Donald Trump and Jamaal Bowman have little in common ideologically, but they are both old-fashioned scoundrels of a type that always has been a fixture in American politics. Their divergent fortunes say less about them than about their political parties’ relative tolerance for extremists.
At mass rallies across the country this year, Trump has been blurting out one vulgarity after another — “bullsh–,” “sh—y,” “scum,” “shot in the ass,” “son of a b—-” — and his crowds sometimes shout the words back in a foul chant. Bowman, at a rally over the weekend, spoke of getting big money out of politics. Alternately holding a stool over his head and slamming it to the ground, he said: “We are going to show f—ing AIPAC the power of the motherf—ing South Bronx! … We’re going to show them who the f— we are!” (Bowman does not represent the South Bronx.)
Trump told a group of evangelical Christians over the weekend that “if I took this shirt off you’d see a beautiful, beautiful person,” but it would also show that “I’ve taken a lot of wounds, I can tell you, more than I suspect any president ever.” (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy could not be reached for comment.) Bowman, at his rally, twice rolled up his T-shirt sleeves to “let the guns out” and reveal his biceps, while he, too, played the victim. “People ask me why I’ve got a foul mouth. What am I supposed to do? You’re coming after me. You’re coming after my family. You come after my children.”
These aren’t just superficial similarities. Trump, a felon and inveterate carnival barker, spouts the “big lie” and a stream of other conspiracy claims and routinely demonizes migrants and racial and religious minorities. And Bowman? Before coming to Congress, he promoted the absurd belief that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job (after his writings were discovered this year, he expressed regret). On the House floor, he heckles speakers. In and around the Capitol, he likes to shout taunts at Republicans (“freaking cowards!”), then engage in screaming matches with those who take his bait. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor last year after pulling a fire alarm and forcing evacuation of a House office building when Democrats were trying to delay a crucial vote (he claimed, implausibly, that it was accidental).
Worse, he called the (accurate) reports of Hamas attackers raping Israeli women on Oct. 7 a “lie” and “propaganda.” Though he later said he regretted that, he has also accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide” — and when the American Israel Public Affairs Committee campaigned against him, he called the group racist. (“They want to call me the n-word,” said Bowman, who is Black.) He told Politico that Westchester County, the heart of his district, “is segregated. There’s certain places where the Jews live and concentrate. … I’m sure they made a decision to do that for their own reasons.” As a result, Bowman said, “we’ve been separated and segregated and miseducated.”
But here’s the key difference: While Trump’s bigotry has become the standard fare in the MAGA GOP, Bowman’s fellow Democrats had no patience for his, well, bullsh–.
Rep. Ritchie Torres said of his fellow New York Democrat’s claim that Jews “segregated” themselves: “There’s a word for this scapegoating: antisemitism.” And after Bowman’s vulgar rant in the South Bronx, Torres wrote on X: “The level of profanity here is so shocking as to be unbecoming of a Member of Congress. There is nothing in Jamaal Bowman’s unhinged tirade that remotely resembles the decency of the people I know and represent in the South Bronx.”
House Democratic leaders, though nominally supporting all incumbents, including Bowman, didn’t campaign for him nor did they oppose AIPAC’s big spending to oust him, as Punchbowl News reported. And, on Tuesday, Democrats in New York’s 16th Congressional District rejected Bowman, tapping Westchester County Executive George Latimer in the safely Democratic district.
The ability to stand up to extremism doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats are nobler than Republicans. Some of it is a matter of math. Among Republicans, 72 percent identify as conservative and only 27 percent identify as moderate or liberal, Gallup finds. But among Democrats, it’s more even: 54 percent liberal and 46 percent moderate or conservative.
The numbers make it harder for extremists to prevail in Democratic primaries. They help to explain why members of the far-left group of Democrats in the House informally known as “the Squad” number fewer than 10 (including Bowman), while membership in their far-right equivalent, the House Freedom Caucus, is about four times greater. In contrast to Squad members Bowman and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who will face a tough primary challenger in August, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) a Freedom Caucus firebrand, easily prevailed in a primary Tuesday night. The only Freedom Caucus member who may lose his primary (he’s awaiting a recount) is Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.), but he’s trailing another election-denying extremist who was endorsed by Trump.
Bowman will soon be gone, and good riddance. There will inevitably be more like him; the right has no monopoly on bullies and demagogues. But it’s an encouraging sign that, at a time when the country is losing its collective mind, there is still a critical mass on the left who can say: Stop.
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