People receive groceries from a food bank on October 30, 2025 in Miami, Florida.
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
A new analysis warns that large-scale loss of food assistance is “jeopardizing the short- and long-term health, education, and economic benefits of nutrition programs for our children and society.”
The budget package that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans rammed through last summer has already spurred large-scale loss of nutrition assistance among low-income children, with an analysis released Wednesday estimating that more than 700,000 kids across a dozen states have lost federal food aid since the GOP law took effect.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a liberal think tank, found that the “sharp participation declines” among children likely stem from provisions of the Republican law that—for the first time in the program’s history—shift large Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit costs onto states. The law also expands punitive SNAP work requirements.
The new analysis notes that children account for “nearly half of the 1.6-million-person decline” in SNAP enrollment since last July among people of all ages in the 12 states with data available.
“The new law’s cost shift has led states to take steps that are making it harder for eligible people to receive SNAP, including families with children,” CBPP explained. “Losing SNAP also makes it harder for low-income children to qualify for other food assistance, such as WIC and free school meals—jeopardizing the short- and long-term health, education, and economic benefits of nutrition programs for our children and society.”
Republican lawmakers repeatedly denied that their legislation would strip food aid from needy children, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) saying the package was laser-focused on “fraud, waste, and abuse.”
“We are not cutting SNAP,” Johnson falsely claimed in May 2025, just over a month before Trump signed the Republican legislation into law. The package will cut $186 billion from SNAP over the next decade and strip food aid from millions of low-income people, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at CBPP, emphasized that the SNAP cuts triggered by the Republican law have not “fully taken effect,” meaning recent benefit losses among families across the country are just the start unless Congress moves quickly to avert disaster.
“Congress must act before even more eligible low-income families—including families with children—lose the food assistance they need to afford groceries, starting by delaying this SNAP cost shift for all states,” Bergh wrote on social media.
The Trump-GOP cuts to SNAP, combined with rising grocery costs stemming in large part from the president’s tariffs and war of choice against Iran, have resulted in surging food bank demand across the country.
“We’ve been going to food banks every week,” a single mom in Arizona whose SNAP benefits were recently cut off told NBC News. “We’re eating less, we’re eating more frozen stuff.”
Far from reversing course on their assault on federal nutrition assistance, Republicans and the Trump administration are doubling down, pursuing massive cuts to fruit and vegetable benefits for low-income mothers. CBPP has projected that roughly 5.4 million people would lose fruit and vegetable aid if Republicans’ newly proposed cuts become law.
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The former AOC staffer is an at-times divisive figure known for provoking the political establishment. Sunrise argues he’s needed in Congress to take on Trump.
Saikat Chakrabarti during a candidate forum for California’s 11th Congressional District in San Francisco on Jan. 7, 2026. Photo: Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
The Sunrise Movement is leaning into its roots in climate activism with a congressional endorsement of Saikat Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and one of the architects of the landmark environmental legislation known as the Green New Deal.
The youth climate group shared its endorsement with The Intercept with early voting underway in California and less than a week to go before primary day. Chakrabarti will face off against state Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Connie Chan, both Democrats, in a heavily contested primary race to succeed Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in California’s 11th Congressional District.
“For years, the Sunrise Movement has shown us the power that people like all of us have when we organize strategically,” Chakrabarti wrote in a statement to The Intercept. “Together with Sunrise, we pushed Washington to respond to the needs of working people when most Democrats (and of course Republicans) refused to do so. We were able to change political reality in Washington, and we’ll do it again.”
Chakrabarti rose to national prominence after co-founding Justice Democrats in 2017 alongside other former presidential campaign staffers for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to support progressive primary challengers to establishment Democrats. He has been a thorn in the side of moderate Democrats ever since.
Chakrabarti became Ocasio-Cortez’s firstchief of staff after her upset victory over longtime incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018, a win that helped put Justice Democrats on the map and ushered in the first members of the progressive Squad in Congress. In Ocasio-Cortez’s office, he worked with the Sunrise Movement and other stakeholders to draft the Green New Deal. Elements of the bill were later included in the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, which invested $369 billion in fighting climate change but ultimately fell short of progressives’ loftiest ambitions.
Chakrabarti has long espoused progressive views and is expected to vote with Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the Squad if elected to Congress. But despite his prominent role in Ocasio-Cortez’s early rise, his former boss has not endorsed Chakrabarti. That has driven speculation of a rift, which the candidate has continuously denied. Progressive Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., have endorsed Chakrabarti, as has former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. Justice Democrats, the group Chakrabarti helped found, is also backing his campaign.
