Sheldon G. Adelson: I Didn't Leave the Democrats. They Left Me

The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 4, 2012, | Sheldon G. Adelson

[Jonah Vark]

There is an anti-Israel movement among the rank and file, and the party no longer appears to value self-reliance, charity and accountability.

When members of the Democratic Party booed the inclusion of God and Jerusalem in their party platform this year, I thought of my parents.

They would have been astounded.

The immigrant family in which I grew up was, in the matter of politics, typical of the Jews of Boston in the 1930s and '40s. Of the two major parties, the Democrats were in those days the more supportive of Jewish causes.

.....It therefore went without saying that we were Democrats. Like most Jews around the country, being Democrat was part of our identity, as much a feature of our collective personality as our religion.

So why did I leave the party?

My critics nowadays like to claim it's because I got wealthy or because I didn't want to pay taxes or because of some other conservative caricature. No, the truth is the Democratic Party has changed in ways that no longer fit with someone of my upbringing.

One obvious example is the party's new attitude toward Israel. A sobering Gallup poll from last March asked: "Are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?" Barely 53% of Democrats chose Israel, the sole liberal democracy in the region. By contrast, an overwhelming 78% of Republicans sympathized with Israel.

Nowhere was this change in Democratic sympathies more evident than in the chilling reaction on the floor of the Democratic convention in September when the question of Israel's capital came up for a vote. Anyone who witnessed the delegates' angry screaming and fist-shaking could see that far more is going on in the Democratic Party than mere opposition to citing Jerusalem in their platform.........

[Jonah Vark]

Like the author's parents, my mother was a stanch Democrat. She always voted a straight Democrat ticket and dutifully worked at the polls every election day. But she would be rolling over in her grave if she could see what her Democrat Party is today.

Barrack Obama has done more to destroy the Democrat Party in the past four years than any Republican could ever do.

[cripplecreek]

Just don’t look too closely at Adelson, he’s still a full on social liberal.

[PapaBear3625]

Barrack Obama has done more to destroy the Democrat Party in the past four years than any Republican could ever do.

The Dem party of today is ideologically much the same as the party was four years ago. They just don't feel as much need to court the Jewish vote. The overseas Muslims contribute more money.

[dennisw]

Uncle Sheldon!!! A man for America a man for Israel!!!

[stephenjohnbanker]

Good timing, Sheldon!

[PrincessB]

My mother and several of her cousins have slowly moved Democrat since 1980. More than one have quoted Reagan, “I didn’t leave the democrat party, the party left me.”

[Jonah Vark]

The Democrat Party has left me too and I’m not Jewish.

They have made the decision to leave God also when they denied Him three times at their convention in North Carolina.

I remember my mother saying that the Democrats stood with the common working man. But no longer. Now they stand with the big unions and the gay agenda. Don’t get me wrong, unions have done a lot of good for the working man but some of their policies have harmed our economy.

[SaraJohnson]

Since I was a child I liberals Dems were anti-love, anti-God. They paid lip service to God but turned everything right and moral up-side-down and called it love and caring.

Some people are thick, I guess. They hang in with the haters of life until they come out of the closet and openly denounce God...three times on television.