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Jews: The Canary in the Coal Mine for the Democratic Party?
A number of posts have been written about Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and their anti-Semitic remarks, including my own. Many of us have speculated on the reasons for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s silence regarding those comments, or their apologies on behalf of these two representatives. I’ve looked into the reasons for their not condemning their behavior, and the results were even more disturbing than I anticipated. (For the record, I don’t separate attitudes about Israel and the Jewish community.)
The U.S. has been known, since its inception, as a country that welcomes all religions, particularly Judaism. It’s only in the last few years that we’ve seen a shift in support by Democrats and Republicans. From a 2018 opinion survey by Pew Research:
The partisan divide in Middle East sympathies, for Israel or the Palestinians, is now wider than at any point since 1978. Currently, 79% of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with just 27% of Democrats.
Since 2001, the share of Republicans sympathizing more with Israel than the Palestinians has increased 29 percentage points, from 50% to 79%. Over the same period, the share of Democrats saying this has declined 11 points, from 38% to 27%.
With these numbers from our citizenry, it’s no wonder that the Democrats want to please their base. They are also trying to prevent an all-out war between their more moderate members and the far Left. Many people might ask why the Jews themselves are protecting Omar and Tlaib. Rep. Jan Schakowsky made this statement to Politico:
. . . she doesn’t think Omar is an anti-Semite. Politico makes much of the fact that Schakowsky is a Jew, and she is. She also happens to be a supporter and devotee of J Street, the Democratic organization that exists to criticize Israel and the pro-Israel community in the United States.
There is also Ayanna Pressley who spoke out about the resolution on anti-Semitism:
We need to have an equity in our outrage. Islamophobia needs to be included in this. We need to denounce all forms of hate. There is not a hierarchy of hurt.
The message seems to be that the Jews are not victims of hate more than any other minority group. Also, Democratic Jews are supposed to espouse tolerance, so how could they possibly be supporting anti-Semites?
Lastly, as part of stating the obvious, Republicans can be attacked for beating up on Muslim women:
Also, by judging critics based on the identity of those being criticized, rather than on the merits of the criticism, the left seeks to render debate in America impossible. Democrats have argued that scrutiny of Muslim congresswomen represents ‘Islamophobic incitement.’ This fits the European anti-free speech paradigm whereby ‘hate speech’—as defined by enlightened progressive leaders—somehow equates to violence, and is criminalized.
As the Democrats continue to move farther Left, they will have a built-in support system: college graduates. Besides the students’ inculcation by the professors on the Left, pro-Muslim and anti-Israel groups on campus (which are supposedly not anti-Semitic) have proliferated.
In terms of the U.S. population, Muslims are growing and Jews are declining:
Muslim Americans will be a political growth industry for the Democratic Party that will offset any losses attributable to Jewish voters and supporters of assumed Jewish causes.
Consider that a record number of Muslim Americans ran for state or national office in the 2018 election cycle, the most in nearly two decades. Nearly 70 percent of Muslims in America are Democrats. The U.S. Muslim population is expected to double by 2050. Presumably, the number of Muslim candidates and voters will only grow.
Conversely, the Jewish population, which also votes reliably Democrat, is expected to decline from 1.8 percent to 1.4 percent by 2050. The only Jewish cohort that is growing, Orthodox Jews, tends to vote majority Republican.
Certainly, the Democrats will take into account the nature of their constituents.
Finally, we have to wonder about the far-left wealthy financiers of Democrats. My guess is that they are willing to do whatever it takes to put Democrats into power and keep them there, no matter who or what they damage along the way.
So the situation looks dire not only for Jews, but also for all religions, those people who embrace free speech and a traditional understanding of the Constitution. I’ll end with a quote from Ben Weingarten of The Federalist:
One would be hard pressed to find any Democrat who would condemn Tlaib and Omar and face a political backlash among their constituents for doing so. The silence of the gutless Democratic establishment makes it complicit. As with Western civilization, Israel and the Jews are serving as the canary in the coal mine for the Democratic Party.
Does Weingarten speak in hyperbole, or are the Jews the canary in the coal mine for the Democratic Party? Even more important, what is he saying about the future of our country?
