A Socratic Approach to a Jew Across the Political Aisle

Americans have been divided artificially by a media and Political Class who prefer to foment hatred, rather than report objectively. It is up to us to engage in civil dialogue to save the nation.

Today, I’m going to violate LBJ’s dictum that “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” What he meant by that politically is that there is only so much oxygen in the room, so if a candidate starts out by explaining why what his or her opponent has said, all the attention is still focused on the opponent. So don’t do it.

In this case,

Jill

is not “my opponent.” I am clearly not going to change her mind, but I write this so those who are interested can see where the differences of interpretation lie. Having spoken with her on my podcast, I can say she is intelligent, thoughtful and has strong convictions. What continues to fascinate me is how someone possessed of those attributes can come to the exact opposite conclusion about the best choice for Israel and the safety of minorities in America in this upcoming Election.

Here is her piece in its entirety, with my comments interspersed. I hope to spark wider conversations and look forward to hearing all - rational, calm - comments. I am leaving the comments open to ALL, including non-paid subscribers, but I will delete and block anything that is just stupid, mean-spirited or pointlessly insulting. Behave yourself.

I Don't Care What Any Other Jews Say, I Do Not Support Trump for President

Do not let loser antisemites shift your values

Jill Oct 23, 2024

For the last few months I’ve seen a number of articles and social media posts by Jews fancying themselves as representatives of the “why Jews shouldn’t vote Democrat” team that emerged during this election season.¹ One of the most high-profile voices is Shabbos Krestenbaum, a former Bernie supporter who spoke at the RNC.

This poll + the one at the end of this article is by JDCA

What they are basically advising is for us to drop our usual voting behaviors and to help put a deranged conman back in office because they perceive him as better for Israel/Jews. Part of me understands the impulse. There is a very real feeling of betrayal from the left—a feeling that I share—that has washed over us since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War. So they’re happy to hear from Trump about how he vows to deport pro-Hamas protesters (most of whom are U.S. citizens, so it’s unclear how that would work).

Here is the heart of the matter. The legacy media who have been the Democrat Party propaganda arm since 2016 have repeated this Big Lie so often that liberal Americans who listen to Communist News Network, read New York Pravda and the Bezos Post, all just believe this nonsense about Trump being a “deranged conman.” First off, every politician is a conman. Second, where does this “deranged” come from?

On the topic of Israel and the safety of American Jews, I have written about - and Jill and I spoke about on my podcast on 7 October 2024 - how betrayed American liberal Jews feel to find out how deeply Jew Hatred runs through the Democrat Party. It is an objective fact that in States and cities run by Republicans, there is zero tolerance for Jew Hate marches. In New York and Los Angeles, it’s a daily occurrence. In Florida and Texas, crickets from the Hamas fangirls. All the insane crowds in New York, calling for the death of Jews and celebrating Hezbollah and Fakestinians are scaring Jews. No one in Democrat run jurisdictions is doing anything to stop it.

It’s not “Trump.” It’s Republicans who are cracking Hamas heads. So I can only see her comment here as one more symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome. If Vance were the POTUS candidate, he too would instantly start rounding up these evil “protestors.” Citizens go to jail; illegals get deported. Easy peasy law and order squeezy.

The extent to which their message will reflect in the actual Jewish vote on Election Day remains to be seen. I will now add my own voice to the (opposing) chorus.

Remember when your parent told you, “never make a major decision when you’re angry?” That applies to how you vote. In the fog of our our grief over the last year, there have emerged bad actors on both sides of the aisle who view our anger, pain, and confusion as an exploitable resource. Yes, I include in that category people like MAGA moron Virginia Foxx, who headed the congressional “it depends on the context” hearings. 

Irony alert. Liberals are so angry that Trump beat Her in 2016, they’ve never gotten over it. If anyone rational had no baggage or memory of either Cackles or Orange Man Bad and only had current events and their Parties’ actions or inaction to go on, only an insane Jew would vote Democrat in this election. In my opinion, American liberal Jews are making a major decision while being permanently angry at Donald Trump.

