For the most part, Jewish-Americans have something between a lack of interest and a lack of success in getting elected as Republicans, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the whole spectrum of what we might as well call “difference of opinion” within the Jewish community must unfold in the context of divisions within the Democratic Party. There are things that Joe Lieberman shared with Paul Wellstone, Al Franken, and Bernie Sanders, and we ought not be surprised that Chuck Schumer can simultaneously win control of the Senate Democrats by acclamation while acting out as Bibi Netanyahu’s servant boy– a real neo-con’s neo-con.
Supporters of the president–the kind of people who rejected Hillary and Lieberman around the same time, and for the same reasons– can be forgiven for wondering how Schumer could be given the reins without a fight. This fait accompli would be irritating in its own right, simply for the fact that the Senate acts as its own club, asking no input from the party base about who should be its leaders. But to have this ascension coupled in time with Schumer’s Liebermanesque war-hawkery and galling Republicophilic apostasy? This taste of violation and clear sense of powerless–I imagine this is a bit like what rape feels like.
We will accept Chuck Schumer as our leader and things will go better- be safer- if we pretend to like it. In any case, no one is going to hear our cries for help- the cavalry is not coming over the hill.
Yet, this is just the beginning. We cannot just be still for a while knowing this will soon be over. And, anyway, that is always a lie because these things stick with you- changing you- for the rest of your life.
Schumer is not Lieberman, and he has many qualities to recommend him as a leader of the party. But here he is, taking sides with Netanyahu and the most unhinged of right-wing bedwetters. And we can’t do one single thing about it.
Don’t talk to me about his constituents and tell me he is only representing them, because that is also a lie, and a lie that no longer matters. The leader of the Senate Democrats cannot behave like a Brooklyn assemblyman.
Just as with Lieberman, this is a about war and peace, facts and fear mongering.
And there is no Ned Lamont in sight.
For the most part, Chuck Schumer is a happy warrior blessed with many skills and a record of accomplishment. But it takes a special kind of myopia to not recognize that Wall Street’s senator is going to step on the ascendant message of the left– the only message with a prayer of reaching middle America’s “real Americans” in the upcoming presidential election. This would be bad enough, but to usher out Obama’s presidency and its promise of reconciliation and resolution with the empowerment of a Likudist perspective on the Middle East? Our party contains multitudes, as it should. But it shouldn’t be led by bellicose dissenters.
This is beyond frustrating. It is malpractice.
