J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, March 12, 2024. Schumer is calling on Israel to hold new elections.
When Joe Biden all but shouted his way through his State of the Union address, it appears he did more than make clear he wasn’t the enfeebled, doddering ruler of right-wing characterizations. He also may have set the tone for an assertive Democratic Party campaign.
Just today, the two Democrats ranking just beneath him in the hierarchy of power—Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer—articulated Democratic positions in ways so assertive that no one could miss them.
As I write, Harris is scheduled later today to visit an abortion clinic in Minnesota. And just a few hours ago, Schumer delivered a speech on the Senate floor fiercely condemning Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who, Schumer said, “has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.”
“He has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows,” Schumer added. “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.”
Schumer called on Israel to repudiate Bibi and elect new leaders who actively worked with Palestinians to create a two-state solution. Most importantly, he said that if Bibi and his right-wing cohorts stayed in power, “then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.”
In other words, changing our policy of unconditional support for Israel to one of conditional support.
In a sense, what Schumer did today was take what Democratic officials have been muttering to one another for quite some time and state it so loudly that all could hear. It reverberated even more loudly as Schumer holds the highest elected office of any American Jew. And as such, it could well be understood as the politically savvy beginning of an epochal shift in Biden administration policy toward Israel, at least so long as that nation opposes our own nation’s commitment to establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel—the only plausible solution to the enduring, and enduringly bloody, Mideast conundrum.
By delivering this speech today, Schumer is also highlighting the differences between Democrats and Republicans. Just yesterday, Senate Republicans invited Bibi to address a one-day retreat they were holding. (Bibi couldn’t make it.) Schumer’s speech was clearly calculated not just to draw that contrast, but also to be such a dramatic departure from stated (as opposed to muttered) Democratic policy that it would draw some positive attention from those within the party’s base—young people and progressives most particularly—who’ve written the party off in matters pertaining to Israel, Palestine, and Gaza.
The vice president’s visit to an abortion clinic today also speaks louder than any of the administration’s previous actions and statements in favor of reproductive freedom. Harris has actually been making the defense of women’s reproductive rights and the attack on Republicans’ opposition thereto the centerpiece of her recent speaking tour, but her visit today makes those points in a way that guarantees the kind of media coverage that drives that contrast home, even to the large number of Americans who don’t pay much attention to politics, and whose votes the Democrats will need this fall.
These are the right positions for the Democrats to take, and, like Biden, they now appear to be finding ways to take them that register with the public more forcefully. That’s exactly what they need to keep doing if they are to have a real shot at winning November’s elections.
Tune in on YouTube tomorrow (Friday, March 15) at 12:30 p.m. ET for the Prospect’s Weekly Roundup, in which David Dayen and I will discuss the state of the Democrats’ 2024 campaign and some important labor-community victories, and answer your questions on damn near anything.
