Matthew Continetti assesses leading Democrats’ response to recent activity in the Middle East.
President Trump heard from many people before ordering last weekend’s strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, G7 leaders, Republican senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham, Vice President J.D. Vance, conservative journalists Mark Levin, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson—all weighed in on military action, pro and con. The debate was robust: whether our intelligence was correct, would our weapons work, what might the costs and benefits be, how the mullahs would respond.
What was remarkable wasn’t the intensity of the debate, but its location: It took place almost entirely on the right.
By last weekend, Israel’s Operation Rising Lion had already changed the Middle East profoundly. And America’s oldest political party was AWOL. Normally, Democrats would stake out a position on such a consequential issue. Instead, in the lead-up to Operation Midnight Hammer, they were more interested in ICE raids and performative civil disobedience than in the future of nonproliferation. They had plenty to say about Medicaid work requirements and Juneteenth celebrations. On Iran? Silence. …
… As the GOP consolidated, the Democrats went from bystanders to hecklers. They called for votes on congressional war powers. They fumed, threatened, and demanded consequences—not against Iran, but against President Trump. The Democrats became louder, for sure. But no more effective.
The Iran crisis doesn’t just reveal the Democrats’ irrelevance. It exposes a fundamental unseriousness that makes their other problems worse. The DNC is a mess. Their party has no leader. It’s deeply unpopular and on the wrong side of illegal immigration, trans activism, and the Green New Deal.
Just when the Democrats need to return to the center, they’re in danger of being captured by antisemitic socialists. Ilhan Omar calls her adopted land one of the worst countries in the world. AOC greets pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil upon his release from ICE detention. Thirty-three-year-old Zohran Mamdani, who wants the government to run grocery stores, surges ahead in the New York City mayoral primary.
