Americana

The great Republican counter-protest of 2024

THE SCENE

James Comer and his colleagues were not on George Washington University’s campus for very long. They arrived at 2 p.m. on Wednesday — first for private meetings with administrators, then for a slow walk through the “Liberation Zone” that pro-Palestinian students had built on University Yard. Seventy-four minutes later, after a short press conference, they climbed into a white van and headed off.

That was still too long for the protesters they met. Some of them blocked activists who’d wrapped their heads in keffiyehs before they could approach members of the House Oversight Committee. One group sang and clapped along to “Palestine is Heaven,” and another positioned itself to raise mocking signs behind Comer. Lauren Boebert stopped to yank a Palestinian flag on the statue of George Washington — “this is America, and that shit needs to come down” — until a faculty member convinced her to keep moving.

Comer got to deliver his message: D.C. needed to shut the protest down, and his committee would “follow the money trail to see if there are outside groups that are paying for these types of activities.” And afterwards, on Fox, Comer said he’d been to “ground zero” and “heard the ‘death to Israel’ chants” — not audible to reporters that day — from people who wanted the Biden administration to get on “the side of Palestine and Hamas.”

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, there had been some campus activism that fit Comer’s description. Some of it happened at GWU, where the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter was suspended last year after projecting the phrase “Glory to our martyrs” onto a library, and where masked members of a “People’s Tribunal” chanted “guillotine, guillotine” as they named administrators working to end the protest.

Republicans, who are stepping up a six-month investigation into campus protests, are making the worst incidents famous — and linking them back to Democrats.

DAVID’S VIEW

The Republican counteroffensive against the protesters has taken two forms. One has been a wave of legislation and hearings that aim to limit criticism of Israel on campus. The other is a combination of hearings and media hits that highlight, and sometimes overstate, the most offensive reports of what’s happening there.

“The very campuses which were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Tuesday, at a Holocaust remembrance event headlined by President Biden. “Students who were known for producing academic papers are now known for stabbing their Jewish peers in the eyes with Palestinian flags.”

That incident was debated and questioned weeks earlier. A pro-Israel activist at Yale recorded a protester waving a Palestinian flag in her face, hitting her with the tip, injuring her left eye. Activists had adopted careful media strategies, from widespread face-masking to official spokespeople who other protesters would direct reporters and social media influencers would talk to. That didn’t change the coverage Republicans saw, from the flag-stab incident to videos of protesters using their bodies to keep some students out of their camps.

“Do you believe that students who spend their time in college calling for the destruction of an ethnic or religious group, or spend their time preventing students of particular ethnic or religious groups from walking around campus freely, or occupying campus buildings, deserve to have their student loans forgiven?” House Education and the Workforce Committee chair Virginia Foxx asked Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on Tuesday. When the secretary started to couch his answer, Foxx clarified: “I’m talking about the students who are being antisemitic and stopping Jewish students from going to class.”

All but a few Democrats were wary of endorsing the protests, out of fear that this might happen. Now that it has, the Republican response has been swift, carried out from the House to the states.

The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would codify anti-Israel speech as antisemitic, divided House Democrats like no other response to the Oct. 7 attacks. In North Carolina, where Republicans hold a legislative supermajority, House Speaker Tim Moore is moving the SHALOM Act, which would implement the same Working Definition of Antisemitism; Moore will almost certainly join the U.S. Congress next year, as the nominee for a re-drawn and safely Republican seat near Charlotte. In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is urging the next legislative session to work on “combating antisemitism on Texas college campuses.”

Some Republicans have dissented from that campaign; 21 of them opposed ASAA last week. But they’re far more united than Joe Biden’s party, far more ready to highlight the worst incidents on campus, and effective at bringing like-minded Democrats on board. Biden’s remarks on the protests have angered protesters, who want him to at least endorse a ceasefire, and been dismissed by Republicans, who want him to weigh in on specific campus incidents and condemn them.

“He didn’t specifically speak to what they’re saying and what they’re doing,” Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton told ABC News on Sunday. “They’re chanting ‘final solution.’ They’re telling Jews to go back to where they came from. They’re spray-painting buildings with vile, antisemitic hate.”

The White House has tried for weeks to differentiate between “peaceful protesters” and agitators. Comer and other Republicans don’t get so specific. The existence of the campus protests is a reason to pull back government grants to universities and student loan forgiveness; Cotton’s “No Bailouts for Campus Criminals” legislation would bar people “convicted of any offense” from getting that.