Do you really think that Virginia Foxx and her friends are doing what they are doing out of a profound care for the Jewish people? I don’t. When powerful people hide their real intentions for doing something that on the surface appears virtuous, that may be more dangerous than a common antisemite expressing their genuine feelings out on the street for all to see. At least they’re being honest—and they need to be dealt with accordingly. 

This I am afraid is seriously twisted logic. Politicians every day have a limited amount of time to commit to anything. So to claim that Rep. Foxx - with whom I am unfamiliar; I’ve only seen Rep. Stefanik in those hearings - is somehow “pretending” to care about Israel even though she doesn’t says far more about a partisan’s interpretation of reality than reality itself.

I am not going to set aside my core values just because other people are acting like loons. There is intellectual space for liberalism to run alongside Zionism, and I am living it along with millions of other Jews (many afraid to speak up about it). I will not be bullied into throwing my support behind someone who I believe to be a genuine danger to democracy. 

No one said American small-L liberalism is necessarily incompatible with Zionism. No one is bullying anyone. I myself don’t see how voting against a Party leader who has demonstrated a waffling ambivalence about Israeli security and rampant Jew Hatred here in the States requires “bullying” someone to vote in her own interest.

As for this “Trump is a danger to democracy” bullshit, I have to call it out as Grade-A pure bullshit. There is no other word for it. By the evening of 6 January 2021, every single mainstream media babbling head had his or her cue cards provided by the DNC and they have been chanting hypnotically ever since then, “Insurrection, insurrection, insurrection.”

I have lived and worked in countries going through or immediately after an insurrection. January 6th was an actual mostly peaceful protest, in comparison to the billions in damages and dozens of dead from the BLM Antifa Summer of Wuhan Fakedemic Love 2020. It was most assuredly not an insurrection in any way shape or form.

When Democrats say “Trump is a danger to democracy,” what they mean is “Trump is a danger to our clinging to power.”

None of this is an endorsement for Harris, exactly. She was never my first choice and at the time of this writing, her chances of winning are unclear. I will concede that she and Biden may be guilty of not condemning the antisemitism at institutions (especially college campuses) forcefully enough. But neither of them are antisemites (read: I don’t believe Trump as an individual is an antisemite either). You’ll notice they did not allow anyone from the anti-Israel camp to speak at the DNC, where the kaffiyeh-clad mob who protested outside were either not acknowledged or removed completely. 

Out of the gate, I have to give Jill massive credit for not believing the never ending lies from the Democrat Media that “Trump hates Jews.” Of all their stupid lies, this one is the dumbest. He spent his entire career in New York City, full of liberals both Jewish and non-Jewish. Does it never occur to anyone believing this stupid lie that if he were in fact a Jew Hater, at least one person would have come forward from his 50-year career to provide an anecdote in support that accusation?

A small glimmer of hope, but why does Jill trust the DNC’s intentions but distrusts Rep. Foxx’s intentions? I cannot help pointing out the delicious hypocrisy of the Democrats telling us for years that somehow demanding a legal ID to vote is “racist,” but then demanding everyone show an ID to enter the Democrat Convention.

The Democrat decision to eschew Fakestinian fangirls speaking was rational politics. When 80% of all Americans when polled have consistently said they back Israel because Israel was attacked by deranged terrorists, only an idiot would let a Hamas fangirl speak at their convention.

I would look at the Administration slow-rolling military equipment that Israel already paid for and the insane numbers of Administration employees who are busy undermining Israel and protesting traitorously while remaining employed by our Federal government. I would look at Biden and Harris whining to Israel about keeping the IDF out of Rafah and then when young IDF soldiers killed evil scumbag Yahya Sinwar, claiming they were somehow supportive of the IDF cleaning up Hamas in their last stronghold.

I am tired of people—especially smart Jews—talking about Trump as if they have either forgiven or forgotten every bigoted thing he did during his presidency.