Published in Politics
Yes and no. The Orthodox are a smaller proportion of Jews than fundamentalists are of Christians. Even among the Orthodox, attitudes about sex aren’t the same. If you polled on “disapproval of homosexuality”, Christians would be much more disapproving than Jews, (and Muslims, needless to say, would top Christians by a mile).
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, @garymcvey. Here’s my response:
Every one of Susan’s posts are civil, intelligent and well reasoned. I do reserve a friendly reservation or two. I don’t always equate anti-Israel attitudes with anti-Semitism, partly because I know plenty of Jews who criticize Israel and Zionism,
So do I. I’m not sure what your point is. I think that mostly non-Jews link Jews and Israel, and to a great extent, Jews direct their hatred toward Zionism. That’s because the Left does the same and that’s the group, the Left, that most Jews identify with–not with Judaism. They may call themselves Jews, but most are only ethnic or cultural Jews. Their religion is Leftism. I hope that makes sense.
That–to me–is why Jews are not canaries in the Democratic coal mine. Israel alone is not enough to drag them over the line to conservatism.
I think we are using the “canary” term differently. The Democrats are going to be damaged by their silence on anti-Semitism and anti-Israel stance, not because the Jews leave the party (although eventually some will), but because I think Independents and other Democrats who aren’t Jews are going to get fed up with their silence. The Dems also have a lot of other things given the times that will work against them. Regarding blacks, there was anti-Semitism boived by blacks, but not stated by black members of Congress or publicly by them, as far as I can remember. But please correct me if I’m wrong. Thanks for commenting!
Well, Russia has a rich history of anti-Semitisim, going back to the tzars. Stalin had an ever ready scapegoat in the Jews, given that history.
The answer to your questions may be found in Psalm 2, verse 2, where “kings and their advisors plot against the Lord and His annointed one.” The annointed one is King David, author of the biblical book of psalms. (All the kings of Israel, upon becoming king, were annointed with a special oil).
It is part of something larger. Those who plot against the Lord — the zealously anti-religious Democrats — invariably plot against the annointed one, who represents Israel, the Jewish people.
‘Twas ever thus. Hatred of Jews is an expression of hatred for G-d.
Wherever King David went, even to war, he always carried with him a Torah scroll to be continuously reminded that his authority came only from G-d.
You cannot separate Jews from Torah, from Israel, or from G-d. You disrespect one, you disrespect them all.
I think it’s also important to remember here what happened in the U.S. election cycle between 2016 and 2018. Netanyahu and Obama’s personal dislike of each other seems to have been low on the radar of many prior to Trump’s win, while the bond the Israeli prime minister forged with Trump over the past two years became a factor apparently for both TDS sufferers and also Trump supporters in how they viewed Israel. The same contempt and disdain the left in the U.S. has for Flyover Country was extended to Israel under Netanyahu because they see him essentially as a conservative governor in a Red state, and some of Trump’s backers see those two things in the same way.
What that sort of shows is that the current Israeli situation is the canary in the coal mine for Jews and the Democratic Party, because it’s allowed the party’s anti-Semites to openly show their hostility towards the Jews while cloaking it in the hositlity towards Israel and its ties to Trump (while the obvious visual signals of Jewishness the Orthodox — mainly in urban areas — display makes them easy symbols for the haters to attack) .
But what then explains the rise in expressions of anti-semitism by uneducated people on the Right? (That ‘Jews will not replace us’ crowd.) They also seem unfortunately empowered to express what has been utterly unacceptable since WWII.
An interesting observation, @jon1979–using Israel as a measure. Of course, anti-Semitism’s rise in Europe is also alarming. It’s tempting to see the problem as local, but it’s also possible that all the strings will connect with each other. Our relationship with Israel, as well as their internal politics, are worth watching. Thanks.
That goes back to who the anti-Semitic right thought they were supporting in 2016. A lot of them who had been Ron Paul supporters in 2008-12 flocked to Trump because he was the angriest guy in the GOP primary field, and thought he was angry in the same way Ron Paul had been angry. Trump’s success in the primaries and general election empowered them to become more overt in their anti-Seimtism, but if you look at the angriest of that group, they’ve been as unhappy as the anti-Semetic left in discovering that Trump isn’t anti-Israel, as Ron Paul had been (i.e. — someone like the San Diego synagogue shooter hated Jews, but he also hated Trump in his messages).
Also, I frankly don’t care what part of the population hates Jews. Why does that even matter? Educated, uneducated, smart, stupid–they are all people with a potential for negative and dangerous action.
