Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, I’m Peter Hamby. In tonight’s edition, I have some thoughts on young voters and their wishy-washy feelings for Joe Biden, who desperately needs Gen Z to have his back if he wants to get re-elected in 2024.

More on that below. I also want to mention that the headline story of the moment—the bloodshed in Israel and Gaza—will be the subject of tomorrow’s edition, from Julia Ioffe, as well as tomorrow’s episode of The Powers That Be. Julia is busy reporting on the new war as I write this, and she’ll be joining me on the podcast to relay what she’s hearing from her diplomatic sources about the conflict and the disconnect in Washington between aid to Israel versus Ukraine.

I don’t have much to add from the politics front, except to note that a few big-name Democrats have been getting some blowback since the weekend for public statements that veered from the staunchly pro-Israel messaging coming out of the White House. I’m not talking about Squad members Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, two Muslim members of Congress who loudly stand up for Palestine and predictably attack Israel in their statements condemning the violence. They received the usual round of blowback from their haters.

Democrats I talked to over the weekend were more surprised by comments from the likes of Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan who might run for president one day, presumably as the kind of mainstream Democrat who would stand up for Israel. But just hours after the violence began, Whitmer hit send on a mushy, both-sides tweet that wasn’t exactly sympathetic to the hundreds of Israelis who had just been slaughtered, saying “I have been in touch with communities impacted by what’s happening in the region. It is abhorrent. My heart is with all those impacted. We need peace in this region.” Perhaps Whitmer had in mind her Arab and Muslim constituents in Dearborn, but if she ever wants to run nationally in a Democratic Primary, AIPAC types are definitely not going to let her forget that one. Maybe the global community wasn’t crying out for a comment from the Governor of Michigan on Saturday afternoon?

Unequivocal support for Israel has long been the norm for establishment Democrats. For elected officials and those in government, it mostly still is (even though there’s plenty of contempt in Democratic circles for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). But Democratic voters have increasingly started to side with the Palestinians rather than Israelis. A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that Democratic sympathies in the Middle East, for the first time ever, now lie more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, 49 percent versus 38 percent. That may explain why some progressive Democrats have responded to the latest spasm of violence with equivocation, deviating from the traditional pro-Israel orthodoxy of the Democratic Party. They’ve read the polls and they’re spooked by the base, elements of which have come to embrace maximalist narratives about racism and decolonization that don’t make space for Israel.

A few examples from recent days: Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey—a Democrat who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, by the way—was reportedly booed on Monday at a pro-Israel rally in Boston when he called for “a de-escalation of the current violence.” Meanwhile, his more famous Bay State colleague, Senator Elizabeth Warren, took the same Boston stage and announced her “full support” for Israel’s safety and security, drawing applause. So did Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a loud and proud moderate who was cheered when he bluntly called Hamas “an internationally recognized terrorist organization that is executing and raping civilians.”

A similar rhetorical divide was on display in Los Angeles over the weekend, at a forum for the Democrats running for California’s Senate seat. Asked by the moderator to comment on the conflict, Rep. Adam Schiff, the frontrunner in the race who happens to be endorsed by AIPAC and the more progressive pro-Israel group J-Street, issued a full-throated defense of Israel’s right to exist, calling Hamas a bunch of terrorists. Schiff’s sentiment was not echoed by his chief rival for the nomination, Rep. Katie Porter, who condemned the lives lost on both sides of the conflict and said Israeli human rights abuses need to be called out when they occur. We’ll see how Porter’s comments are received next time she hosts a closed-doors fundraiser in Brentwood or Beverly Hills.

Anyway, my latest dispatch from the campaign trail, below the fold. But first, a word from Abby Livingston on Capitol Hill…

As the House G.O.P. reconvenes in full over Monday night and Tuesday to begin choosing a new Speaker, here are six themes dominating the conference.

• The Middle East is on fire: Hamas’s brutal attack on Israeli civilians has added some cohesion to the Republican conference, with party loyalists taking to Twitter/X over the weekend to highlight the divisions between some Squad members and the rest of the Democratic caucus. (Ronna McDaniel made the point a little too bluntly on Fox News.) But more immediately, there is hope among Republicans that the graphic images coming out of Israel might lead members to select a speaker sooner rather than later. But even those voices in my ear are skeptical about any genuine unity in the near term.
• The leadership race will come down to the votes: The sense among some plugged-in Republicans is that Steve Scalise probably has the upper hand in vote counting, but that Jim Jordan has momentum in part because Trump endorsed him. And yes, the McCarthy trial balloon of another try at the speakership is being treated seriously. (Why he would choose to revisit this prison of his own design is another story altogether.)