“What everyone in the Democrat Party realizes is that a significant percentage of the Democrat Party base is solid in the antisemitic category,” Comer told Fox News after his GWU visit. “They’re against Israel, and they expect Joe Biden to [be] on the side of Palestine and Hamas against Israel.”

NOTABLE

• In Politico, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler talks to Ryan Lizza about why he led the opposition to the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act: “It could make criticism, under certain circumstances, of Israeli government policy antisemitic, which it clearly isn’t.”
• In The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg argues that the logic of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is already indicting Israel critics with no bias against Jews; Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa has been labeled antisemitic because she “called for a cease-fire in Gaza and because she signed an open letter about the killing of Gazan journalists.”
• In The Free Press, Francesca Block reads the manuals that are helping some protesters be “taught to become militants,” carrying out actions that Republicans have highlighted and Democrats have condemned.
• In his newsletter, Ken Klippenstein finds that a widely-reported claim, that “Death to America” has become a popular protest slogan, has “no evidence,” even after it inspired House Republicans to ask for an investigation.

Indiana. It’s primary day, with Republicans battling for five jobs they expect to hold in November — the governor’s office, and four deep red House seats. Polls close across the state at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.

Polling has found Sen. Mike Braun dominating the race to replace Gov. Eric Holcomb, well ahead of Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch; Trump endorsed Braun six months ago, and Holcomb’s stayed neutral all year, as Crouch distanced herself from his handling of the COVID pandemic. (“I don’t want anyone thinking that just because [Crouch] and I work so closely together that she’s a clone of me,” he told NPR, explaining his non-endorsement.) Braun skipped the race’s final debates, another sign of his confidence heading into tonight.

In the 5th Congressional District, just outside Indianapolis, Rep. Victoria Spartz faces eight primary challengers, all of whom entered the race after she announced that she was retiring — and stayed in after she reneged. She’s been massively outspent by state Rep. Chuck Goodrich, a wealthy contractor who loaned his campaign $4.6 million, spending some on ads that called her “Ukraine-first” in a seat that needed “America First” leadership. The Ukraine-born Spartz ended up opposing last month’s Ukraine ad package, and ran for another term as a hardened anti-establishment warrior.

In the neighboring 6th Congressional District, where Rep. Greg Pence is retiring, ex-Indianapolis city councilman Jefferson Shreve loaned himself almost as much as Goodrich to reintroduce himself as an anti-tax, build-the-wall conservative. Four state legislators have labeled Shreve a phony — he ran as a “moderate Republican” for mayor last year — and RV dealer Jameson Carrier has spent his own money on an outsider bid endorsed by Vivek Ramaswamy.

And in southwest Indiana’s 8th Congressional District, outside groups have stormed in to stop ex-Rep. John Hostettler from making a comeback. Hostettler’s raised less than $50,000, a fraction of what the Republican Jewish Coalition and United Democracy Project spent to help Sen. Mark Messmer. But those groups view Hostettler as a dangerous bigot, who blamed neocons “with Jewish backgrounds” for the Iraq War; he hit back in a Facebook post that called former Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman “rabbi” and joked that he couldn’t use the word “cabal” to describe his enemies.

New York. A conservative judge tossed the current version of the Equal Rights Amendment, a ballot proposal backed by Democrats that would add abortion protections to the state constitution. Republicans, who brought a lawsuit against the amendment, celebrated another victory over a proposal supported by the supermajority in Albany; in 2022, they convinced the state supreme court to overturn a gerrymandered map designed to give Democrats more seats.

Mike Speedy for Congress, “Evil Crossing Border.” The Indianapolis exurbs are nearly 1900 miles away from Yuma County, Arizona. Mike Speedy, an Indiana state legislator running to replace Greg Pence, builds his entire spot around his Yuma visit — there’s a micro-site, “Speedy Border Trip,” for viewers who want to learn more. Like many, many Republican candidates this cycle, some of them also contesting seats in Indiana, Speedy promises to “join President Trump to finish this wall, send troops to stop this invasion and secure our southern border once and for all.”

Jim Justice for U.S. Senate, “Only One.” Trump stars in this spot, too, which is running alongside ads that get into more detail about Gov. Jim Justice’s two terms in Charleston. Elected as a Democrat in 2016, Justice switched parties nine months later, and footage from the rally where he did that plays as a narrator reads most of Trump’s Truth Social post endorsing him. Other Republicans merely try to “cling to Trump’s coattails.”

