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'Stop Arming Israel,' Jewish-Led Groups Tell DNC Leaders at Party Summit
"The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel."
Dec 12, 2025
Jewish Voice for Peace Action on Friday led a coalition of groups demanding that the Democratic Party stop providing arms to the Israeli government.
Speaking outside the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting in Los Angeles, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action) held a press conference calling on Democrats to oppose all future weapons shipments to Israel, whose years-long assault on Gaza has, according to one estimate, killed more than 100,000 Palestinian people.
While carrying banners that read, "Stop Arming Israel," speakers at the press conference also called on Democrats to reject money from the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), which has consistently funded primary challenges against left-wing critics of Israel.
JVP Action was joined at the press conference by representatives from Health Care 4 US (HC4US), Progressive Democrats of America, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action (CAIR Action), as well as a retired teacher and former member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Board of Directors.
Estee Chandler, founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, warned Democrats at the press conference that they risked falling out of touch with public opinion if they continued to support giving weapons to Israel.
"The polls are clear,” Chandler said. "The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel, and the Democratic Party refusing to heed that call will continue to come at their own peril."
The press conference came a day after the progressive advocacy group RootsAction and journalist Christopher D. Cook released an "autopsy" report of the Democratic Party's crushing 2024 losses, finding that the party's support for Israel's assault on Gaza contributed to last year's election results.
Chandler also called on Democrats to get behind the Block the Bombs Act, which currently has 58 sponsors, and which she said "would block the transfer of the worst offensive weapons from being sent to Israel, including bombs, tank rounds, and artillery shells that are US-supplied and have been involved in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the grossest violations of international law in Gaza."
Although there has technically been a ceasefire in place in Gaza since October, Israeli forces have continued to conduct deadly military operations in the enclave that have killed hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children.
Ricardo Pires, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said last month that the number of deaths in Gaza in recent weeks has been "staggering" given that they've happened "during an agreed ceasefire."
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What Comes After Trump's Age of Monsters?
A truly progressive vision built around a bold and popular agenda is the only hope the United States has to end the Trumpist nightmare and address the nation's myriad social and economic challenges.
Dec 07, 2025
Is Donald Trump the worst president in US history? Is Trumpism just about Trump? What lies ahead after Trump? More of the same or a return to normalcy? Are these two the only alternatives?
In the interview that follows with French-Greek independent journalist and writer Alexandra Boutri, political scientist, political economist, author, and journalist C. J. Polychroniou offers his insights into Trumpism and speculates on what the future may possibly have in store for a nation whose current government has openly embraced neofascism with the intend of reshaping America’s past and starting a new age of authoritarian capitalism. In his view, a truly progressive vision built around a bold and popular agenda is the only hope the United States has to end the Trumpist nightmare and address in turn the nation's myriad social and economic challenges.
Alexandra Boutri: In our last interview, you made abundantly clear that you believe that the United States is not simply headed in the wrong direction but that the Trump administration represents an actual threat to democratic values and norms and to the environment alike and that its policies lack humanity and decency. Would you say then that Donald Trump is the worst president in US history?
C. J. Polychroniou: Since the emergence of the United States as an imperial power in the 1890s, the competition for worst president is quite fierce. So many of them have been outright war criminals and should have been tried for such crimes and crimes against humanity. Not that there weren’t terrible presidents before that period. There are some rather strong parallels between John Adams and Donald Trump. If Trump knows anything about US history, which is extremely doubtful, he must undoubtedly love the Alien and Sedition Acts signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. Among other ghastly things, they criminalized criticism of the president and the federal government. Andrew Jackson was a staunch defender of slavery and pursued genocidal policies against Native Americans. However, Donald Trump was ranked last year in a survey of historians as the worst president in US history. I’ll go along with that for some basic reasons. We are well into the 21st century, yet Trump is keen on destroying everything that has been of mildly progressive political and social nature in the United States. He is attacking the very foundations of democracy and wants to rule like a dictator. He is waging a war on poor people while solidifying the rule of plutocracy. He has returned white supremacy to mainstream politics and made racism once again a legitimate political ideology. His entire agenda is based on ignorance and intimidation, fear and hate. He has called climate change, which is an existential threat, a “con job” and has taken scores of actions that threaten the environment and public health. He is a monster.
