Donald Trump revealed his antiSemitic views yesterday, exasperated that 75 to 80 percent of American Jews consistently vote Democratic, accusing them of disloyalty to the nation, a typical antiSemitic trope long used against Jews throughout history.
This man, who said there were “good people on both sides” in Charlottesville, where white supremacist young men chanted that “The Jews will not replace us”, and who David Duke and Richard Spencer rave about, since his white supremacist views have continued to evolve, even after the El Paso and Dayton Massacres, cannot understand why Jews are Democrats.
American Jews are Democrats because they are promoters of Social Justice and progressive causes, and many of them are troubled by Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, as Israel pursues a policy of denying basic human rights to them, undermining good will internationally towards Israel,
The fact that Netanyahu has not denounced Trump over this antiSemitic trope is troubling, and causes a chasm between American Jews and many Israelis.
American Jews voted 79 percent for Democrats in Congress in 2018, and American Jews have always voted in vast majorities of at least 60 percent since the early 20th century, with the exception of 1920. The lowest otherwise was Woodrow Wilson in 1916, John W. Davis in 1924, Jimmy Carter in 1980,and Walter Mondale in 1984, but with Davis and Carter having a progressive challenger on the left who took substantial percentages of the vote.
Here are the stats:
1916–Woodrow Wilson 55 percent
1920–Eugene Debs (Socialist) 38 percent behind Warren G. Harding (R) 43 percent and James Cox (D) 19 percent
1924–John W. Davis 51 percent with Robert La Follette Sr (Progressive) 22 percent and Calvin Coolidge (R) 27 percent.
1928–Alfred E. Smith 72 percent
1932–Franklin D. Roosevelt 82 percent
1936 FDR 85 percent
1940 FDR 90 percent
1944 FDR 90 percent
1948 Harry Truman 75 percent and Henry A. Wallace (Progressive) 15 percent and Thomas E. Dewey (R) 10 percent
1952 Adlai Stevenson 64 percent
1956 Stevenson 60 percent
1960 John F. Kennedy 82 percent
1964 Lyndon B Johnson 90 percent
1968 Hubert Humphrey 81 percent
1972 George McGovern 65 percent
1976 Jimmy Carter 71 percent
1980 Carter 45 percent, Ronald Reagan (R) 39 percent John Anderson (Independent) 15 percent
1984 Walter Mondale 57 percent
1988 Michael Dukakis 64 percent
1992 Bill Clinton 80 percent
1996 Clinton 78 percent
2000 Al Gore 79 percent
2004 John Kerry 76 percent
2008 Barack Obama 78 percent
2012 Obama 69 percent
2016 Hillary Clinton 71 percent
Notice that progressives who were not Democrats—Eugene Debs in 1920, Robert La Follette Sr in 1924, Henry A. Wallace in 1948, and John Anderson in 1980—took substantial number of votes away from the Democratic Presidential nominee.
So with those exceptions, Democrats have won 60 percent or more of the Jewish vote since FDR onward, except for Jimmy Carter in a three way race in 1980 and Walter Mondale and 57 percent against the landslide of Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Eugene Robinson nailed. Trump is melting down again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-melting-down-again/2019/08/19/814b65e4-c2b3-11e9-b5e4-54aa56d5b7ce_story.html
Dancing With The Stars is scraping the bottom of the barrel. They’ve got Sean Spicer amongst the celebrities who will be dancing in the Fall.
https://www.mjsbigblog.com/dancing-with-the-stars-28-cast-includes-lauren-alaina-ally-brooke.htm
That should be: nailed it.
This isn’t the first time Dancing With The Stars has purposefully stooped to appealing to the Faux News crowd. In the past, they’ve had Bristol Palin (Sarah Palin’s daughter), Tucker Carlson, and Geraldo Rivera. I should have boycotted the show then. I will definitely boycott the show now.
The Distinction Democrats Need to Make on Israel
Supporting the Jewish state and supporting Netanyahu are not the same thing.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/08/22/the-distinction-democrats-need-to-make-on-israel/
Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms were a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. Now, heading into 2020, Democrats have reason to be cautiously optimistic: several polls show that the top Democratic challengers for president would beat Trump in a head-to-head matchup if the election were held this month.
With Trump increasingly vulnerable to electoral defeat, we know he will do whatever he thinks it takes to maintain his grip on power—including by trying to use Israel to divide Democrats.
This week, Trump invoked the dual loyalty canard and said that American Jews who vote for Democrats showed “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.†And last week, he successfully pressured Jerusalem to bar two elected members of Congress from entering the country. This shows that part of his re-election strategy is to cast a small group of legislators as the face of the Democratic Party.