After leaving Ocasio-Cortez’s office, Chakrabarti went on to lead New Consensus, a progressive environmental policy think tank that recently released the Mission for America, which he bills as a “successor” to the Green New Deal. The policy proposal seeks to “rapidly slash emissions” and help “build a new, clean economy” to protect workers against the threat of job cuts driven by the rise of artificial intelligence.
“We’re proud to endorse Saikat Chakrabarti. Saikat has spent years fighting for the Green New Deal, taking on corporate power, and delivering for working people, not billionaires and special interests,” Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, wrote in a statement to the Intercept.
The climate justice group pivoted this cycle to emphasize its explicit opposition to President Donald Trump and sees Chakrabarti as a candidate “ready to fight back with courage and vision,” Shiney-Ajay added. “We know he’ll be instrumental in helping build a Democratic Party that is unapologetically for working people, serious about confronting the climate crisis, and ready to take on authoritarianism head-on.”
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Chakrabarti has relished his role as an opponent of entrenched political power. He has long antagonized the 20-termcongresswoman he seeks to replace, slamming her in a series of 2019 tweets after then-House Speaker Pelosi penned an op-ed critical of AOC, who at the time was Chakrabarti’s boss. (Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez, who hold divergent ideologies but are both known for their political savvy, have built bridges in the years since.)
While running for her seat, Chakrabarti has continued to provoke Pelosi, calling her out in a recent video after she endorsed Chan against him. He launched his campaign to challenge Pelosi before she announced her retirement in November, unlike his two opponents, who jumped in once it was clear they’d be competing for an open seat.
“My goal, honestly, is to replace a huge part of the Democrat establishment,” Chakrabarti said in November during an episode of the Intercept Briefing. “I’m calling for primaries all across the country. … I think we actually have to get in there and be in a position of power where we can do all that, so it’s not going to be this constant compromising with the establishment, trying to figure out how we can push.”
Politics is Chakrabarti’s second act. The tech entrepreneur made millions as a founding engineer of the payment process platform Stripe.
But in the tech-dominated district where Pelosi won reelection with 81 percent of the vote last cycle, Chakrabarti faces an uphill battle. Wiener, a state senator who has the support of the California Democratic Party, has a clear lead over both Chan and Chakrabarti, who appear to be neck and neck for second place. The top two candidates next Tuesday will advance to the general election in November.
“I believe we can improve the material lives of working people and build a future we all actually want to live in,” Chakrabarti told The Intercept. “I’m grateful to the Sunrise Movement for joining our coalition, and I look forward to working with them again in Congress.”
New York Times Opinion and The New York Times May 21, 2026 Sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians is widespread, according to new reports and harrowing first-hand accounts. The Opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof details a pattern of systemic abuse and “unrestrained power” within Israeli detention centers that challenges the moral silence of the international community. Read Kristof’s column here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/op… Read a Q&A about his column here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/op…
By Nicholas Kristof
May 11, 2026 (NYTimes.com)
Transcript:
Sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians is widespread, according to new reports and harrowing first-hand accounts. The Opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof details a pattern of systemic abuse and “unrestrained power” within Israeli detention centers that challenges the moral silence of the international community.
