1y ago

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a vocal Israel critic and 'squad' member, loses primary

www.nbcnews.com

Progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., suffered a primary defeat Tuesday to a moderate challenger who was backed by pro-Israel groups, NBC News projected, following a bitter and expensive race that exposed the party’s divisions over the war in Gaza.

The race between Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer in New York’s 16th District drew more ad spending — $25 million, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact — than any other House primary in history. Nearly $15 million of that spending came from the United Democracy Project, a super PAC linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby, which backed Latimer.

With 68% of the vote in, Latimer led Bowman by a wide margin, 55.7% to 44.3%.

Speaking to a roomful of his supporters Tuesday night, Bowman conceded defeat to his "opponents," most likely a nod to big-spending outside groups, but he vowed that the broader fight for "humanity and justice" would go on.

"This race was never about me and me alone. It was never about this district and this district alone. It was always about all of us," Bowman said. "Now, our opponents — not opponent — may have won this round, at this time, in this place. But this will be a battle for our humanity and justice for the rest of our lives."

edit: also AOC won her primary so she is staying

In a closely watched primary, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, has emerged victorious, securing her position as the Democratic candidate for New York’s 14th Congressional District.

The 34-year-old progressive, known as AOC, overcame a challenge from 66-year-old investment banker Marty Dolan, who positioned himself as a moderate alternative.

67 comments

Bowman wasn't great. He did vote to fund the Iron Dome a few years ago and still holds liberal zionist positions. That being said, it is disturbing how this wasn't enough for the zionists and basically had his seat bought from him. Very bad vibes. Like electoralism is a dead end, but it somehow became even worse.
- the current USA support to Israel must be too important to affort even a light zionist victory, they need the hard liners to support them now especially with their future invasion of Lebanon
- This should be a lesson for the people that want to do triangulating electoralism "from the left".
  It doesn't work. The liberal electoral apparatus is coming for you even if you give unconditional material support and publicly agree with 99% of their positions. You'll just lose any chance you had of building a larger project that draws people in via principled agitation.
  It's also an example of how bad of an idea it is to use liberals' political machinery that's built on big donor funding. Bowman did not work within a left organization. He's not a representative of a larger left project with dedicated cadres, recruiters, onboarders, political educators. He's just a lone guy enjoying support from various groups because they kind of like what he says. That works for liberals because they're about attracting donors to a candidate that will support the donors' interests. They'll keep that support by being a perfectly good little lapdog. Anyone that tries to make waves will see that rug get pulled out from under them fast.
  Participation in bourgeois electoralism shouldn't be written off but the people most interested in it make these naive mistakes. Bourgeois electoralism should be used when it can actually deliver valuable gains (this is hard but doable at a local level) and/or when it's part of a larger organizing project focused on agitation and growth. Even if the candidate later loses, a competent org can reap benefits from either strategy.
  
  I was a part of the group that wanted him disciplined in my local DSA chapter when the Iron Dome vote (we lost by 3 votes).. I basically used these arguments when told that he was making his position more palatable for his district, and look where that got him.
  Participation in bourgeois electoralism shouldn't be written off but the people most interested in it make these naive mistakes.
  Unfortunately describes many people that I quite like. We kinda agree that this type of stuff should only be done at the local level for now.
- Devil's advocate for a sec... if elections can be "bought" because people are so apathetic or lazy that they need literally millions of dollars worth of advertising to convince them to vote, then maybe electoral democracy can't work?
  I mean, if we can't trust the masses to make good decisions in elections how can we trust them to make good decisions in a post-revolutionary system? Maybe Mao was right about a cultural revolution or can people actually convert to our side en masse?
  
  Devil's advocate for a sec... if elections can be "bought" because people are so apathetic or lazy that they need literally millions of dollars worth of advertising to convince them to vote, then maybe electoral democracy can't work?
  Dig in just a bit deeper here: These are people who live in New York, a state notorious for being unfailingly Democrat and also unfailingly conservative in its governance. The fact that some people have become disillusioned with elections that, their whole lives, have probably demonstrated very little change, is understandable and not a symptom of the average person somehow being simply inadequate for very basic tasks.
  Maybe Mao was right about a cultural revolution
  Mao was a radical democrat (lowercase d) and both the successes and failures of the Cultural Revolution are connected to that. Though there was direction from the top, ultimately the events that I assume you are referring to, like the Four Olds Campaign, were carried out on a grassroots basis by young activists, sometimes constructively and sometimes not. It was in many respects a battle of the progressive elements of society against the reactionary elements, one that the reactionary elements ultimately won by holding out until Their Guy took over the country, since the progressive or would-be-progressive forces were too disorganized in themselves to succeed at anything but being a force of chaos that gave reactionaries a solid causus belli for police crackdown.
  At scale this was not at all Mao dictating his socialism to the common people and then beating it into them when they resisted (though some of his followers certainly did, and this mostly failed).
  The Cultural Revolution is a very fraught topic, but you are doing Mao a disservice by essentially accusing him of "commandism", an error that he was very much against.
  Commandism is wrong in any type of work, because in overstepping the level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary mass action it reflects the disease of impetuosity. Our comrades must not assume that everything they themselves understand is understood by the masses. Whether the masses understand it and are ready to take action can be discovered only by going into their midst and making investigations. If we do so, we can avoid commandism. Tailism in any type of work is also wrong, because in falling below the level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of leading the masses forward it reflects the disease of dilatoriness. Our comrades must not assume that the masses have no understanding of what they themselves do not yet understand. It often happens that the masses outstrip us and are eager to advance a step when our comrades are still tailing behind certain backward elements, for instead of acting as leaders of the masses such comrades reflect the views of these backward elements and, moreover, mistake them for those of the broad masses. In a word, every comrade must be brought to understand that the supreme test of the words and deeds of a Communist is whether they conform with the highest interests and enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of the people. Every comrade must be helped to understand that as long as we rely on the people, believe firmly in the inexhaustible creative power of the masses and hence trust and identify ourselves with them, no enemy can crush us while we can crush every enemy and overcome every difficulty.
  https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_25.htm
  
