Coming Up For Air

 Like Punxsutawney Phil, I’ve started to come out of my hole after last week’s trauma. I was angry at Everybody, including myself.

Party politics of any sort will be a distant concern for a while. What is not is the burgeoning war in the ME. We should lean hard into support for an aid cut-off to Israel. Everything. Note that what’s in question here is not the material effect of the aid, but the political one inside Israel. We need to recognize the distinction between Judaism and Zionism, between Jews and Zionists, and seek Jewish allies rather than pre-judge or stereotype them.

Sure, other things are important too, and the incoming Administration will be setting all sorts of fires that will beg to be put out. In politics, focus and repetition count for the most. It will pay to focus on Palestine (and Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran).

Sadly, the Left has a clear field here, besides the agitation among Muslim organizations. Most important, EVERYBODY WILL KNOW WE ARE RIGHT. That’s a political advantage.

The specter of Trump’s wreckage of democratic institutions certainly looks threatening, but it will prove to be related to the ME. Defying the incoming Administration on Israel will be a challenge to the full spectrum of Federal lawless enforcement bodies on which MAGA power depends. Success on the former breeds success on the latter. You beat something with something else. Back in the day, the anti-war movement opened up all sorts of collateral doors.

Democratic Party voices these days can be pretty sickening. I read somewhere that MSNBC is hemorrhaging viewers. The only talker I still watch (in reduced doses these days), Chris Hayes, said the other night, “I wouldn’t watch me.” Joy Reid is just a hack. Rachel Maddow gives me hives. Lawrence O’Donnell, smart and sometimes insightful, is on too late; I can only take so much rehash of the day.

The Party establishment — its elite pols, consultants, donors — has discredited itself. Of course it wants to blame the Woke or the Left, like it always does. Recognizing the opening, Bernie with his unerring political instincts, plunged in the knife. Would that we could all help to exploit this opportunity. Topic A for moral, strategic, and tactical reasons is still Israel’s expanding rampage in the ME.