Jewish sovereignty in Israel." I agree that there is nothing intrinsically objectionable that there exists a state with a Jewish majority and that one should not demand such a state's dismantlement simply because one thinks the exercise of Jewish self-determination is inherently illiberal. I also agree that there is something very objectionable about a state that may or may not have a Jewish majority permanently subjugating its Palestinian residents because it determines that granting them equal citizenship and voting rights would mean that Jews no longer would exercise "sovereignty." And while it's true that the former position viewing the very existence of a Jewish-majority state in any context as abominable has very real supporters, it's also true that the latter position asserting an entitlement to permanently subjugate and dispossess Palestinians if necessary to vindicate "Jewish sovereignty" ("from the river to the sea") has no small share of backers in the current Israeli government, to say nothing of those abroad. So what, exactly, are we talking about?

In concept, I think El-Sayed's stated opposition to "ethnostates" is a perfectly valid way of parsing the difference: there is nothing wrong with there being an Israel so long as it adheres to the basic demands of liberal democratic equality -- which certainly does not necessarily impugn the existence of a nation with a Jewish majority or even a Jewish national identity, but does impose a set of basic commitments regarding equal voting and citizenship rights -- and this is the same standard we should assess any other nation by (not objecting to Japan or Ireland or Egypt having a particular national identity, but very much objecting if they permanently withhold full voting rights from certain ethnic groups in order to maintain that identity). But unfortunately, this is an area where the letter writers seem determined not to take "yes" for an answer, lashing out at "cleverly worded arguments" on the subject of "Jewish sovereignty", which here seems to be an elbow thrown precisely against people who validly ask the "what exactly are we talking about" question.

So that's my ultimate read. Is this letter being issued in good faith? My answer to that is to ask whether the letter-writers would endorse without qualification the parallel list of "nonnegotiables" I listed above. If they would, then I think these demands are valid ones. If not (and again, not because they necessarily "oppose" the demand, but because they think there are areas of ambiguity or blurriness that need clarification) then I think that same grace should be extended here -- but the tenor of "nonnegotiable" strongly suggests that such grace will not be forthcoming, and that asking for said grace and clarification would instead be dismissed as another "cleverly worded argument" meant to disguise one's bigotry.