Jewish Democrats must wake up, fast.
The Democratic Party, at least under President Joe Biden, is not what they brand themselves to be. Jewish Democrats and other such Americans ought to urgently take notice.
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Editor’s note: Many people will be triggered by the beginning of this essay, but you should try to read until the end; it may surprise you.
Last week’s U.S. presidential debate between the incumbent Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump should not have surprised anyone.
Trump hyperbolically lied his way through the evening and Biden lived up to what he actually is: an 81-year-old man whose cognition has been (justifiably) worn down by working one of the world’s most important jobs since 2021.
I kept telling people that Biden’s quite noticeable cognitive decline was going to be exposed in this debate, yet somehow the Democrats decided to walk him out as if we did not already know that he is far past his prime. As one commentator unsarcastically put it, this was a form of elderly abuse.
And, for months on this platform, Future of Jewish, I have heard dozens of readers make every possible excuse for Biden, not because they are so enamored with him, but because of his opponent. Indeed, Trump is not exactly someone I would want my future daughter to date.
But for now, Biden is the incumbent, and whoever is his opponent does not make him free of criticism. More than anything, “whataboutism” is a poor argument that kindergarteners use — you know, like, “But Johnny hit me first!!”
It seems to me that many of Biden’s supporters (or Trump’s haters) can give you far more reasons not to vote for Trump and the Republicans than to vote for Biden and the Democrats. If the vast majority of your campaign is, “We are not Trump!” this effectively means that Biden is an inadequate candidate, and this inadequacy will drive people away from him and the Democrats — either as a “no vote,” a write-in vote, or a Republican vote.
One of the major criticisms of Trump is the January 6th insurrection that he inspired (some say encouraged and even orchestrated) in Washington, D.C. in 2021, along with a handful of soundbites of him hinting about becoming an American “dictator” (some of which the Democrats have taken out of context to embolden their “We are not Trump!” campaign).
I can understand why some Americans are frightened by these overtures from Trump; January 6th was unquestionably a black spot in American history and Trump’s character is certainly questionable.
However, if we are going to criticize Trump for the possibility of becoming a dictator and decimating American democracy, we must also come to terms with the reality that Biden and those in his corner have actually been behaving in grossly un-American and undemocratic ways, which I detail below.
Everyone knows that Biden is in his early 80s, and for months we have been seeing and hearing about his highly recognizable cognitive decline. This is not an ageist thing to say, or a “Republican spin.” It is a fact of life. The vast majority of those who grow old experience exponential cognitive decline.
The reality is that, when you are in your 80s and older, there is a high level of transparency required to perform vital jobs, and the Democratic leadership and their media cronies have been displaying the opposite of that.
Take Warren Buffett, for example. He is in his early 90s while still running the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, but what does he do every year? He invites thousands of his current and potential stakeholders into the U.S. state of Nebraska (where he lives), sits them down in a conference room, and speaks for six-to-eight hours in a single day, unedited and fully transparent, to demonstrate his mental and physical aptitude.
The Democrats? Nope, they have been disseminating highly edited interviews of Biden and engaging in other types of dubious behaviors to hide Biden’s age-related ineptitudes.
This is both un-American and undemocratic, and many of us see why: These Democrats are not just anti-Trump, they are pro-power. The thing they care more about than their hatred of Donald Trump and the Republicans is their desperate desire to remain in control of the federal government.
In light of Biden’s age, a few politicians thought it would be best to succeed Biden as the Democratic nominee — notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dean Phillips — with the goal of preventing another Trump White House. Because, as the Democrats have been wailing and screaming about for years now, Trump will ruin America as we know and love it, so fielding a more viable candidate makes perfect sense, right?
Well, according to Biden’s camp, not exactly.
The Bidenites have systematically prevented other people from challenging him in the Democratic primaries and applied political pressure on his (Democratic) opponents in order to retain control and power.
Who makes up “the Bidenites” is not entirely clear. Some contend it is Biden and his family, while others posit that it is the political appointees who work for him (and do not want to lose their jobs, which many of them would if Biden was replaced by another Democratic presidential nominee).
