“I’m voting for Hillary,” said Mark, a 24-year-old Democratic Party consultant outside the Marriott International Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, just hours after Clinton had accepted her party’s nomination to challenge Donald Trump in November.
“Why is Hillary the best choice?”
“Is that a question?” he asked. “It’s Trump or Hillary.”
“The thing I’ve heard from a lot of people in FDR Park” — the sight of a week of camped out protests accompanying the DNC — “is that they feel coerced, there’s lots of problems in this country that are unrecognized.”
As we spoke a person who appeared homeless wandered around the entrance to the hotel, listlessly waving an American flag he’d found. Mark continued:
“Well every election is coerced. We have a two party system. Every election is coerced, unfortunately. That’s the way it is. We have problems that need to be address, but it’s up to us, the voters, to make sure that these problems get addressed.”
“They would say, ‘no, I’m not comfortable with being coerced,’” I offered.
“So opt out of it,” Mark said. “Or move to another country where they don’t have a two party system.”
From Utah, the young man, Mark, wouldn’t give his last name or reveal much about what he was doing at the convention, except that he was “working.” He said that people are happy to complain, but they rarely vote. And so forth.
“We have so many privileges as American citizens, but we don’t want any of the responsibilities that come along with them,” he said.
One of those responsibilities, you could argue, is to the Palestinian people. American voters’ tax dollars have gone for decades to continuing the Israeli occupation. Clinton as a candidate has said she’d only hew tighter to the demands of Benjamin Netanyahu to squeeze the Palestinian people harder.
Then, as I do, I turned the question about boring old American party politics to the exciting Apocalyptic stakes of Israel/Palestine.
“I mean, that’s a fuckin’ issue like…yeah…we should take that up,” Mark said. “But before we deal with Palestinian rights we should fucking deal with our problems.”
So I brought up an American domestic issue, the Black Lives Matter movement, as having a confluence with Palestine.
“There’s a confluence with anything you would want to draw a confluence to. Like Palestinian rights…totally fucked up. What the Israelis are doing to Palestinians: Totally fucked up. But I think that there are oppressed groups all over the world..If you want to draw a parallel between Black Lives Matter you could draw a parallel to any oppressed group around the world…”
“It’s more solid than that. There were lots of Palestinian flags in the Black Lives Matter march. How does Clinton respond to this constituency?”
“I think you have to look at AIPAC,” he said, without extrapolating.
Then he said that “We have a government that’s supposed to by the people, for the people but we don’t give a fuck.”
“For Palestinian Americans who were drawn to Bernie Sanders in the campaign now…”
He cut me off: “Again, I feel for them. Palestinian Americans, great. They’re Americans. But Palestinians not my problem. We have things to deal with here.”
What Mark was saying reveals something disturbing about the Clinton campaign and its operatives. Some who even recognize the unfairness of the Israeli occupation and the assault on Gaza will relegate the issue to the back burner because, eh fuck it. Not their problem. More than that, Palestinian Americans who put their shoulder in the Sanders campaign are somehow totally divorced from the experience of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and Israel.
Of course, many Palestinian American families maintain close ties with their relatives in the region, and worry for their safety. For many Arab and Muslim Americans, new immigrants and ones born in the U.S., Clinton presents a bleak choice between fear of Trump’s racism and the indifference of Clinton-style party politics to issues that aren’t urgent because they don’t swing elections. But that’s a grim way of being a public servant.
This is the kind of logic that has led to a sharp split in the Democratic Party, between a politics of principles and a party of “What have you done for me lately?” But what can we expect? The Democratic Party that we know today descends from 20th century organized crime just as birds do from dinosaurs, and still abides by certain mafia codes: Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.
“What’s your last name,” I asked Mark.
“I’d rather not say.”
Wise guy.
Wilson, the Democratic Party is a hugely diverse coalition of political representatives of various communities within the US. One Democratic consultant’s off hand quote on the issue of Palestinian liberation means absolutely nothing in the larger scheme of the Party, which is shifting towards a more inclusive, more justice-minded agenda.
You are being unethical in writing these hit-pieces towards the only party that is standing against the threat of white supremacist fascism in the nation. We are at war, and in war, there will be all kind of lies and half-truths flying around but we must keep our aim at winning the war first and foremost.
It obviously is our problem since our politicians treat Israel as the 51st state and we fund a lot of this crap.
Mark is incredibly ignorant to be consulting on American politics.
He is evidently unaware that Israel manipulated the U.S. to spend its blood and treasure in Iraq, and is trying to manipulate the U.S. to spend vast amounts more blood and treasure to “clean up” the mess created by the Iraq invasion.
He is also evidently unaware that Israel shuts down honest discussion of these issues in America, sabotaging its “free” press and thereby its very democracy.
Or perhaps he is another Israeli agent.
Israel is not our problem either, so why do these politicians act like they HAVE to send billions over there, as if it is a matter of life or death? Mark is off his mark, obviously.
There is no way that someone whose issue is Palestine (or foreign policy, as in reducing American military activism abroad) is going to see eye to eye with someone whose issues are centered on domestic American concerns. The Democratic urge towards unity is most difficult after an 8 year stint in the White House, and George W Bush was not enough to convince some to vote for Gore rather than refuse to play the game of the lesser of the two evils and today there are those who are unconvinced that choosing Hillary over Trump is a worthwhile effort.
The Palestine effort is not in the forefront of the mind of the American people right now and this web site feels that there is no moment like now and now demands Jill Stein. But the American people have a bigger problem, as they see it, and its name is Donald Trump. And November 9th if we defeat Donald Trump, then will be your moment. I understand that you don’t want to wait and who can deny your impatience. But really, Donald Trump is not your run of the mill threat and it really is understandable for the fear of Trump to win out over the wider perspective of the Middle East or the specifics of the wrongs done to the Palestinians for quite some time and the wrongs done on the West Bank and regarding Gaza to this day. Nonetheless Donald Trump is a present danger and trying to keep the democrats’ eye off the goal of defeating Trump seems like a losing proposition.
Hillary I hope will win the white house, but she lacks the political acumen to win more than one term and the left needs to be prepared for November 9th, because the republican will win in 2020, unless the left can pull the vote away from clinton in 2020 and run as something really different from clinton. but that won’t happen because clinton will have the solid black vote like this time. but in 2024 the field is wide open, because the republican president Rubio will be very vulnerable because of gridlock government, rubio will be a one termer as well and 2024 is the year that a mcgovern democrat will be elected as president.
how large a role Palestine israel will play in 2024 is difficult to know. trump’s best hope is for 2 Orlandos and a San Bernardino in October. will terrorism recede as a threat in the next 8 years? Will the partitioning of Syria happen or will the blood letting never cease? Will the losing side of the Iraq war of 2003 be given enough power or land so that the motivation for violence will be mitigated thus leading to the end of Daesh? Can chaos in Iraq and syria be the dominant theme for another 8 years? How will Europe react to immigration and terrorism?
in 8 years do you think this mcgovern democrat will be sufficiently anti Israel to satisfy the Palestine advocates? but the democratic party will still be dependent on jewish contributors, so how can a presidential candidate not worry about congress, and if money is still the lifeblood of politics, how far can a presidential candidate wander from the mainstream of the party. as the grass roots becomes less supportive of israel, how will this split between big donors and the grass roots play out.