What’s Going On In The Jewfro Right Now?
I'm writing this as my own way of processing last night.
First of all, this was a beatdown. No other way to say it. Hopefully, Kamala concedes quickly and we can move forward.
Why was this so bad when state ballot initiatives on abortion were so good?
People use a different calculus when considering federal vs. state and local candidates. I even did that this year, letting my bias get in the way of acknowledging that for others.
When you're talking about one issue, it's easy to get an up/down vote. Hell, the abortion referendum in Florida almost passed—it needed 60% but came in just short at 57%. Single-issue items are really easy to decide on.
On the flip side, you're also seeing school voucher programs being voted down when they come up as referendums in very red states.
Which leads to decisions that require multiple considerations, which is more typical.
At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #1: The Pandemic Response and Public Trust
As we all remember during COVID, we hunkered down. Unfortunately, after the vaccines were available in early '21, Biden offered more sticks than carrots to get people vaccinated. And while I am very pro-vaxx, I also understood that it wasn't as well tested because it had to get out so fast. I'm pretty sure it wreaked havoc on my menstrual cycle, and they tried to do some studies after the fact. After racially tinged trials like Tuskegee, you had enough skeptics. Other mandatory vaccinations have been tested forever. The COVID vaccines were not, even though developed from research initially aimed at HIV.
(Side note: I now fear we have a large swath of the country who won't get any vaccines anymore because of this—hello RFK Jr.)
Public servants lost their jobs because of these vaccine mandates, which probably isn't going to endear them to vote for the responsible party again since they left money on the table from pensions, etc. It didn't matter much in '22 since even federal races were "local"—no POTUS. But by that point, many were seeing what happened to people, particularly kids and the elderly, without socializing.
At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #2: Identity Politics and Economic Concerns
Now, you have identity politics on steroids. The focus on pronouns, boys playing girls' sports, men in women's locker rooms, Latino vs. Latina vs. Latinx, etc. A large swath of Americans are experiencing inflation (due to various reasons not necessarily the President's fault but still associated with him), higher home prices, seeing fentanyl infiltrate their communities, and being told the border is not a problem.
Biden was lecturing half the country, saying they weren't seeing what they were seeing. He kept saying things were improving. Statistically, they might have been, but that's not where people were. I'm a (mostly) Dem voter, and I felt like he was gaslighting people. Kamala may not have been the border czar, but he assigned her to look into causes at the border. While she did yeoman's work on root causes, they both should have known the visual was always going to be the border itself. After the Dems didn't get crushed in the '22 midterms, they should have put the border bill together that day. They waited too close to the election, and Trump killed it.
Consider Latinos and Blacks. I believe Trump is a racist to his core (see Central Park Five). But to assume they'd always vote Dem was arrogance. Like all of us, they want economic mobility. Clearly, not enough felt they were getting that with Biden/Harris. People I know mostly don't care about being labeled Latino or Latinx. Can they buy a home? Can they send their kids to college? Then throw in loan forgiveness—yeah, no, to a large swath of the electorate. Do I feel college is too expensive and the student loan machine is a scam to inflate the price? Absolutely. But I've never been sold on forgiveness as the solution here. So the extreme focus on identity politics over kitchen table issues was front and center. It's the economy, stupid!
At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #3: Crime and Public Safety
Fast forward to '20, where you had the defund the police movement, which I knew was going to be a mistake as soon as it happened. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others were more humans murdered by law enforcement. Police brutality is never okay and is way too pervasive in America. That said, I believe the people who work in law enforcement do important work in keeping us safe. As one of my Black friends said, "We don't want less police; we just want them to stop being assholes to us for no reason. We need police in our communities to keep us safe."
At Least Half the Country is Thinking WTAF?" Moment #4: Foreign Policy and Antisemitism
Let's talk about crime and antisemitism. It's a fact that most Americans value our relationship with Israel. Biden's policies with Israel sucked. They did. Bibi may be evil, but overall Americans, especially American Jews, care about Israel's right to exist. The foreign policy sucked, but what made it visceral for America was what happened in major cities (mostly liberal) and college campuses everywhere. It fed into the storyline that liberal cities are unruly, and we don't want that for America. Never mind that red states have higher murder rates than blue states, or that most violent crime is committed by white men. It doesn't matter. Visuals are everything, and when you combine antisemitic protests with rampant shoplifting stories making the news (people walking into pharmacies with enough things locked up), it's a terrible look. Telling people it's not there, like what happened to me in Seattle, is dismissive. Shapiro could have gone a long way toward bridging this but...
Schumer sucked on Israel, especially in recent days in his emails with Columbia. And Harris told two completely different stories to people in Dearborn (who ended up voting for Trump or Stein—good choice there; hope it works out for ya!) and in Pennsylvania. Word got out—it's not 1992 anymore. You can't get away with that shit. You try to appeal to everyone, and you appeal to no one.
That leads to more than half the country having their fourth "What the actual fuck?" moment. Jews who tend to vote Democrat and are socially liberal feel abandoned by other oppressed groups because they're "white enough" so we don't count. And what happens? Those center-left people go to Trump—they may not know exactly what his Israel policy will be, but they know he won't tolerate left antisemitic protests (obviously jury is still out on Proud Boys and other right wing white supremacist groups).
So where does that leave us?
Despite all the chaos and frustration, I still believe we can find common ground. Maybe it's naive, but I think most of us want the same basic things: safety, opportunity, and a fair shot at a good life. Like it or not, we all need to do a better job of listening. We're better than this, and I refuse to believe all is lost. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.
PS – This election cycle has demonstrated how incredibly flawed our media model is.