Democrats Are Apparently Okay with Foreign Election Interference Now

Last night, Jamaal Bowman lost his New York primary to George Latimer, in a race that if you only judged by who spent how much in it, would lead you to assume the future of Israel was at stake. AIPAC, Israel’s right-wing Likud Party’s lobbying arm, spent a staggering $14.5 million in a bid to unseat one of the least powerful Representatives in Congress, comprising a total of sixty percent of all spending in the race and making it the most expensive House primary in American history.

How exactly is that not foreign election interference?

Anyone who was even semi-conscious during the Trump years became familiar with the trope of Russia interfering in our elections. I covered that saga extensively for Paste politics and while it was clear as day that Trump has some sort of business interests rooted in Russia, the notion that Putin was controlling his every move was an MSNBC-driven fever dream that their hero Robert Mueller’s final report threw cold water on. Overnight, Rachel Maddow went from a journalist with a skill to bring local news to a national audience to MSNBC’s version of Sean Hannity, spewing conspiracy theories left and right without merit. The threat of Russia intervening in elections to help Trump kept many a Democrat up at night during those years.

Hillary Clinton, the biggest loser in the modern history of presidential politics who believes she was “right” about the “vast Russia conspiracy,” signed on to a vast Israeli Likud Party conspiracy to unseat Bowman when she endorsed George Latimer long after most of that AIPAC money had been spent. That may sound uncharitable to a stripe of Democratic fanboy, but a sprawling plan by a foreign government and their Republican allies in America to unseat a Democratic congressman took place out in the open, and the Democratic Party, who typically aggressively defends its incumbents (especially against any challenge from the left), could barely be bothered to lift a finger to help Bowman.

Sunrise Movement, a climate-focused political action organization who supported Jamaal Bowman in the primary, told Splinter that “AIPAC’s rise is the Democratic Party’s fall. The more Democratic leaders let far-right billionaires buy our elections, the more they torpedo the coalition of young people and people of color we need to defeat Donald Trump and fascism. The climate deniers and insurrectionist apologists funding AIPAC have no place in the Democratic Party.”

Democrats like Hillary Clinton waxed poetic about the grave threat outside forces present to democracy, but after last night’s election where her endorsed candidate won with AIPAC’s immense help, perhaps her main issue with Russia was that Vladimir Putin was not paying her instead.

There are a lot of reasons why Jamaal Bowman lost, and the mistakes he made were certainly a part of it, but a meddling foreign government is undoubtedly one of the causes, and the money spent was so large and so disproportionate to the importance of the race that its impact is secondary to its intent.

If this were normal politics, where some gerontocratic Democratic elites and their allies joined with conservatives to smash yet another lefty, fine, that’s just the harsh reality of electoral politics in America. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s historic primary victory over the number two Democrat in the House in 2018 was a declaration of war against the establishment, so the inevitable pushback from power should be expected. But like in Gaza, the Democratic Party is demonstrating a fundamental disregard for the rules of war.

There are very stupid people or those pretending to be today doing the “WeIrD hOw ThEy DoN’t LiKe JeWiSh MoNeY” schtick, who seem to believe that Israel and the Likud Party are one in the same. I beg you to send these schmucks my way so this mild complexity of a Jew who stands against Likud can shatter their fragile childlike conception of reality.

This is such a vile, pernicious lie that plays into disgusting antisemitic tropes. It also misses the fact that Bowman voted against @JoeBiden & his own district on things like the biggest infrastructure package in decades. & he embarrassed his district by pulling that fire alarm… https://t.co/4NDyBRDtKR

— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) June 26, 2024

AIPAC is run by the Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasingly shrinking right-wing coalition perpetuating a genocide facilitated by Joe Biden’s Pentagon and State Department. It is not an “Israel” lobby like so many describe it as, and highlighting its huge impact on American elections is not remotely close to being antisemitic. If everyone who critiques undue AIPAC influence in American elections is antisemitic, then Lis Smith had better call up her former boss and tell him what she really thinks about him.

OBAMA’s memoir on George Latimer’s #1 funder: “AIPAC…increasingly argued that there should be ‘no daylight’ between the US and Israeli governments, even when Israel took actions that were contrary to US policy. Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged… pic.twitter.com/IuyfzvF7t1

— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) June 25, 2024

The famed brave anonymous Democrat has once again reappeared to voice their brave anonymous concerns today, telling Axios “The [AIPAC spending] number is gross … I don’t like it,” and adding “If anything that much money could backfire, because then you get people that are like, ‘This is just wrong.'”

Jerry Nadler, one of the few Democrats to put his name to his words today, told Axios it was “not necessary for AIPAC to spend so much money.” He’s right, which means that the money spent was a message from a foreign political party to progressives like Bowman: don’t cross us.

And establishment Democrats like Hillary Clinton and her allies are apparently okay aligning themselves with this effort. Sure, some in the party will (anonymously) grumble about this undue foreign influence and offer tepid support to Jamaal Bowman, but life will go on as the Democrats continue to help march the Overton Window to the right. This party just can’t quit Benjamin Netanyahu, no matter how bad they supposedly want to.