Sandy Pensler for Michigan, “The Mike Rogers Cover-Up.” Sandy Pensler, the multimillionaire owner of a cleaning supplies company, has run for U.S. Senate twice. For the second time, Trump is supporting someone else — former Rep. Mike Rogers, who led the House Intelligence Committee before retiring in 2014. Pensler’s spot resurrects an old argument between Rogers and more conservative Republicans: His committee’s Benghazi report didn’t put blame on Hillary Clinton, and didn’t do justice to survivors.

Republicans opposed the Biden administration’s debt forgiveness executive orders from day one; starting last week, their Senate campaign committee has run ads accusing Democrats of giving taxpayer money to “antisemitic mobs” on campus, by canceling their loan debt. But over two years, opposition to the policy hasn’t budged. Opposition is concentrated among Republicans and conservative independents, and the rest of the electorate either supports what Biden’s done or wants more, like the complete debt forgiveness progressives first endorsed five years ago.

One week out, Kia dealership owner/congressional scion Chris Miller keeps loaning his campaign money, staying on the air and responding to pro-Morrisey attack ads. This survey shows that paying off for Miller; polling by Moore Capito’s allies show him moving up since Gov. Jim Justice endorsed him. Miller, who’s proposed zeroing out the state income tax, runs closest to Morrisey with conservatives; Capito runs best with moderates. This is the first GOP gubernatorial primary in West Virginia since Republicans took the lead among registered voters, and tens of thousands of ex-Democrats will decide this race.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s second memoir, “No Going Back,” was released on Tuesday, after two weeks of damaging stories about its real (her killing of a family dog) and fake (her meeting with Kim Jong Un) revelations. None of it slowed down a media tour where not even conservative outlets went easy on her.

“If you asked me a month ago, who’s at the top of the list with Donald Trump, I would’ve said your name. If you asked me that same question this morning, I don’t even think you’re on the list,” Newsmax host Rob Finnerty told Noem on Tuesday.

“Really? And why is that?” Noem asked.

“Yes, really,” said Finnery, “and it’s because of things that came out in this book, like your claims that you met Kim Jong Un.”

Noem repeated the line that had flopped in every interview: That the “anecdote” was incorrect and that she wouldn’t discuss “conversations with world leaders,” which she’d had over “30 years” in politics. (Noem was first elected to the South Dakota legislature in 2006.) “A typical politician wouldn’t be that honest,” she said, claiming credit for asking the Kim story to be removed after The Dakota Scout reported on it last week.

Multiple Fox News interviews had their own problems — prime time host Jesse Watters giving Noem room to recover (“Maybe you did have a conversation with Kim and you don’t want to talk about it?”) and daytime host Stuart Varney pressing Noem on whether Trump had brought up the memoir’s issues as he scouted for a running mate.

“Enough, Stuart,” Noem said. “This interview is ridiculous, what you are doing right now. You need to stop.”

White House. Adult film actress Stormy Daniels testified in Donald Trump’s campaign finance trial on Tuesday, detailing her 2006 encounter with the future president and the money she took, before the 2016 election, to claim that it hadn’t happened. Trump’s attorneys portrayed Daniels as an opportunist, asking if she’d been “making money by claiming you had sex” with Trump; Daniels agreed, and the Trump team unsuccessfully asked for a mistrial after Daniels shared lurid details from their meeting.

Senate. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will seek a fourth term, announcing his decision in a video statement and expanding on it in an interview with Seven Days: “I am a senior member of the delegation, in a position to have influence, and I just cannot turn my back on these crises.” Sanders, who’ll turn 83 in September, started April with nearly $10 million in the bank and no serious Republican opponent; Democrats have supported him, and not run a challenger of their own, since he won Vermont’s sole House seat in 1990.

House. California Assemblyman Vince Fong prevailed in a challenge to his eligibility to run for Congress, after Secretary of State Shirley Weber dropped an effort to prevent him from seeking Kevin McCarthy’s vacant House seat while seeking re-election to his Sacramento job.

Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump after Jan. 6, got a new challenger: Tiffany Smiley, a veterans’ advocate who unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Patty Murray in 2022. Smiley didn’t mention that vote in her announcement, and Newhouse already has a challenger: Jerrod Sessler, an ex-NASCAR driver who got Trump’s endorsement last month. No Democrat has filed to run in the seat, which Trump carried by 17 points in 2020; in 2022, Trump endorsed former sheriff Loren Culp, who missed a runoff spot, setting Newhouse up for a landslide victory over a weaker Democrat.

• seven days until primaries in Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia
• 14 days until primaries in Idaho and Oregon
• 69 days until the Republican National Convention
• 105 days until the Democratic National Convention
• 183 days until the 2024 presidential election