Weekly Briefing: Trump’s reelection is a political disaster

To be honest, I expected Donald Trump to win. The disconnect between the Democratic Party leadership and both the rank-and-file base and the general working-class public felt too great as we entered the final 100 days of the campaign.

True to form, the Democrats did not let me down.

I’m not going to write another just-after-the-fact post-mortem piece here. Far too many have been written already. We’ve published some excellent early analysis of the election and what it means for Palestine and the solidarity movement here in the U.S. going forward. I encourage you to read all of them for a well-rounded analysis of this political disaster.

Michael Arria wrote a particularly salient take in his Shift newsletter last week. “Gaza might not be the specific reason for Trump’s return, but the issue is one prism to examine the failures and priorities of the Democratic party,” he wrote. Ziyad Motala said the election “exposed the entrenched racism of the country’s myopic political elite, which features a bipartisan moral blindness toward injustice abroad.” I’ll add that moral blindness applies here in the U.S. as well. Abdaljawad Omar struck a similar note, writing that “Palestine revealed the malaise and dissonance of the American empire” because Americans “finally understood their calls for change would remain unanswered.” On the question “can we say that Harris lost this race because of Gaza?,” Mitchell Plitnick says “no factor” in the Harris loss “was so stark as Gaza.”

I also want to direct your attention to Daniel Denvir’s The Dig podcast. He interviewed the always-prescient Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor about the election. She is unsparing in her analysis, and I found it spot-on.

So what now? We sort of know what to expect based on the first Trump term in office. The difference, of course, is the scale this time around. The Republican Party has been fully taken over by the extreme right and it now holds all the branches of the Federal government. They are intent on weaponizing the government against dissent, and this time they likely have the means to do it. Of course we can expect the incompetence and chaos of Trump to hamper his own efforts to undermine U.S. institutions, but the damage is certainly going to be worse this time than last.

It is also obvious that we cannot rely on what is left of the Democratic Party at the Federal level to protect us. Just a few days ago, 52 Democrats in the House voted with Republicans on a bill the ACLU said would “grant the executive branch extraordinary power to investigate, harass, and effectively dismantle any nonprofit organization — including news outlets, universities, and civil liberties organizations like ours — of tax-exempt status based on a unilateral accusation” of providing material support to terrorist organizations. Among those Democrats happy to give Trump’s administration this power was Adam Schiff, soon to be sworn into the U.S. Senate. The bill was defeated, barely, through maneuvering by some other Democrats in the House, but it is expected to come up again this week and they will not be able to prevent a simple majority vote from passing it.

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Must read: Meet the pro-Israel hawks Donald Trump has tapped for his new administration

Michael Arria: Donald Trump is picking a number of pro-Israel voices to join his incoming cabinet. His selections, some of which have officially been made and others which have only been reported from inside sources, solidify the fact that his administration will embrace a hawkish foreign policy in the Middle East, and advance attacks against organizations aiming to help Palestinians.

Catch-up

✒️ Mohamad Kadan: Walid Daqqah’s writings were fundamentally linked to a deep-seated worry about the future. While he mourns our collective Palestinian condition, Daqqah also reminds us that the future carries hope.

🏃 Sami Akkeila: This is the story of one family, and their desperate attempts to flee to safety under the bombardment of Israeli tanks. It is but one story among millions.

🙅 Mitchell Plitnick: Recent events in the Middle East show regional leaders shifting positions and alliances as they prepare to stave off a regional war under the unpredictable incoming Trump administration.

🏥 Noor Alyacoubi: Rana Nabeel Baalousha is fighting a rare illness while also struggling to survive the genocide in Gaza. Her only hope of survival is a medical transfer out of Gaza, but Israel won’t allow it. Her story is one of many.

🇱🇧 Qassam Muaddi: Despite relentless Israeli attempts to misrepresent and dismantle Hezbollah, the organization has endured. A look at the group’s history and goals explains its enduring power and shows how much of what’s said in Western media is not true. Muaddi also says efforts by Israel and the U.S. to interfere in Lebanese politics won’t work.

🇪🇬 Yousef Zain Al-Abdin: Egypt is complicit in the genocide in Gaza, but any Egyptian who engages in even mild protest is arrested. How did we get here?

🪖 Michael Arria: A Biden administration ultimatum that Israel increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing access to some U.S. weapons has now passed. Israel did not meet the U.S. criteria, but the administration will continue sending weapons regardless.

✡️ Paz Baum: Northwestern University tore down a sukkah I built with other students, supposedly under the guise of fighting antisemitism, because it said “Stop Arming Israel” on it. The school is using Jewish identity as a cover for repressing Palestine solidarity.

🗳️ Bilal Irfan: After working with Palestinian medical colleagues who face the horrors and brutality of the Israeli regime on a daily basis, I could not vote for those who have supported, aided, and abetted the ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide.

📸 David Lombeida: As the world has focused on the Gaza genocide, a massive Israeli campaign of violence and displacement has taken place across the West Bank. Photojournalist David Lombeida tells the stories of families in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley.