Jamaal Bowman, AIPAC, Phony Progressives, and Black Misleadership

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

26 Jun 2024

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a Bronx, New York campaign rally on June 22, 2024. (Reuters/Joy Malone)

Jamaal Bowman is more of a clown than he is a congressman. His lack of seriousness and AIPAC money defeated him in a primary election. The lesson is to fight for and mobilize the people, who will support those who support them and their needs.

It is clear that Congressional Black Congress Member Jamaal Bowman succumbed to the power of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and the $20 million it raised for his primary opponent, George Latimer. But perhaps that analysis is too obvious and lets Bowman off the hook for his own political demise.

Black Agenda Report had previously reported on the shallow nature of Bowman’s political appeal. He is a self-described “progressive” and a member of the Squad, a group of pretend leftists who give the Democratic Party leadership cover to cut deals with republicans, corporate interests, and the military industrial complex.

Bowman gets media attention for arguing with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conservative liberals love to hate, and for making a video of himself which consists of nothing but laughter and calling Donald Trump a clown. The coup de grace of foolishness was his lack of impulse control which caused him to pull a fire alarm when there was no fire. He later claimed to have done so by mistake when he hurried to the House floor to vote, an embarrassment for which he was also censured.

Bowman is in short a fake and a phony but one need not have substance in order to come under attack from the Israel lobby. After Bowman rightly pointed out that Israel was committing genocide and that the United States should work towards a ceasefire in Gaza, zionist democrats took revenge and recruited George Latimer to challenge him in the primary.

This race brings up an age old political question for Black people. Should the light weight goofball be supported when in danger of losing his office because of big money pressure from a group of white people or should he be treated with the same indifference that he meted out to them? Bowman’s absence, like his presence, probably won’t matter very much.

Of course, very few elected officials are true leftists who stand on their principles. Black politics is dead, with no one currently in office giving the slightest indication that Black people have particular needs that they ought to address. Most voters in this country are usually holding their noses and voting for someone they are unenthusiastic about or who they may even actively dislike. A good leftist, like any good person, is very hard to find.

It isn’t difficult to become an AIPAC target though. Bowman’s criticisms of Israel have been rather mild, but someone has to be made an example of and Bowman drew the short straw in this election cycle.

Of course other progressives play a double game too, which is why Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported Bowman. In one very odd event, the congresswoman known as AOC was strangely exuberant, so much so that there were humorous questions about whether she and Bowman too, were under the influence. Their behavior was in all probability caused by pretenders suddenly having to appear sincere.

Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez certainly did not impress the Palestine solidarity organization Within Our Lifetime (WOL), who also showed up at the same rally but not in support of the two faux leftists. They came to call out Bowman, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders for claiming to want a ceasefire, and for using the word genocide, while still endorsing Genocide Joe Biden and for not clearly condemning Israel and fully supporting Palestinian rights. Sanders proved WOL right by playing his own double game: “Israel has the right to defend itself from a terrorist attack, but it does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people.” Of course Sanders once lived on a kibbutz in Israel and he still struggles in vain for a return to the kinder and gentler apartheid state that existed only in the wishful thinking of his imagination.

It isn’t just special interest cash that sent Bowman out. He fully collaborates with Biden when he is told to do so, such as when the democrats broke a railroad workers strike in 2022. Bowman went through the motions of promoting a bill to force the inclusion of sick days that workers were demanding. But the effort was all a fraud as that bill was dead on arrival in the senate. Perhaps if Bowman had publicly broken with the democrats he would not have had to go through a cringe worthy performance with AOC. In the end, going along with party leadership didn’t help him.

The political system in this country rewards mediocrity, mendacity, and treachery. Black elected officials either go along to get along and are fully on board with acting against the interests of their people, or think they can preen for the cameras like Bowman and pretend they are different when they are not.

AIPAC doesn’t respect the two-faced double talkers. You are either with them or against them. Bowman even made an obligatory trip to Israel in 2021. He shouldn’t have bothered. No one respects half-stepping phonies. Black Agenda Report certainly does not and we uphold the tradition of exposing the scoundrels, while working to help create politics which puts the people’s interests at the forefront. Bowman was not cut out for that kind of work.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected].

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