Either way, Biden’s camp has been insisting for months that he is “perfectly capable of being president for another four years” and Democratic media puppets like (leftist) MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, as recently as the last couple of weeks, have been trying to convince Americans that not only is Biden cognitively fine, in fact he is the best Joe Biden that Scarborough has ever seen.
The truth is, most of us had this information about Biden’s cognitive decline; we have seen the videos and the interviews. And every time an aesthetically unpleasing video or interview came out, it was excused away. Biden did not fall; he “tripped” like all of us do. That video was not showing his troubles; it was “poorly edited.”
These are undeniably flat-out, deliberate lies — and anyone who accuses other people of lying (like Trump) ought to acknowledge and hold responsible all those who lie, no matter whose mouth it comes from.
Imagine if we both love the NBA, you the Celtics and me the Lakers. One player on the Lakers gets caught for illegally taking steroids while another on the Celtics does the same, but I tell you: Only the Celtics player should be suspended for breaking the rules, not the Lakers player.
How would you feel about that?
For years we have been hearing from Democratic mouthpieces and their apologists that Trump is a massive threat to American democracy, and that a vote for Biden’s Democrats is a vote for keeping America’s democratic integrity intact.
Turns out, Biden’s Democrats have been engaging in undemocratic behaviors during the last several months — and this is not some pro-Trump, ultra-Right-wing, Fox News conspiracy theory.
Let me be more specific: Biden’s Democrats have been trying to construct a “perfectly capable of being president for another four years” narrative about Biden that was so obviously revealed to be untrue during last week’s debate — and was utterly apparent to many of us way before then — so that a few people in charge get to decide who gets to be the Democratic candidate, and those few people are obstructing American democracy from working effectively.
The democratic thing to do would have been to hold primaries for the Democratic presidential nominee, allowing Democratic voters to decide if they want Biden to run for a second term or another politician to take his place. Yet Biden’s camp made sure that no other possible nominee would ever have the chance of replacing him on the ballot.
At the end of 2023, U.S. Congressman Dean Phillips (also a Democrat) decided to try to run for U.S. president, to challenge Biden. In a very respectful and compassionate way, he kept telling us the truth about Biden’s worrisome cognitive decline, meaning that Biden was not fit to serve again — and Phillips was practically censored by the Democrats. Not only is this undemocratic, it is ironic because the Democrats have been touting themselves as the only real democratic party in America.
I get it, though, most incumbent presidents do not want to give up their seat if they don’t have to, but we are not talking about most incumbent presidents. We are talking about the oldest president in U.S. history — who, oh by the way, can barely finish some of his sentences — so “business as usual” is not so relevant here.
If we want to talk about upholding democracy, which I am all for of course, the democratic way to deal with potentially reelecting the oldest president in U.S. history that just showed the entire world how bad he has cognitively declined, is to put up the Democratic presidential nominee for a vote, not to impose it on voters, because that is dictatorial. And that is exactly what Biden’s camp has done.
I think most of us would agree that, if an 81-year-old Biden had to compete in the Democratic primaries against other candidates, there is a good chance that he would lose. And Biden’s team is not stupid; they know this as well as anyone, hence why they refused to allow Democratic voters to make this decision via the ultimate vehicle of democracy: a vote.
To add insult to injury, much of the U.S. mainstream media and Democratic leadership deny this subversion of democracy, while profusely blaming the Republicans for it. The result has been a Democratic shadow cabinet of handlers running America and dealing with issues abroad like the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war, which is not what any of us Americans signed up for, no less the impact that four more years of this would have on the country.
All this while many Democrats preach ad nauseum about the possibility of Trump being an existential threat to America, no less all the Democrats who oppose Israel because they consider Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be an autocrat.
Trump may very well try to trample American democracy, and Netanyahu is not exactly my favorite politician, but Biden’s camp is basically cut from the same cloth. And anyone who tells you otherwise is either clueless, ignorant, heavily biased, or just a hypocrite.
The bottom line is: All politicians are really the same — no matter if they represent the Right, the Left, the middle, the up, or the down. Virtually all of them are corrupted liars who try to maximize their powers. Some do it more outwardly than others, some are more creative at hiding it from the public, but they all play the same game of dirty politics.
