The Democratic Party primaries have demonstrated two aspects of the progressive drift toward extremist candidates: the character of the candidates themselves and the speed of the transformation of the party.
Both of those elements are once again on display with yet another troubling congressional candidate.
June 23 is the date of what the New York Times calls “arguably the fiercest primary battle in New York City this cycle,” between five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Darializa Avila Chevalier, a left-wing insurgent with the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Chevalier also has the endorsement of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, a once-moribund crowd of left-wing afterthoughts that has been revitalized by its new mission: spreading anti-Semitism.
City & State NY reported yesterday that Chevalier’s already-unsubtle anti-Zionist fixation is more monstrous than it appeared. That has to do with a particular DSA rally.
On October 8, 2023, as Israel was still counting its dead and searching for remaining Palestinian terrorists on the heels of the Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 innocents and took over 200 hostages, and which included extended sexual torture and the killing of entire families by giddy Gazans, the DSA promoted a pro-Palestinian rally that was organized to celebrate the barbarity.
Even for the anti-Israel progressive faithful, this was too much. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, leader of the party’s influential anti-Zionist caucus, criticized it. So did Zohran Mamdani, at the time a state legislator. Attendees at the rally justified the carnage in Israel as legitimate “resistance,” shocking the consciences even of DSA members.
At a debate this week with his primary opponent for a different New York seat, Brad Lander—a key architect of the anti-Zionist whirlwind engulfing Gotham—said he dropped his DSA membership over the rally. Lander is a Mamdani backer who is constantly accusing his opponent, the incumbent Dan Goldman, of being too supportive of Israel and of taking Jewish money to hold onto his seat. Yet even Lander was horrified by the October 8 rally, as was literally any person on earth with a shred of humanity.
You can see where this is going: Chevalier proudly attended the rally and defended her participation to City & State: “At the core of it all for me is human dignity. And I think so often we get lost in the ‘well on this date, and on that date’ when it’s all cyclical, if we don’t get to the core of how we disregard the human rights and dignity of some people over others.”
Buried in that soulless gobbledygook is a key belief animating blood-and-soil extremists like Chevalier: that it doesn’t matter what a Palestinian does to a Jew; there is no line and no sin.
Obviously this type of thinking is evil. But it’s also worth noting how fast this has all happened, how speedily the progressive handbasket has reached hell. Brad Lander was, for what feels like only minutes, the extreme one. He’s running to replace Goldman, who is far more reasonable on issues like anti-Semitism, yet he pals around with Al Sharpton.
Recent polls give Lander the lead, so it seemed that was where the party was headed. But now there’s a distinct possibility the party may be passing Lander by as well. The freefall continues, with no bottom in sight.
Source:
www.commentary.org
