by Rabbi Dov Fischer in The American Spectator
The Hamas-ISIS Gaza War has erupted not only in the Middle East but also on Twitter, TikTok, podcasts, and YouTube. Social media language tends to be edgy. In the politically conservative Jewish community where I reside, three conservative commentators have elicited concern: Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens.
First, Charlie Kirk. He is great, and his work on colleges is amazing. Is he anti-Semitic? I don’t buy it. Is he “a little bit anti-Semitic”? First, I don’t buy it. Second, there is no such thing as a “little bit anti-Semitic.” That’s like “a little bit pregnant.” Remember that.
The concern over Charlie Kirk is that he has endorsed Elon Musk’s observation that Jewish liberals have been major donors to certain horrible leftist causes. That’s not anti-Semitic. That’s true. For the past eight years in this column, I have written countless articles about the plague of Jewish apostate liberals, a problem to which my Catholic friends especially relate in a world of Joe Bidens, Nancy Pelosis, and Sotomayors.
Let us be clear. Judaism — real Judaism — is politically conservative. Open a Bible; it’s all there. Tough on crime. No abortions except to save a mother’s life. No homosexuality, and certainly no homosexual “marriages.” G-d exists, and He created humans as male and female, binary. His pronoun is “He/Him/His.” Each tribe has borders that matter.
Everywhere in the world except America, Jews are solidly conservative. They are a conservative voting bloc in the United Kingdom. Jews from Russia and Ukraine despise communism more than anyone on earth. Israel — a place that reflects something about Jews — has been dominated by conservative governments for the past 46 years. Even in America, Orthodox Jews — the fastest growing population of American Jews — vote 75 percent and more Republican.
So what’s wrong with the non-Orthodox Jews of America? Easy: They don’t know Judaism and are desperate to fit in with non-Jews. Therefore, many negate their Judaism. That’s how they make “friends” … until those “friends” turn on them or their college kids when war erupts in Israel or when their daughter, Karen, applies to college. Alas, Jews who have stripped their Judaism of Judaism are left with nothing but “warped social justice.” So they promote toxicity like DEI. “Look how progressive we are: we promote DEI even though that will keep our own grandchildren out of college.”
Idiots.
And, yet, do you know whom these Jewish idiots vote like? No, not Blacks. Not Puerto Ricans. Jewish liberals vote like White Protestant Dixie Southern Democrats. I explain:
For 125 years — a century and a quarter — White Protestant Southern Dixiecrats reliably voted exclusively for Democrats, despite their values. They sent 10–12 Democrats to the U.S. Senate non-stop for 125 years. Deeply conservative White Protestant non-Jews in America’s Deep South were the same as mindless liberal Jews — and on the same 125-year time frame.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans ended slavery, while the Democrats and their Ku Klux Klan sought to preserve it. As a result, the cotton-plantation South became uniformly Democrat. However, a century later, Deep South White Protestant conservative loyalty to Democrats no longer made sense. The Deep South was socially, culturally, religiously, and politically conservative — the Christian “Bible Belt.” Yet, incomprehensibly, Southern White Protestant conservatives kept electing only Democrats until the 1980s. Consider these unfathomable results listing all the key statewide winners in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana through 40 years, from the 1940s and through the entire decade of the 1970s:
Alabama:
Gov. Frank Dixon
Gov. Chauncey Sparks
Gov. Jim Folsom
Gov. Gordon Persons
Gov. Jim Folsom
Gov. John Malcolm Patterson
Gov. George Wallace
Gov. Lurleen Wallace
Gov. Albert Brewer
Gov. George Wallace
Gov. Fob James
Gov. George Wallace
Gov. Chauncey Sparks
Gov. Jim Folsom
Gov. Gordon Persons
Gov. Jim Folsom
Gov. John Malcolm Patterson
Gov. George Wallace
Gov. Lurleen Wallace
Gov. Albert Brewer
Gov. George Wallace
Gov. Fob James
Gov. George Wallace
Sen. John H. Bankhead II
Sen. George Swift
Sen. John Sparkman
Sen. Howard Heflin
Sen. J. Lister Hill
Sen. James Allen
Sen. Maryon Pittman Allen
Sen. Donald Stewart
Sen. George Swift
Sen. John Sparkman
Sen. Howard Heflin
Sen. J. Lister Hill
Sen. James Allen
Sen. Maryon Pittman Allen
Sen. Donald Stewart
Mississippi:
Gov. Paul B. Johnson, Sr.