When Israel was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, officials were quick to condemn the sexual violence of Hamas. “You’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women. Where the hell are you?” “Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.” “Uses rape as a weapon of war.” “Sexual violence as a weapon of war by Hamas.” I went to the West Bank to talk with Palestinians who experienced sexual assault firsthand by Israeli soldiers, settlers and prison guards. Their harrowing accounts, backed by lawyers, surveys and international reports, suggest that sexual violence by Israelis against Palestinians is widespread. And that raises the question: Where is the revulsion against sexual assault now? I don’t see any evidence that Israeli leaders order rape, but they have built a security apparatus where, according to a 2025 United Nations report, sexual violence is a a major element in the ill-treatment of Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu has called accusations of sexual violence by Israelis baseless. But my reporting suggests that sexual violence has greatly worsened under Netanyahu in recent years. What exactly does this look like? Here’s what I found. This is Sami al-Sai, a freelance journalist for international news organizations. They [prison guards] took me to a solitary cell, while handcuffed, leg cuffed and blindfolded. They put me on the ground in kneeling position with head down. They took off my pants and boxers, and started raping me with sticks and carrots in a very aggressive and painful way and harassing and touching my genitals in a very painful and forceful way. I spoke to a farmer who recounted how 20 settlers rampaged through Palestinian homes and used a hunting knife to cut off his clothes. I got out of the tent. I was standing right here. They pulled me inside. They used those zip ties, tied my hands with more than one zip tie. They tied my legs too. Hit me in the eye with a fist. They pulled me inside right here and started pouring dirt on me and water. They took off my pants and zip tied my penis and started pulling it. The zip ties were still on the ground when I visited. And this is Mohammad Matar, a Palestinian Authority official —— —— who says he was with two other Palestinians trying to protect a Bedouin village under attack from settlers when the settlers seized them, stripped them, beat them. And he says one tried to rape him with a stick. And he actually has some evidence of this interaction with the settlers in the form of a photo that the settlers posted to social media. One woman, 23 at the time of her detention, told me that she was regularly stripped naked, forcibly bent over and groped all over her body by male and female guards. One journalist said he had been held down and raped by a dog, a claim backed by other accounts from prisoners who report they underwent the same thing. I’m appalled by this pattern of abuse, partly because our American tax dollars subsidize the Israeli security forces. I fear that leaves us complicit. The United States has leverage, and we could use it to insist on an end to the impunity and to demand that Red Cross visits be restored for Palestinian detainees. Look, whether you consider yourself pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, here’s one thing we should be able to agree on: We’re anti-rape. The horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day after day.
By Sophia Bollag, Staff Writer May 24, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, shown discussing the Epstein files outside the U.S. Capitol last November, called for Supreme Court reforms Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”Heather Diehl/Tribune News Service
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s latest move to gut the Voting Rights Act, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, says his party needs to run on reforming the court in upcoming elections.
“We are not speaking up loudly enough, strongly enough against a court that is really rolling back civil rights,” he told journalist Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning. “The Democratic Party needs to run against this court.”
But in the long run, the Supreme Court’s ruling, which struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana and eviscerated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, paved the way for Republicans to eliminate other majority-Black districts across the South. The ruling is already allowing Republicans to make some districts more favorable to their candidates in this year’s midterms and has the potential to dramatically tip the congressional map in their favor in 2028.
It’s the latest in a series of decisions by the Supreme Court, which comprises six conservatives appointed by Republican presidents and three liberals appointed by Democratic presidents, that are likely to benefit Republicans.
Khanna said his party should seize on that decision and advocate for creating term limits for Supreme Court justices, giving each president two appointees to the court and expanding the court from nine to 13 justices. Such extensive reform has faced opposition from establishment Democrats. Many legal scholars say imposing term limits would require an amendment to the Constitution.
Khanna dismissed calls for Ken Martin, the leader of the Democratic National Committee, to resign, but said the party needs to take a different approach to win elections.
“We do need to recognize that the status quo has failed, that this is a system that has created massive inequality, that the economy is lopsided and unfair,” he said. “Too often we’ve run status quo establishment candidates who have been unwilling to call out an economic and political system that has failed.”
Khanna pointed to his work, alongside Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, to force the release of the Justice Department’s files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a victory that has put the president on his back foot. Both Khanna and Massie cited that effort as a reason Trump was motivated to back a Republican challenger to Massie in his Kentucky district.
Trump’s decision to back a primary challenger to a sitting congressman from his own party succeeded Tuesday, when Massie lost his bid for reelection. But the move has already started to backfire on Trump.
Another Republican who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, joined Democrats last week in backing a measure to rein in Trump’s power to wage war on Iran. A similar measure backed by Massie looked likely to pass in the House on Thursday if Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had not canceled the vote.
And Massie, who no longer has an incentive to align himself with Trump, has already promised to continue pushing the administration to release more Epstein files during the time remaining in his term.
“For me, it was completely worth it,” Massie told Welker on Sunday when she asked whether he regretted opposing the president. “I’ve got seven more months to keep going against the grain, which means voting for principles and for people over party.”
Sophia Bollag joined the San Francisco Chronicle as a politics reporter in 2022. She has covered state government from Sacramento since 2016 and has worked at The Sacramento Bee, The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. She grew up in the East Bay and graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and literature.
