WASHINGTON — The panic is predictable. That’s the real story, according to observers familiar with the dynamic. But the panic is also dangerous.
It distracts from what could go wrong next. The figure that matters in the current Beltway debate is zero.
Zero new policy proposals. Zero legislative achievements discussed. Zero attention paid to what voters actually want.
Instead, the political class is locked in yet another round of hand-wringing. Democratic strategist James Carville says he’s done with the party.
Donald Trump is screaming about communists running rampant. The mainstream media is sighing with relief — they have a storyline to prove they aren’t biased against Trump after all. And so it goes.
But the numbers that should matter to investors and political strategists are different. The issue of America’s unconditional support for Israel, especially in the wake of Trump’s disastrous war with Iran, is roiling both parties. It’s having an effect at the ballot box.
That is the risk nobody is talking about. Eight years ago, the same thing happened.
A young upstart named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseated New York Rep. Joseph Crowley, a powerful 10-term incumbent and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Her win was seen as a crisis for the ages. She and a group of young “woke” women of color, dubbed “the Squad,” were feared to be taking a wrecking ball to everything we hold dear.
The old guard freaked out. Now it’s happening again.
A couple of democratic socialists in New York City unseated two incumbents. The same panic is back. The same hand-wringing.
The same accusations of extremism. What could go wrong next is that this panic prevents anyone from seeing the real threat. The war with Iran.
The unconditional support for Israel. These are the issues that are actually changing the electorate.
Not the Squad. Not the democratic socialists. Not Carville’s tantrum.
The risk is clear. The political class will keep arguing about whether the Democratic Party has “gone off the deep end.” They will keep debating whether a handful of primary upsets mean the end of the world.
Meanwhile, the voters who care about foreign policy and war will keep voting. They will keep punishing incumbents who support unconditional aid to Israel. They will keep rewarding candidates who oppose the war with Iran.
This has happened over and over again. A new generation steps up with different energy and new ideas. The old guard freaks out.
The media picks a side. And the real story gets buried.
The bottom line is that the panic is predictable. But it’s also missing the real story. The numbers that matter are not the number of democratic socialists elected.
The numbers that matter are the voters who are sick of war. The voters who are sick of unconditional support for a foreign government.
The voters who are sick of being ignored. Those voters are showing up. They are unseating incumbents.
They are changing the conversation. And the political class is too busy panicking to notice. What could go wrong next is that the panic becomes self-fulfilling.
The old guard doubles down. The media keeps chasing the same tired storyline.
The voters get angrier. The war with Iran gets worse. The unconditional support for Israel gets more entrenched.
And the next election brings more surprises. More upsets.
More panic. And so it goes.
