On Wednesday, the US Senate will hold a vote on whether to approve the Pentagon’s request to send another $20bn in armaments to Israel, after a year in which the Biden administration has supplied billions of dollars of arms used in Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
Among the weapons to be approved are 120mm tank rounds, high explosive mortar rounds, F-15IA fighter aircraft, and joint direct attack munitions, known as JDAMs, which are precision systems for otherwise indiscriminate or “dumb” bombs.
Separate resolutions are being brought forward for each weapon type, including its cost to US taxpayers. However, together, the initiative is known as the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs).
As a result of intensive lobbying from pro-Israel groups like Aipac and the Democratic Majority For Israel, no arms transfer to Israel has been blocked.
The resolutions likely to gain the highest levels of support are expected to involve the tank rounds, which have been responsible for killing hundreds of civilians in northern Gaza in particular, and the JDAMs, which caused the death of well-known figures such as Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon, and six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza City.
I used to think like you, that the primaries were the answer. AOC seemed to prove this theory, but the events which unfolded afterwards cast much doubt on this strategy. Consider the race in TX of Henry Cuellar vs Jessica Cisneros. Cisneros was a strong progressive candidate, people loved her in her district, and she would have won…but then Pelosi decided to back the corporate goon Cuellar, dumped millions of DNC money into his campaign, and he stole the win from the progressive. Cuellar, the “democrat”, went on to vote with Trump 83% of the time.
Alternatively, consider this year’s presidential race. There simply was no primary, and it cost us dearly. There’s a lot of finger pointing going on by the Dems right now trying to determine which racial identity is to blame for not showing up to vote hard enough. They’re absolute fools, because blaming the voters is simply wrong. It’s the party’s responsibility to win votes. We could have done that this year with an exciting primary to democratically test ideas and allow the voters to get energized and decide. Meaningful, materially impactful ideas like increasing the minimum wage, paid family leave, and Medicare for all surely would have been center stage here. But no, the oligarchs wanted to continue with Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” approach, with an extra helping of “Israel first policy,” and that was final. There are many other such examples, but unfortunately I no longer believe the Dems care enough about democracy to allow successful primary challenges to begin with.
Lastly, I think there are many Trump voters who are simply feeling immense economic pain right now, and are voting for him as a change candidate mostly out of desperation. My heart goes out to them, because the fake populist Trump has 0 intention of delivering for them. But at least his messaging acknowledged their struggle, and he was able to give them some hope. Dems simply cannot escape Republican framing on social issues, and they’re nowhere to be found when it comes to relating to actual working class struggles. A real populist candidate could change all that. But alas, you’ll never see it from the DNC.