This week with the guys from The Vanguard pod, Zac and Gavin, we talk about the firestorm surrounding Hasan’s recent remarks about Zionism. When conservatives tried to drag Abdul El-Sayed through the mud for having campaigned with Hasan, made a public statement clarifying that Hasan did not speak for the campaign. And, of course, it still wasn’t enough for the MAGA ghouls! Rogers, the Republican opponent whose bigotry truly knows no bounds, took the opportunity to shift the goalposts by demanding an even more outright disavowal, and he wasn’t the only one. Realizing that placating the right wing only empowers it, we on the left have the opportunity in moments like these to decide when it’s time to call bullshit and back each other up; we can learn lessons to help with future decisions by looking at what we gain and what we lose from a more measured response.
That takes us to another episode highlight: our conversation about presidential prospects on the left, especially all the conversation surrounding a potential AOC run. She’s been an incredibly powerful voice for the left and a champion of other progressive candidates like El-Sayed; at the same time, she’s made strategic errors worth considering in an analysis of her electability. The recent comments denigrating “Woke 1” didn’t help, and for reasons we’d relate to the firestorm El-Sayed has recently faced. Watching her adopt the cornerstone of the right-wing playbook, singling out wokeness simultaneously as Democratic virtue signaling and as a stifling force in our culture, we have conflicting opinions about how much she’ll benefit from this move. It’s a debate that’s swirling within the left right now, and we have a slice of it here for you on the show this week.
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