Political campaigns require money. Globs and globs of money. In 2024 alone, the total spending on American elections is projected to reach $15.9 billion ($17.1 billion if you also include direct mail). But most of us already knew that elections weren’t cheap.
What most don’t realize, however, is that money isn’t nearly enough. Not even close! Political campaigns also require boots on the ground: an army of grassroots activism.
As much as possible.
Money can be analogized to an aerial assault: With heavy ad-buys, you can blanket the airwaves with commercials. Your face and message will blast every commercial break; your campaign-spots will christen every YouTube video. Money is the fastest way to reach the most people.
Its strength is the air game.
Its weakness, however, is that it doesn’t address your ground game.
Someone still needs to knock on your neighbors’ doors. Make phone calls. Stick signs on telephone poles at 3:00 a.m. (while evading cops). Wave, scream, and make noise at campaign rallies. Man the polls on election day. Disseminate brochures, distribute bumper stickers, and instill grassroots energy into the campaign.
Ground and air, you need both.
This is the Democratic Party’s current conundrum: Their donor base supports Israel; their grassroots base supports Hamas.
There is no middle ground. And it’s ALL coming to a head in Chicago.
In many ways, it’s astonishing the Democrats have managed to maintain the veneer of unity despite these deep, irreconcilable divisions. If anything, Biden being deposed this late in the campaign cycle — and their new Dear Leader being appointed rather than elected — should’ve caused those fault lines to shake and rattle beneath their feet, triggering a devastating earthquake (which they’d blame on climate change, probably). But the Democrats had a trump card: Donald J. Trump. Their pathological fear of the Scary Orange Boogeyman masked the fractures and fissures.
Until now.
If this were the GOP, the media would’ve pounded the Hamas-Israel divide 24/7, hammering every single Republican candidate to “pick a side” and elevating the issue to the forefront. It would be the first (and last) question they’d ask at every press conference and the opening segment for every news segment. And I’m sure you can guess the narrative:
“Why won’t you condemn antisemitism?! Are you too cowardly to stand up to them?! Are you so morally repugnant, you’d prioritize winning an election (tsk, tsk) ahead of stopping hatred, racism, and bigotry?! Have you no shame?!”
And the Republicans, being hapless and clueless about media relations, would invariably start sniping at one other. Just a little back-and-forth — maybe a few recriminations at first — but that’s all the media would need to light a fire.
Eventually, in terms of total coverage, it would be a top-five issue in the election.
The Democrats don’t play by the same rules as Republicans, so their threat doesn’t come from the outside. Instead of starting fires, the media does the opposite and plays fireman for the Donkeys, putting out fires and shielding them from arsonists. So, there won’t be any media pressure…
…until it comes from their own side.
Which means the dominant storylines for the Democratic National Convention will continue to be Kamala Harris’s popularity and support; appreciation for Joe Biden’s selflessness (he saved democracy, you know.); the existential dangers of Donald Trump; and the dawn of a new, glorious generation of Democratic leaders. Aren’t you excited?! (I know, I know. There’s still time to buy extra Pepto.)
It’s all prewritten. Only one side can derail this narrative, and it’s certainly not the Republicans.
The ball is in the activists’ court.
But if you’re a pro-Hamas supporter, you’ve got to be absolutely, positively, hummus-spitting furious right now. The Democrats have depowered you because they don’t need you: When you’re still months away from the election, donor dollars are waaaay more important than grassroots support! So, at every turn so far in 2024, the Democratic Party leadership has prioritized the donors over the activists.
Sure, they got a little lip service (and a nifty dance/convulsion from AOC), but they’ve lost every battle, standoff, and skirmish that counts. (Kinda like Hamas.) They’ve become the Washington Generals of public policy. The next 48 hours is their last chance to be a winner, and they know it. When the DNC comes to a close, there will be no comparable platform for liberal activism. It’s now or never.
The smart money is on the now.
And consider this: If you’re supportive of a cutthroat terrorist organization and truly believe their tactics are morally justified, that gives you an awful lot of latitude for mayhem and chaos at the DNC. If it’s ethically permissible to murder civilians, kill babies, kidnap grandmas, and rape little girls… then anything goes in Chicago.
The pro-Hamas side will push. It’ll be ugly. And then — finally — the media’s gears will begin to grind… and once they start, it’s nearly impossible to stop the momentum.
There will be DNC fallout, replete with finger-wagging, name-calling, and (of course) Jew-blaming. And then Kamala Harris will find herself in the awkward, uncomfortable position of having to commit to a policy that she can’t word-salad her way out of: Do you support Israel, or do you support Hamas? It’s a binary choice.
Or does she revert to her word-salad roots, choke on a crouton, and claim there were “very fine people on both sides”?
To quote the great American philosopher Terrell Owens (no relation to Candace Owens), “Getcha popcorn ready!”
FOX Business recently ran a segment about Kamala Harris and the Democrats’ bait-and-switch wordplay, entitled “The Semantics Game is a Trap.” Well, by definition, “semantics” refers to the meaning and logic of language. In that case, what should we call a candidate who deliberately obscures words’ meanings to protect pro-Hamas bigots?
This is a new one, folks: We now have anti-semantics covering for anti-Semitics.
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