fwd : Martin Liby Troein: This week the USA got a new star – it wasn't Mamdani
Cornelius Hamelberg
Martin Liby Troein: This week the USA got a new star – it wasn't Mamdani
https://www.dn.se/ledare/martin-liby-troein-i-veckan-fick-usa-en-ny-stjarna-det-var-inte-mamdani/
Martin Liby Troein: This week the USA got a new star – it wasn't Mamdani
Published 10:09
Abigail Spanberger. Photo: Win McNamee/AFP
The Democrats won almost everywhere. Donald Trump's only bright spot was in the New York election.
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Finally, a little hope. Election results from a number of American states and cities rolled in on Wednesday morning. And Donald Trump finally faced resistance – voters punished his Republicans almost everywhere.
Zohran Mamdani, who was elected mayor of New York, has caused emotions to swell far beyond the city limits with his clever Tiktok videos. Imagine a Democrat who is both so obviously likable and comfortable with himself in front of the camera! It's something different from Kamala Harris, let alone Joe Biden.
And Mamdani is so radical, socialist even – a clear alternative to Donald Trump!
It's been a bit like that over the summer and fall, since he surprisingly won the Democratic primary. On Tuesday, he beat former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent candidate, by 9 percentage points.
But to be honest, the election of Mamdani also gave the White House a sense of hope. Even when he clinched the party nomination in June, JD Vance welcomed the “new leader of the Democrats.”
Trump and his allies aim to stay in power for a long time. But they realize that they can never do so by being the most popular with Americans – but only by painting an alternative that voters may dislike more.
After the last election, many concluded that the Democrats had moved to the left and become more extreme than the Republicans.
Rightly or wrongly, it was "woke activists" that people associated with the Democrats when they stood in the voting booth. And chose Trump.
In fact, it was objectively up to the wall. The Republicans are led by a person who has tried to overthrow democracy. On issues like abortion, the party, with its fight for prohibition, is miles away from the average American. Such extreme policy positions are not to be found at all among Democrats at the top level.
But what is objectively correct matters less than how voters perceive the matter. Rightly or wrongly, it was “woke activists” who people associated with the Democrats when they stood in the voting booth. And chose Trump.
Now the Republicans will do everything they can to make the socialism of Mamdani, his friend Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders synonymous with the Democrats.
Only in such a context can the Magar movement continue to win over marginal voters. And if the Democrats fail to offer an appealing alternative to left-wing populism, Vance and his friends may well succeed in their ambition.
But there were more elections on Tuesday, as P1 Morgen noted after devoting the first five of seven minutes of its segment to it in New York.
In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill won the governorship. She is a former fighter pilot and congresswoman who, like Mamdani, focused her campaign on how everything has become more expensive, but unlike him, ran a campaign in the political middle ground.
Sherrill won by 13 percentage points, more than double the margin Harris defeated Trump by in the state last year.
And in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger was elected governor.
Spanberger entered Congress in 2020 and began by berating his Democratic colleagues for not standing up strongly enough to stupid activist demands. And he declared that “we must never use the word socialist or socialism again. Because even if we think it doesn’t matter, it does.”
Pragmatism instead of polarization and cooperation across party lines – that was her magic formula instead of Tiktok and populism.
How will the US be able to come back? Who will break Trump's grip and the devastating polarization? Is it even possible?
It worked. Most recently, the Democrats lost the gubernatorial election by 2 percentage points. Harris won Virginia by only 5. Spanberger outscored his opponent by 15.
Her victory speech is also proof that there are more Democrats with brilliance than Zohran Mamdani.
She shows that it is possible to take a clear position on issues of values – and emphasize the historicity of a woman being elected as the state's governor for the first time – without getting caught up in the culture war. And that it is possible to be Trump's antithesis without indulging in left-wing populism – by offering unity instead of division.
Spanberger focused on Virginia, but I couldn't help but think of when Barack Obama catapulted himself onto the US national political stage with his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention – with the battle cry that there is no red America or blue America, only one United States of America.
How will the US be able to come back? Who will break Trump's grip and the devastating polarization? Is it even possible?
These are questions that have not had any answers in the past year.
But take a look at Abigail Spanberger's speech . If the Americans succeed, that's where it all began.
Read more:
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Attacks on the West Bank are increasing – worst month yet
Published 18:23
An Israeli bulldozer destroys a home reportedly belonging to a Palestinian family in Qatanna. Photo: Zain Jaafar/AFP
Violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is increasing.
In October, Israeli settlers carried out over 260 attacks, the highest number documented according to the UN.
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Since 2006, the UN agency Ocha has documented over 9,600 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, of which 1,500, or about 15 percent, have occurred this year, writes Reuters .
October is the worst month to date with at least 264 attacks, according to OCHA, resulting in people being killed, injured and property destroyed.
It's not just people's homes that are being destroyed, but also property in the form of land and crops. For example, Palestinian olive pickers have been attacked over 250 times and over 4,000 trees and seedlings have been vandalized during the olive harvest that began in October, according to Ocha, as cited by CNN .
Clashes at an olive grove in the West Bank. Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/TT
Over 2.7 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, which together with the Gaza Strip constitutes Palestine. However, the number of Israeli settlers, who consider themselves entitled to the area, is increasing and their political influence in Israel is increasing.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and today over half a million Israeli settlers live there, despite both the UN and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) having ruled that the occupation is illegal.
“Failing to prevent or punish such attacks is incompatible with international law,” OCHA chief Tom Fletcher wrote on X earlier this week.
According to Fletcher, the attacks on olive groves are also the worst in years.
Not least since Hamas' attack on Israel and the outbreak of war in Gaza just over two years ago, violence in the West Bank has increased. A total of over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023, according to the UN .
Facts. Settlements in the West Bank
● In the occupied West Bank there are hundreds of settlements, all illegal under international law, some also under Israeli law. The Israeli army protects the settlers against Palestinian attacks.
● Ultra-Orthodox Jews now make up about a third of the residents of the settlements – a significantly larger proportion than they are of the Israeli population as a whole. In total, there are about half a million Israeli settlers.
● The most common argument for Israeli settlement is that East Jerusalem and the West Bank are historical, Jewish lands.
● Security issues and housing policy have also played a role. In 1973, six years after the June War, the Arab countries tried to take back the occupied land through war. They failed, but voices were raised in Israel that the areas must be retained in order to be better able to protect themselves against Arab attacks.
Source: Finnish Institute of International Affairs
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