Trump did not divide America. He merely reinforced the political, social, and cultural divisions characterizing contemporary American society.
Alexandra Boutri: What is Trumpism? Is it just about Trump?
C. J. Polychroniou: Trump did not discover racism and bigotry, nor did he invent social discontent. He was politically smart enough to realize that the growing discontent in the United State with the status quo can be easily turned into a reactionary movement catering to the interests and needs of the plutocracy with simply promises of a “golden age” for America under his leadership. He tapped into a huge reservoir of anger and resentment over elite rule and privileges but did not offer policies that would identify and tackle the true causes of inequality and injustice in US society. Instead, he demonized and dehumanized immigrants as scapegoats for every social and economic problem. He appealed to people’s worst instincts because he knew that the combination of economic anxiety brought on by over 40 years of brutal neoliberal policies, which were pursued with equal zeal by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and racial resentment could drive white support for him. This is why waging a culture war and polarizing American society have been such key instruments in Trump’s political strategy for power. He is a master manipulator in a society where race, gender, and class are equally important variables. Indeed, neither class alone nor the simple combination of race and gender alone can explain Trump’s rise to power. All three need to be taken into account to make sense of the success of the Trump phenomenon. We should not forget that Trump’s performance on political rallies that he staged were often enough acts stolen from the electoral campaign of Hitler and his Nazi party. We must not close our eyes to the fact that Trump employed the rhetoric of racism and fascism and continues to do so during his second term in the White House, because there is a huge market for it in 21st-century America.
It would be a mistake to think that the Trump phenomenon is an aberration of sorts in US history. Trump’s rise to power is the culmination of the long history of racism, violence, and extremism in US politics and society. The Republican Party has been exploiting racism and extremism for many decades. Exploiting white voters’ fears and prejudices was what the GOP’s “Southern strategy” of the 1960s was all about. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan established strong links with various extremist and racist forces, links which were strengthened, not repudiated, by George H. W. Bush. So, the rottenness goes long way before Trump. But what Trump did that was so successful was not only to update the “Southern strategy,” which the GOP used to capture more and more Southern seats, but to go even further than the party’s obsession with suburbia. He exploited working-class pain and turned border security into a national issue. On top of that, he led an anti-elitist movement with messages that resonated with many different groups of people, including immigrants and minorities.
All that said, the idea that Trump divided America is something of a rather crude claim. Trump did not divide America. He merely reinforced the political, social, and cultural divisions characterizing contemporary American society. The US is now so politically divided that solving the nation’s massive economic and social problems is a truly Herculean task.
It was “normalcy,” an unsustainable socioeconomic and political order, that gave us Trump and the age of monsters.
Alexandra Boutri: Obviously, Trump won’t be around forever. Do you think his successor can be equally as bad for the country and the world?
C. J. Polychroniou: Look at some of the people around Trump making political noise, and the answer is staring you in the face. JD Vance is most likely the one who will succeed Trump as leader of the MAGA movement. He is, I believe, even more evil than Trump himself. Yes, he is an opportunist and lacks principles, but at the same time makes no effort to hide MAGA’s fascist endgame. His speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2025, in which he attacked European democracy and expressed full support for far-right, anti-immigration parties, is quite telling of what we should expect of him as Trump’s successor. Trump’s hold on the GOP may weaken while he is still president, but I think it will be very difficult for the Republican Party to break free of Trumpism. Republicans have created and unleashed a monster they cannot control. Can the GOP break up into two parties? Yes, but then it will be finished as a contender for power.
Alexandra Boutri: So you don’t think the prospects are good for return to normalcy in US politics?
