Cori Bush, ‘Squad’ Member and Vocal Critic of Israel, Loses Her Primary
Cori Bush, ‘Squad’ Member and Vocal Critic of Israel, Loses Her Primary
Her defeat is another loss for progressives in a race defined by Democratic divisions over the war in Gaza, with pro-Israel groups pouring millions into a campaign to oust her from office.
Summary of events:
Bush was elected in 2020 when she beat former Rep. William Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary.
In a phone call last summer her challenger Bell told her he would not run against her.
Bush was one of the first members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American member of Congress.
This primary AIPAC spent $8.5 million supporting Bell including mailers which featured images with distortions made to Bush’s features. It is the fourth most expensive primary in House history.
This is now the 2nd Squad member AIPAC has removed through its campaign financing.
I keep telling people, the AIPAC dollars are why you will never see a strong stand against Israel and nobody ever believes me...
:(
Our system is totally working guys, we just openly let Israel spend literally unlimited money to form our government by hand.
Sounds by the people for the people to me 🙄
A local political commentator put out this scathing review of her voting record and spending. Curious what other folks think about it because it seems pretty damming
Cori Bush was one of only six Democrats who partnered with 200 Republicans to vote against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Anyone who has driven in St. Louis lately understands , and how desperately we needed that investment.
IIRC this was because they split the bill with the social programs part that was originally all supposed to be 1 package. She was originally for the combined package.
Nope, not for Cori Bush, who’s repeatedly voted against defense spending.
Is this supposed to be bad…?
Despite the fact that Defund the Police was never effective, is wildly unpopular , and is overwhelmingly unpopular with Black voters, Cori Bush stubbornly continues to support the cause. She did in 2022, and she’s not backing away in 2024.
But here’s the kicker: Bush spends more on private security than just about any other member of Congress, having spent close to $500,000 on private security in the 2022 cycle. Just to be clear, this is highly aberrant. Combined, the rest of Missouri’s House delegation has spent a grand total of $0 on private security.
Without getting into a whole separate thing on defund the police I will say the spending is eye raising, she has said:
“I’m going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life and I have too much work to do,” she said.
I would agree the spending is a bit much but I don’t know the number of threats either. He does later mention she employed her now husband as security as well which is being investigated.
With a national platform, she fails to take even basic steps to help St. Louisans
This whole section feels like it’s reaching. Like maybe she felt the best route was to push to give her constituents more time? Why aren’t other state reps also getting heat for the unused funds?
To a fault, Cori Bush is uncompromisingly partisan
Like this is meaningless in a vacuum, reaching across the aisle isn’t some automatic good.
Take her “no” vote on sanctions against Russia
There are leftists that believe sanctions primarily hurt the working class of countries and not the people in power and so are against them. They haven’t removed Putin from power so far and trying to sanction a third of the countries in the world also has other downsides.
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said she is concerned about the strength of the US dollar going forwards, after widespread implementation of sanctions by the country has pushed other financial institutions to seek trades in other currencies.
Overall not a lot in there outside of the security spending/investigation which I’ll agree should be looked at.
Edit:
Also before any tries to frame voting No on H.R.6679 as problematic look at the actual bill:
The bill also expands an existing admissions bar against officers, representatives, and spokespersons of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Under this bill, all PLO members are barred from admission into the United States.
Per Wikipedia:
the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.
@TrippyFocus Honestly I don't think she helped herself much, basically every ad I saw from her came off like old fashioned mud slinging, and I don't think I saw a single ad that trumpeted her accomplishments.
Sounds like the majority of people have spoken and don’t want her to represent their values in the main election in November.
I see no problem here.
Supporters of Bush and Bowman now face a strange incentive.
If they vote for Latimer and Bell, they will only embolden AIPAC and corporate America to use the same playbook in the districts of other progressive Democrats. And they will have them as incumbents in 2026.
If they do a protest vote (third party, write-in or stay home), that sends a clear message, but also gives the Republicans a +1.
On the face it, it would suck if the Republicans win their district, but also consider that a Republican win will (a) ensure Democrats field a progressive in 2026 and (b) show both Democrats and Republicans that the progressive vote is powerful and can be courted.
So it might actually be a good strategy. Look at 2016. Yeah, four years of Trump sucked, but it also made Democrats realize they had to court their progressive win. Corporate Hilary just couldn't win without them.
Knowing this, there is also a Dark Brandon, scorched earth, move available: Vote directly for the Republican and give them a +2.
This will show progressives know how to yield their voting power and that they should be taken seriously as a group.
I'm not convinced the Democrats learned anything since 2016. When did they "court" the progressives in 2020?
This is the stupidest political strategy I've ever heard of.
So what you're saying is, give the pro-Israel republicans a slight edge in the House. That'll help Palestine.
It's almost as if being pro-Israel while also being anti-Netenyahu while also being anti-Hamas while also being pro-Palestinian is really popular to those who vote at the ballot box ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s almost as if money has a huge influence on elections and allowing legal bribery of politicians and judges probably isn’t the best route to improving conditions for disadvantaged members in any society.
And I don’t see how pushing to continue to fund and supply their genocide is “pro-Palestinian”.