Democratic leadership turns its back on Iranian protesters

On Sunday, George Stephanopoulos attempted to challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the party’s about-face, asking the nation’s most powerful Democrat if she supported the protesters and if “it would be a good thing” if they succeeded in overthrowing their oppressors.

“Well, the regime — the protesters are — are protesting, as I understand it, this brand of protesters, about the fact that that plane went down. And many students were on that plane. And these are largely students in the street,” Pelosi said. “I think the Iranians should have not had commercial flights going off when there was.”

When the ABC News anchor pushed back on her apparent dismissal of those challenging the regime, Pelosi doubled down.

“Taking down this plane is a terrible, terrible tragedy. And they should be held accountable for letting commercial flights go at a time that was so, so dangerous,” Pelosi said. “But there are different reasons why people are in the street. Of course, we would love to see the aspirations of the people of Iran realized with a better situation there, but escalating the situation — unless we’ve exhausted every other remedy …”

Pelosi’s prevarication is Orwellian, in that it both denies reality and expresses approval of authoritarianism. As journalist Yashar Ali pointed out in a thread calling out Democratic silence, Iranians are hardly livid about Trump taking out Qassem Soleimani, a man responsible for the oppression and murder of countless Iranians and their Syrian and Yemeni neighbors.

Democrats were right to be wary of war, but that question has already been resolved. Trump successfully took out one of the most successful terrorists on the planet and then allowed the Iranians to save face with an ineffective retaliatory attack. So, while they focus on the rightful legislative limitation of executive war powers, Democrats ought to redirect their Iranian efforts to express solidarity with the courageous protesters calling out the Iranian regime’s lies.

Yet, they refuse to.

Over the weekend, the only Democratic presidential contenders to publicly pledge support to the protesters — who, again, are risking their lives in the pursuit of liberty — were Joe Biden and long shot, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

So, we got one tweet that included a dig at a domestic political adversary and another that sounds like it was written with a Glock to the head. Support for democratic protesters should be instinct, not something that comes only with reluctance. And yet the authoritarian Left’s stranglehold over Democratic leadership mixed with the party-wide Trump derangement syndrome has culminated in half of the nation’s political leadership all but turning their backs on one of the most passionate pro-democracy movements on the planet right now.

Where is New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the supposed Democratic superstar who refuses now to back a democratic movement abroad? Where is Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who backs the boycott, divest and sanction movement against Israel because it’s “driven by the people,” but not a democratic movement quite literally driven by the people of Iran?

And where are all the other presidential hopefuls who want to unseat this guy?

Yes, Trump spent Monday morning retweeting a string of nonsensical and petty boomer memes and smears about his challengers. But the rest of the world will simply hear the silence of his competitors, Democrats in name only.