Washington Wednesday: Ahead of the DNC

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 14th of August.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Time now for Washington Wednesday. Chicago is bracing for protests during the Democratic National Convention next week.

EICHER: But first, breaking up the Squad.

Last week, Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush lost in the Democratic primary to St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell. Bush becomes the second prominent anti-Israel House Democrat to lose to a more moderate challenger this year. Jamaal Bowman of New York lost in June.

MAST: What role has anti-Israel rhetoric played in influencing voters in these primaries?

World’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno has the story.

LEO BRICENO: Harv Citerman lives in St. Louis and voted for Congresswoman Cori Bush twice: first when Bush was elected in 2020 and then in the 2022 midterms. But since then his enthusiasm for her has soured. Citerman is Jewish, and he regularly meets up with a group of guys for breakfast—they like to chat about politics. But when it came to Bush, the group had a mutual opinion on Bush.

HARV CITERMAN: All sixteen of us voted against Cori Bush. Two of them are Catholic, and 14 are Jewish so she probably lost 16 votes there.

Cori Bush is a member of the “squad,” a group of the seven of the most liberal members in the House of Representatives. They oppose Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which Bush has characterized as genocide and a humanitarian disaster.

Here’s Bush at a pro-Palestinian rally in October.

CORI BUSH: …and I know last night I know we heard from the administration (long pause and boos) calling on Congress for more bombs and more weapons which we know will only lead to more violence and more death and more atrocities and absolutely not—absolutely not on our watch.

Just days before last week’s primary, Bush skirted around whether or not Hamas was a terrorist organization in an interview with the New York Times. Her campaign would later walk back those comments.

Citerman wasn’t concerned about Bush’s stance on the war in Gaza until she made it a key campaign issue.

CITERMAN: I mean if you’re going to make that a main focus of your campaign rather than representing the citizens of your district, I guess I’m going to listen to you, and of course I disagreed with everything that she said about Israel.

Back in June, I asked Jonathan Meola, a Jewish voter out of Florida, what he thought about anti-Israel rhetoric in American politics. At the time, we were chatting about the close primary race of Congressman Jamaal Bowman in New York, another member of the squad.

Meola thought that if Bowman lost, it would put more political pressure on other members of the squad.

MEOLA: If he does lose, it’s also kind of given the other members of the squad a bigger fear that they’re going to have to deal with in their elections coming up in November. I think Cori Bush has a strong challenger from what I understand I think you’re going to see that pushback.

With Bowman and Bush both on their way out, Johns Hopkins University Professor Benjamin Ginsberg believes Israel will play a key role in future elections, particularly in the Democratic party.

GINSBERG: There is a wing of the Democratic party that is very susceptible to this anti-Zionism and, you know, to criticism of America for foolish reasons. That’s become quite an important wing in the Democratic party.

Ginsberg said he is concerned about what support for pro-Palestinian groups reveals about politicians like Bush and Bowman.

GINSBERG: These groups aren’t as much anti-Israel as they are, in my view, anti-American. That is, they have learned from the European left and from the Iranians this idea that America is the “great Satan” and Israel is the “Little Satan” and both of them are equally guilty of racism, militarism, oppression, settler colonialism, you name it. So I think that’s what we’ve been seeing over the past year. What I see when I see Palestinian flags and Hamas emblems, I see anti-American demonstrations more than I see anti-Semitic demonstrations. I see them burning American flags all the time.

For her part, Cori Bush says she is going to double down on her stance on Israel during her remaining time in Congress and beyond. In her concession speech last week, Bush called out AIPAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—a pro-Israel group that had donated more than $8 million dollars to oppose her.

BUSH: AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down. And let me put all these corporations on notice. I’m coming after you too but I’m not coming by myself. I'm coming with all the people that is in here that’s doing the work.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

MAST: Well, the Democratic National Convention kicks off in Chicago next week, and many of those disappointed by Cori Bush’s primary loss will be there. WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta has been keeping an eye on protest activity ahead of the convention and joins us now to talk about it. Carolina, welcome.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Hi, Lindsay. Good to be here.

MAST: So it’s hard not to draw parallels when you think about the DNC and Chicago–this is the first time the convention will be held in Chicago since 1996. That one came after a long period of avoidance of the city after the 1968 convention that turned violent. So moving to the present, Carolina, what do we know about planned protests?