Gov. Dennis Murphree
Gov. Thomas Bailey
Gov. Fielding Wright
Gov. Hugh White
Gov. James Coleman
Gov. Ross Barnett
Gov. Paul B. Johnson, Jr.
Gov. John Bell Williams
Gov. William Waller
Gov. Cliff Finch
Gov. William Winter
Gov. William Aillain
Gov. Ray Mabus
Gov. Dennis Murphree
Gov. Thomas Bailey
Gov. Fielding Wright
Gov. Hugh White
Gov. James Coleman
Gov. Ross Barnett
Gov. Paul B. Johnson, Jr.
Gov. John Bell Williams
Gov. William Waller
Gov. Cliff Finch
Gov. William Winter
Gov. William Aillain
Gov. Ray Mabus
Sen. Theodore Bilbo
Sen. James Eastland
Sen. Wall Doxey
Sen. John Stennis
Sen. James Eastland
Sen. James Eastland
Sen. Wall Doxey
Sen. John Stennis
Sen. James Eastland
Louisiana:
Gov. Sam Jones
Gov. Jimmie Davis
Gov. Earl Long
Gov. Robert Kennon
Gov. Earl Long
Gov. Jimmie Davis
Gov. John McKeithen
Gov. Edwin Edwards
Gov. Jimmie Davis
Gov. Earl Long
Gov. Robert Kennon
Gov. Earl Long
Gov. Jimmie Davis
Gov. John McKeithen
Gov. Edwin Edwards
Sen. William Feazell
Sen. Russell B. Long
Sen. Allen Ellender
Sen. Elaine Edwards
Sen. J. Bennett Johnston
Sen. Russell B. Long
Sen. Allen Ellender
Sen. Elaine Edwards
Sen. J. Bennett Johnston
There were approximately 50 statewide winners for governor or United States senator in deeply red Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana during thosee 40 years. Of those 50 elected statewide in the Deep Red South, all but one were Democrats.
How to explain that the most conservative electorate in America consistently ensured congressional Democrat majorities for the likes of Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter, thus also ensuring decades of endless domination of left-wing Supreme Court picks and federal judges? The historical record saw the White Protestant Deep South stick like barnacles to Democrats for approximately 125 years consecutively until they finally were compelled to choose between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
White Christian Dixiecrat voting patterns offer the “Rosetta Stone” insight into the Jewish historical tendency to vote Democrat. Once a voting demographic attaches to a party, it becomes very challenging to detach them even when continued affiliation becomes insane. Essentially, the group’s most politically ambitious individuals join the party of group choice and become invested in that party’s success.
Just as the individual aspiring politico invests himself or herself in a party, so does the larger group. They donate to “their” party. They meet personally with “their” party’s candidates, invite “their” party’s most prominent leaders to address their annual church or temple banquets, and encourage their teens to apply for minimum-wage patronage summer jobs picking up trash in the neighborhood park by using connections with that local politician.
That’s how the Jewish pattern began. When they first arrived, Jewish immigrants were greeted at the boat and on Ellis Island by Democrat hacks while white-shoe Republicans barred Jews from their country clubs and hotels. Democrat hacks played and manipulated the immigrants — just as they do today — while Republicans mocked their accents and denied them jobs at their white-show law firms and medical practices. So Jews understandably cast their fates with the Democrats. That is how the mess began, just as White Protestant Dixiecrats began. And once it starts, White Protestant Bible Belt Dixiecrats show that it takes 125 years to sever completely. Orthodox Jews already have done so, ahead of schedule. Others are following — slowly. Every time Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, or Ocasio opens her mouth, another 10 Jews become Republican. Every time Biden sends money to Iran, 10 more. Every time a Jewish kid gets ostracized at college because of Israel or DEI, 10 more.
So Charlie Kirk is right. Too many Jews give liberal money. But don’t forget that the Adelsons were Trump’s biggest donors and that a whole bunch of others — like Norman Braman, Nicolas Muzin, Stephen Schwarzman, Jeffrey Yass, Bernie Marcus, and Paul Singer give multi-millions to Republicans. Don’t forget that Jews include hard-right radio broadcasters Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, Michael Savage, Andrew Klavan, and Alan Stock, the dean of Nevada talk radio. And the 2,500 Orthodox rabbis represented by Coalition for Jewish Values, where I am vice president. Jews include playwright David Mamet and the right-wing Zionist Organization of America. The late Milton Friedman inspired American conservative capitalism, and Ayn Rand was Alisa Rosenbaum.
