When You Fail The Revolution
Just over three weeks out from Election Day. Let's check on America's Great Socialists, shall we?
UNION SQUARE, Manhattan (WABC) -- Mayor Zohran Mamdani defended his Oct. 7 statement on Thursday after facing criticism from some members of the city's Jewish community over remarks that referenced both Israelis killed in the Oct. 7 attacks and Palestinians killed in Gaza.
Mamdani appeared at a news conference in Bushwick on grants to nonprofits Thursday morning, less than 12 hours after demonstrators interrupted a vigil in Union Square for the hundreds of Israelis killed on Oct. 7.
The mayor was escorted past angry pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the vigil as chants echoed through the streets, with some calling him a "traitor."
In a statement issued Wednesday, Mamdani said:
"We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss. The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government's devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them - all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes."
Speaking Thursday, Mamdani said he stood by those remarks and rejected suggestions that he should apologize.
"It is critically important to be able to mourn for all of those who were killed—and have been killed since. Especially given that we know this is ongoing, as opposed to something simply that was three years ago," he said.
The mayor's reference to the Israeli military response to Oct. 7 in a statement marking the anniversary drew criticism from some in the city's Jewish community. Mamdani defended his position Thursday.
Next, we visit Michigan where Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed announced that he would be campaigning with Barack Obama on October 24th. From Middle East Eye:
"We need not choose between which death we will mourn and which we will ignore, that we will reckon with the fact that all of it is to be opposed," he said.
Just two weeks after US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed faced backlash for campaigning with former Vice President Kamala Harris, the upstart candidate now faces a new wave of criticism for joining forces with former US President Barack Obama.
With less than 30 days until the midterm elections in November, Sayed announced that Obama will join him, gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson and Michigan’s Democratic ticket for a rally in Detroit on 24 October. The event will kick off Michigan’s in-person early voting period, which begins 10 days before election day.
Sayed is running for a seat in Michigan, a swing state, as retiring Democrat Gary Peters steps down, against Republican former Congressman Mike Rogers.
After Sayed’s announcement on X, in which he wrote: “ It is my honor and privilege to announce that President @BarackObama is joining us on the trail in Detroit on Saturday, October 24. Get Ready.”
The backlash was immediate, with many people expressing anger over Sayed's association with Obama, primarily spotlighting the drone warfare and bombings carried out by his administration across the Middle East during his two terms in office. Obama was president from 20 January 2009 to 20 January 2017.
Columbia professor Anothy Zenkus wrote on X: “Barack Obama dropped 26,171 bombs on mostly poor black and brown people in the Middle East and Africa in 2016 alone. His own administration admitted that 90% of ppl killed with his drones were civilians. Wtf is wrong with you?”
Last month, Sayed was being accused of "rehabilitating" Harris, a reference to her election loss and rejection by a broad swathe of progressive Democrats for her role in supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza, where over 74,000 Palestinians have been killed to date since 7 October 2023, following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.
Sayed now once again finds himself in a familiar place, as many have called out what they described as Obama’s complicity in the Gaza war, pointing to his administration’s strong alliance with Israel, aid, and "prepping it" for genocide against the Palestinians.
Author Ali Abunimah wrote on X: “Baby butcher @BarackObama directly helped “Israel” slaughter 551 kids in Gaza in summer 2014. He provided “Israel” with the biggest aid package in history, arming and prepping it for this ongoing genocide which he has remained silent about”.
The Revolution inevitably eats it own.
The only surprise is that it took this long. Both Mamdani and El-Sayed have walked a fine line when it comes to staying on message with DSA versus furthering their own political ambitions. And while they've successfully catered to the blatant racism and antisemitism of DSA so far, at some point they were going to have to acknowledge that they actually need Black and Jewish voters as a foundational piece of their constituency. Mamdani can't not give a speech in commemoration of the October 7th terrorist attacks. El-Sayed can't not expect to win statewide in Michigan without rallying Black voters, the vast majority of whom were rightfully turned off from him and his campaign during the primary. Despite running to the racist and antisemitic left to win their primaries, both Mamdani and El-Sayed are now in the process of realizing that New York City Jewish voters and Michigan Black voters are necessary for their future success or lack thereof. They can only ignore these constituencies for so long without asking for their backing. Once that happens, the pushback from the Far Left will arrive in record time.
Because the Far Left is about purity politics only. It wants its candidates to align with DSA 100% of the time. That includes being anti-Jewish anti-Black all the same. Having the gall to acknowledge October 7th as a day in which Israelis were unjustly killed is a bridge too far for the Gaza Groupies. Campaigning with the most popular Democratic president of the 21st century in a state in which he won twice is seen as selling out to the mythical "establishment" that somehow Barack Obama was (still is?) a part of. DSA and its ilk demand full obedience to their platform and when their candidates inevitably shift toward the center (because their Far Left agenda is massively unpopular and unhelpful outside of the bluest districts), they violently object and see their candidate as a sellout. This is why we can't take DSA seriously: they simply have no understanding of how both general election candidates and newly elected officials have to balance all constituencies not just the yippy, White, cosplay socialists that make up the majority of DSA's membership.
It's hard to have sympathy for Mamdani or El-Sayed. They knowingly hitched their wagon to the DSA movement, knowing what was required of them when first running for office. Mamdani to this day has embraced the type of anti-Semitism that is all too common with DSA. The same with El-Sayed who has the added element of trying to win over Black voters who overwhelmingly sided with Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary because they saw through his half-hearted pandering. They both knew what they're were getting into with DSA. Now that they're finally starting to at least have a modicum of political awareness and reaching out to the base of the Democratic Party of Black and Jewish voters, their faithful supporters are turning on them quicker than they hyenas turned on Scar in The Lion King. They were expected to be anti-Jewish and anti-Black for as long as they were in office. When they had the gall to (briefly) acknowledge each constituency's humanity, that's when the DSA crowd took to social media and the actual streets to protest their disillusionment with a politician they thought was just as antisemitic and racist as they were. Leave it to DSA to have its two leading politicians be on the outskirts looking in simply for trying to make amends with the core constituencies of the Democratic Party.
November 3rd will be a historic evening. So historic that even a horrific candidate like Abdul El-Sayed might even become a United States Senator. And if that happens, that will be because Barack Obama was able to rally Black voters throughout the state. For the longest time, DSA has wanted its big breakthrough on the national stage. They briefly had that with Mamdani, but now that he's daring to call out Hamas for its role on October 7th, he's losing his luster among the Far Leftists. DSA exists to undermine the Democratic Party but what we're seeing is that DSA candidates cannot succeed without Jewish and Black voters. This is why they'll never run as a true third party. They need the Democratic Party to be successful from Jewish voters in New York City to Black voters in Detroit and beyond. When you try to initially vilify those with whom you'll eventually need to succeed, it becomes clear that your movement is nothing more than a flash in the pan that only works in ultra-liberal districts. When you golden children like Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed have no choice but to shift back to the center to be successful, it can officially be said that your movement has no real power beyond the friendly confines of a primary campaign in a mere handful of districts. With everything on the line, DSA candidates feel compelled to beg for the support of those they previously found to be part of some nefarious "establishment." Without Jewish and Black voters, DSA would not have enough support to win any sort of marquee race that they hope to win moving forward.
A fact that drives them and their members absolutely insane.
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