Therefore, we as voters lose when we get caught up in the finger-pointing blame game while the politicians we claim to support are doing the very same (intolerable) things that we accuse other politicians in other parties of doing.
The best voter is the one who understands that all politicians are essentially the same. The question then becomes: Who is the best candidate for the top two or three priorities that each voter cares most about?
Here I place no judgment. Whether you opt for a Left-wing, Right-wing, or centrist candidate, or whether you decide on a “no vote” or a write-in vote, everyone should be free to vote (and free of judgment) according to their top two or three priorities.
For me, as a Jewish American voter, my top two issues in this upcoming presidential election are the rise of antisemitism across the U.S. and the country’s relationship with Israel, the one and only Jewish state which — if I might add — has been a damn good ally to the United States (and other countries).
I acknowledge and appreciate that many other Jewish Americans have different top priorities, whether economic, financial, social, political, or otherwise. To each their own. No love lost.
But if you, like me, are extraordinarily concerned about the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. (particularly and predominantly on the Left) and about much of the American Left’s disturbing treatment of Israel since October 7th, the Republicans by and large seem to be more in lockstep with addressing these issues.
I am fully aware that the Republicans who have come out against the rise of antisemitism and the Biden’s administration ridiculous both-sides-ing of the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war are not doing it from the goodness of their heart. They are also self-interested schmucks eager for Jewish votes and political donations.
But, from my vantage point, the Democrats are far worse. Indeed, when we study the recent antisemitic (often disguised as “anti-Israel” and “anti-Zionist”) activity across America, a large majority of it is happening — and being allowed to happen — in Democrat-run cities and states.
Plus, a large majority of the (implicit and explicit) accusations made by politicians that Israel is “committing genocide” and all the other ridiculous blood libels leveled at the Jewish state since October 7th have come from the Democratic Party.
The dark reality is that neither the Republicans or the Democrats have ever and will ever have Jewish Americans’ best interests in mind, other than to the extent that they receive and benefit from Jewish votes and political donations. Especially now that, for example, the Arab and Muslim populations in America are growing while the Jewish one is not. And many Arabs and Muslims are deeply antisemitic (again, disguised as “anti-Israel” or “anti-Zionist”).
However, at least for the time being, millions of Jews are living in America, so we still have a strong, influential presence there. If we want the Jewish future to be as bright as it has been in the past across most of America, we ought to be flexible with our political persuasions and not get trapped in “what got us here will get us there” dogma.
I grew up in a mostly Democratic household in the suburbs of Los Angeles. In 2008, 2012, and 2016 I voted for the Democratic presidential nominee. At the time I felt that they were the best candidates based on the information I had and what was important to me. (Those were the only elections I could vote in age-wise, and I did not vote at all in 2020.)
Now I have more information and different priorities, so I have updated my beliefs, and I will continue to do so moving forward.
I hope that, regardless of how they ultimately decide to vote, more Jewish Americans (and, really, more Americans in general) will also welcome in new and more information, and then update their beliefs if they feel that is, for each of them, the right thing to do.
Donald Trump did more for Israel in his 4-year term than any other American president in recent history. He was also the best president America has had in a long time. Yet you hate him. Why? I would love to have this mystery explained to me.
"Biden’s Democrats have been engaging in undemocratic behaviors during the last several months"
Since 2017 actually, when the Clinton campaign passed its Steele Dossier to its allies in the Justice department (Bruce Ohr) in order to begin a campaign of false charges to bring down the lawfully elected president.
We saw this extended in 2020 with an organized censorship campaign to block any dissemination of the Hunter Biden laptop before the election, which tied Biden directly to influence peddling.
Evangelical Christians are an important part of the new Republican Party and they support Israel out of deep seated convictions, not electoral needs. I wish the American Jewish community had that level of idealism.
Not to brag, but after reading about Obama's friendship with Palestinian radical Rashid Khalidi, I had the foresight to vote Republican starting in 2008. I will be voting again for the only presidential candidate with Jewish grandchildren. I know what the alternative looks like and, these days, so should you.