ZenosWarbirds Feb 12, 2013 The quality of the copy of this important film by John Huston currently on YouTube isn’t very good, so I found a better one and tweaked it with digital image and sound processing. For the first time, Huston explored the diagnosis and treatment of what used to be called “battle fatigue” or “shell shock” among returning servicemen. This condition is now know as PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder. “Let There Be Light” wasn’t released to the public for 30 years for obvious reasons, but it’s a story that must be told because it’s still highly relevant to our times. Zeno, Zeno’s Warbird Videos http://zenoswarbirdvideos.com From the IMDB: “The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. This documentary film follows 75 U.S. soldiers who have sustained debilitating emotional trauma and depression. A series of scenes chronicle their entry into a psychiatric hospital, their treatment and eventual recovery.”AI-generated video summary
Soldiers experiencing emotional damage and battle neurosis receive treatment at Mason General Hospital. Using various therapeutic methods, ZenosWarbirds documents the efforts to help them recover from fear and psychological trauma, aiming to reintegrate them into civilian life.
Zeteo Nov 2, 2025 Mehdi Unfiltered How does one fight illegal National Guard deployments, the kidnapping of immigrants, and creeping fascism? Well, if you’re a mainstream Democrat, there seems to be only one strategy – sternly-worded letters and weak press conferences. At least, that’s how it seems to people like AOC’s former chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, who is challenging former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her seat in Congress. He joins Mehdi on this week’s episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered.’ In this interview, Mehdi asks Chakrabarti – the co-founder of Justice Democrats – why he believes Pelosi’s response to Democrats’ loss last November was, “completely insufficient.” Chakrabarti also takes aim at Democrats’ current House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, with Mehdi asking the former Hill staffer whether Jeffries needs a primary challenger. This interview was published several days ago on Zeteo’s Substack. If you would like early access to more exclusive content like this, then head over to zeteo.com and become a paid subscriber now! It costs less than a monthly cup of coffee and goes a long way in supporting our mission of fearless, independent journalism. So, what are you waiting for? Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:09 Running For Congress 3:49 Seeking Change 6:46 Broken System 8:15 Tech 15:05 Hakeem Jeffries 16:50 AOC 19:52 National Guard Subscribe to Zeteo to support independent and unfiltered journalism: https://zeteo.com/subscribe
Michael Mezzatesta and Saikat Chakrabarti Feb 12, 2026 Better Future podcast episodes My guest today is Saikat Chakrabarti – former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, co-founder of Justice Democrats, co-author of the Green New Deal, and now a candidate for Congress running to replace Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. We discuss whether the Democratic Party can be transformed from within, why corporate money has hollowed out American politics, and what it would take to build an economy that works for everyone. We also dive deep into AI – who should control it, and why leaving decisions about humanity’s future in the hands of a handful of tech CEOs may be the most dangerous form of deregulation yet. Support Saikat’s campaign for Congress: https://www.saikat.us/ Support the Better Future podcast on Substack: https://michaelmezzatesta.substack.com/
Scientists are warning that the collapse of Antarctica’s massive “doomsday glacier” could eventually redraw large parts of America’s coastline, threatening major cities from Florida to California with severe flooding and rising seas.
Researchers say the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is becoming increasingly unstable, raising fears that its eventual collapse could contribute to dramatic long-term sea level rise.
While the glacier itself could add around 65 centimeters (roughly 2 feet) to global sea levels, some scientists worry it could destabilize much larger sections of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—potentially contributing to sea level rise approaching 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) over time.
Such a rise would dramatically alter large stretches of the U.S. coastline, threatening homes, infrastructure, airports and major cities across several states.
Glacier On The ‘Cusp of Collapse’
The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image. Right now, Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets both contribute under or near 1 …Read More | NASA/Reuters
David Holland, a professor of mathematics and atmosphere/ocean science at New York University, told Newsweek that the glacier is on the “cusp of collapse,” and that he was “concerned” about it.
“It is held back on its sides by the buttressing provided by the ice shelf in front of it, which is now about to collapse,” he explained. The glacier is also held back by “a hump in the seafloor at its current grounding line,” he added, which he said “may be next to go, given the high rate of melt occurring there.”
The result of the glacier’s collapse would be vast. Holland said that “certainly, low-lying cities and states in the U.S. would experience floods,” while many other cities and countries would “undergo stress” as well.
Which American Cities Could Be Flooded?
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) projection maps show that a 3-meter rise in sea levels would inundate major parts of the U.S. coastline, with some of the country’s most populated urban areas facing chronic flooding or partial submersion.
Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast
Florida would be among the hardest-hit states. Large parts of the coastline could disappear beneath rising seas, while cities including Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, St. Petersburg and Panama City would face severe flooding risks. Large stretches of low-lying coastal communities across the state could also become uninhabitable.
