Friday, February 23, 2024

Jewish Democrats for Trump?

Shocking! That was my reaction when I read this JNS story (carried in several media outlets):

A poll of registered New York voters suggests that a majority of Jews in the state intend to vote for former President Donald Trump in the presidential election in November.

New York Jews now favor Trump over U.S. President Joe Biden 53% to 44%, according to the Siena College poll, released on Tuesday. Jews in the state said that they intend to continue to back Democrats over Republicans 54% to 39% in congressional elections. 

It’s is no surprise that the majority of Orthodox Jews will be voting for Trump for reasons I have stated many times. Not the least of which was his unprecedented support for Israel. And his Conservative picks for the Supreme Court that tends to view the religious rights guaranteed by the constitution more favorably than did past liberal courts.

But if one considers that 90% of the Jewish population is not Orthodox and tends to favor the far more liberal perspective found in the Democratic party and where all Jewish legislators can be found, it is shocking that a majority of them will be voting for a man that is characterized by that party as the greatest danger to democracy in US history!

That non Orthodox Jews tend to be Democrats still seems to be the case in down ballot candidates. as noted in the poll.  

Can  someone explain this to me? How can any decent human being prefer someone like Trump - let alone the subset of secular Jews whose disdain for the man has been expressed more times than I can count? 

I guess a 2nd term for Biden scares them more than does the resurrection of a election denier and one of the most unethical presidents in modern history.

First I don’t know how much stock one should put in a poll whose cited 4.2% margin of error is disputed by Mark Mellman, a Democratic operative. Not sure what he bases that on but that is what he says. Another thing is that polls are not always predictive of the actual outcome in the voting booth. But still, most of the time they are pretty ballpark. 

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I have come up with what I think are a few reasons for this turn of events. 

I believe they are afraid of Biden’s mental state which at age 80 has already shown signs of decline. That has been indicated by a variety of memory lapses and mistaken identities describing people or places he was taking about. As was the case when he said the president of Mexico when he meant the president of Egypt. Ironically tis happened at a press conference he called for the purpose of denouncing what an investigator said in a report about his mental state after exonerating him of any wrong doing. And then there is the way he walks. His gait is that of an elderly man well past his prime. That is not the image of what the leader of the free world should look like

One might counter that Trump isn’t much younger. At age 77 he is only 3 years younger than Biden. And Trump too has had similar lapses. As when he attacked Nancy Pelosi and kept calling her said Nikky Haley. 

But Trump’s gait is not that of an old man. And he seems to be much more in command of the moment than Biden is when he speaks.

Integrity and honesty should be the first thing one considers when making decisions about who to vote for. With polices coming in a very close second. Clearly Biden wins hands down over Trump in the former. But Biden’s policy in one very important area, the economy, is not a very favorable one to voters who shop for groceries every week.

Groceries are experiencing the highest and fastest growing inflation rate in decades. To the average middle class consumer (including Democrats), inflation has not only NOT cooled, it has heated up with what seem like no prospect of cooling any time soon. Prices in the grocery store keep going up every week. I do the shopping for my family and I can attest to that. All on Biden’s watch.

And if you drive a car, you are feeling the pinch there too. Auto insurance has skyrocketed! 

These are kitchen table issues that hits the middle class the hardest. The state of the economy as experienced by the average citizen works in favor of Trump. Under his watch, there was practically no inflation and the economy was humming - until COVID.  While Biden inherited COVID and the subsequent inflation it caused, he has had 3 years to do something about it and so far – Nada.  

Will a renewed Trump presidency make things any better? Who knows? But we know what a Biden presidency is doing. And it seems like the typical Jewish voter cares more about their pocket book than they do about the integrity of who they are voting for.

Best i can do to explain this anomaly.