Up until now, despite billions of dollars and unmeasurable institutional power on its side, the ruling class has struggled to unseat the Squad, the bloc of eight democratic socialists and progressives in Congress elected in the wake of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign, a group of movement leaders who have helped elevate the concept of democratic socialism from a personal eccentricity of one gruffly lovable Vermont grandfather to a central tenet of millennial and Gen Z left movements. Indeed, until last month, no challenge — Republican or Democrat — to the Squad had been successful.
But the group’s strong support for a cease-fire in Gaza has activated the big money of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel groups, and in June, for the first time, a Squad member lost his race. Jamaal Bowman, even with Jewish Voice for Peace, Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, and other left groups phone banking and door knocking for him, was unable to prevail against an opponent backed by more than $14 million in AIPAC funds. (Bowman’s opponents also needed a redistricting that was highly in their favor, icing out much of Bowman’s natural working-class constituency in favor of a richer, more suburban one.)
Now it’s possible the Squad may lose another member to the same pro-genocide money machine: Rep. Cori Bush, a nurse, Black Lives Matter activist, socialist, and fighter for the working class.
During Bush’s time in Congress, she has pursued a strong progressive agenda on renewable energy, climate resilience, public transit, environmental justice, veterans’ health, and women’s rights. Like her fellow Squad members, Bush has elevated left and working-class concerns in national political discourse and pushed the Democrats left, strengthening legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act.
Along with the rest of the Squad, Bush has stood against the war on Gaza. Bush boycotted Benjamin…
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Auteur: Liza Featherstone
