Welcome to a Sunday night edition of Progress Report.
Did you know that Haley “Israel comes to me in my dreams” Stevens is not Jewish? I genuinely had no idea until recently; I’d been under the impression she was a member of the tribe since 2022, when AIPAC spent heavily to help her defeat Rep. Andy Levin, a former synagogue president and a member of one of the most prominent Jewish families in Michigan. But no, Stevens was raised Protestant and remains so to this day, even if marriage-driven conversion is potentially in her future.
Relatedly, were you aware that Haley Stevens is white and not Black? Okay, this one was a bit more obvious, but by the way she’s been talking lately, someone who had never seen her would be forgiven for thinking that she’s a prominent voice in the African-American community.
Just a few days after her off-putting GOP donor fiancé backed Mike Rogers, Stevens did the same on Sunday, endorsing the Republican candidate for Senate. It is an enormous and almost unprecedented betrayal this late in the campaign, made worse by her rationale: Stevens’ off-kilter announcement video on Sunday accused Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed of spreading hatred throughout the campaign, though she could only cite as evidence an endorsement from progressive live-streamer Hasan Piker.
Appearing at a church on Sunday, she also cited Mike Rogers’ heretofore unknown passion for supporting Black small businesses. It was a reminder that she performed far better with Black Michiganders, and that there remains some mistrust between the state’s Arab and Black communities.
In both cases, Stevens positioned herself as the guardian of a vulnerable minority, attempting to cloak a petty and selfish choice in the guise of being virtuous. The reality is that Stevens’ decision to ratfuck Democrats and endorse Mike Rogers actually does the opposite, putting Jewish people in particular at the center of a firestorm that could explode if the party loses the Senate seat. Stevens may say that she’s standing up for Jewish people, but she’s only making life more difficult for us.
The endorsement on Sunday was shocking, but not a surprise; save for a short period after she lost the primary, Stevens has spent the past few months taking digs at El-Sayed, moving goalposts and making demands that were more rhetorical traps than principled stands. At the forefront of her criticism has been El-Sayed’s opposition to Israel’s government, its genocide in Gaza, and the billions of US tax dollars that have directly contributed to those massacres.
But instead of disagreeing with him on those policies, which are now deeply unpopular with voters, Stevens has amplified false accusations made by Republicans and legitimized distractions. Recently, she went after El-Sayed for an advertisement made by an independent group that linked the United States’ Middle East policy to rising inflation, demanding that he disavow a spot in which his campaign was not involved.
“Maybe it’s how you fundraise, maybe it is what you want people to believe, but the reality is that we are not going to say that the cost of groceries is because of Jews and the Jewish state,” Stevens said. “We’re not going to say we don’t have health care because of Jews and the Jewish state.”
Again, El-Sayed had nothing to do with the ad and never accused Jews of causing high grocery prices. I’m sure Stevens knew that, too. But she decided to conflate Jews and the State of Israel, and criticism of an unpopular foreign policy with hatred for an entire people, which has become a key part of the right’s playbook. If you can’t defend the Iran War, which undoubtedly has raised prices across the board, you find a way to cast its critics as antisemitic.
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As it so happens, Stevens has been one of the largest recipients of money from AIPAC over the past few election cycles, and it’s not hard to connect her behavior to that largesse. My own Twitter replies today were filled with such suggestions from people who definitely do not match the definition of modern Groyper. This is the thrust of the conversation about Stevens among loyal, tolerant, pluralistic Democrats right now.
Normally, I wouldn’t care what people think of a conservative PAC, but organizations like AIPAC and the modern iteration of the Anti-Defamation League claim to represent the interests of Jewish Americans instead of simply the conservative Israeli government. Like any interest group, they are free to spend as they please, but their actions implicate millions of people who want nothing to do with them.
As a result, instead of millions of dollars being spent by a niche special interest group that happens to be run by some conservative Jews, the insinuation is that this money, used to promote policies unpopular with a vast majority of Americans, reflects the will of all Jews.
And this is a problem, not only because it’s annoying and false, but because it plays into some of the oldest and most pernicious antisemitic stereotypes. Throughout all of history, Jews have been accused of being conniving and duplicitous, of harboring dual loyalties, of secretly controlling the globe’s finances and governments.
The allegation was used repeatedly throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, justifying countless pogroms and expulsions.
It animated the Dreyfus Affair in 1890s France, making life hell for a very assimilated and secular Jewish soldier, and became hot copy in Henry Ford’s newspaper serial The International Jew as well as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Hitler and the Nazis used the latter to accuse the Jews of causing every problem in the German empire.
Stalin alleged that Jewish doctors were aiming to murder Soviet leaders in service of Zionism.
And more recently, George Soros has been used as the avatar of alleged Jewish control of capital and global affairs.
Haley Stevens isn’t Hitler or Stalin, and for all her talk about being involved in the auto bailout, she’s not Henry Ford, either. But whether she realizes it or not (and I genuinely don’t know that she’s self-aware to realize it), Stevens’ selfish decision, cloaked in disingenuous concern for Jewish people and aligned with the political imperatives of her AIPAC donors, insinuates that kind of conspiracy. Simply put, she used us as cover for her own bout of petty revenge.
Already, angry liberals are insisting that Stevens is owned by the Zionist lobby, which purports to represent all Jews; if El-Sayed loses the election and it costs Democrats a majority, the backlash is going to be intense and inevitably spill over into antisemitism, which as much as I hate to admit it, has gained some purchase in more ignorant segments of the left (and to be clear, I am firmly on the left). Stevens and AIPAC aligning with a GOP that has run the most Islamophobic campaign in modern memory is already enough to foster resentment. That Rogers’ spokespeople are actually registered foreign agents of Israel hardly helps, either.
I’ll probably get some blowback from this article, people telling me that nobody should compromise their principles or vote out of fear of being scapegoated. And while that’s true, where the argument falls apart is the inane idea that having Republicans in power would be better for Jewish people.
Republicans maintaining power would be catastrophic for Jews around the world. Antisemitism has soared in response to the genocide in Gaza and behavior of West Bank settlers, Americans are livid at the unending war in Iran being waged at the insistence of Netanyahu. Trump has dined with neo-Nazis, who are now a key part of his coalition; this is a guy who calls people “shylocks” during televised speeches. Anything shy of stripping Donald Trump of all his power is betraying Jewish people, and Haley Stevens just sought to do it in the most egregious way possible.
"[S]he could only cite as evidence an endorsement from progressive live-streamer Hasan Piker."
I don't think this counts as evidence either, for what that's worth.
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