LUMETTA: Well, the hope is that history doesn't fully repeat itself here, but we do know that there are at least 150 groups who will be bussing activists in to spend the entire week in Chicago. This runs the range of student organizers, different Democratic groups, socialist groups, progressive groups, pro-Gaza, pro-abortion, pro-LGBT. There's a whole gamut here, and they're all descending on the DNC to protest. We also know that some organizers are actually arguing with law enforcement over approved demonstration routes for several different marches that they have planned. And here's this clip that I'd like to play from Chicago Police Department superintendent Larry Snelling in a speech he gave on Monday.

LARRY SNELLING: If people come here to protest, and they want to exercise their First Amendment rights, we welcome that. And not only do we welcome it, we will protect them while they do it. And as long as they’re cooperating with us and there’s a collaborative effort where we understand each other, and you know where to draw the line: you’re not breaking the law. You’re not destroying our city, you’re not committing acts of violence, then this will go off well. The moment that starts, we’re going to intervene. So, we will not allow people to come here and destroy this city.

LUMETTA: Snelling then talked about how law enforcement would respond to different kinds of disruptive protests.

SNELLING: We’ve seen where people attempt to block traffic. We’ve seen people in what’s called sleeping dragons, and we have a response for that.

LUMETTA: He then made a helpful distinction between protesting and rioting.

SNELLING: In 2020, I often hear reporters refer to that as protesting. People were murdered, there were lives lost in downtown. There were buildings and businesses looted, damaged, and destroyed. There was vandalism. That is not protesting. That is rioting. There were felonies committed at that time. So I just want to be clear: we’re not going to allow that. We’re not going to allow you to riot. Protesting and rioting are two different things.

At the same time, though, the Chicago PD is still under a court order to reform practices after decades of scandals and convicted cases of police brutality. So next week is going to be a test for the department.

MAST: Snelling mentioned sleeping dragons there. Carolina, can you explain what he means by that?

LUMETTA: Yes. So this is a common protest tactic where people will lock themselves to an object or each other to make it much more difficult for officers to move them. I've seen it happen sometimes on highways in Washington, where people will glue their hands actually to the road. Other times, protesters will link arms with each other inside PVC pipes using bolts and carabiner clips. This forces police to have to saw through them, but it's very delicate to avoid actually hurting the protesters. While it's technically non violent, the tactic could endanger personal safety if demonstrators use it on, say, a busy roadway to stop traffic.

MAST: Well, you mentioned about 150 groups are coming in. Tell us what we know about them?

LUMETTA: Hundreds of groups are organizing the Coalition to March on the DNC. Their goal is to be “within sight and sound” of the United Center, where all the delegates will be. That might be a little difficult, though, given all the security perimeters.

Coalition spokesman Hatem Abudayyeh [HA-tehm A-boo-DIE-yuh] of the U.S.-Palestinian Community Network spoke with the Real News Network about the scale of his organization’s influence.

ABUDAYYEH: Now there are 200, over 200 that have joined the coalition, we have decades of experience organizing these things. We’ve been organizing the lead organizers for RNC and DNC protests since 2008, and we were the lead organizers in the 2012 NATO protest in Chicago. So, you know, we’re professionals at this sort of thing.

LUMETTA: For those who don't know, Abudayyeh is also one of several organizers who helped fund and train student encampments at college campuses earlier this year. Since then, he's lodged several complaints that the route Chicago police approved is too winding and too short because it takes side streets. But yesterday, a judge upheld the protest route police offered and said that it does still comply with their right to free speech.

As for the schedule on the streets, we've got at least three marches on the DNC on the first, third and final day of the convention, which will be Thursday. There will be ongoing rallies at Union Park, a march for Gaza on Wednesday evening, and a pro-LGBT and pro-abortion march on Sunday, right before the DNC starts.

MAST: A lot to keep an eye on there. Carolina Lumetta covers politics for WORLD, and she'll be reporting from Chicago during the DNC next week. Carolina, thanks for this report and stay safe!

LUMETTA: Thanks Lindsay, it will be a wild week, and I'll talk to you later.

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