HOW CAN SO MANY AMERICAN JEWS STILL SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATS?

Iconoclast ^ | by Frank Salvato

[BurkesLaw]

President Bush and Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon made a joint statement Wednesday unveiling a plan for the forward movement of the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. They talked about Sharon's plan that would remove Israeli settlements and certain military installations from Gaza and The West Bank, and reiterated that the security fence now being constructed between Palestinian and Israeli territories was a defensive maneuver and not a divisive one. Again, the ball is in the Palestinians court. What they choose to do, we will have to wait to see.

As I listened to President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon speak, I couldn't avoid two questions that kept coming to mind. With his actions and his words of support and friendship for Israel and her people, how can the people of Jewish ancestry in this country not support the re-election of George W. Bush? Or conversely, how could they continue to support the Democratic Party and its current presumptive leader, John Kerry? .........

[cinFLA]

Maybe because of their long ties to communism and democrats?

[kinsman redeemer]

...by the way - President Bush's support among Jews should approach a high water mark for Republicans - but it is likely that it won't. It seems that social liberalism is more of a determinant for Jews than what goes on in Israel.

Jews have usually voted overwhelmingly for Democrats since before the 30's. FDR got 90-percent of the Jewish vote in 1940. JFK got about 80-percent in 1960.

As Stephen Isaacs described it in his 1974 book Jews and American Politics: "despite problems with affirmative action plans-cum-quotas, the 'urban fever zone,` scatter site housing, community control of schools, an inept Democratic presidential campaign - despite all these things and more -the Jewish bloc vote did hold up" for McGovern, who won the votes of 65 percent of American Jews - this while Nixon was crushing McGovern among the general electorate with a landslide of historic proportions." Front Page Magazine 10/03

However, Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan (in 1980- Carter had make anti-semitic remarks) got around 40-percent support among Jewish voters. The Great One's support dropped 9 points 4 years later.

In '92, GHW Bush got just 15-percent of the Jewish vote while the bent one got 78 (!) percent. Clinton matched that number 4 years later - even with his dismal efforts to force Israel into making countless concessions to their enemies.

"But Clinton would have defeated Bush and Dole even if each (of the republican candidates) had sworn to immediately move the White House to Jerusalem, for the simple reason that Israel has never been the determining factor in how most Jews vote. If it were the determining factor, Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1980 and 1984 would have received a far greater share of the Jewish vote than they did, and Clinton`s approval numbers among Jews at the end of his second term would have been appreciably lower than they were." ibid.

In 2000, President Bush got 19% (even with Lieberman on the Dem ticket) - the Orthodox Jews continued to support the conservative candidate.

In its editorial endorsing the Bush-Cheney ticket, The Jewish Press said of Lieberman, "Soon after he was selected as Mr. Gore`s running mate, [he] suddenly changed his stand on a whole host of matters...doubtless to bring them into line with those of the head of the ticket. Thus he became an advocate of affirmative action, gay rights and outreach to Louis Farrakhan. He no longer opposed late-term abortions and became more tolerant of Hollywood`s vulgar standards. And he became a staunch opponent of tuition vouchers."ibid.

Finally,the article cited concludes:
The fact is, in the year 2003 -- seven decades after the New Deal and thirty years after the McGovernization of the Democratic party -- the American Jewish community, the most affluent subgroup in the country, still votes as if it's one step ahead of the bread lines and the evict notices."

[thoughtomator]

I think a lot of people here are going to be surprised how strong the Jewish vote for Bush will be this year.

[elbucko]

When ethnic groups came to the States in the late 1800's, there were politicians there that promised them everything in return for a simple vote.

Excellent point. My own father, like Reagan, was an Irish Democrat until my father thought that FDR , by his 4th term, wanted to be dictator (however wartime economic controls also annoyed my father who owned tuna fishing boats). As a "Boomer" and growing up under Eisenhower, being anything other than a Republican has never been a choice. I was a "Young Republican for Goldwater", and still am. Even with a Scottish-Presbyterian, Democrat mother.

However, being a Democrat is one thing, a communist another. I don't cut American Jewish communists anymore slack than I do the Irish Marxists in the IRA. Both groups are neither patriots or revolutionaries, but traitors to their country, religion and humanity.

[TexasRepublic]

Sheep belong to "groups".

[elbucko]

But I believe that it is a "hard-wiring" problem:

So do I. Republicans, occasionally, overcome this handicap with men like Reagan and Bush43. They do not come off as the "patrician" that Kerrey does. It is hard to imagine Kerrey or Clinton having a beer with with the grounds keeping staff of the White House, but not hard to imagine Reagan and Bush43 having done so already. However, when the Dems socialize with the working man, they are thought sincere, like RFK. Republicans for a photo op. We know that it is the Republican, that is most likely to be sincere, except for CA Rep. David Dryer. Too Country Club.

[elbucko]

Sheep belong to "groups".

