I need a Not This Sh** Again Guy wearing a yarmulke.
I can tell you that not one of my liberal Jewish family or acquaintances thinks about Napoleon when he or she votes. Lovely historical essay, but it’s far more psychological and simple:
NON ORTHODOX JEWS ARE COWED BY MOCKING AND LOSING PERSONAL CONNECTIONS when they go conservative. Most of them, like most of humans, want to be accepted in their own tribe. So they won’t stick their heads up for ridicule.
How do I know this??? BECAUSE I STUCK MY HEAD UP. I had to endure things at large groups like “you aren’t a member of the [disgusting look comes across face] Tea Party, now, are you?” We got the same Chanukah gift at the big party for two straight years way back when: Bob Dole’s Book of Wit. Because Conservative. We got dissed, we got avoided. We got their best arguments, in a family setting where you need to be respectful. It’s hard to endure and most don’t want to.
However, since Coming Out as a Conservative (if I’d come out as a lesbian I’d have been the VIP of every fsmily event I am sure, with people dying to be “close to me” to show how cool they were to have a gay niece or cousin etc), other people who are still closeted have sidled up and privately told me they were voting Romney etc. That is the best they can do. Put that cool Obama sticker on the Benz but secretly vote against him.
They are cowed. THAT IS WHY. They want to be cool and accepted. And black friends have told me it is the same thing in their culture.
Don’t do that because... well, because everyone says not to do that.
Seems right to me.
Jews are mostly Dems because they already have a seat at the Democrat table. There are very few Jews at the Republican table. What they believe is almost irrelevant. Why do conservatives stay in Massachusetts or Minnesota? It’s comfort; family, friends, familiar job, familiar climate.
Of course in the voting booth, no one knows which lever you pull.
If one isn’t a true liberal but is so timid that he doesn’t want anyone to know that he isn’t, he can still vote as he wishes, it is a secret how he votes.
A brilliant post. I’ve seen it in other “minority” groups as well. Welcome to the Silent Majority — because we can’t get a word in edgewise at the holidays unless it’s Politically Correct!
Signed,
Refugee from a Protestant+Catholic majority Democrat family embarrassed to admit they are Christians