Dissipating Victories

I am burdened not just by the failures of our movement but by my own failures.

In 2014, I believed we could build a “Tea Party of the Left,” a force strong enough to topple a few corporate-backed incumbents and shift the Democratic Party on a range of issues, including foreign policy. The hope was that by winning a few key races, the party would shift in a more progressive, working-class direction on a range of policy issues. For a moment, it seemed to be working. The Squad was ascendent.

Bowman’s victory over Eliot Engel — one of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) strongest allies — was a major milestone, as was Bush’s win in Missouri. We even saw signs of movement within the Democratic Party in 2020 on weapons to Israel, with a number of presidential primary candidates coming out in favor of restrictions, albeit incremental.

But the victories were fleeting. The counterattack and counterorganizing from AIPAC and the party establishment hit harder than many of us anticipated. We failed to build the infrastructure to sustain those wins.

When Bowman lost, it was more than a political setback — for me, it was a personal one. I thought that if we could just score a few big wins, we’d shift the political landscape permanently. But politics isn’t always a sprint. It’s a marathon. We won a few rounds but were unprepared for the long haul. It felt like trying to hold water in my hands; no matter how tight I closed my grip, the power slipped away.

The infrastructure that helped elect Bowman and Bush couldn’t withstand AIPAC’s counterattack. Neither the Working Families Party (WFP), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), nor Justice Democrats had the depth of voters, donors, and community organizing needed to sustain him against that kind of onslaught. We needed to build a four-year coalition project in Bowman’s and Bush’s districts — and we all collectively failed. I failed.

Justice Democrats, in particular, needs more resources to build the kind of enduring infrastructure that sustains progressive electoral projects. It’s not just about winning elections — it’s about nurturing a long-term coalition of voters, donors, staffers, and community organizers capable of supporting champions like Bowman and Bush, even in the face of AIPAC’s well-funded opposition.

It’s easy to blame arms manufacturers for Democratic opposition to an Israel arms embargo. But the real influence in districts comes from representing communities of actual Democrats with networks and standing. These groups mobilize voters, build in-district networks, and provide financial backing.

On campaigns, it’s these groups — not weapons manufacturers — pressuring candidates, warning that conditioning aid to Israel could make them “out of touch with the community.” For Democrats, especially moderates, this organized, real-world pressure is tough to ignore. If progressive candidates feel it, imagine the pressure on middle-of-the-road Democrats.

AIPAC is organizing voters, donors, and institutions. The AIPAC network’s financial power is obviously their biggest piece of leverage, but they also do community organizing. For example, I’ve had several experiences campaigning in which I learned that AIPAC’s black outreach director had already reached out to black clergy in a district to set up a meeting with a candidate to discuss “black issues,” with Israel being one on a list. They not only leverage relationships with key donors, but also key institutional and community leaders in districts and states across the country.

To counter AIPAC’s deeply rooted influence, we need more than moral suasion. We need infrastructure. We must build our own networks that engage community leaders, union reps, clergy, and local activists — particularly within black, Latino, and working-class neighborhoods. This requires a long-term investment: in fueling our campaigns, but also permanent organizing, relationship-building, and voter engagement. It means moving beyond rallies and online mobilization to establish trust and shared agendas with local institutions. By anchoring our political goals with deep donor, voter, and communal infrastructure, we can create pressure that moderates and even conservative Democrats cannot afford to ignore.

Power is about organized voters, money, and institutions. We don’t have enough of these elements, and it’s a strategic failure on all our parts.

I feel the weight of failure upon failure upon failure, failure that has caused bombs to drop on the families and loved ones of people I know. After all the mass marches, civil disobedience, and the Uncommitted campaign, we must now ask ourselves: What is our assessment of the balance of power needed to achieve our aims? If we’re serious about shifting power, we need to confront not just the scale of our ambitions, but the depth of our deficits — starting with an honest reckoning of what we’ve built, what we’ve lost, and what’s needed to win.

We Aren’t Strong Enough Yet

We are up against liberals and moderates who often acknowledge the injustice toward Palestinians and concede the moral urgency but dismiss tangible policy shifts, like ending arms sales to Israel, as politically unrealistic. The result: calls for justice are reduced to symbolic statements, divorced from real political stakes.

These moderates see the barriers but choose to accept them, maintaining a status quo that needs dismantling. By keeping Palestinian rights separate from broader struggles for change, they reinforce the systems we need to overturn. It’s not just disappointing — it’s morally indefensible.

At the sit-in outside the DNC in Chicago, I saw endorsements pour in from civil rights organizations, unions like the United Auto Workers, and elected officials like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Summer Lee. Senators like Dick Durbin and Elizabeth Warren made calls on our behalf. Yet it wasn’t enough. The party refused us. The cold realities of power set in.

Maybe I believed that moral suasion, amplified by mainstream media, could shift Democratic Party leadership. But I soon realized that what we lacked, ultimately, was real political power. Decision-makers at the DNC and Harris campaign would face backlash from the donor class, liberal Zionist Jewish communal institutions, and the vast majority of House and Senate Democrats accountable to those power centers. Our side wasn’t strong enough to counter them.

