Fetterman and the End of “Progressives Except for Palestine”

 Last year, when I wrote an article for Jacobin called “John Fetterman Is Right About Many Things – but He’s Dead Wrong on Palestine,” some readers took me to task for imposing a “purity test” in the middle of an election on a candidate who, however flawed, was surely far better than his opponent.

The problem with that argument is that there’s always an election coming up. Even if the last election was the day before yesterday, there’ll be a new one coming up. And probably whatever Democrat you’re criticizing is under attack from the Right and you can argue that now isn’t the right time — so the can is perpetually being kicked down the road.

What I find encouraging is how little of that pushback I’m seeing against Fetterman’s Palestine position now. Even the fact that the gap between him and his supporters on this issue has gotten so much attention in outlets like Politico and the New York Times is a positive development.

Once upon a time — and it wasn’t so long ago — leftists who took an interest in electoral politics took it for granted that otherwise promising politicians would be bad on this. “Progressives Except for Palestine” were so common that they got their own acronym: “PEPs.”

Now, thanks to the leadership that’s been shown by members of Congress like Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib and democratic socialist elected officials in places like New York, the grassroots pressure coming from the Left’s activist wing, and the general weakening of the American public’s support for Israel in the face of the most recent atrocities against the Palestinian population, all that’s starting to change.

Someone like Fetterman can no longer expect a “well, what do you expect from a mainstream politician?” pass on his awful views on these issues. He’s starting to feel the heat. We’re seeing an expectation being formed that of course progressive politicians will face friction with their base if they’re bad on Palestine. At long last, in other words, the era of the PEPs might be coming to a close.

It’s about time.