  But this is not the real horse race. The actual test is if anyone in the House G.O.P. conference (or the names outside the chamber being floated as a possible speaker) can secure a majority of the House and win the gavel, which was where McCarthy ran into trouble in January. As a Republican source put it: “Can we all not embarrass ourselves on the floor?” The obvious fear is a replay of that McCarthy episode with votes and re-votes. There is an even greater concern that the conference reaches an unsolvable impasse and that doesn’t become apparent until the floor vote actually happens… on live television.

• There is no normalcy: Vote and travel schedules are off. There’s a rare Monday night Republican conference meeting. Even the understood sociology of House Republicans is coming undone. Last week, I wrote about the decline of cohesion within the Texas Republican delegation, and a Republican source popped into my ear, telling me that intra-party political divisions are also apparent in other cliques, including the Main Street Caucus. To be associated with House Republican politics right now is to live in an incredibly disorienting world.
• People are getting legitimately nervous: There is anxiety among many in Washington that a leaderless House is unsustainable. The fact that the government will run out of money again in a month somehow feels like the least of the immediate problems on Capitol Hill (electing a speaker, potential Israel aid, F.A.A. authorization, the Farm Bill, etcetera). But the most grave concern surrounds Ukraine funding. This unsteadiness has had a tangible political impact. Donors are watching the paralysis and holding “way, way back” on giving, a G.O.P. campaign operative told me.
• A new phase of grief: The McCarthy fans, a coalition of around 190 members, according to one well-wired lobbyist, are beginning to move from shock and sadness toward rage. They’re angry at Matt Gaetz and brainstorming political retribution against him. But they also spent time in their districts seething about House Democrats who let McCarthy sink. Monday’s Republican refrain? Prepare for an angry, angry week on Capitol Hill.

When Donald Trump became president, Gen Z and young millennial political engagement soared, especially during the heady days of the 2018 midterms, which saw historically high youth turnout that helped Democrats make gains in Congress. For a moment, it seemed that the youth wave was going to usher in a new era of representation and radical chic for the social media generation. But since 2018, Della Volpe warned, young people have grown disenchanted with politics and elections. They still skew progressive in a big way. But today, he said, 18-29 year olds are less likely to vote, less likely to identify as Democrats or liberals, less interested in political news, and less likely to believe that politics is a meaningful way to create change. All of that means Democrats have a lot of work to do, beginning right now, to ensure that Biden gets re-elected in 2024.

Alarmingly, for a party that depends on people of color, the enthusiasm drop has been most pronounced among younger Black voters, who are not nearly as reliable for Democrats as older Black voters. “In the last four years,” Della Volpe wrote, “the number of young Black men and women who identify as Democrats has declined a jaw-dropping 15 percentage points, from 64 percent to 49 percent.” That tracks with other data. A poll last month from The Highland Project found that 69 percent of millennial and Gen Z Black women are dissatisfied with the direction of the country—with the economy, crime, and climate change named as their top concerns. Only 58 percent of Gen Z and millennial Black women said they would support Biden in 2024, the poll found.

“It’s very easy for young Black people to feel like government hasn’t done anything for them. Not even Democrats, but government at large,” said Tatenda Musapatike, the 35-year old C.E.O. of The Formation Project, a progressive organization that works to engage and mobilize voters of color. “I grew up thinking I could get shot at school, that the climate is going to burn us down. I don’t know what economic freedom is. When people talk about the good old days, what was that? Why should young anyone, not just young Black people, believe in institutions or government, when you have grown up in a society that has perpetually failed you? Getting young people to believe they need to be involved in government, that takes convincing.”

“When you are a young Black voter, Democrats just put you in the turnout bucket, because Democrats assume you will vote for them,” she said. “But if you model them as persuasion targets, and they are consistently spoken to, then they are with the program.” Thought about another way, Democrats have to start approaching Gen Z voters differently than the millennials of the Obama years, who were always fired up and ready to go. In the Biden and Trump era, young voters might not be fired up at all, but they understand the choice on the ballot and the stakes involved. “Both things can coexist,” Musapatike told me. “We can feel a certain way about government, but we would also like to survive. Joe Biden is the solution, given the options.”