The gap between our aspirations and our power is painfully clear. It cannot be bridged by simply mobilizing harder or shouting louder. We need a more strategic approach that understands and seeks to reshape the political structures influencing US policy on Israel.

How do we prevent what happened to Bowman and Bush from happening again? How do we shift the positions of Democrats like Greg Meeks, Grace Meng, Adriano Espaillat, and Hakeem Jeffries? Is it just by protesting outside their offices louder? Do we raise $20 million for each district and primary each one of them?

A clear assessment and theory of the case is essential. I’m not sure louder and larger protests are going to work. I’m not sure having a better press release or a deeper alignment among leftist groups or more incendiary messaging or tactics are going to work.

Just recently, I saw a small protest outside Jeffries’s office — ten or fifteen people from a human rights group, most of whom were not black. It was a reminder of the gap between our ambitions and our on-the-ground power. To shift Jeffries’s position, we would likely need to out-organize AIPAC’s donors and mobilize black organizations in his district. Otherwise, what is the point of showing up at his office with fifteen people? We need to be clear-eyed about the distance between where we are and where we need to be.

To truly shift power, we need to focus on four critical areas. First, invest in sustained organizing that builds trust and relationships within black, Latino, and working-class communities. Second, create a strong, year-round financial and electoral infrastructure that bolsters groups like Justice Democrats, the Jewish Vote, WFP, and DSA, allowing them to compete with AIPAC’s financial muscle and support candidates well beyond election cycles. Third, develop a civic engagement model that targets likely primary voters around clear policy objectives, keeping them consistently engaged. Fourth, forge durable liberal-left coalitions with institutions like labor unions, progressives, faith organizations, and youth movements. Without this strategic shift, we’ll continue to fall short.

Despite our failures, we have had some successes. This year, eight major labor unions and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People endorsed restrictions on US arms to Israel. This is a historic achievement. But it must translate into sustained pressure on Biden and Harris. Even if Harris wins, it’s unclear whether groups will maintain pressure when other priorities come into play. Many progressive organizations have lost funding simply for supporting restrictions on US weapons to Israel. Do we have the infrastructure to back them up when the pressure mounts?

A Coalition the Democrats Can’t Ignore

Many working-class voters support both Harris and ending US military aid to Israel, even if they’re skeptical about how the Democratic Party operates. I’m voting for Harris to prevent Trump’s return. Figures like Netanyahu, Musk, and Adelson are counting on Trump’s victory to further consolidate power. This election is not just about Harris; it’s about us and the broader coalition we are trying to build, one that can actually stop our backing of Israel’s military rule over Palestinians.

I know that many of you feel a heavy burden. How do you vote for candidates who have supported atrocities against Palestinians? It’s a painful choice. Many of my friends and family are not voting for Harris because of her support for military aid to Israel. That decision could cost her the election. Yet here I am, voting for her anyway — not because I agree with her record, but because I believe that her coalition is who we need to organize and organize alongside.

I understand the anger and grief of my Palestinian and Lebanese brothers and sisters, who struggle to vote for a party funding violence against their families. I don’t blame anyone who cannot support Harris. For those considering third-party options or even Trump, it’s crucial to remember that what we do after Election Day matters even more. Walking away from our work challenging the Democratic Party as Democrats is exactly what AIPAC wants — it risks leaving power in the hands of those who would do much worse.

I see a medium-term horizon worth pursuing, that would put us in a better position to halt the carnage in Gaza. Imagine Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — representing Jewish and black voices in the Democratic mainstream — alongside an Arab American leader delivering landmark speeches in Congress. In order to achieve congressional majorities, they would likely call for ending US weapons that sustain Israel’s military rule while still supporting Israel’s right to exist, its security, and some of its defensive systems. Achieving these goals wouldn’t achieve everything needed to win justice for Palestinians. But they would target the worst of Israel’s unjust military practices while opening up space for broader coalition-building within the Democratic Party.

It’s a small but necessary step toward changing the narrative on US policy, showing how a multiracial, multifaith coalition can redefine what’s politically possible. Achieving even this minimal push feels distant, but it’s a goal that sets the stage for longer-term change by bringing together diverse voices around a clear, achievable demand.

Let’s be clear: it’s not about Biden or Harris. It’s about us. It’s about what we build — step by step, election by election — and creating an infrastructure the Democratic Party cannot ignore: voters, donors, and institutions.

This is grueling work — painful, slow, and marked by setbacks that can feel endless. But real politics demands that we build power step by step, election by election, with unyielding focus. We need to deepen relationships with a broad coalition of key political and community institutions in key districts, secure long-term funding for electoral infrastructure like Justice Democrats and DSA, and engage voters year-round, not just when elections loom.

There are no shortcuts, only the steady, strategic grind of organizing that brings policy shifts within reach. It’s unglamorous, but it’s the only way forward if we want to win the changes we’ve been fighting for.