Just as they did with the Venezuelan attack in early January, the ongoing starvation of Cuba, and the bombing of Iran last summer, Democratic leadership in Congress is once again throwing its de facto support behind Trump’s militarism with conspicuous silence and limp process criticisms, suppressing genuine pushback and working to prop up every premise of his bellicosity. As Democrats shrug in the face of a build up to war with Iran, it’s clear once again that, when it comes to matters of bombing, sanctions, genocide, and wars of aggression, the US functionally has no opposition party.
Despite it being over a week since Trump began his massive military buildup targeting Iran, neither Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries has released a single press release or social media post about Iran or the threats Trump is leveling against it. And when they do discuss it, always after being forced to by reporters, they hand-wring in vague terms or make process criticisms about Trump not “making his case to the American people” or some other such shallow critique. Schumer, in particular, refuses to criticize a war on Iran in principle, only complaining about Trump filling out the right paperwork:
Despite the fact that only 14% of Democrats support an attack on Iran and 75% explicitly oppose it, this anti-war sentiment is nowhere to be found in Democratic leadership who refuse to support, and are likely suppressing, a war powers resolution proposed by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie that would compel a congressional vote on attacking Iran.
Despite the fact that a whopping 95% of Democrats think Trump “should first receive approval from Congress” before launching a war and only 2% not believing he should, Democratic leadership, from all accounts, are aggressively working on behalf of this 2%.
The two most powerful Democrats in Congress are much closer to AIPAC’s position than that of their own voters, and this tension is growing harder and harder to paper over.
It’s not just conspicuous silence. We have reports—from the few outlets that even bother posing such questions—that this is a deliberate strategy from Democratic leadership who have an ideological commitment to regime change in Iran but, for obvious reasons, cannot be seen supporting Trump’s regime-change war. As Hill reporter Aída Chávez reported in Capital & Empire yesterday, “House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats have been working behind the scenes to try to prevent a vote on Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie’s Iran war powers resolution.”
And last Friday DropSite news reported a similar dynamic while recapping closed doors meetings between Schumer’s office and congressional progressives in the build up to Trump’s bombing of Iran last June. “[A] foreign policy aide explained,” reported Jeremy Scahill, Murtaza Hussain, and Ryan Grim, “that a substantial number of Senate Democrats believed Iran ultimately needed to be dealt with militarily. But those Democrats, the aide explained, also understood that going to war again in the Middle East would be a political catastrophe. That’s precisely why they wanted Trump to be the one to do it. The hope was that Iran would take a blow and so would Trump—a win-win for Democrats.”
It’s not just Democratic leadership, either. There’s been an even more conspicuous silence from influential editorial boards, namely those of the New York Times and Washington Post, which have not commented on the ramp up to war with Iran at all. For those who know the history of war in the United States and the role of editorial boards, this is almost unprecedented. There hasn’t been a military action in the past 50 years that the Times and Post editorial boards haven’t weighed in on prior to the fact, especially given how much lead time Trump has been providing. Yet they both remain silent.
The reason for this putative elite liberal indifference is obvious: they mostly agree that attacking Iran, or at least credibly threatening to attack Iran, is a good thing and they want Trump to do so, but they also know that saying this out loud could be––like with Iraq or Afghanistan––politically toxic. So what we have is an emerging consensus of silence, an implied agreement to stay out of Trump’s way, discipline progressives in Congress, and letting Trump do their dirty work for them. When it comes to militarism and war, especially militarism and war that serves the interests of Israel, Democratic leadership and liberal institutions are growing further and further from their base. The two most powerful Democrats in Congress are much closer to AIPAC’s position than that of their own voters, and this tension is growing harder and harder to paper over.
Despite the fact that 77% of Democrats view Israel’s “war” in Gaza as a genocide, Schumer said last year his “job is to keep the left pro-Israel.” which is an odd job requirement for a senator from New York. Rep Jeffries is by far the largest recipient in Congress of pro-Israel funding in the House, raking in $1,157,099 in 2024 alone, including $866,550 from his biggest single donor: AIPAC. This $866,550 from AIPAC was more than 11 times the money from his next highest donor, BlackRock, who donated $74,275 to Jeffries’ coffers.
Despite the fact that a vast majority of Democratic voters are demanding clear opposition to Trump’s buildup to a potentially disastrous war that could end up killing tens of thousands, what they’re getting instead is a slightly softer, and more process-oriented, version of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. And, once again, Trump gets to play bad cop while the ostensibly liberal opposition party feigns helplessness, stands around slack-jawed, and can only marshal token prosecutorial objections to what could potentially be a years-long, ruinous, and deadly war of aggression.
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