C. J. Polychroniou: I suppose that by “return to normalcy” in US politics you have in mind the reestablishment of the norms of the American political tradition. But this is not the way to think about the future. It was “normalcy,” an unsustainable socioeconomic and political order, that gave us Trump and the age of monsters. Following the old path, which is what the Democrats have been doing for the most part since Barack Obama’s presidency, is not a real alternative for a country plagued by huge socioeconomic problems and a system of government where a small number of elites rule. The United States is not a democracy but a plutocracy. Problems like massive economic inequalities, militarism, poverty and low wages, systemic and structural racism, environmental degradation and climate collapse, an unethical and broken healthcare system, collapsing infrastructure, a severe housing crisis, and a scandalous campaign finance system cannot be addressed with a return to normalcy.
The country is in dire need of a truly bold, popular, and progressive agenda. A democratic socialist vision is the only way out, yet I am fully aware of the fact that the country has a long way to go before it can even embrace social democracy, let alone democratic socialism. Yet, Americans are overall in favor of national health insurance and have a favorable view of social safety net programs. The situation is not hopeless, but it requires the birth of a new democratic age, a democracy for the people, not a return to normalcy.
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Grassroots Dems Pushing DNC to Adopt Ranked-Choice Voting After Mamdani's Win
One pollster argued that ranked-choice "gives a better chance to new faces, outsider candidates, people with grassroots movements, people who run positive campaigns, people who have something new to offer."
Nov 24, 2025
Progressives are hopeful that a new push for ranked-choice voting could allow for more primary races in which candidates who accurately reflect the priorities of the party’s voters rise to the top.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV), which lets voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single one, was instrumental in the unexpected triumph of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in this summer’s Democratic primary.
Axios reported Monday that Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin has recently met with advocates seeking to implement RCV in the party's 2028 presidential primary.
Among them were reportedly Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), pollster Celinda Lake, organizers with the nonprofit FairVote Action, and several other figures in the Democratic Party.
Raskin is a long-time advocate for ranked-choice voting. In 2019, leading up to what would be a chaotic and crowded 2020 primary, he wrote in Common Dreams, along with political organizers Adam Eichen and Rob Richie, that:
RCV is the best way to allow greater voter choice without wasted votes and unrepresentative winners...
It will help any party gain stronger nominees and provide more clarity about what voters really want going into conventions. Because voters’ backup choices matter, candidates with RCV tend to run more positive campaigns, seek common ground, and respect their opponents’ supporters.
Notably, that scenario is exactly what played out in New York City’s Democratic primary. City Comptroller Brad Lander, another progressive mayoral candidate, was able to encourage his voters to rank the more popular Mamdani without fear of splitting the votes and helping their centrist opponents.
At a time when Democratic voters have historically low levels of trust in their party's leaders, Lake told Axios that "[RCV] gives a better chance to new faces, outsider candidates, people with grassroots movements, people who run positive campaigns, people who have something new to offer. It really meets the moment."
New York City is the highest-profile practitioner of RCV, which it adopted in 2019 for party primaries. But others include Maine and Alaska, as well as cities like San Francisco and Minneapolis.
Republicans have aggressively sought to outlaw ranked-choice voting in states where they have legislative control. In 2024, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Kentucky all passed bills to outlaw RCV—bans that may hinder its implementation as a new nationwide system, even in Democratic primaries.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon, voters rejected RCV during last year's elections following industry-backed pushes against it.
In a letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, a reader pointed out that President Donald Trump's calls for any Indiana lawmakers who vote against redistricting the state in the GOP's favor to be "PRIMARIED" was evidence of why RCV "is important for protecting our democratic process."
“In ranked-choice voting, no one person, nor small group of people, can keep a candidate in their party off the final ballot because they don’t agree with a particular partisan attitude,” he wrote.
In order for the DNC to implement ranked-choice voting, it would need support from its Rules and Bylaws Committee, whose members are appointed by Martin. It would also need majority support from the DNC's roughly 450 members, which include state party leaders and others elected by states. Axios reported that enthusiasm among members is mixed.
Progressive commentators have expressed excitement at the idea: "This would be a fantastic pro-democracy stance," wrote the left-wing Breaking Points co-host Krystal Ball on social media.
But others doubted that party powerbrokers, who worked behind the scenes to stop the insurgent campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 and 2020, would ever implement a reform that would cede so much power to outsider candidates.
“This is a great idea,” said Sanders’ 2020 press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray. “They won’t do it.”
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