Ilhan Omar's congressional portrait.
I've avoided talking about this so far but there has been a major scandal in the Democratic party. One of the rising stars of the party, Ilham Omar, a Somali born congresswoman from Minnesota, has been accused of antisemitism after several tweets, which have been deleted. The tweets were critical of AIPAC, an Israeli lobbying group and she has since apologized and then doubled down. This turned into a huge scandal with accusations of antisemitism flying everywhere and the GOP smugly sitting on the sidelines laughing at the mess.
I don't want to get into how antisemitic Omar is or if her criticisms are valid. I'm not a stupid person and Israel/Judiasm is one of the few almost guaranteed ways to cause a massive controversy. It's right up there with circumcision and vaccination for topics that can't be sanely discussed on the internet. I don't have any desire to be internet famous so I tend to avoid discussions of this nature.
But I do think there are discussions to be had here other than the question if Omar is a bad person or not. Regardless of what you think of Omar, and I am sure everyone has an opinion now, I think the whole incident shows a lot about the current state of the Democratic Party.
I have been saying for a long time that the coalition that holds the Democratic Party together is a lot weaker than it should be. The cracks are beginning to show and although mutual hatred of Donald Trump is keeping them together the fact is that if he were to be gone the party may have split already.
This is yet another example of a group of insurgent Democrats trying to impose their will on the old establishment. Omar is another of the "woke" leftists that care a lot more about social justice than the old guard and she is doing this to try and shift the Overton Window left. Being anti-Israel used to be a major fringe position on the left and the right. Omar is one of the people on the left that is trying to change this. Not that the right doesn't also have members that are anti-Israel, just look at 4chan for example, but I don't really see anyone in power that is as openly anti-Israel as Omar and her supporters.
Of course since one of the Democratic Party's most important voter and fundraising groups are American Jews, this hasn't been playing well. Those American Jews obviously don't want someone like Omar to get her way for pretty obvious reasons.
The question now is whether or not the Democratic Party's tent is big enough for both groups. Can the party have a large number of Jewish voters and leaders while at the same time be anti-Israel? Can someone with fairly typical Muslim opinion on Israel exist in the same party as people that love Israel and support Zionism? My guess is that no, both groups can't exist in the same party.Right now it seems like the Democrats are trying to herd cats and it's clear that they haven't been getting everyone on board.
This is hardly the only crack in the Democratic Party, but it is the most visible and open wound. There are still many economic leftists in the party who are still bitter about what was done to Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary season. And there are a lot of blue collar "blue dog" Democratic voters that are getting turned off by the constant focus on identity politics.
I kind of view 2016 as a watershed year for US politics where the two parties diverged quite a bit from each other and from themselves. In the GOP the Trump takeover is mostly complete with the old neoconservative guard kicked out of power while the new populists are in control with the surviving members of the older power structure mostly backing the winning horse. For the Democrats the neoliberals are still hanging on but are not only facing attacks from the right but are facing their own insurgencies as well. They have done a better job of staying in power than the necons, but it's clear that that might not be the case forever.
Indeed, if Howard Schultz runs as a more centrist 3rd party option, both in terms of policy and beliefs, it's entirely possible that the party could split their vote in 2020. The Democrats already have an uphill battle against President Trump, based on his relative success and the natural advantage of incumbency, but a three way fight between Trump, Schultz and any Democrat would likely cause a 2nd term of President Trump. If that happens the entire party could split and we may have finally gotten rid of the two party system. This would likely lead to a new conservative renaissance that the country hasn't seen in decades.
It just seems like there are too many competing interests in the Democratic Party and all of them are opposed to the GOP. I don't see too many more people crossing over, most of the "blue dog" Democrats already have, but I also don't see a party that can stand if it has both pro and anti Israel factions and socialists and capitalist wings. Something has got to give and even if one faction or the other takes over I don't see them all staying together...
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