The Democrats are at a crossroads – and should not forget that the United States remains in the crosshairs of Iran.
The Democratic Party has been staking out its 2028 campaign positions on Israel and the Middle East since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury. Why are they courting the “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” vote?
There is no doubt that the February 28 combined U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran was instantly weaponized by both Republicans and Democrats for their own political ends. An aggressive political campaign is being waged alongside the military operation.
The Trump administration’s stated explanation of the Iran operation has been far from straightforward. Yet, they consistently reiterated a plan to strike Iran at its weakest, an unexpected intelligence opportunity to kill top leadership (including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei), decimate ballistic missile stockpiles, the Iranian navy, and any vestiges of its nuclear program after the Midnight Hammer mission at Fordow last June, and dismantle a proxy network that had threatened U.S. interests abroad.
Still, there remains alarming ambiguity about how to come to the aid of the Iranian people and create conditions for regime change and governance on the day after. While Republicans are split between MAGA supporters and isolationists, the Democratic Party (for the most part) has taken a more knee-jerk rejectionist approach to the Trump agenda.
Even though Iran and its proxies have killed American citizens and servicepeople worldwide, taken U.S. diplomats hostage, bombed American installations and U.S. civilians across the Middle East, and threatened U.S. allies and interests across the region, the Democratic Party has mostly rejected the logic of the operation’s timing and aims and considers the entire military campaign as optional.
For example, Kamala Harris (who somehow believes she is the 2028 frontrunner) issued an unambiguous statement on X mere hours after the war began, declaring “Donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want. Let me be clear: I am opposed to a regime-change war in Iran, and our troops are being put in harm’s way for the sake of Trump’s war of choice.”
Perhaps eyeing the midterm elections this fall, most Democrats then lined up behind a strictly party-line “no” vote on a War Powers Resolution, seeking to prevent Trump from carrying on without Congressional approval. Only Senator John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) broke ranks to join Republicans in the Senate (although three Republican Congresspeople joined the Democrats) and four Democratic Congressmen crossed the aisle in the House of Representatives. Another 53 Democrats even voted against a reaffirmation of Iran as the “largest state-sponsor of terror,” a fact that is impossible to contest on its face. Even the guy with a Nazi tattoo on his chest running for Congress in Maine, Graham Platner, is against intervention in Iran.
While a geopolitical rearrangement of the Middle East is happening in real time that will isolate and even topple the mullahs, Democrats and progressives seem stubbornly wedded to business-as-usual in the region. Yet there are really only two sides to this street: “Death to America” and her allies and the coalition led by the United States and Israel. Does the Democratic Party want to stand with those enemies who chant “Marg Bar Amerika!” or with the defense of the United States and its Middle Eastern allies?
When it comes to defending Israel, its wartime partner and “biggest ally in the Middle East”, Israel, the Democratic Party is taking an even harder line. Senator Mark Warner, a powerful Democratic who is a member of the “Gang of Eight” that is privy to the highest-level intelligence briefings, went in front of cameras to throw Israel under the bus, suggesting that “there was no imminent threat to the United States – there was an imminent threat to Israel,” which apparently didn’t matter. Gavin Newsom, another presidential hopeful, spent the past week slamming Israel as an apartheid state and suggesting a kind of Elders of Zion conspiracy that Israel had dragged the United States into the war. (It was later announced that he would be joining antisemite and “American Deserved 9/11” podcaster Hasan Piker on his show – an association no one should take lightly.]
Other rising Democratic stars like Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) and Representative Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) also pointed a finger at Israel, alongside older colleagues and former presidential candidates like Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont).
Clearly the “Death to Israel” vote is a cohort that Democrats are keen to win over in 2028 – especially as some blame Harris’s 2024 policy positions on Israel for losing the progressive vote. Further, the electoral success of those like NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani in luring millennials with anti-Israel (and often antisemitic) positions has not been lost on the Democratic mainstream. Nothing sounds like winning more than ‘Death to Israel’ to some Democrats!
It’s clearly past time for Zionist American Jews to open their eyes and see that their loyalty to the Democratic Party has been spurned in favor of other identity politics groups and progressives. But there are also larger questions for the liberal and centrist Democratic Party voter base – do they want to be the “Death to America! Death to Israel!” party? Or do they want a more moderate foreign policy and a platform that focuses more on domestic issues, including homeland security and safety? The Democrats are at a crossroads – and should not forget that the United States remains in the crosshairs of Iran.