Next: Tucker. I repeatedly have defended Tucker. See here and here, for example. Tucker often has attacked the Anti-Defamation League, but so have I. The ADL is not Jewish and no longer speaks for Jews. Its chief professional officer, Jonathan Greenblatt, is a former Obama lackey, and he Obamized the ADL. When Tucker talks about Obama’s and Biden’s efforts to import millions of poor, needy immigrants reliant on government largesse who would vote Democrat and replace the mainstream White voting class, Tucker is right. The ADL attacked him as racist, so he hit back. He rightly noted that the same ADL that wants porous borders to bring in a replacement population here hypocritically opposes efforts to import millions of Arabs into Israel to replace the Jewish majority. Tucker is right.
I do have one Tucker concern: whether his ongoing rightful battles against ADL may eventually give rise to a broader animus. That would be like blaming all White Protestant Dixiecrats for their 125 years of Democrat bullet-voting. I don’t blame White Bible Belt Protestants for messing up my America by sending 10–12 “permanent” Senate Democrats to D.C. I don’t blame Catholics for giving my country Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Sotomayor, and scores of other toxicities. I hope Tucker gives more airtime to like-minded Jews so that we, too, can break through the iron wall of leftist media.
Finally, Candace Owens. I have been a fan of hers from that early congressional hearing where she nailed it to her debates on Laura with madman Cornel West. She led Blexit and did some great videos for Prager U.
Recently, something snapped. Ignorant of Middle Eastern history, amplified by a personal tiff with Ben Shapiro — a Jew with a yarmulka — she suddenly became unhinged. She alleged apartheid in Israel because the Old City of Jerusalem has a “Muslim Quarter” and a “Jewish Quarter.” Her ignorance was palpable. The four “quarters” of the Old City (also a “Christian Quarter” and an “Armenian Quarter”) were not created by Israel but by a British cartographer mapping out the Old City in the 1840s, two centuries ago. It was like mapping out 1960s New York and calling Brooklyn’s Boro Park, Crown Heights, and Flatbush the “Jewish Quarter”; Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and Harlem the “Black Quarter”; Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, and “Little Italy” in Manhattan the “Italian Quarter”; and also Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, the “Irish Quarter.”
No one (except for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit) can know everything. But it is surprising that Ms. Owens so freely comments acerbically and assertively on things she does not know. Now in a tiff with Shapiro, she seems bent on smacking Israel, despite ignorance on that front. Thus, she sarcastically “endorsed” Nikki Haley for president of Israel because Haley agrees that Hamas-ISIS must be crushed. Yet the same Ms. Owens supports Donald Trump, who is 10 times the supporter of Israel. Owens does not know. Much worse: she does not know that she does not know.
Ms. Owens amplified concerns when she recently provided a platform to the despicable Israel hater Norman Finkelstein, whom Israel once banned from entering for 10 years. Finkelstein is another example of apostate Jews. The Soviet Union leveraged the likes of Karl Marx, Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Karl Radek, and Leon Trotsky. America has Bernie Sanders, Ben and Jerry, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein. Our albatrosses.
Sure, Finkelstein deserves free speech — as does David Duke — but why did Ms. Owens suddenly give him a platform amid the Hamas-ISIS Gaza war and her tiff with Mr. Shapiro? Was she childishly saying, “Hey, Ben and Dennis Prager, both of you Jews helped launch my career, but I now will demonstrate my independence by giving this horrid man my platform to influence my child followers”?
There are three aspects to intelligence: smarts, insight, and knowledge. Ms. Owens has the smarts. Alas, she does not yet have all the knowledge. That is why G-d created books. She needs to grasp that she lacks critical knowledge, and Norman Finkelstein hardly is the beacon. Without adequate knowledge, Ms. Owens is not positioned to offer insight because, plainly put, she does not know what she is talking about on matters pertaining to Israel/Palestine.
Is she a Jew hater? After her Nikki Haley “endorsement,” her pegging the “Muslim Quarter” as reflecting Israeli apartheid, and her giving Finkelstein a platform, I now believe that Candace Owens is “little bit anti-Semitic.”
Originally published in The American Spectator
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