What happened to Bush was almost exactly what had already happened to Jamal Bowman. They’re breaking up that old Squad of mine – at least a little bit.

But Bush issued a warning:

“All you did was take some of the strings off,” she declared, saying “Let’s be clear” several times. “All they did was radicalize me, so now they (unintelligible) afraid. …

“They about to see this other Cori, this other side,” she said. “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down!” she screamed.

AIPAC is a pro-Israel lobbying group and PAC that was one of the organizations contributing money to Bush’s challenger.

As for the rest of the Squad, however, the telegenic AOC survived her primary challenger in June. Ilhan Omar faces a challenger in her primary next week; she looks to be way ahead although it was close last time. How about Jayapal of Washington? A landslide win over the other contenders. And Rashida Tlaib of Michigan didn’t even have a Democrat challenger, just a couple of Republicans in a district that includes Dearborn and part of Detroit and is overwhelmingly Democrat (favoring Biden over Trump by 50 percent in 2020).

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But they chose to defend them in response to Trump. Why?

Although Pelosi had earlier pointed out that the Four were only four votes, she had to already have been well aware of how many members of the House were in solidarity with them. It doesn’t seem to have been a majority, as Wednesday’s “impeach Trump” vote failure amply demonstrates. So, what gives?

I’ve heard people say in explanation, “Bernie Sanders changed the party.” No he didn’t. He did well in 2016, much better than expected, but he didn’t change anything except perceptions. What he did do was to move the Overton Window way to the left, and the sky didn’t fall. So it became possible for a candidate to voice leftist beliefs and think that he/she still had a chance of support on a national level.

If Sanders had actually run in the general election of 2016 instead of Hillary, how would he have done? No one knows, although he polled quite well (so did she). It’s too late now for him to win the nomination in 2020, because he’s got fresher leftist competition, but the party is very afraid of losing his enormous bloc of leftist supporters—and that of AOC and the Four—by not defending the Four.

But still, Pelosi’s original calculus about this was different. Not too long ago she didn’t seem to think it was necessary to defend them much, and she seemed to believe that marginalizing them would be good. She must have known (or believed) that siding with the Four might cost the eventual Democratic nominee (and those Democrats running for Congressional seats) dearly in the general. A great many Democratic voters have gotten way more leftist than the general public seems to be ready to tolerate yet, despite decades of the Gramscian march that has helped swell the ranks of the left immeasurably, particularly among young people, so Pelosi knew a candidate must beware of appearing too leftist.

So, what’s going on? One thing I noticed is that a possible turning point occurred when AOC played the race card against Pelosi herself, saying, “the persistent singling out … it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful … the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”

The initial reaction was for many fellow-Democrats to jump to Pelosi’s defense. Why, the very idea of using racism accusations as a tool like that! Shocking! Of course, it’s the favored tool against the right and Democrats have no problem with it when it’s used that way. But against Pelosi? Not done, except by the Four.

Initially it seemed that Pelosi had won that round, too. But it may nevertheless have struck some sort of fear in her (at least, that’s my theory), because it told her that the Four were going to strike back with every weapon at their disposal rather than give in. Pelosi well knows the potency of the race card with the Democratic voters; there is probably no worse charge. So she was wary.

Then, when Trump singled out the Four (without naming them, but he certainly was talking about at least one of them, Ilhan Omar), and did it in terms the left wanted to cast as irredeemably and vilely racist, Pelosi almost had to defend them or risk a racist accusation herself, and risk losing the votes of the racial groups on which the Democrats now depend for victory.

Pelosi may well end up tacking back and forth between supporting the Four and keeping them in check, for the rest of the 2020 election cycle.

[ADDENDUM: In addition, some House members from deep blue districts are probably afraid of being perceived as insufficiently leftist, and of being primaried by younger and more telegenic Justice Democrats. So they may desert Pelosi, as well. Is even Pelosi immune, in her own district, if she decides to run for re-election?]

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It’s often instructive to hear what people say when talking among themselves rather than to the public at large.

Thus, note what what Ilhan Omar said when addressing a leftist group known as Netroots Nation:

“There’s a constant struggle oftentimes with people who have power about sharing that power. We are not really in the business of asking for the share of that power. We’re in the business of trying to grab that power,” she said.

That’s just a statement of a truth any observer can already see quite clearly. But at least it’s honest. It’s also a statement that isn’t limited to their plans for the Democratic Party, not by a longshot.

Not only does it say a lot about what the “squad” (I prefer to call them the Gang of Four) plans for the Democratic Party if they ever succeed in their power grab, it’s what they plan for the country if they ever succeed on a nationwide level.

It’s not just Omar by any means. Here’s Ayanna Pressley at the same conference:

…the people closest to the pain should be the closest to the power.

In other words, intersectional victimhood is a huge qualification for holding office and dictating policy. She also said this:

We don’t need any more any brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.

Here Pressley is continuing and expanding on a theme that’s been a leftist message for many years—if a “person of color” is not ideologically pure, then he or she doesn’t count as a person of color and has no right to power.

I really cannot think of a more racist and controlling (anti-free-speech) statement recently by someone in public office, although I’m sure I could find one if I really looked hard. But I can almost guarantee it would have been made by a Democrat, not a Republican. Race is almost everything to this group and confers on members of designated victim groups the right to power, but “people of color” can lose that designation if they think for themselves and don’t follow the party line.

These Four are race-obsessed and power-obsessed. That’s true of most of the left and the majority of the Democratic Party these days, but the Four are far more up-front about it, at least when talking to supporters. They also have zero regard for the process by which this country functions, if it happens to get in their way. Orderly transfer of power? Don’t make me laugh. Whether it be the election of someone they don’t like, or whether it be the internal rules about gaining power in the House, they want to circumvent them in order to grab what they want ASAP.

And for style points, I nominate Rashida Tlaib: “We’re going to impeach the m’effer, don’t worry.”

The Four feel somewhat immune because they are on top in the all-important intersectionality sweepstakes. As women and “people of color” they are “women of color,” and feel that this status inoculates them because they belong to so many designated victim groups at once.

[NOTE: Please see this for a talk by Professor William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, on the subject of the connection between intersectionality and anti-Semitism.]

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