According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, U.S. President Donald Trump and the Republicans weren’t the only big losers in the midterm elections. Supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance and those who worry about the surge of antisemitism that has swept across the globe over the past three years should, he says, be equally worried about the implications of the Democrats’ midterm victory.
He’s joined in this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by commentator & author Josh Hammer, who said the assertion that the war against Iran was the sole reason for the GOP’s defeat is mistaken. The economy in general, the impact of Trump’s tariffs, corruption and the administration’s focus on things voters don’t care about played just as big a role in the voters’ decisions.
Hammer also believes that it would be a mistake to underestimate the negative impact of the election of anti-Israel and antisemitic leftist candidates to Congress. But he is especially alarmed by the victory of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race. He called it “a turning point moment in American history.” What’s important is not that he’s the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate.
It is, he says, what he stands for, in terms of a campaign that revolved around antisemitism, as well as “who he is surrounded with, what he has said and what he has failed to say.” Hammer termed his election as the “singular culmination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s decades-long effort” to insinuate itself and other Hamas supporters into mainstream politics.
Hammer also asserts that the “biggest loser” of the midterms isn’t Trump but U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who clearly intends to run for president in 2028. “His entire pitch is that he wants to be the third term of Trumpism and MAGA. Well, I hate to say it, but as of this past Tuesday evening, MAGA and Trumpism are dead. They are deader than dead. That the coalition is not just in shambles, it is literally dead.”
Hammer believes the Republicans will need someone, unlike Vance, who is not associated with the administration or a conspiracy- and hate-monger like Tucker Carlson, to come up with a new vision for the country.
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