I have to break in here. This is a fantasy of the Left. I have to ask what “bigoted thing” did he do during his presidency? This here is one of those dividing lines in American culture. I have been hearing about this supposed “bigot” since 2016 and I have no idea - aside from media lies and mischaracterizations - what it is supposed to refer to. I am a smart Jew. Arguably a very smart Jew and I have no idea what she is talking about here.

As if he’s the answer to all of our problems. As if him calling my native city a “disgusting, rodent-infested mess” is ok. As if using the term “shit hole countries” to refer to the birthplaces of immigrants is acceptable.

Is your native city a disgusting, rodent-infested mess? Sadly, many American cities have fallen into disrepair and could be accurately characterized that way. When I lived in Brooklyn Heights 1999-2002, I can say with a certainty some blocks near me in Carroll Gardens and Bed-Stuy were disgusting and rodent-infested.

I’ve traveled a great deal, often to places with failed governments or just corrupt societies. Many of them are shit-holes and the first people to tell you a country is a shit-hole are the people born there who would desperately like to emigrate to the United States.

Is Trump often crass? Sure, but part of his appeal to many Americans is his refusal to lie smoothly and parrot all the accepted bromides. Compare Trump’s plain speech to someone in a $7,000 evening dress wearing $400,000 of jewelry, accompanied by a man in a $3,000 tuxedo with $2,000 shoes and $100,000 watch at a Metropolitan Museum benefit intoning about “developing nations” for the cameras before sitting down to a $10,000 per plate dinner. Is that poseur doing poor people in those shit-holes any more good than someone calling out the problem directly?

I tell employees all the time that absolute acceptance of reality is required for success in at least three areas of human existence: Buddhism, alcoholism and finance. If you don’t accept objective reality, you’re always fixing the wrong problem.

In short, if a city in America is decrepit and rat-infested, or if a country is a shit-hole, it is better to accept the reality and find ways to fix those problems, than to gloss over those problems because it’s “not nice” to report objectively.

If you want to stick to the antisemitism examples: does no one remember Charlottesville? Forget the “very fine people on both sides” comment — what about the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel having to escape with his congregants through the back door as white supremacists, fueled by Trump’s rhetoric, surrounded the synagogue? To what extent did the winners who stormed the Capitol on January 6th at Trump’s instigation care about Jews?

I remember Charlottesville clearly. I also remember the media twisting Trump’s words and Democrats lying about what he said. He did not say there were very fine people amongst the violent mobs. What he said was there were very fine people on both sides of the debate concerning whether to remove Confederate statues. He was observing that while the violence was 100% bad, it was important for everyone to understand that passions ride high on cultural issues and there are very fine people on both sides of a political issue, which we should all remember so as to minimize or eliminate political violence.

As for the evil attacks on Beth Israel, it is absurd to blame Trump for the lunatic who heard what he wanted to hear and acted accordingly. Anymore than Bernie Sanders is responsible for the nutcase who shot up a Republican Congressional baseball team. I would argue that Chuck Schumer standing on the steps of the Supreme Court telling Justice Kavanaugh he would “reap the whirlwind” is directly responsible for the lunatic who tried to break into his house to kidnap and murder him. UpChuck’s statements were a direct - if vague in application - threat.

Again with this January 6th crap. What does January 6th have to do with whether or not everyone there was “concerned about Jews?” In fact, the only two people I know for sure were there are two Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, who related their story to me on their radio show a few times.

Since I believe in giving credit where credit is due, I will acknowledge that Trump did succeed with the Abraham Accords, one of the few major wins of his term. He also approved crucial funding for COVID vaccine production during the pandemic. Where he failed was basically everything else.

Trump moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem. Silly man! Both Democrats and Republicans since Reagan have said the American Embassy should be in Jerusalem. Being a businessman and not a politician, he said, “Right. Here is something that everyone says should have already been done, so let’s get it done.” Democrats immediately started screaming about how awful he was for doing this, that it would cause war in the Middle East, blah blah blah. He moved it. No one cared.

