Caught Between Trump And Hamas: Has Progressive Politics Hit a Dead End?

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, Pool, File

As the 2024 primary season winds down, one of the biggest losers has certainly been the progressive movement. From Portland to San Francisco to New York City, progressive candidates and initiatives have been rebuffed by those who were once their most loyal voters – the Democratic Party base. And while progressives have been defeated on issues like crime and decriminalizing drugs, the Israel-Hamas conflict has created an all-out war within the Democratic Party and has threatened to fracture forever what was once a solidly unified anti-Trump voting block.

The marquee primary for the Democrats in 2024 will undoubtedly be remembered as Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) failed reelection bid in a district with a large Jewish voting block. In the days leading up to the primary, Bowman angrily condemned AIPAC’s massive financial support for his opponent and held a fiery, profanity-filled rally in the Bronx with other progressive figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Following the rally, moderate Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) slammed some of Bowman’s rhetoric as “quintessentially anti-Semitic” in a stunning illustration of the fierce divide gripping the party. Bowman’s opponent had been endorsed by the likes of Hillary Clinton and ex-Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) — a former progressive ally of Bowman seeking reelection this year in a swing district.

CNN’s Manu Raju reported on Bowman’s falling out with the Democratic Party earlier in May, writing, “He’s gone far enough out that even the left-leaning Israel advocacy group J Street withdrew its endorsement of Bowman in January, complaining that he had crossed a line in putting the blame for the conflict too much on Israel and not on Hamas.”

“Now even many of Bowman’s fellow New York Democrats in Congress say privately they doubt he will win – but more than that, when asked by CNN, several pointedly refused to say that they want Bowman to win, or that they would support him,” Raju added. While Bowman raged at his rally that “We are going to show fucking AIPAC,” it seems highly unlikely Bowman would lose his seat if Democratic Party leadership had wanted him to keep it.

Bowman went on to lose by over 17 points, while pro-Israel stalwarts like Goldman and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who left the progressive caucus and has become one of its chief critics, will sail back into Congress next year. Bowman’s fellow squad member Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) may become the second progressive incumbent to lose a primary as she currently trails her opponent in a very close race to be decided in early August.

The same weekend as Bowman’s rally, pro-Palestinian protesters targeted an Israel real estate sale at an LA synagogue. The protest, which ended up with Jewish worshippers being harassed outside the synagogue, quickly turned violent as counter-protestors showed up, as they claimed, to protect the synagogue. The ensuing violence spread like wildfire on social media and led to swift condemnations from the mayor of LA, Gov. Newsom, and President Joe Biden who called the protest, “dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American.”

While the protest in LA, the college campus encampments, and the myriad of other pro-Palestinian protests across the country are not directly tied to progressive leaders and represent a wide variety of points of view within the left, the more alarming rhetoric to come from those protests has resulted in many mainstream Democrats, particularly Jewish Democrats, questioning their support for the party and President Biden.

With anti-Semitism undeniably on the rise, some of the worst moments from those protests, including masked activists on New York City subway cars demanding “zionists” identify themselves and protesting a memorial for the Nova Music Festival massacre while chanting pro-Hamas slogans, have led to widespread condemnation (including from AOC) and a growing narrative in the media that the left does, in fact, have a pro-Hamas element within it.

“Multiple Jewish elected Democrats and Democratic voters told CNN about being disappointed and abandoned by progressive allies, of feeling ‘politically homeless’ both because they think Biden hasn’t done enough and because they worry he can’t control his own left,” reported CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere this week, who also warned that Jewish voters could determine the outcome of the presidential election in states like “Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Arizona.”

Furthermore, the primary season revealed a large and growing protest vote from pro-Palestinian Democrats who are vowing not to support Biden in November over his continued support for Israel and the mounting death toll and dire humanitarian situation inside Gaza. In February, over 100,000 voters in Michigan’s Democratic primary voted “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s policy during the war, which while not enough to erase Biden’s 2020 margin over Trump, would certainly boost Trump’s chances in the state.

While the Israel-Hamas conflict has certainly sped up the isolation of progressives on the left, controversial media figures like Briahna Joy Gray and Mehdi Hasan have lost their major platforms, but it’s not the only issue causing progressives to lose.

After California’s March primaries, the San Francisco Chronicle declared, “For now, at least, San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city. Not after voters approved ballot measures Tuesday to loosen restrictions on the police and screen welfare recipients for drugs.” As the quality of life in cities like San Francisco, Portland, and many others across the country has decreased, so too has the left’s tolerance for some progressive measures enacted since Bernie Sanders first brought the movement to the fore in 2015.

“Defund the police” and “Soros DAs” remain powerful cudgels for the right to bash the left with, as does immigration politics. But now we see Democrats too have turned against key progressive issues like criminal justice reform. In May, Multnomah County’s progressive DA Mike Schmidt, who serves the Portland area, lost reelection to tough-on-crime candidate Nathan Vasquez — a former Republican. Oregon Democrats handed progressives a slew of losses, including refusing to nominate the sister of Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) for her own House seat. In March, the state repealed its three-year-old law decriminalizing drug possession for personal use. As such, Oregon joined San Francisco and Washington, DC in reverting to more tough-on-drug policies following surges in both overdoses and drug-related crimes.

Politico wrote about the trend of progressive DAs “losing their grip” on the West Coast in May and concluded, “Altogether, the hurdles facing progressive prosecutors on the ‘left coast’ illustrate a backswing in public sentiment and perceptions of crime since the 2020 killing of George Floyd prompted a national reckoning on racism and conversation around the costs of tough-on-crime politics.”

The backlash against criminal justice reform coupled with the persistent images of protest-related violence have boxed progressives into a corner and begs the question what is next for the movement and has it hit a dead end?

Polling has shown Americans have very little support for the pro-Palestinian protests. A YouGov poll from May found that only 28 percent of U.S. adults supported the college protests and a whopping 53 percent believe that colleges bringing in the police to forcibly remove the protestors was either not harsh enough or the right action to take. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll from the same period also found that 70 percent of Americans support a ceasefire, but that if that ceasefire means Hamas stays in power and hostages remain in captivity, 68 percent then oppose it. Protestors making headlines for chanting things like “Resistance is justified where people are occupied” and “Long live the intifada” has certainly worked against the movement and cost it public support.

Trump, of course, will be happy to poach any voter unhappy with Biden’s handling on any issue and so far it seems the Israel-Hamas conflict may cost Biden voters on both sides of the war – even if they just stay home. The American left, particularly the progressive movement, will have a choice to make in the next several months about just how far it’s willing to go to enable Trump to return to power and whether or not a movement diametrically opposed to most of what Trump stands for, including when it comes to Gaza, can survive after fueling his return to the White House.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.