Maybe This Is Not How a Democracy Should Function

What if you couldn't spend infinity dollars to swing an election? Just a thought!

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

As was expected, Jamaal Bowman lost his Democratic congressional primary race on Tuesday night. He was defeated by Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who ran on a platform of “Hey racism is pretty cool” and “I have never ever seen Israel do anything wrong ever.” Right on cue, some of society’s most grating hacks fanned out to gloat.

There was Lis Smith, formerly seen running point for Andrew Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal:

Again, you worked for Andrew Cuomo voluntarily. You’re really going to throw around words like “embarrassing”?

And Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who I kind of forgot was still around:

LOL, no.

And, naturally, we can’t forget our good friends over at AIPAC.

OK, here I have to pause.

You would probably think from reading this tweet that AIPAC was some neutral observer of the race between Bowman and Latimer. But the exact opposite is true—AIPAC openly and deliberately shaped the contours of this election in ways that should disturb you even if you’re not a big Bowman fan. So this tweet is not only annoying—it kind of symbolizes everything rotten about how politics are conducted in this country.

How did AIPAC affect this primary? Let us count the many, many ways.