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib both support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, and Tlaib has called for a one-state solution that would spell the end of the Jewish state. But those views are marginal inside the Democratic caucus—we are talking two out of 235 Democratic lawmakers.
Still, Trump clearly sees an advantage in using them to try to drive a wedge between Democrats and politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship, which requires bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. His nonstop tweeting about the episode makes that abundantly clear. Democrats therefore need a plan to make sure that Trump’s frantic efforts to portray Democrats as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel fail.
First and foremost, Democrats need to clearly state the obvious: Democrats overwhelmingly support the democratic, Jewish state of Israel—and have ever since Harry Truman recognized the country just moments after it declared independence. Just last month, congressional Democrats passed a decidedly pro-Israel resolution in the House condemning BDS. The vast majority of Democrats supported the measure; even one member of the “Squad,†Ayanna Pressley, voted for it.
Second, Democrats need to explain why Jews vote Democratic. Trump disingenuously says Jewish Americans are “leaving the Democratic Party.†That’s empirically false—more than 75 percent of all U.S. Jews voted for Democrats in 2018—and is unlikely to change next year. Trump clearly does not understand the commitment of American Jews to Democratic candidates and ideas. Israel is just a part of the equation. Polling of the U.S. Jewish community shows that health care ranks as its top concern, along with education, immigration reform, human rights, and ensuring a strong social safety net. None of Trump’s actions and policies on those issues will endear him to Jewish voters.
Third, Democrats need to clearly make the case for why Democratic policies are in fact best for Israel and the United States, and even for the long-term interests of Palestinians, who deserve to live with self-determination.
Democrats should run on significant portions of President Obama’s legacy, such as expanding foreign aid and U.S.-Israeli military cooperation, funding the Iron Dome missile defense system, and more. At the same time, they should offer alternative visions to resuscitating the moribund peace process and preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Fourth, Democrats can embark on an aggressive strategy that criticizes Trump and the Republicans’ Israel agenda. Most Americans still support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump’s cutting aid to the Palestinians, closing the PLO’s Washington office, and enabling Netanyahu’s far-right government makes that prospect exponentially more difficult. Most Americans also wanted Trump to remain in the Iran nuclear deal. But now, since the president has withdrawn the U.S. from the landmark pact, we are on the brink of war with a country that hates and represents a real existential threat to Israel. These are policy positions around which virtually all Democrats, progressives and centrists, can unite.
Lastly, Democrats need to speak the truth to Israel. As Joe Biden famously once said about the U.S.-Israel relationship: “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.†The truth is, Trump and the Republican Party are fine with drunk driving. Trump panders to Bibi’s every desire, which is intended to help Netanyahu’s short-term electoral interests, but will be deleterious to Israel’s long-term existential interests.
Democrats will need to emphasize a clear distinction between support for Israel and support for Netanyahu: support for Israel means being a good enough friend to stop your friend from getting in the car after she’s had too many; support for Netanyahu means giving your intoxicated friend the keys. Through that framing, Democrats can also speak to progressives who want to see a president more sympathetic to Palestinian national desires without relinquishing guarantees of Israeli safety.
Democratic criticisms of the current right-wing Israeli government are more supportive of the Israeli cause than anything Trump has done. It will take effective messaging to make that clear, but voters are smart enough to understand that acts of tough love—like stopping Israel from building more settlements or annexing the West Bank—are nevertheless acts of love.
The American electorate remains supportive of Israel. But that’s not because the Netanyahu government has been brilliantly making the case. If anything, Bibi’s tumultuous relationship with Obama and obsequious relationship with Trump have made the case much tougher. Rather, Americans support Israel because they believe in the essential right of Jews to live in a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.
If Trump wants to quarrel about which party is a better home for pro-Israel supporters and American Jews, fine. The key will be for Democrats to fight back and not let Trump provoke them into arguing with themselves—especially when he’s the one who most endangers the future of Israel and American Jews.
I forgot some. Rick Perry and Tom Delay were on there as well.
Tom Bergeron, the host of the show, is upset with this decision.
https://www.mjsbigblog.com/sean-spicer-cast-on-dwts-and-host-tom-bergeron-is-not-happy.htm
I’m curious to see what Christy Brinkley looks like now. May tune in the first night just for that. The week following that, The Voice comes on, so I’ll be tuning in to that instead.
A psychologist on Lawrence’s show earlier this week said that Trump’s mental issues have gotten worse since 2017.