The Abraham Accords are the single most brilliant achievement in decades. Had a Democrat done it, we’d still be hearing about it daily. Crickets from a begrudging American and European media. It set the stage for real peace in the Middle East, a peace which so badly threatened the Iranian regime they started World War III on 7 October 2023 to prevent its continuance and expansion to Saudi Arabia.

Shoveling American taxpayer billions at Big Pharma for a non-vaccine that no one needed for a bad seasonal flu which was already waning naturally was one of the biggest disasters of his Presidency. Listening to Fauci and Birx - who should both be in prison for crimes against humanity - and allowing the whole crap of the Wuhan Fakedemic to get any traction in the Federal Government was the absolute low point of his Presidency.

The entire Wuhan Fakedemic was the Democrats’ last chance - after ridiculous impeachments, the complete Hillary-paid-for Russian collusion nonsense and 51 “intelligence” civil servants telling the world Hunter’s laptop was fake - to get Orange Man Bad out of office.

It comes down to this: there is just too much on the line—and yes, that the includes reproductive rights chipped away by SCOTUS—to sell out our democracy to a pathological narcissist who has a track record of mobilizing mobs of white supremacists.

I challenge Jill or anyone to tell me where and when Trump “mobilized mobs of white supremacists.” Really - this sounds like a big deal that I have clearly missed. Where and when did this happen? According to Jill, it happened more than once, because a single event does not constitute a “track record.”

Roe v. Wade was the best thing that ever happened to Democrats. It was their fundraising call for decades. I ask if the right to abortion was so important to Democrats, why did they not make it irrelevant by passing a Federal right to abortion law any one of the at least four times they controlled both houses of Congress and the Oval Office? It is a great question no Democrat has ever been able to give me an answer to.

The Notorious RBG said the ruling was shaky. Everyone pretended to say the courts should not legislate. So why did Democrats allow a shaky Supreme Court ruling to be the protection for women’s right to an abortion, except to milk it as a never ending bogeyman for fundraising?

Meanwhile, the facts on the ground changed over 40 years. Firstly, technology means the age of viability got a lot earlier in the gestational process, which changed many people’s views of when a fetus became a baby. Secondly, the ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade and send this issue back to the States came when the technology of abortion has changed. Now, anyone can get a pack of pills over the Internet, with medical guidance from a doctor or nurse practitioner, so that a woman desiring an abortion need never leave her home and face down protestors at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Never mind the medieval horrors of Planned Parenthood selling fetus parts for medical research as a sick profitable business.

So abortion went back to the States for a legislative process and from a practical level, it’s irrelevant now. None of that will change, whether Cackles or Orange Man Bad wins the election. Abortions are easier to get and cheaper than ever before, with limited ability of the intrusive State to even know about it.

Lastly, every candidate for President is a “pathological narcissist.” No one else would be driven to endure the agony.

He and Bibi may be BFFs, but we all know that Trump would partner with the Ayatollah if it meant more power for him. We Jews may not agree on most things all of the time, but we do have certain rock-solid common values: democracy, freedom of expression, and education. Are those principles that Trump embodies?

No, “we” don’t know that Trump would partner with the Ayatollah. We very much know from objective evidence that Barry Hussein Soetoro did partner with the Iranian terror regime by shipping them billions in cash. A habit his sock puppet Brandon has kept up and Cackles would surely add to. Most recently a fucking traitor within the Biden Administration US government leaked Israeli attack plans to the Iranians just in the last few days.¹

As for democracy, freedom of expression and education, it is up to his critics to explain to me how they know Trump does not “embody” those principles.

The bit about “freedom of expression” is especially rich, given that Trump was thrown off Twitter so the Left could stop him expressing himself freely, an action Cackles applauded repeatedly, because he was - wait for it, wait for it - “spreading misinformation and was a danger to democracy!” He so values freedom of expression that he had to create Truth Social so people could express themselves freely without being subject to Woke Censorship.

