Tipsheet

Here's a VP Pick of Kamala's That 'Could Ruin Democratic Unity'

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 27, 2024 6:00 AM

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro might be the party’s best vice president pick for Kamala Harris. He’s popular in the Keystone State, a contest that Democrats must win if they have a prayer in beating Donald Trump. If Pennsylvania flips again, it’s over for Kamala. At one point, Shapiro was getting props from one-third of self-identified Trump supporters in the state. Yet, Shapiro’s selection and even consideration have given some Democrats heartburn for a simple reason: he’s Jewish.

The party cannot afford to lose the rabid antisemitic and pro-Hamas youths that took over college campuses and seized Union Station in Washington DC this week, where they tore down American flags and burned them. They’re not most of the Democratic Party base, but they’re large enough that they need to be coddled. In 2024, the Democratic Party has become one of the biggest enablers of antisemitism, giving its bigoted adherents a lot of political cover as they harass Jewish people and Jewish-owned businesses. Modern-day pogroms have the stamp of approval from the political elites. It’s because of Shapiro’s religion that some on the Left fear could shatter Democratic Party unity if he’s picked. The New Republic had a piece about how Shapiro’s religion could wreck the party in 2024: 

Unfortunately, Shapiro also stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine. It’s not just that he, like many Democrats, is an outspoken supporter of Israel—though he certainly is, having championed Israel’s war against Hamas consistently and without any apparent concern for Palestinian civilians. Shapiro has, moreover, done far more than most Democrats to attack pro-Palestine antiwar demonstrators, in ways that call into question his basic commitment to First Amendment rights. 

In his previous role as Pennsylvania attorney general, Shapiro championed the state’s constitutionally dubious anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) law against Ben & Jerry’s after the ice cream maker refused to license its product for sale in Israeli settlements. “BDS is rooted in antisemitism,” Shapiro wrote in a statement in 2021, as he condemned a company named for its two Jewish American founders. “The stated goal of this amorphous movement is the removal of Jewish citizens from the region and I strongly oppose their efforts.” 

As governor, Shapiro’s particular animus against pro-Palestine activism has only grown more apparent and troubling. Last December, he played an active role in the GOP-orchestrated sacking of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill. During a visit to Goldie, the popular Philadelphia restaurant co-owned by the Israeli-born celebrity chef Michael Solomonov, Shapiro condemned Magill’s testimony on alleged antisemitism on the Ivy League campus before Representative Elise Stefanik, the MAGA right’s grand inquisitor. “That was an unacceptable statement from the president of Penn,” Shapiro said, referring to Magill’s unwillingness to accept Stefanik’s slippery framing on what constitutes antisemitism. “Frankly, I thought her comments were absolutely shameful. It should not be hard to condemn genocide.” Magill resigned four days after her testimony and three days after Shapiro’s statement, legitimizing the GOP’s wider assault on academic freedom, which would be repeated successfully against Harvard President Claudine Gay weeks later. 

In April, Shapiro’s office baselessly claimed that a peaceful pro-Palestine encampment on the Penn campus threatened student safety. “If the universities in accordance with their policies can’t guarantee the safety and security and well-being of the students, then I think it is incumbent upon a local mayor or local governor or local town councilor, whoever is the local leadership there, to step in and enforce the law,” Shapiro told Politico at the time. In May, he urged Penn to shut down the encampment completely. “The University of Pennsylvania has an obligation to their safety,” he said, once again alluding to nonexistent threats to the physical well-being of Jewish students. “It is past time for the university to act, to address this, to disband the encampment, and to restore order and safety on campus.” The university complied; one day and 33 arrests later, Shapiro’s office said Penn “made the right decision.”

That same week, The New York Times profiled Shapiro as one to watch in his party with the headline “A Rising Democrat Leans Into the Campus Fight Over Antisemitism.” In that piece, Shapiro made clear the low regard in which he holds pro-Palestine campus activists. “If you had a group of white supremacists camped out and yelling racial slurs every day, that would be met with a different response than antisemites camped out, yelling antisemitic tropes,” he told the Times. (This echoed a statement made in an earlier interview in which he compared campus protesters to the Ku Klux Klan.) Then, in an executive order, Shapiro updated his administration’s code of conduct to forbid state employees from engaging in “scandalous or disgraceful” behavior, a vaguely worded instruction that civil libertarians immediately interpreted as threatening pro-Palestine speech. 

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Beyond Arab and Muslim Americans, Harris will need to mobilize thousands of young people across the country not only to vote for her but to knock doors, phone bank, and do all the other kinds of grassroots volunteering that translates into a successful presidential campaign. Younger Americans disproportionately sympathize with Palestinians, which is one reason Biden’s approval numbers have suffered badly over the past year. As long as U.S.-made bombs keep falling on Gaza, this issue won’t go away—protests will haunt the Democratic convention in Chicago next month and the beginning of the fall term on college campuses in September, and the anniversary of the attacks on October 7 will fall 29 days before Election Day. 

Harris has a real opportunity to turn Biden’s dismal numbers around, and has given at least some indication that she understands how. A great deal of the excitement surrounding her candidacy from young voters stems from the hope that she is more sensitive to ongoing suffering in Gaza and more likely to pressure Netanyahu to end the war. Picking Josh Shapiro as her running mate would send a very different message, and would discourage precisely the people she needs to ensure her victory over Trump. 

In other words, Shapiro isn’t supportive of radical Islamic terrorism; he’s a normal person. Oh, the humanity! The main thing that screams from this piece is that the Left has a problem with Jewish people. And perhaps the Democratic Party would be better if it didn’t kowtow to a sect that calls for the extermination of Jews; we all know what “intifada” means.

 Shapiro can be a winner, but we can’t pick him because he’s Jewish. Ladies and gentlemen, the Democratic Party in 2024.