Jamaal Bowman’s defeat reveals deep schism haunting Democrats as November nears

The most expensive congressional primary election ever ended in Westchester County with the lopsided defeat of socialist incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman by George Latimer, who h🃏as held various local and state posts.

The election, which got so contentious that it was hard to remember that it was a Democratic primary, garnered national attention because it appeared to be the first time a member of the congression🐈al “Squad” would face defea☂t.

Even before his election in 2020, Bowman’s rhetoric on Israel was tendentio꧅us 𒊎and ugly.

“Just as the police force i𝔍s a violent intimidating force in so many black communities,” Bowman wrote, echoing a common ar꧂gument made by the police abolition movement, “I can connect to what it feels like for Palestinians to feel the presence of the military in their daily lives in the West Bank.”

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Bowman emerged as one of the most dedicated opponents of Israel in mainstream American politics, minimizing Hamas atrocities until just before the election.

The campaign came down to 𝓡the question of “AIPAC money,” or campaign contributions from groups affꦐiliated with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Bow💦man a💮nd his surrogates harped on the influx of money from “AIPAC and their Republican billionaires.”

At a rally in The Bronx a few days before the vote, Bowman’s fellow representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez swore to “take on AIPAC 🌌and kick some Wall Street ass!”

The socialist stalwart continued, “These Wall Street people don’t give a damn about us. AIPAC doesn’t give a damn about us. AIPAC doesn’t give a damn about The Bronx. They don’t give a damn abou♛t Westchester.”

Sen. Bernie Sand♊ers denounced the “billionaire 🌳class and their greed,” and Bowman repeated his new catchphrase: “It’s the many against the money!”

Railing against money in politics is a quaint theme for Democrats these days. Decades ago, the Democratic Party regularly bemoaned the baleful influence of big money on elections, but we almost never hear about that a💝nymore.

It’☂s no mystery why: The Democrats became the party of big mo💮ney.

Almost every national election cycle sees Democrats outspend Republicans by hundreds of millions of dollars, and the “billionaire c✅lass” largely supported Hillary Cliꦛnton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.

Moreover, megadonors like Michael Bloomberg and George Soros have poꦅured billions of dollars into building leftist institutional power through groups such as the Open Society Foundations and Everytown, among others.

And𒁏 that’s why the incessant emphasis on AIPAC has ugly overtones𝓰.

AIPAC-related groups did indeed spend a great deal of money opposing Bowman’s reelection, but it doesn’t require paranoid hypersensitivity to note that constant repetition of “AIPAC money” in the current climate of rising anti-Semitism is more than just a “dog whistle” a𒁃bout Jewish wealth — it’s a howling siren.

✤Bowman pushed his anti-Zionism well into anti-Semitism by criticizing Jewish clannishness.

“In New York City we all live tog🎶e🌟ther,” Bowman told Politico.

“🍃[But] Westchester is segregated. There’s certain places where the Jews live and concentrate. Scarsdale, parts of White Plains, parts of New Rochelle, Riverdale. I’m sure they made a decision 🍒to do that for their own reasons . . . but this is why, in terms of fighting antisemitism, I always push—we’ve been separated and segregated and miseducated for so long. We need to live together, play together, go to school together, learn together, work together.”

The implication, that Jews ought to forgo their particularity and emphasis on community for the good of wider society, sounds like something out of Marx’s “On the Jewish✃ Question,” in which Bowman’s ideological grandfather argued, “In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. . . . The Jew is perpetually created by civil society from its own entrails.”

Revolution demands the exorcism of the old gods, but for obscure reasons, it’s necessary that the Jews commit suicide fi🃏rst.

Jamaal Bowman will now exit elected office, but the schism within the Democr♏atic 𒐪Party that his defeat exemplifies will haunt the party.

Support for Israel has become a bright line for both sid✤es — the traditional liberal Democrats, who are pro-Israel, and the rising radical tide of new Democrats, who are not just anti-, but fervently so.

Palest🦩ine/Israel has emerged as the defining issue of the Democratic left wing.

Many have suggested that the 2024 Democratiꦓc National Convention to be held this summer in Chicago might resemble the famously contentious scene in 1968, when anti-Vietnam War protesters rioted in the streets and batt🌌led Mayor Richard J. Daley’s police.

But in 1968, the protests occurred outside the convention hall; this year, we will see pro-Hamas AIPAC vilifiers inside the halꦯl as credentialed delegates.

Bowman vs. Latimer hasn’t seen its last round.

It is the Democratic Party’s future.

Seth Barron is managing editor of The American Mind.