Why, President Trump asked, would Jews vote for the Democratic Party? In 2016, Jeremy Sharon wrote in the Jerusalem Post that American Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates for President and donate half the money that Democratic presidential candidates receive. Why? Because, he said, the Democratic Party and American Jewish liberalism has become a mentality, a sensibility, an ideology, and a cultural identity.
How did that happen? Harry Enten, writing in the Guardian more than five years ago explained American Jews are liberal because they sympathize with the less fortunate and with minorities. In fact Jews’ consciousness of discrimination makes them sound like the minorities they sympathize with.
Enten points to the Holocaust as a central factor in Jewish concern with racism and discrimination. But that requires a kind of intellectual bank shot. Jews consciousness of the Holocaust led to sympathy for minorities which led to support for Democrats, the party that fights for support of minorities.
Before 1932, Jews were probably evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Afterwards, not so much. No bank shot for the following:
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt who would fix the depression
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt who would fight the Germans
- Harry Truman who recognized Israel.
- John F. Kennedy who reignited Jewish hope for a better future
- Richard Nixon, widely known as an anti-Semite
- Barack Obama who reignited Jewish hope for a better future
- Donald Trump who thought Nazi demonstrated included good people
As Sharon said, being a Democrat is part of the American Jewish culture. Not for all, of course. But Donald Trump excoriating Ilhan Omar will not change that culture.