Michelle Vallejo’s Roaring Silence on Israel-Hamas War
I started covering the Middle East in 2014. Since Oct. 7, alone, I’ve published around 15,000 words on Israel and will surpass 20k by week’s end. Michelle Vallejo, the great policy wonk and volunteer white-paper writer for the Biden Administration on such complex subjects as post-dictatorship reparations in Argentina, has (as of the writing of this article) published exactly 0 words on this current crisis. She’s running again in 2024, after losing District 15 by 10,956 votes last November to Monica De La Cruz. De La Cruz has been the target of antisemitic vandalism in recent days, yet another grave matter left unaddressed by Vallejo. Vallejo is the new Beto O’Rourke, destined to forever lose unwinable races, while persuading as many as possible that they’re winnable.
She set herself up for failure in 2022 because she ceded the northern rural parts of the district while taking a strong stance on the most ridiculous parts of the Democrats’ program, namely the trans issue, and taking the most demagogic and flippant stance on abortion imaginable. Hushing her tone this time, she’s now making nice with the centrists she turned off. Which is being noticed by her “base,” who’s also calling her out on her silence, but for the opposite reason as me — they think she should come out for Hamas!
These chumps, who’ve criminally harassed and hurled anti-Jewish innuendos at Vallejo, to provoke a response, are ‘threatening’ to withhold their votes for her, as if that would make a difference. They may convince themselves that Vallejo lost (as she will undoubtedly lose again next November, that is, if Democrats are dumb enough to vote for her again) because of their withdrawal of support. But Vallejo will actually lose, by double the votes in 2024 I predict, because of her astonishing silence on the Oct. 7 Pogrom. Trying to please all, she’ll please none.
Oct. 7 was the biggest turning point in global politics, ever since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, which opened up space for democratic politics in the Middle East, as well as strengthening the struggle for Kurdish self-determination as a consequence and reinforcement. For Vallejo to say nothing is a calculated decision.
The only conceivable reason Vallejo has been silent, especially given the remarkable fact that the Jewish community makes up a significant part of the Democratic Party, is because she fears losing that far-left base. On the other hand, realizing she can’t come out in full support of “the Palestinians,” for fear of losing support from the Jewish community and centrists, Vallejo and her advisors have determined that saying nothing is the ‘middle-of-the-road.’ This strategy, however, will continue backfiring.
District 15 will remain comfortably “red” in 2024, and no, not the communist red.