President Trump may be about to save Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) political career.
If Trump’s 20-point plan for peace in Gaza takes hold, the fiery anti-Israel passions fueling the far left will fade. That means the threat from progressive darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who flits like a moth around the bright flame of Schumer’s Senate seat, is likely to recede.
The Senate majority leader, thus freed from the threat of a primary battle in 2028, may be emboldened to do his job. He can finally vote to reopen the government and live to fight another day.
Schumer should pray that Trump’s plan works. He might even pray that the president is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a small price to pay for his own survival — although that may be too much to hope for.
Everyone with a heart should want the hostilities and carnage in Gaza and Israel to stop. But for the Democratic Party, and especially the moderates who remain, the resolution of a conflict that has energized and fueled the progressive left is a game-changer. It could lead Democrats back to sanity — not just on Israel, but on crime, immigration and other policies where the left wing of the party has abandoned the essential middle.
Consider progressive Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who is running to become mayor of New York City. One of his trademark issues is his antagonism to Israel. He has yet to denounce his former call to “Globalize the Intifada,” an especially hostile threat to Jews, and has said that, if elected, he will put Israeli head of state Benjamin Netanyahu in jail should he set foot in the Big Apple.
Mamdani is so toxic to most voters that senior members of his own party, like Sen. Schumer or Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, have yet to endorse him. He is arguably the face of today’s far left, and young people adore him. It is those young people, in particular, who might migrate back to their traditional Democratic home if the Israeli conflict is resolved.
Brandon Straka, the founder of WalkAway and a controversial conservative activist who was among those present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is trying to change minds (and votes) in New York City. A former Democrat, Straka encourages others to “walk away” from that party; like Charlie Kirk, he engages with people on the street and at open-mike sessions in public spaces like Washington Square Park, debating political issues.
He has been shocked to discover, he told me, that the one issue about which young voters are especially inflexible is the war between Israel and Gaza. Even those who are Jewish, Straka said, condemn Israel and support Mamdani’s antagonism towards Netanyahu. While Straka says he can argue economics with these young liberals, or crime policy, he cannot dissuade them about their embrace of Palestinians.
As a recent Economist/YouGov poll showed, “The share of Americans who back Israel over the Palestinians is at a 25-year low. … 43 percent of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.” Unfavorable views of Israel over the past few years among Democrats over the age of 50 rose by 23 percentage points; the share of Democrats between the ages of 18 and 49 who viewed Israel negatively, already high, rose above 70 precent.
Pew notes in separate surveys that, “adults ages 18 to 29 are more than twice as likely to disapprove (44 percent) than approve (16 percent) of the Trump administration’s response [to the war].” Israel has even lost the support of young Christians, the Economist says: “Between 2018 and 2021 the share of evangelicals under the age of 30 who backed Israelis over Palestinians plunged from 69 percent to 34 percent.”
This collapse of Americans’ support of Israel did not happen overnight, but — ironically — gathered steam after Hamas’s horrific attack of Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent Jews. That same year, Gallup reported, for the first time in more than 20 years, that Democrats sympathized more with Palestinians than Israelis.
This has opened a schism in the Democratic Party, between progressives and moderates and between young and old. It is a divide that is fracturing the party, inspiring the unlikely campaign of Mamdani, and also inviting primary battles against long-time incumbents like Chuck Schumer.
Currently, progressives are in the driver’s seat, backed by money from groups like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Foundation for Middle East Peace and numerous others. Last year, a coalition of more than 20 leftist activist groups, including the Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party, raised money to counter AIPAC, which lobbies Congress on behalf of Israel.
The New York Post reported that over several years George Soros’s Open Society Foundation funneled “$37 million to the Working Families Party and at least other nine left-wing groups whose endorsements and get-out-the-vote groundwork played a pivotal role in helping Mamdani upset ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary.”
Israel is not the only issue inspiring the far left, of course. Progressives have also in recent years rallied around Black Lives Matter and in support of immigrants. But scandals have diminished enthusiasm for BLM, and companies have pulled back from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as employees turned more negative on those policies.
At the same time, the country soured on open borders — an issue that helped elect President Trump.
What will be the next rallying point for progressives? My guess: they will follow Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the grandaddy of left-wing causes, who recently wrote an op-ed raising alarms about AI taking the jobs of American workers. Sanders is not wrong. AI could cause millions to lose their jobs, and few policymakers are focused on the problem.
That will likely be the next unifying issue for the left. If peace in Gaza breaks out, they will need one.
Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.
