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What Went Right—and Wrong—for the Democrats This Week

16-8-2024 < Attack the System 28 325 words
 
The Trump campaign is fumbling. In many ways, the current moment is a reprise of 2016, but flipped, Chris Lehmann argues. Trump even has a leaked e-mail scandal! The most noteworthy thing about the story, Lehmann writes, is the media’s nonresponse. Journalists pored over Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, and we ended up with articles about John Podesta’s (excellent) risotto advice. So far, outlets are referencing Trump’s e-mails only in vague political terms—no culinary pointers from the GOP yet.

Ilhan Omar has been unwavering in her support of Palestinian and Palestinian American rights since entering Congress in 2019. The fact that she was just reelected says something about where her constituents stand on this issue, John Nichols suggests: “Isn’t it a major political development that Omar—who, because of her close 2022 primary, came into the 2024 election as potentially one of the most vulnerable of the pro-ceasefire incumbents—proved to be unbeatable?”



Omar’s win doesn’t mean that anti-Zionism is the consensus across the Democratic Party, however. As graduate student and writer Layla Saliba writes this week, “Democrats were among those cheering and clapping for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his address to Congress last month.” Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is an opportunity to rectify Biden’s policies on Gaza, but she “cannot expect to win over Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian voters if her approach to Palestine remains the same.”



But if there’s something the Harris campaign has done right so far, it is leaning into the online language of many youth voters, Ginny Hogan says. The coconut tree and “Midwestern Princess” memes may seem mindless, but the Harris-Walz campaign is wise to capitalize on them. Memes, she writes, “create a permission structure for those who are often cynical or politically disengaged.” They allow a wide range of people to demonstrate and revel in their enthusiasm for the Democratic Party ticket.



-Alana Pockros


Engagement Editor, The Nation


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