Cowardice, Corruption, Complicity— Dems Crossing The Aisle To Support Trump’s Heinous Gaza Agenda
- Howie Klein
- Aug 1
- 4 min read
The War Crimes Caucus: Republicans Lead, Dems Follow
You may have read that Trump is threatening Canada again— this time because Carney said Canada is planning to recognize Palestine as a state (just what the U.K., France and Germany have been saying). Trump wrote after midnight on his social media platform that he won’t make a trade deal with Canada, our second largest trading partner, unless… they change their mind.
On Wednesday night, Senate Republicans, with the connivance of Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maria Cantwell, Cory Booker, Adam Schiff, Alex Padilla, all the conservative Dems and, of course, AIPAC’s own John Fetterman, voted to defeat Bernie’s two attempts to halt U.S. complicity in Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. (Actually, not all the conservative Democrats voted against it. Three cowards— Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego and Elissa Slotkin— absented themselves from the Senate for the 2 votes. Yesterday Slotkin says had she been there she would have voted with Bernie.)
It’s worth noting that of those voting 27 Democrats, a majority, voted against genocide and only 17 voted with the Republicans in favor it it. It’s also worth noting that 3 Democrats— Jon Ossoff, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse— voted with Bernie and one motion and against him on the other. A similar motion earlier in the year had only 14 backers, again all Democrats, since even so-called “moderate” Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are staunchly backing the genocide coalition led by AIPAC.
After the vote, Margaret DeReus, executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, said that “The vast majority of Democratic voters say Israel is committing genocide, and have repeatedly demanded that their party's elected officials in Congress stop helping Trump deliver more and more weapons to Israel with our tax dollars. Tonight proved that an increasing number of Democrats in the Senate— more than half of the Democratic caucus— are hearing that demand.”
In southeast Florida's 23rd congressional district, Democrat Oliver Larkin is primarying incumbent Rep. Jared Moskowitz, setting up one of the fiercest Democratic challenges on the 2026 House map. Moskowitz, who joined Republicans in censuring Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib and last year introduced the House amendment barring the State Department from citing death tolls from the Gaza Health Ministry, counts AIPAC as his top all-time campaign contributor. While Moskowitz has steadfastly supported the Israeli destruction of Gaza, Larkin is rejecting money from corporate PACs and the Israel lobby. “Now is a moment of moral clarity,” Larkin said. “The majority of Senate Democrats are responding to the urgent calls from the American people and the Palestinian solidarity movement worldwide: No arms to Israel. No more U.S. support for Israeli war crimes or the starvation of Gaza. We must enact a permanent ceasefire, end this genocide, and support equal human rights— including Palestinian self-determination.”
While Democratic complicity is shameful, let’s not ever lose track of the fact that it’s the Republican Party that is proudly, unapologetically leading the charge toward permanent war and endless occupation. Even more than the Democrats— where there is at least some serious pushback— his is the party of genocide denial, war profiteering and sadistic foreign policy. They almost seem to be celebrating mass death as much as tolerating it. They treat the destruction of Gaza like it’s a political game, a way to posture as “tough” while shoveling billions of our dollars into the hands of weapons manufacturers and far-right Israeli extremists. These are the same Republicans who couldn’t summon an ounce of humanity after watching Israeli bombs reduce entire neighborhoods to rubble, who cheer when aid is blocked, who shrug when children are buried alive in the ruins of their schools. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, J.D. Vance, and the rest of the GOP’s neocon revivalists aren’t “defending democracy”— they’re laundering ethnic cleansing through the language of national security. And it isn’t policy; it’s bloodlust dressed up in a flag.
Every time someone like Schumer, Booker, Gillibrand, Padilla or Schiff crosses the aisle to join them, they legitimize that depravity. Every time a Democrat parrots AIPAC's talking points or refuses to hold Israel accountable, they strengthen the hand of the most fascistic elements of the American right— people who would turn Gaza into a test lab for their dream of total domination, where international law is irrelevant and power alone decides who lives and who dies. This is what it means when Republicans and their Democratic collaborators in the Senate vote to send more weapons to Netanyahu: they are choosing mass death over diplomacy, apartheid over accountability, and war crimes over peace. Every enabler, and smug warmonger in a navy suit should be remembered by the voters for dragging us into complicity because of their cowardice to standup to AIPAC. Fetterman isn’t just mouthing AIPAC talking points; he’s made himself a mascot for vengeance, hatred and the annihilation of an entire people’s future— a Democratic Party version of Tom Cotton,
Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution, sent out a statement noting that “AIPAC and its billionaire donors have had a stranglehold on Democratic foreign policy for years. That grip is finally starting to break— but the damage to trust in the Democratic Party and our democracy is real. Base voters see the influence of money, and they’re sick of it… Polling shows just how out of step the political class has been: 78% of NYC Democratic primary voters believe Israel is committing genocide; 46% believe Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war; A majority support restricting U.S. weapons to Israel; Only 8% of Democrats nationwide approve of Israel’s military campaign.”
Comments