Month: 13 Shevat 5784 (January 2024)

Oh trust me it's there. It's just that (a) progressives have gotten a ton of pushback from traditional democrats, including Biden, and (b) Trump is once again promising to be infinitely worse and most of us don't trust the kind of Christians who seek power, especially on Israel, to say nothing of Jews who live here. So while things definitely look bleak, they're not lost. Yet.

This is essentially correct, and most of us share the same concerns. It's just that the Republican party in the US, as it is currently constituted, isn't a viable option for US Jews, whether on antisemitism or anything else.

When I say US Jews I mean the majority, but not all. There's a 5% to 12%, sepending on who you ask, block of Jews that votes Republican for various reasons, and not all of them are Orthodox although most are.

@wolfsbruder The full title of this is "Lovesong: Becoming a Jew". If it'll be helpful I'll grab the ISBN.

I get that. But you asked why Jews in the US are anything other than lukewarm about the democratic party, and so that's the question I've answered. There's tons of stuff outside politics going on in the Jewish community in the US though, including things across political divides.

OK you didn't technically ask. But the only option for Jews in this country that has any chance of succeeding is to continue to stick with the democratic party. Third-party candidates here are not politically viable at this point, and any one of them would have to get enough votes to not only win, but unseat one of the major parties along the way. And at the end of the day someone has to sit in the White House/Congress/local offices and most of us don't want those people to be beholden to Donald Trump or to Christian fundamentalists for that matter.

I've been listening to insistance from pro third-party candidate people in this country for decades now. They keep saying the same things. They keep being unsuccessful, and that's putting it charitably. I'll start taking them seriously again when they can actually manage something like winning local office for a start. Congress or one or more governorships would be even better.

Right now, all third-party efforts do is act as spoilers. And we honestly don't need anyone doing that for the Republican party right now.