Large sections of the Gulf Coast would also be exposed. Cities and communities along the Texas coastline near Galveston Bay, Freeport and Surfside Beach could see extensive inundation, while low-lying parts of Louisiana, including areas around New Orleans, would remain especially vulnerable.
Other coastal cities at risk include Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia; Wilmington, North Carolina; Baltimore, Maryland; and parts of New Jersey, Delaware and Mississippi.
New York City would face widespread flooding risks across parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Lower Manhattan. Critical infrastructure, including Newark Liberty International Airport and nearby transport links, could also be affected. MetLife Stadium in New Jersey—one of the venues for the 2026 FIFA World Cup—lies within an area vulnerable to flooding under NOAA’s projections.
West Coast
A screenshot of an NOAA map showing which U.S. cities would be underwater if there was a 10-foot sea level rise. | NOAA
In California, areas around the San Francisco Bay, Oakland, San Mateo and parts of Southern California near San Diego and Oxnard would also face major impacts.
Notable parts of the landscape and wildlife reserves could also be affected, including Big Lagoon, the Brush Creek/Lagoon Lake Wetlands and Coastal Dunes Natural Preserve, the Ventura County Game Reserve as well as vast amounts of the California Coastal National Monument.
Why Scientists Are Worried by the Thwaites Glacier
Thwaites is the widest glacier on the planet, stretching around 120 kilometers (75 miles), and its basin measures around 192,000 kilometers squared, meaning it is larger than the state of Florida.
Over the years, Thwaites—located in West Antarctica—has been losing ice at an increasing pace, and since 2000 the glacier has experienced a net loss of more than 1 trillion tons of ice.
The tongue of the glacier—which is the extension that floats out over water—has continued to fracture and separate from the ice shelf in recent years, as images from NASA show. The floating ice is now melting, given that the seawater is a few degrees above freezing as warmer water temperatures have recently been recorded in the region.
Update 5/20/26, 8:15 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from David Holland.
The DNC finally released its long-awaited autopsy of Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign, and it doesn’t mention Gaza. The Democratic leadership’s refusal to acknowledge the party’s shift on Israel could spell another defeat in 2028.
US President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris wave to members of the audience after speaking at a campaign rally at Girard College on May 29, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on May 22, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) finally released its long-awaited autopsy of Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign.
The rollout was highly on-brand for the Democratic establishment. The 192-page document seems slapped together, is full of typos, and was released only because CNN obtained a copy. In an accompanying note, DNC Chair Ken Martin said the report didn’t meet his standards, but that it was being released “because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
In fact, the report has further eroded that trust by omitting some big, obvious reasons why Harris lost. Concerns about Biden’s age and his inexplicable decision to run for reelection are barely mentioned, and there’s virtually no analysis of the Democratic policies that might have helped propel Trump to another victory.
If one were compiling such a list, support for the Gaza genocide would presumably be near the top, but the issue is not mentioned once in the massive report.
You’ll recall that Harris never distanced herself from Biden on this question. In her first interview after becoming the nominee, she maintained the party line on Israel, reciting the usual claptrap about the country’s right to “defend itself.” Asked point-blank whether her foreign policy would differ from Biden’s at all, she said it would remain the same. That is to say, the United States would continue to send weapons to Israel while the country carried out a genocide.
A couple of months later, she reiterated her position on The View, telling the hosts that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently. Although later in the interview she said that, unlike Biden, she would put Republicans in her cabinet.
Throughout the Harris campaign, Palestine advocates called on the former Senator to shift her position and take a firm stance against Israel’s actions.
“By taking a strong stand against Netanyahu’s authoritarian policies, the Biden-Harris administration can unify the Democratic Party and regain the trust of key voter bases, including young people, Arabs, and Muslims,” read an open letter to Harris from the Not Another Bomb coalition to Harris at the time. “This decisive action will reinforce the administration’s commitment to democracy and human rights, contrasting sharply with the far-right extremism embodied by Trump and his supporters. It sends a clear message that the Democratic Party stands for peace, justice, and the protection of all people, thereby strengthening the coalition needed to secure victory in the 2024 elections and beyond.”
She wouldn’t budge.
At the Democratic National Convention that August, the Uncommitted Movement pushed for a Palestinian speaker to be included. “The difficulty in approving even a single Palestinian American speaker among the dozens of speakers on the convention stage sends a troubling message to our anti-war voters, suggesting they aren’t truly included in this party,” explained a statement from the organization’s founders.