  I'm personally struggling with the idea of "democracy" being an ideal since I have grown to hate most people. I think the majority of people in America are simply not smart enough, nor have enough basic empathy for others, to be trusted to make good decisions. Someone convince me that some form of benevolent authoritarianism isn't the solution.
  
  Bourgeois democracy does work, just not for the majority.
  
  America would need a cultural revolution. There’s no ifs or buts about it. This country is dogshit.
  
  Read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. Money is needed to grease the wheels of the media apparatus. He who controls the flow of money controls what people are exposed to. With it you can vilify your enemies and make a saint out of a sinner.
  
  Many apathetic non-voters are that way because they correctly see the narrow bounds of what bourgeois elections can accomplish. Changing that can change voter apathy.
  
  Just use propaganda and don't let the capitalists mislead the gullible
  
  with how publicized this primary was in terms of israel i think zionism was the losing factor here. the majority of americans (especially older ones who vote more) are indoctrinated zionists.
  bowman already had a huge incumbent advantage and way more name recognition than most reps, so there's no reason to believe seeing the other guy's ads more is the reason he lost (even if it certainly didnt help). if it were that easy, mike bloomberg would be president and all the other cases where interest groups spent ungodly amounts to unseat a progressive would've generally worked
  in elections between nobodies then yeah, a lot of people literally just vote for whoever's name they hear more
"All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.*
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/aug/05.htm
- One of the things that amazes me about Lenin is how he is specifically accurate a century later.
  Like there are other wise words or sage quotations that stand the test of time but they tend towards the vague. Lenin really got down to the damn joists. You'll be reading him and he's like "there's this bank full of dickheads doing shady finance shit on the world stage named Deutsche Bank" and yeah, it's that same fucking bank today doing much the same.
  wake up bro we need u
  
  There's a reason he's considered to have evolved Marxist theory.
the message is clear: the party line on funding genocide is nonnegotiable.
- He should say F it and run as an independent.
  
  Or fight dirty and tell his supporters to stay home in November. Force AIPAC to buy both elections.
  
  Perhaps he should.
  It would most likely split the democratic vote and lead to a republican victory.
  But it will send a message to Democrats that they must take progressives seriously if they want progressive votes.
  Sending that same message in the presidential election would be a too high price to pay, but one House seat isn't that bad.
This is what you get giving life support to the Does Not Care party.
Look at all the dirty blood money they spent to get that Yonk elected. Disgusting.
Fuck it, let him run in the general. Split the vote
Proof that any self styled "progressive" has nothing to lose by completely opposing Zionist fascism. The Zionists will stab you in the back even if you support them. We can advance confidently knowing anyone that tries to tow a middle position on the issue is an opportunist.
Bowman was/is a member of DSA and a controversial one. The Palestinian solidarity group tried to get him expelled years ago for both funding the iron dome and doing a tour of Israel.
Years later, he's gets primaried by Zionists.
- He was a member. He quit during that controversy. He actually kinda improved on Palestine after he visited Israel because he wasn't impressed by what he saw.
  
  He actually kinda improved on Palestine after he visited Israel because he wasn't impressed by what he saw.
  Apparently, neither were the Zionists.
The russians are interfering with our democracy
the worst person's ego about their political relevance just got a shot in the arm
The only good thing about this is how incontrovertibly it demonstrates that the dems are totally unworthy of your vote, even to fairly cluseless liberals.
Bowman misses the target
I'm tired of losing, and I'm tired of hearing cope about how elections don't matter or how Bowman was uh bad actually.
- He's a liberal that voted for the Iron Dome funding and quietly left the DSA before that. He's a liberal and not an example of us losing. I would never claim him to be on my side or my organization's side or a comrade.
  
  not an example of us losing
  Not sure about this bit
  Bowman's not a comrade but soft criticism of Israel lost to full throated support of Israel in an election. I think that demonstrates a loss of some kind.
- Bourgeois electoralism isn’t a sphere any of us win in. Bowman never represented a victory, even in the most modest sense
  
  There are wins and losses wirhin the sphere of bourgeois electoralism, because within those bounds a lot can change about how oppressed or not oppressed people are, how easy it is to organize an alternative, etc. It's the difference between:
  Both parties are capitalist and imperialist, so even moderating either of those will be next to impossible via elections alone; and
  Both parties are exactly the same and electoral politics don't matter until we have socialism.
- Start looking for W's at the local and state levels. Easier to win, and peppering lower level seats with committed socialists could do a lot to undermine the federal government and actually get some shit done.
Run him anyway, see if you can make the dem lose the seat
I just wanna say that it does not matter if you vote in stuff like this so even if the gains are marginal by having bowman in its still better than letting the DNC get their neoliberal. Atleast make them hide the ghoulishness. But ya it dont matta, nonadis mattas

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