It is my understanding that anti-black or anti-hispanic racists are also dissatisfied with Trump because he never stops talking about how low unemployment is for everyone.
If there’s a causal relationship between more education and less bigotry (a big if) then that’s yet another benefit of education.
The Intelligentsia would like to think just that (and I probably did at one time), but I’m not convinced.
In today’s world, I would not equate the acquisition of education credentials with the traditional concept of having been educated. There’s a lot of religious bigotry among the so-called educated and maybe we should call that process indoctrination rather than education.
@arizonapatriot:
Yeah. Books are big and complicated.
Here’s something.
By 1938, FDR was wrestling with the “Jewish question.” Why, if there were no reason to relocate them, was he trying to find a “suitable place” to relocate them to?
I think more education makes you more bigoted. You are taught that non-white people are other in the sense that they are victims and are therefore different from the white oppressor class. Education tries to move you are away from treating people as individuals and into people as groups.
I still call that which you describe ‘indoctrination’ and it is a product of collectivism.
Voltaire, leader of the French “Enlightenment,” was a rabid anti-Semite. German culture was the most esteemed in Europe and yet Nazism grew out of it.
Education is no substitute for ethics or morals. Liberals are wrong to believe that education is always a good thing, just about the best thing if not the only virtue in life. “While in prison, he earned a Ph.D” So what? So he’s not a murderer any more?
But conservatives should pause before acting like it’s (necessarily) a sign of weakness, decadence or indoctrination. Sometimes it is. Usually it’s not.
If the ADL poll is to be believed, educated people reported few (according to ADL ‘remarkable’ lack of) anti Semitic attitudes, based on clearly set out measures. This doesn’t establish causality – may be just correlation – but it also doesn’t link education in America with antisemitism. Using the ADL’s own measures. If you expand the measures to include sympathy with Israel then (by the Pew poll) it might? But in that case the cohort which stereotypes Jews least is also the most critical of Israel.
Zafar, in my experience, the most critical people of Israel stereotype Jews. Can you please go into more detail?
Anecdotal evidence, for what it’s worth. I’ve never met an educated person in America who was an antisemite. (I met plenty in Europe and Russia). I’ve met people who are critical of Israel, usually because they don’t think it lives up to their idea of Jewish justice. That’s a harsh verdict, but it usually comes from Jews themselves. That’s a great thing about Judaism–no groupthink, plenty of room to argue.
The few American antisemites I’ve met are ignorant–I don’t mean (only) as an insult, but quite literally. Often the only Jews they know are on Seinfeld reruns. Paradoxically, that type of person is prone to admire Israel more than they admire the Jewish people of their own country, who they think of as effete.
Right wing websites are loaded with utter generalized crap about college campuses, Don’t be taken in. I live in deep blue California, on the liberal-left side of Los Angeles. My kids have been to Santa Monica College, Occidental College, UCLA and Loyola Marymount. None of them–not one–is a place where Jews live or study in fear.
Maybe this is more a form of resenting economically and politically influential people coupled with a mistaken view of that cohort’s makeup. American Jews are well-represented in the talented and successful lives categories and might be viewed as effete.
I am not clear on the reasons for Jews here to perceived as effete (which I understand to mean ineffectual).
Funny, I had never looked up the definition of effete, so I just did. It was “affected, overrefined, and ineffectual.” But my prior understanding of the word, probably based on contexts in which I saw it used, was the first two: affected and overrefined.
Yes. Still, I don’t understand the attribute. Do you?
Speaking of Jewish character, you may have heard this often quoted line: “Jews are like everyone else, only more so.” Maybe that’s why they don’t like us; we remind them of themselves!
To be fair, name an ethnic group that that line does not apply to. “The black are like everybody else only more so.” “The Russians are like everybody else only more so.” “The Alabamians are like everybody else only more so.” Everybody kind the same.
My guess is that a certain type of person who is not “talented and successful” might want to consider those who are as affected and overrefined.
Right. We get “blamed” for being successful. That makes sense! Thanks.
Applying that statement to others doesn’t work for me, @henrycastaigne. I think the phrase refers to the success of Jews in so many different areas, which is widely acknowledged. (That doesn’t mean all Jews are successful but a lot of them are in their fields.)