the plight of the aipac democrat
The vast majority of national-level Democrat politicians are what we call “AIPAC Democrats”. Not because they have Israeli citizenship, or are Jewish, or religious, or concerned with Israeli or Jewish safety, but because they are charisma-challenged, bad at their job, and unable to win their elections without the massive election interference, financial help, and smear campaigns that AIPAC provides. Of course none of this has helped win the AIPAC Dems much in the way of political power, but at least it prevented anti-genocide progressives and socialists from getting into office. Mission accomplished? Not exactly. Although the position of the AIPAC Dem has always been awkward, recent events have put them, along with Dem-leaning corporate news, and Israel defenders in general, into a more excruciating position than ever before. Together the following recent headlines should be all the proof anyone needs about just how comfortable the Democratic Party is with fascism. Consider:
To the extent that Democrats assume the role of an opposition party, this consists increasingly of criticisms of Trump FROM THE RIGHT. Dem dead-enders who still continue to refuse to criticize Israel in any substantive or specific way are now pushing for a MORE belligerent attitude towards Iran than is contained in Trump’s deal. Thus they officially and publicly position themselves even further to the right than the blatant fascist in the White House.
Although Israel’s constant ceasefire violations going back years have not typically made it into heavily censored American corporate news, the fact that Trump explicitly asked Netanyahu to stop them has forced them into the spotlight. Israel’s response has been to say “Where do you get off telling us which ethnicities we can and can’t wipe of the face of the Earth,” and proceed immediately to murder hundreds more Lebanese civilians and demolish entire Lebanese towns, to a chorus of deafening silence from the AIPAC Dems.
AIPAC Dems have now been reduced to trotting out Hillary Clinton, once portrayed as some kind of arch enemy of Trump and the champion of the Trump-hating liberals, to write an essay shaming Democratic voters for failing to show enough support for Trump’s genocidal foreign policy in Gaza, for failing to blindly accept his ludicrous Board Of Peace, and for failing to understand that the only possible solution is the total annihilation of any resistance from Palestinians.
One of the largest labor unions in the country, UAW, has voted to divest from Israel bonds. This puts the schools who physically attacked their own students and professors for criticizing investments in Israeli war crimes into a public fight with their own staffs, who are largely part of UAW. It demonstrates exactly what the left has been saying: that American academic institutions are not primarily about higher learning or intellectual independence, but are mere fronts for what are actually tax havens for corporate boards whose primary interest is investing in weapons.
Because poll result after overwhelming poll result shows that Dem voters are now absolutely disgusted to see their taxes, tuitions and investments being misused for genocide and other extreme-right experiments in depravity, the government has been forced to hide these endless thefts and donations. With the new, unprecedented, and permanent structural fusion the IDF with the U.S. military, they will extract the same taxpayer money, to fund the same Israeli war crimes, but now without Congressional approval or public oversight. The pentagon never passes their audits, ensuring that the American taxpayer will no longer know how much money it gives to Israel, or how it is used.
According to a recent leak, it turns out there is actually a secret cabal of elected lawmakers and Big Tech oligarchs, led by Palantir, who are literally plotting the fascist control of the world. The contradiction between supporting Israel, and opposing AI and expansion of data centers, has become too obvious to ignore. Israel’s entire economy would collapse without perpetual war, and the key element of the success (i.e. body count) of its war machine, is its use of AI. The weapons provided by American companies like Palantir and Amazon, and Israeli companies like Elbit Systems, have now helped Israel achieve the distinction of being the world’s confirmed leading killer of human beings.
For all the blaring headlines about plummeting gas prices, they haven’t and will not be returning to pre-Hormuz levels, for no reason other than that an artificial emergency was created by our government, and fossil fuel companies were always planning to enjoy a permanent price-gouge profit windfall as a result. Disaster capitalism is thus once again allowed to flourish in our sad country.
With Iran’s victory, the list of countries against whom Israel has been requesting U.S. military intervention since the mid-90s is now complete. Every one has been a military failure and a moral disaster. From Iran to Iraq to Syria to Yemen to Somalia to Sudan to Libya, these adventures made no one safer, made no population more democratically represented by their governments, and brought no benefit whatsoever to anyone other than a tiny handful of arms dealers, fossil fuel companies, disaster profiteers, and fascist politicians.
Even at this late date, as Israel’s narrative and support are completely collapsing across the country, the dead-enders who still want to invest in, arm, fund, run legal cover for, or simply overlook Israel’s genocide still aren’t bothering to attempt to formulate a cogent explanation of their point of view. Instead, they simply resort to more vicious threats and punishments for those who dare express an opinion about foreign policy or about how their taxes, tuitions, or bank accounts should be spent.
The betrayals and contradictions of AIPAC Dems can no longer be written off as simply failing to hear the wishes of their constituents clearly. It’s more like they are spitting in your face. They have nothing but contempt for the voters, endorsers, phone bankers, canvassers, rally attendees, money donors, social media posters, and Dem-leaning media consumers who made so many sacrifices of their time, labor, sweat, emotion, and reputations to get these Democrats into office in the first place, on the promise that they would oppose Trump’s policies and bring some kind of decency to American governance.
Thus has every point made by the left and targeted by centrist smear campaigns for the past 3 years been vindicated in some way. The lesson of all of this is so obvious it’s painful at this point. To beat Trump and fascism, politicians, Dems or not, must embrace socialism. They must start listening to their voters, stop taking bribes, start taxing billionaires, and abolish ICE. They must honor the memory of the Holocaust and take an unequivocal stand against genocide. All of us must reject the narratives spewed out by billionaire-owned news media, and start taking the warnings of the left more seriously.