The Democrats’ generational disconnect

Kamala Harris recently found herself, once again, interrupted by protestors to her left. At a rally in Savannah, Ga., two weeks ago, the vice president repeated her already well-worn line that she and President Joe Biden are “working around the clock” to negotiate a cease-fire deal in the Israel-Hamas war. It didn’t seem to impress pro-Gaza hecklers in the crowd who were chanting so loudly that Harris struggled to veil her irritation as she said, “Hold on, hold on. … I am speaking now,” like a frustrated and frazzled mother.

She did an even worse job keeping her cool in Dearborn, Mich., early last month, where aggressive chants of “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide! We won’t vote for genocide!” caused her to snap: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

Much election analysis has focused on this majority Arab American suburb of Detroit, which could tip the balance in what promises to be a hot swing-state race. Through the years, Michigan’s Arab American voting patterns have, as The Economist put it, tracked both the “forever wars” and the culture wars. In 2000, this demographic went for George W. Bush. After 9/11 and the Iraq war, they swung Democratic, where they remained for years. But more recently, as Muslim values have clashed with liberal values in the public schools, Democrats have begun losing territory. The loss accelerated with the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Biden’s cautiously positive stance toward Israel. It remains to be seen whether Harris’ vague stump-speech patter can win it back.

This is a needle the Democratic Party as a whole is struggling to thread. To a great extent, the tension we’re seeing is the tension of a generational handoff. It’s not that there are no Generation X or boomer voices to be heard in the radical anti-Israel contingent, but, as demonstrated in the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, the movement is predominantly youth-led.

On the stage of Democratic Party politics, we saw this play out last month when young leftists led by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., protested the Democratic National Convention’s platforming of hostage parents Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg. It’s worth watching the couple’s speech and paying attention to the convention delegates’ response. The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the hostages who was executed by Hamas shortly after the convention concluded, walked onto the stage to enthusiastic chants of “Bring them home!” The cameras picked out emotional reactions from, by and large, older delegates. Likely, some of them were Jewish themselves. These were your old-school, pro-Israel, Jewish Democrats, and the party’s coffers have historically been a repository for much of their generational wealth. No doubt it was with this in mind that the party calculated on balance it could afford to let the pro-Gaza fringe gnash their teeth.

Also notable among the delegates were the older black Democrats giving the speech a hearty cheer. These voters are represented by politicians like New York Mayor Eric Adams, who was one of the most emphatic pro-Israel voices in the wake of last year’s attack. His viral remarks provided a dramatic rhetorical contrast with Black Lives Matter, a chapter of which was posting “solidarity with our Palestinian family” mere days after Oct. 7. American Jews old enough to remember marching during the civil rights movement of the 1960s have expressed pain and confusion that the self-styled standard-bearers of “Civil Rights 3.0” aren’t returning the favor. Here, again, the disconnect is generational.

Right now, the Democratic establishment is caught perpetually triangulating among these demographics, giving with one hand and taking away with the other. For the time being, Harris’ marketing campaign looks successful enough that tepidly tap dancing around Israel probably won’t lose enough votes from either side of the Middle East conflict to matter. But in another election year, when Donald Trump is no longer around to serve as a bogeyman, the game theory may well look different. As older Democratic candidates and their voters are replaced, the pendulum will likely swing even harder toward naked extremism, much like it has in the abortion debate. As “Safe, legal, and rare” has given way to “Shout your abortion,” convention chants of “Bring them home” may give way to “From the river to the sea.”

Opinions about how exactly Americans should think about and assist Israel will vary, even among Christian conservatives. What should not be controversial is that nobody should have trouble distinguishing us from leftists on the subject. That may be tested if the future Republican Party tries to woo anti-Israel voters in the same spirit with which it now tries to woo pro-abortion voters. Then, as now, we must draw a bright line in defense of Israel.