Everyone, in some way, belongs to a group. You're a "Texan", and proud of it, aren't you? The problem is the agenda of the group, like communists, and how they express their "group-ness". Such as by engaging in subversion and espionage. Also, the ACLU comes to mind.

[dj_animal_2000]

This Serbian Jew here from Tennessee supports G.W. Bush and the Republicans...!!!!

...and so do others http://www.njchq.org/

Remember the Balkans...???

Let me quote from an interview with James Harff, director of "Rudder-Finn Global Public Affairs" what appeared in the Jewish monthly, "Midstream", in its April 1994 issue:

Q. "'What achievements are you most proud of?'"

Harff. "'To have put Jewish opinion on our side. The Croatian and Bosnian past are marked by cruel anti-Semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished. ... Our challenge was to reverse this attitude and we have succeeded masterfully. ... That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the Bosnian Muslims [who, with their Croat partners, sided with Nazi Germany during WW II, and were responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 Jews. ed.] we could promptly equate the Serbs [who had fought heroically against the Nazis, and had saved thousands of their Jewish countrymen. ed.] with the Nazis in the public mind. ... Almost immediately, there was a change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content such as "ethnic cleansing," and "concentration camps," that evoked images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional charge was so powerful nobody could go against it.'"

Q. "'But when you did all of this, you had no proof that what you said was true.'"

Harff. "'Our work is not to verify information, our work is to accelerate the circulation of information favorable to us.'"

Q "'Are you aware that you took on a grave responsibility?'"

Harff. "'We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to be moral....'"

[adam_az]

Sheep belong to "groups".

AND they get fleeced!

[doberville]

Well put!

[Truthsayer20]

There's no real difference between the Republican and Demoocratic parties in policy towards Israel; Kerry was quick point out that he agrees with the new Bush policy on Israeli settlements. American Jews are overwhelmingly social liberals and thus typically vote for the Democrats. Ronald Reagan was the last Republican president to gather substancial Jewish support. I believe he got ~40% of the Jewish vote in 1980.

[Samwise]

"Color is skin deep, but Democrat is to the bone."

I guess the quote can apply to Jews and Catholics as well.

[Pharmboy]

The demorat tradition is SOOO ingrained in those Jews over the age of 35 that they cannot FATHOM voting the pubbie line ('cept for Reagan).

HOWEVER, for Jews under 30, Bush gets the nod...

[expatpat]

Socialism has had a disproportionate Jewish membership since its founding. I guess old habits die with difficulty.

[Indie]

Been asking myself that for years. The party of abortionists [genocide] and gun control [WWII]. I guess they either have no brain, or very short memories.

[yonif]

Ping.

[Salem]

'Ping!'

Some people with strange ideas about the growing Conservative Jewish community in American politics.

Do feel free to contribute.





If you'd like to be on or off this
Christian Supporters of Israel ping list,
please FR mail me. ~
    
There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)
Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~

[lainde]

bump and thanks!

[Zeppo]

You miss a great deal with such a broad generalization. For example, you are ignoring historical realities. For one simple example, take the experience of people who were refused membership in certain country clubs, or could not buy houses in certain desirable areas, simply because they were Jewish. Those who were excluding them were largely Republicans. While there is less of that today than there was in earlier decades, it would be a mistake to believe that the practice is not still widespread. The natural reaction was that they created their own desirable country clubs, their own desirable suburbs, and they overwhelmingly voted in opposition to those same country club Republicans.

Changing established patterns of behavior is a difficult thing to do - I know that from personal experience, having once been a solidly Democratic voter. But over time, the "facts on the ground" do change, and people who are rational will change their behaviors to take that into account. The Republican party of today is very different from what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Likewise, the Democrat party of today is not the same party that it was 20 or 30 years ago. The Jewish population is also changing, with new generations acknowledging the world as it is today rather than the world as it was in their mothers' and fathers' generation. And, over time, there has been a corresponding shift away from the Democrats by Jewish voters.

[Mamzelle]

re: For one simple example, take the experience of people who were refused membership in certain country clubs, or could not buy houses in certain desirable areas, simply because they were Jewish.)))

I've had this conversation once. The long sad story of how Uncle Issy was kept out of Princeton in the thirties by some Protestant bigot, therefore Jews are Democrats Forever. Poor little prince.

I was tempted to add--"Well, my Cherokee grandma picked up chestnuts along what is now the Blue Ridge Parkway in the thirties so that she could have shoes to go to school...there was no hope for college for any of my family in that generation..."

But I didn't think he'd be impressed, since he was indulging in a ecstatic paroxysm of vicarious victimhood--thanks to pore ole Uncle Issy.

Maybe the real reason is that liberal Jews, and a lot of conservative Jews, too, like Krauthammer et al -- can't bear to rub elbows with Christians, and there are too many conservative Christians in the Repub party. We got a real eyeful and earful of what the real attitudes are during Gibon's release of "The Passion."