The Brandon-Cackles Administration tried to create a Disinformation Governance Board in early 2022. They wanted DHS to be able to censor what Americans said or wrote online! Fast forward to earlier this year, when Congressional hearings were called about Leftist censorship. Robert Kennedy Jr. was called to testify about the government trying to silence him. In a demonstration of pure insanity, every single Democrat on the Committee proved his point by starting their remarks by demanding he not be allowed to speak because what he had to say was - wait for it, wait for it - “misinformation dangerous to our democracy.” Clearly, the First Amendment is not strong with modern Democrats.

Once again, the Democrats accuse Trump of intending to do totalitarian things they have already empirically done.

There is a grim truth we have all been forced to embrace: antisemitism is a permanent fixture of western civilization, no matter how much that civilization progresses. Those of us who grew up in a United States where we believed that ugliness was largely in the past must learn to live in this reality. We are viewed as the symbols of moral failure. In a society in which that’s a white person, Jews are white. For MAGA types, we are oppressed minorities who require special action from them, kind of like as our saviors. Our Americanness will never overcome our Jewishness, no matter who holds office.

I have no idea what Jill means to express here. Jew Hatred is as old as the hills and will never go away. She does note that “MAGA types” want to protect Jews as oppressed minorities. Since “BLM types” want to protect Blacks as oppressed minorities, and there are seven times the number of Blacks in America as Jews, I am not quite sure how she is making Republican (“MAGA types”) desire to ensure the safety of minorities a negative attribute.

Whether or not Kamala (who herself is married to a Jew, a fact that seems to have gotten lost in the sauce) is the best person to take the reins is a different conversation — but she’s the only other choice.

Cackles is married to one more in a long string of self-hating Jews. Plus Doug Emhoff beats women in public. Not to beat a dead horse, but if Cackles were a Republican, we’d be hearing nothing but Cannes SlapGate 24/7 until the Election. And his dipshit daughter raises money for Hamas terrorists.

If there were a rational option on the other side, I would consider it. Trump just isn’t it.

Hint, Jill: There is a rational choice over Cackles - anyone, including a rabid gerbil with sawdust between its ears. Oh, wait, Joe already bowed out….

One thing is clear: the era of the angry white (or orange-passing) man running everything is coming to a close. 

And you know it. 

We shall see in a few days. Anyway, I wrote this commentary because there exists such a vast gulf in this nation and while I doubt Jill or anyone like her is going to read this, smack her forehead and go vote for Trump, it is important for all of us that we try hard to keep our political discourse grounded in reality and don’t let the Political Class manipulate us.

You’ll see nowhere in these comments do I extol or endorse Trump. I think he also is too old to be running and I wish it were Vance at the top of the ticket. That said, the media has done nothing but lie about him since 2016. The Swamp denizens basically violated their oaths of office during his Administration by ignoring or slow walking his orders and therefore violated the will of the American people who had voted him in. The unaccountable bureaucracy is once more flouting the will of the people. Plus Cackles - unlike Trump - has never received a single primary vote for being President.

It is past hilarious ironic hypocrisy that the Party which kicked out the incumbent without a vote, replacing him with a chortling idiot, is the Party screaming about how their democratically chosen opponent is a “threat to democracy.”

I have no idea where this poll came from, but all I can think of is the number of good German Jews who right up until the very end didn’t really believe what the Socialists were saying. Five percent of Americans believe the Moon Landing was faked. So what? Belief is not reality, in either case.

The nation has been divided artificially by people who profit by our division.

Let’s not let that stop us from debating, arguing or throwing mashed potatoes at one another.

God Save America.

Your Enlightentaining Author Florida Man has experience dealing with Swamp Beasts.

1. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-is-deeply-concerned-about-the-release-of-secret-documents-on-israels-possible-attack-plans/ar-AA1sF56V?ocid=socialshare