The request was denied.
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It’s inaccurate to say the campaign simply ignored these issues. On the contrary, they leaned in from the opposite direction, embracing hawkish former House member Liz Cheney and sending Rep. Ritchie Torres to Michigan, the state with the highest percentage of Arab Americans, to tell voters that Harris would stand with Israel.
There’s a certain kind of centrist pundit who likes to wax sarcastic about the 2024 election and point out that Trump is also an ardent supporter of Israel. The inference is that people concerned about Gaza accomplished nothing by voting against Harris.
However, this brand of snark often presupposes that people fed up with the genocide actually voted. Yes, some people backed Trump because they irrationally believed that the guy currently bombing Iran was antiwar, but the actual number of people that foolish is presumably negligible. Much hay is also made over the Green Party, but Jill Stein got fewer than 900,000 votes and thus had no discernible impact on the ultimate result.
One of the biggest stories of the 2024 race is how many people stayed home.
“The most telling fact in this race is the drop in voter turnout,” wrote Mitchell Plitnick days after the election, pointing out that Harris netted millions less votes than Biden did in 2020.
“Theories will emerge, but the cause of Harris’ disastrous failure will forever be debated,” he wrote. “Still, there are good reasons to believe the Middle East in general and Gaza in particular played a significant role.”
“Nobody is going to get excited about the ‘politics of joy’ and ‘endless brat summer’ when they’re watching a kid raising his hands while he’s being burned to death attached to an IV,” political consultant Peter Feld told me at the time. “It pretty much puts an end to any of the vibes that they were trying to run on.”
“I don’t think you can explain this election without explaining the non-voters, and I think some of the post-election polling that’s come out and attempts to explain it by talking to voters is going to miss this story,” he continued. “If you haven’t spoken to non-voters, you haven’t explained the election.”
Insofar as polling exists on this issue, it backs up the assertions of Plitnick and Feld. A January 2025 YouGov survey found that 2020 Biden voters who stayed home in 2024 cited Gaza as the top reason.
If you need further proof that Gaza hurt Harris at the polls, just look at what’s happened since November 2024. Israel critics are prevailing in Democratic primaries, and groups like AIPAC have become entirely toxic, and support for Israel has plummeted to historic lows amid the war on Iran. A recent NBC News poll found that just 32% of U.S. voters view Israel positively, which is down from 47% in 2023.
It’s difficult to overstate the incompetence of the DNC, but leaving this kind of stuff out of the “autopsy” report certainly feels like much more than oversight. Officials formerly connected to Biden and Harris are openly admitting as much.
“What’s important is what’s missing, what they’re not releasing,” Harris’s former communications director, Ashley Etienne, toldPolitico. “It feels like what the DNC is doing is cherry-picking the parts of it that it wants to actually release, that [are] less problematic for the party going forward.”
It’s an oversimplification to say Gaza is what cost the Democrats the election. There are multiple factors in every presidential race, and many of them have nothing to do with foreign policy. However, ignoring the genocide’s obvious impact on voters is malpractice and suggests that Democratic leadership could be poised to repeat the same mistakes in 2028.
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Trump Regime Takedown: Every Saturday Saturday, March 7, 2026 12:00 PM 2:00 PM Tesla San Francisco999 Van Ness AvenueSan Francisco, CA, 94109United States (map) Google Calendar ICS Keep democracy alive every Saturday by showing up, taking a stand, and sticking together for the long haul. Standing together is better than standing alone. Let’s get together... Continue reading →
Milk/Alice Pride Happy Hour and Dance Party Date: Saturday, June 20 Time: 4-9 PM Location: Lookout, 3600 16th Street, SF. Details: Join us at Lookout for the queerest Happy Hour Dance Party- curated by Milk’s very own ✨Marie ✨, the genius behind some of San Francisco’s most unforgettable dance floors. Expect hot beats, cute... Continue reading →
This Sunday’s Town Hall: Announcing This Week’s Progressive Town Hall: Every Sunday at 4pm ET/1pm PT RSVP HERE Join PDA activists online from across the country to discuss the importance of progressives reclaiming the American story from the MAGA right, an issue of heightened importance as we’re now within one... Continue reading →
This event is on Sunday June 21st from 4pm-6pm. You’re invited to join us in person as we break down last week’s Election results. Join the League of Pissed Off Voters for a panel on Sunday, June 21st, from 4pm – 6pm. We’ll look at some maps and try to answer questions... Continue reading →
