The Right Triangle

Arit John at CNN:

Adam Hamawy, a retired US Army combat surgeon and sharp Israel critic, will win the crowded Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. Hamawy led a field of roughly a dozen Democrats, including some state and local elected officials, in the solidly blue seat currently held by retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. He was able to consolidate support from progressives and was boosted by American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian super PAC that spent more than $1.5 million supporting his campaign. “We were told that an outsider couldn’t win. That we couldn’t compete. Well, I think we competed,” Hamawy, who is Muslim and immigrated to the US from Egypt as a baby, told supporters Tuesday night, according to a transcript of his remarks shared by his campaign. “Together, we made it clear you never need to ask for permission to fight for justice. In every corner of this district, we built a movement of people who were fed up.” Hamawy will face Republican Gregg Mele, who ran unopposed in his party’s primary, in the general election in November. His win comes after critics resurfaced his past association with Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind, Egyptian-born cleric who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in a case related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hamawy was called as a defense witness in the trial.

In a statement, a campaign spokesperson said Hamawy “condemns that man’s violent rhetoric and actions, and all violence, hatred, and terrorism — and he will always,” adding that “these bad-faith, guilt-by-association attacks on Muslim and Arab candidates are nothing new in our politics.” [...]

Hamawy’s allies framed his win as a rebuke of the attacks leveled against him during the primary and an endorsement of progressive politics.

“Dr. Hamawy won this race the old-fashioned way by outworking his opponents, out-organizing the establishment, and building the progressive coalition needed to deliver his people-first vision to New Jersey working families,” Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats, a group that works to elect Democrats who don’t accept money from corporate PACs, said in a statement.

Hamawy was among the most progressive candidates in the race — he supports Medicare for All as well as canceling medical and student loan debt. He is outspoken in his support for Palestinians and has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, where more than 70,000 people have been killed. Israel has denied genocide accusations, including from a UN commission, over its military actions in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack.

Israel has denied accusations of genocide related to its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 people were taken hostage. [...] The Democratic candidate’s humanitarian work has been a central part of his run, particularly his two medical missions to Gaza in 2024 and 2025. Hamawy and his medical colleagues were trapped in Gaza in 2024 after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing. He was evacuated after Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth called on then-President Joe Biden to help get the medical personnel out. It was a full circle moment for the two — Hamawy operated on Duckworth after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq in 2004. She credits him with having saved her life and endorsed his campaign on its first day.

In NJ-12, progressive favorite and former US Army doctor Adam Hamawy won the Democratic primary to succeed the retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D). Hamawy helped saved the life of the current Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in 2004 in Iraq.

See Also:

The Intercept: Adam Hamawy, Doctor Who Volunteered in Gaza, Poised to Become Pro-Palestine Rep. From New Jersey

Paul Waldman at Public Notice:

It was going to be so beautiful: A spectacular concert to celebrate 250 years of freedom and democracy, featuring some of the greatest musical acts this nation has produced. Okay, maybe not the greatest, but they were definitely musical acts! Depending on whether you count Milli Vanilli, or more accurately, one of the two guys who pretended to sing in Milli Vanilli. Along with a guy who was in C+C Music Factory. And Bret Michaels of Poison. For anyone itching to stand outside in the baking Washington summer sun to hear some guys in their 60s wheeze their way through “Girl You Know It’s True” and “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” the disappointment must be crushing. It now appears that this concert, part of the Freedom 250 celebration and the most awe-inspiring assemblage of talent since your local middle school’s last Battle of the Bands, will not be taking place after all. One after another, the 1990s-era performers pulled out, many saying that when they booked the event they didn’t know it was going to be political.

In other words, once they realized the event was all about Donald Trump, most of them wanted nothing to do with it. Despite the fact that Vanilla Ice was still planning to perform, Trump announced on Saturday that he was pulling the plug, and would instead make the event just another Trump rally. The president then had an epic crashout over the imploded concert, posting later Saturday that “we should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain. Cancel it.” (Why Trump would have wanted to book such “boring” musical acts in the first place remains unclear.) So Trump’s long-held dream to take over American culture in the same way he took over American politics remains unfulfilled. For all the ways he has affected the country, he is not a tastemaker or an avatar of coolness; when the culture speaks of Trump, it’s mostly to rail at him and reject him. But this is not a fight he and his supporters will give up easily.

[...]

Again and again, Trump’s success in pushing himself in front of America’s eyeballs either flamed out in failure or was greeted with as much contempt as praise. His efforts to expand his business beyond real estate often crashed and burned — the Trump Shuttle, the USFL football league, the casinos he bankrupted — and even when he succeeded, the reviews were terrible. “The Apprentice” made him millions, but it was also widely derided as trash, and he knew it. Everyone in New York knew him, but they knew him as a figure of comedy and scorn, the “short-fingered vulgarian” (in Spy magazine’s memorable phrase) yearning for a cultural acceptance he could never buy. It’s not just that he has terrible taste, though of course he does. It’s unclear how many people are splashing their own homes in hideous gold-painted appliqués to mimic his Russian-gangster-meets-Saddam-Hussein aesthetic, but there can’t be all that many. Trump’s musical tastes run from show tunes to perfectly adequate pop numbers to one particular ‘70s song about gay men cruising for sex — but the last thing you’d call him is cool.

This is the problem Trump faces: He wants validation and support from the culture in all its forms. He wants to be embraced by the lowbrow and the highbrow, rock stars and athletes, but also by elite cultural institutions — and when he can’t get it, he lashes out. That’s why he slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, as though he could absorb its high-culture cachet; instead, the very fact that his name is now nailed to the building’s facade has defiled it, and its reputation will take a long time to recover. And Trump finds that when he tries to lure artists to him using the capital and the White House as bait, more often than not they recoil in disgust. He’ll always have Kid Rock, though. That’s who will stay by his side: the third-rate, the washed-up, the one-hit-wonders and laughingstocks. And not even most of them.

[...]

The culture war goes on

Complaining about pop culture has been a conservative pastime pretty much forever; one of the things that defines one as a conservative is a distaste for how things are now and a desire to return things to how they used to be. Music, TV, movies, video games, the internet — it’s all too liberal, too modern, too young, too diverse, too messily American for their taste. And they know that screeching about the latest “woke” outrage, no matter how contrived, is good for ratings and good for their politics, which depend on keeping the base in a state of perpetual agitation. But they’re not wrong when they say the culture is dominated by liberals. That’s just how artists are; right-wing art usually has to be imposed from above. But there is a market for right-wing culture. So in response to liberal dominance of Hollywood, conservatives have invested time and money in building their own alternative culture, with some success.

Warmonger...

Serial Murderer!

Jealous Much...

Same Playbook?

Idiocracy Is.

Surrender!

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