Not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, America’s Democratic Socialists released a statement that was immediately reprimanded.
The group condemned the invasion but also urged the United States to “withdraw from NATO and end the imperialist expansionism that paved the way for this conflict.”
The position — a watered-down version of an earlier, even sharper statement from the group’s international commission — drew reprimanded from a White House spokesperson and from a number from democratic candidates and elected officials, from Long Island Congress contenders to officials in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. But in the New York City area, where the DSA’s largest branch has significant influence, it has also created challenging dynamics for politicians affiliated with the organization.
In the state’s 16th congressional district, a refugee from Kosovo puts foreign policy at the heart of his main challenge facing Representative Jamaal Bowman, a former Yonkers high school principal who came to power with support of the Democratic Socialists of America.
In New York City, Democratic congressional candidates debate America’s role in the world. And even before DSA’s most recent statement, councilors were… to collide on the history of US and NATO intervention.
With a majority of Americans supporting Ukraine as it struggles to fend off a bloody, often live-streamed Russian invasion, the DSA’s desire for a policy discussion on NATO seems to have sparked unrest in campaign circles: none of the nine New York City candidates for the DSA to be approved this year would agree to an interview on the topic, even as more centrist Democrats are now using the topic like a cudgel.
“We are refugees from Kosovo, a country where I and my family had to flee due to ethnic cleansing and were frankly rescued by US and NATO intervention there,” Vedat Gashi, a Democrat who challenged Mr Bowman, said last week. Blaming Ukraine and NATO for the escalation of this Russian invasion of Ukraine is naive at best and certainly wrong to me.
The DSA argues that NATO promotes a militarized response to conflict at the expense of diplomacy, and that economic sanctions too often fall victim to working people. In the case of Ukraine, many DSA members say the United States provoked Russia by encouraging NATO’s eastward expansion.
“There is a long tradition among both the US and European left that NATO has played a role, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in emphasizing militarized solutions when diplomacy could lead to greater stability in the long run. term,” said Ashik Saddique, a member of the DSA’s National Political Committee. “It feels a bit absurd that people are pretending it’s a political crime to criticize NATO.”
Mr Gashi called on Mr Bowman to completely reject the DSA’s position.
mr. Bowman has chosen a more subtle tack, indicating distance from the DSA’s position, without the kind of direct condemnation that could alienate a part of his base and play into his opponent’s hands. He declined to comment on this article, but in a previous statement said he supports NATO, “and will continue to do so during this crisis.”
Mr Bowman’s district includes a significant population of Ukrainian immigrants, and last week he called more than a dozen who wrote him letters, his office said. He has also joined the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and drafted a bipartisan letter asking President Biden to allow Ukrainians at risk to enter the country without a visa.
But Ukrainians aren’t the only voters to consider DSA-bound politicians amid the crisis, said Drisana Hughes, the former India Walton campaign manager, the DSA-backed Buffalo mayor candidate and a campaign strategist at Stu Loeser and Co.
“I don’t think it’s just Ukrainian voters; I think they’re Polish voters, Finnish voters,” said Mrs Hughes. “There are many countries that are prone to Russian aggression and anyone who is concerned about the future of Europe in particular.”
Whatever the balancing act for some Democrats, the tensions are certainly apparent for Republicans. Despite many expressing solidarity with Ukraine, former President Donald J. Trump has lavishly praised Russian President Vladimir V. Putin — just a few years after Trump was first charged with charges including pressuring Ukraine for political favors . The only people to vote against a recent House resolution in support of Ukraine were three Republican members of Congress. And some right-wing media figures, such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have been protective of Putin until recently.
Yet in New York, the rifts surrounding the Russian invasion on the Democratic side have become more urgent, including in the battle for New York’s 11th congressional district, which was recently redesigned to include both Staten Island and Park Slope, and where the two most prominent Democratic contenders are military veterans.
Brittany Ramos DeBarros, member of DSA, has endorsed working “with international partners to provide and support civil-military defense tactics,” and said “no” when asked directly in an interview whether the US should withdraw from NATO. But in 2019, she was named as a speaker at an anti-NATO event, acknowledging that she “attended a meeting about it” in her days as an anti-war activist. Her campaign said she is not in favor of withdrawing from NATO “at the moment”.
“‘Not at the moment’ means now is the time to save lives and de-escalate the situation,” she said in an interview. “If people want to have a broader conversation about how we got here and diagnose what we need to do to, you know, shape a different future, that can come when we’ve pushed ourselves off the brink. “
Her campaign has noted that her main Democratic primary opponent, former Representative Max Rose, initially expressed skepticism about the initial impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump.
Mr Rose, seen by party strategists as the likely frontrunner, has voted to impeach Mr Trump and said he took the topic “very seriously. But I didn’t bat an eyelid when I held Donald Trump responsible for his atrocities.”
he too convicted the DSA’s stance on NATO and called for building “an even stronger NATO alliance”.
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“America’s unilateral withdrawal from NATO is perhaps the most damaging and stupidest foreign policy decision we could consider right now,” he said. “America needs to double its alliances, especially the transatlantic ones.”
Some left-wing candidates also immediately rejected the DSA’s statement.
“I disagree with the DSA’s stance on the US’s exit from NATO,” said Rana Abdelhamid, a DSA member who is challenging Representative Carolyn Maloney in a New York district that, under reclassification rules, has seen some leftists neighborhoods . “NATO is one of the main lines of defense that we must use to deal with Russian aggression against Ukraine.”
But many other New York City officials who had joined DSA — some of whom have often weighed in on other national and international issues in the past — were much more wary.
“Thanks for the contact, but our campaign has no comment on that,” Stephen Wood, a spokesman for Brooklyn State Senate nominee David Alexis, emailed Wednesday.
Other elected officials who declined to comment or did not return requests for comment included Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; State senators Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport; and members of the Assembly Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Marcela Mitaynes and Phara Souffrant Forrest. Congresswoman Emily Gallagher, of Brooklyn, also declined to comment.
“If you want to write about any electrical building law, LLC disclosure law, or any of my other work as a legislator, I’d be happy to talk to you,” said Ms. Gallagher.
Locally, the DSA’s stance has been put forth most energetically by Kristin Richardson Jordan, a Harlem councilor and Democratic socialist, who was not supported by the organization in its campaign for office.
“In 2014, the US helped overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected leader in an illegal coup, helped install a fascist government, and gave power to a far-right military, all with the aim of destabilizing Russia,” said Ms. Jordan. said recently on Twitter, accusing the United States and the European Union of “provoking Russia with NATO expansion” — comments some said covered Mr Putin.
She did not respond to requests for comment. But on a recent radio appearance, Ms. Jordan was asked to justify her position. She repeated her earlier claims and was met with open reluctance from Council colleagues.
“I’m not sure there’s any point in delving into the details of international politics when I’m in local government,” she told The Brian Lehrer Show.
In Yonkers, where Mr. Bowman and Mr. Gashi run, Kiril Angelov, the pastor of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of St. Michael the Archangel, said he had recently seen both men at a service.
“I hope every politician sees the situation in Ukraine with open eyes and with open heart,” he added.