American Jews Aren't Falling Prey To Trump's Siren Song

The House can't get anything consequential done-- like Zika funding, for example, because the far right of the GOP holds everything hostage to their crazy ideological Hate Talk Radio crackpottery. But one thing Ryan and McCarthy did get passed yesterday was a resolution by AIPAC puppet Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)-- with 282 cosponsors-- that reaffirms 3 basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy:

• that Israel is a major U.S. strategic partner,
• that it is U.S. policy and law to ensure that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge and self-defense capacity, and
• support of an Israeli tiered missile defense program.

The resolution voiced approval for a long-term memorandum of understanding between Obama and Netanyahu for the biggest amount of military aid from one country to another in the history of planet earth-- $3.8 billion a year for ten years, an increase of approximately $700 million a year. It passed 405-4, the only members with the guts to vote NO being Justin Amash (R-MI), Johnny Duncan (R-TN), Walter Jones (R-NC) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), 4 libertarians who generally oppose interference in the affairs of other countries and anything that smacks of military adventurism. Even Barbara Lee voted for this outrageous give-away. The domestic politics on this are just too hot for anyone to handle.

Lately, we've been discussing American Jews and how they might vote in November. Jimmy Carter wasn't seen as a friend of Israel's by a lot of Jews and Reagan's first election was a high-water mark for Republicans in terms of Jewish support since Eisenhower was elected in 1956 with 40% of the Jewish vote. It was all downhill for Republicans after Ike. Jews understood what Nixon was (18% support against Kennedy in 1960, 17% support against Humphrey 8 years later). Goldwater only got 10% of the Jewish vote, not much worse than what George H.W. Bush got against Bill Clinton in 1992 (11%) Since then it's looked like this:

I had an argument-- actually two separate arguments-- with two Jewish friends of mine who both felt positive that Jews are going massively for Señor Trump, which each of them is. Each of them, however, is a somewhat observant Sephardic Jew, each one a Mizrahim, an Oriental-- Arab-- Jew. Both have parents born in Morocco and neither is a doctor or lawyer or teacher, each more a blue collar guy and falling for the Trumpanzee message the same way that other blue collar, not terribly well-educated, white males seem to.

Yesterday, however, a poll came out from the American Jewish Congress showing that Señor Trumpanzee is trailing badly-- 61-19% among Jewish voters, way worse for him than among the general public.

Respondents said Clinton would be better than Trump in handling terrorism (58-22 percent), would be more likely to unite the country (55-11 percent), would be more likely to promote U.S.-Israel relations (57-22 percent) and would be more effective in dealing with Iran (58-19 percent).

Trump, whose daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared are Jewish, and who has several top Jewish advisers, has nonetheless alienated much of the Republicans’ traditional Jewish support, in part because of his broadsides against minorities, but also because of an insular foreign policy. He has flirted with notions of neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of making Israel pay for the defense assistance it receives from the United States.

...Reform Jews are likeliest to favor Clinton over Trump, 74 percent to 10 percent; Reconstructionists prefer Clinton 71 percent to 0 percent for Trump and 15 percent for Stein; “just Jewish” chooses Clinton over Trump, 60 to 17 percent; and Conservative Jews favor Clinton over Trump, 57-29 percent.

Among Orthodox respondents, as in recent elections, preferences are flipped, with respondents likelier to favor Trump-- to a degree. Trump does not do as well with this subset as Clinton does overall. Orthodox respondents favor Trump at 50 percent, Clinton at 21 percent, Johnson at 6 percent and Stein at 1 percent, with 15 percent saying they will not vote.