The Week Ahead

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There are some storms ahead. Some of them may hit this week, and they could have outsized implications for the nation, and even the world, going forward. Let’s take a look at three in particular.

The Israel / Hamas war

On Saturday, in a surprise move, Hamas militants broke through Israel’s barriers in Gaza and committed several coordinated assaults upon Israeli armed forces as well as terrorist attacks upon civilians. There are hundreds dead and thousands wounded already on both sides. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel was now at war with Hamas, vowing and already initiating retaliation for the attacks.

Palestinians gathered around an Israeli army vehicle that Palestinian militants drove from Israel into Gaza in Shuja’iyya, Gaza Strip, on Saturday. (Fatima Shbair/Associated Press)

The escalation into open warfare carries serious consequences and risks. The hostilities could bring other actors directly into conflict, including Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, backed by Iran. The unrest and fighting could spread to the West Bank, which is the other part of the Palestinian Territories. Far-right political factions in Israel could seize the moment politically to press their gains as the opposition, seeing the need for national unity, halts its protests over planned judicial “reforms” that undermine democracy in the nation.

There is already political fallout in the U.S. as Republicans cast blame upon the Biden Administration for the attack, including falsely claiming that the $6 billion deal with Iran was to blame, even though that money remains unspent in an overseas account and is earmarked for humanitarian aid only. And progress on the Abraham Accords, which seek to establish further diplomatic relations between Israel and key Arab neighbors including Saudi Arabia, are likely on hold while civilian deaths within Gaza and Israel inevitably and tragically mount.

I will be writing a larger piece on Tuesday in The Big Picture substack, where I write once a week, to lay out the geopolitical concerns and risks that arise directly from this weekend’s events. As part of that, I’ll set some context for why Hamas, which the U.S. has labeled a terrorist organization and which has called for the destruction of Israel, nevertheless enjoys broad support for its actions within the Arab world. At issue is the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, including a long and sustained quarantining of the region and its two million inhabitants. I’ll also walk through why achieving peace in the region is now very much harder given the bloody and brutal attack upon Israeli civilians committed by Hamas, which some are comparing to the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil.

A word of caution: This is a very fraught subject that tends to divide U.S. progressives and thus even my readers here, and passions understandably run very high on all sides. Please be respectful in the comments and toward one another. My piece on Tuesday in The Big Picture will attempt to set out the facts and positions of the parties as objectively as possible, and most importantly to assess the political risks going forward, though I already know that it is nearly impossible to be seen as purely objective and dispassionate on this issue. I am not a Middle East expert, and after decades of watching others attempt to broker peace, I have no solutions to add. But I am well aware of the history and the arguments from all sides, and I can speak to the political impact of the war and what we in the U.S. should watch for.

To have my piece delivered to your inbox on Tuesday, be sure you are a subscriber to The Big Picture here. Our newsletter is free, but we always welcome and appreciate new paid supporters.

Leaderless in the House, paralysis in the Senate

The escalation to war in Gaza comes at a time when the U.S. is facing a first in its history: the lack of a Speaker of the House. And over in the Senate, the antics of Senator Tommy Tuberville have left hundreds of key military positions unfilled. Add to that the fact that the Senate has yet to confirm Joe Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, and it is fair to say the U.S. is far weaker than it should be in this time of crisis.

A Speaker is necessary to guide emergency funding bills for Israel through that chamber. The acting speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), lacks the power to move legislation through the body and is only a caretaker until an actual Speaker can be elected by majority vote. Currently, there are only two candidates declared for the position: Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a staunch conservative who was in the No. 2 position in the conference before McCarthy was ousted, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a MAGA extremist who heads the House Judiciary Committee. It is fairly clear that neither candidate has enough votes on his own to form a majority, so we will need to see after the first round of balloting how much support each actually has, and whether one will cede the race to the other.

Time is of the essence, however, not only to provide emergency aid to Israel, but also to head off a government shutdown in mid-November, where 11 more House appropriation bills must be reconciled with the Senate’s. If both candidates conclude that they must alter the terms of the deal struck by McCarthy and Biden back in May, that would almost certainly lead to an impasse and a shutdown of the government, barring another continuing resolution that, say, a group of bipartisan House members could again try to push through.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the wild card candidates

When I look at the electoral map for 2024, and it’s clear that Trump would have an uphill climb in the battleground states in a head-to-head against Biden. That’s why something that gives me pause are possible third party or independent candidates. None of them can possibly win, but they are likely to peel support away from the main candidates. And with margins in places like Wisconsin historically below one percent, that has me concerned.

We need only look back to 2016 to see the effect that Jill Stein of the Green Party had on key battleground contests, where the margin of victory was less than the number of votes cast for her. The 2000 election offers a huge cautionary example as well, when votes for Ralph Nader instead of Al Gore in Florida were enough to tip the state to George W. Bush, and from there the entire national election. The GOP understands this and will exploit it wherever it can.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had been threatening to run a primary race against Joe Biden, but he instead intends to announce an independent run this coming week. (This somehow feels very Connor Roy, for those who watched Succession: a rich, entitled, misguided fool who enters the race for ego, but with enough possible support to affect the outcome.) While he bears the name Kennedy, most Democrats aren’t at all fooled, especially when they get a taste of his conspiracy-laden policies and understand how he is funded by GOP mega-donor sources. Currently polling suggests that Kennedy would pull votes about equally from the candidates, but this far out such polls aren’t very meaningful.

Gaming this out a bit more, however, Kennedy’s extremism might play well to those voters if their top choice, Donald Trump, were somehow to be knocked out of the race. For example, if Nikki Haley were to became the consensus GOP nominee should Trump be disqualified, be jailed, or kick the can from too many Big Macs, any independent candidate like Kennedy who is to Haley’s right could pull significantly from her support.

That said, there are two other notable wild cards besides Kennedy: Cornel West of the Green Party and an as-yet unnamed third party candidate from the No Labels party. It isn’t clear why West wants to play spoiler here, other than to serve his own fame or campaign coffers. Nor should we trust for a moment that No Labels is really some independent third party rather than a long-game strategy by the GOP.

Much of the work ahead will be to rally Democrats around the idea of not casting “protest” votes that wind up handing the election to Trump or whomever the GOP chooses to nominate. The risk of such protest votes is particularly high among more idealistic, younger voters, whose turnout has proved decisive in recent elections, but who are still wary that the White House and Democrats don’t fully support their priorities (even though they do, as best they can under the circumstances). The work of Vice President Kamala Harris to rally young, minority voters will prove pivotal, alongside Democratic policies such as abortion access, gun control and student debt forgiveness which are priorities among young voters.

One final note. Many of you look to these summaries to ease rather than increase anxiety and worry over our politics. But sometimes, that process requires a fuller understanding of the risks and some of our weaknesses, even as we forge solutions together. There will be challenges, at times deep ones, to keeping our democracy strong and our values upheld. This week likely will feature some of those challenges.

Those who want to undermine our system and seize greater power won’t rest as long as such openings and opportunities present themselves, so our own vigilance must rise to match their cynical ploys and ambitions.

Have a great Sunday, and I’ll see you later tonight with the first of my Key House Race recommendations to support!

— Jay