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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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The PA governor is Jewish. I wonder if having him on the ticket would hurt with turnout with a segment of the Dem base?

I think everyone's forgotten about Palestine already. I can't tell what the new current thing is yet, but the flags in bios have slowly started to change again.

but the flags in bios have slowly started to change again

At first I thought you were making a joke about NPC firmware updates being rolled out. Then again, maybe you were!

"bios flags" now have two different meanings.

Wait until the fall college semester starts.

It's possible, but I doubt it. I don't think the anti-Zionist segment of the Democratic Party are anti-Jew enough to stay home over a Jewish VP candidate. I'm not aware of Shapiro making any particularly egregious anti-Palestinian statements.

The Muslims in Michigan absolutely are.

If the candidate doesn't signal support for Israel or preferably explicitly signals disapproval, I don't think many Michigan Muslims would care about the mere fact they're Jewish. At least not enough for it to make them not vote.

I don't think many Michigan Muslims would care about the mere fact they're Jewish.

My sense at least is that politically active and religious Muslims are generally pretty abundantly anti-semitic. And we're not talking about a guy raised secular who doesn't identify at all with his background; wikipedia describes Shapiro as an observant Conservative Jew and quotes him as saying, among other things "Israel not only has a right, they have a responsibility to rid the region of Hamas and the terror that Hamas can perpetrate".

Even without the above statements, any image of him entering a Synagogue or near an Israel flag would likely spread around hardcore Muslim communities like wildfire as proof he's a bloodsucking Yahud Zionist who they have a duty to treat as an existential fundamental enemy in their Holy War.

That's fair due to his statements about Israel. (That Wikipedia article shows even more divisive examples than just saying Israel should wipe out Hamas.) I think if he were just a random Jew who hadn't commented on Israel or was somewhat more critical, they mostly would be fine with voting for him.

Muslims can certainly be antisemitic, but - and I could be wrong - I think most Muslims in the US don't really have an issue with Jews who aren't known to be supportive of Israel. For some that may require active condemnation of Israel, but for others I think lack of explicit, vocal support is sufficient.

Muslims can certainly be antisemitic, but - and I could be wrong - I think most Muslims in the US don't really have an issue with Jews who aren't known to be supportive of Israel.

It depends on how religious/political the Muslims in question are. If we're talking about people who are basically entirely secular, then maybe they wouldn't care. But I doubt that's the case for those seem to care strongly about Israel, which seem to be those causing headaches for the Democrats in Michigan etc. I'd be stunned if the fervour of their anti-Israel sentiment doesn't strongly correlate with outright Jew-hatred. I can't imagine, for instance, a prayer in an American Mosque for Palestinian victory in their quest to murder all Jews in the Holy Land to end with a reminder to the congregation that American non-Zionist Jews are decent people, and it's important to be nice to them.

Hmm. Maybe Harris is better off with Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, or Mark Kelly then.

The online Right has hypersensitive Jewdar, but I don't think the online Left is as attuned to whether random politicians are Jewish. He's not an Israeli. I'm trying to look up whether he has ever set foot in Israel. The answer appears to be not yet.

It might confuse voters who don’t want to vote for Ben Shapiro. I’m not kidding. It would be less stupid than the voters who couldn’t figure out what the giant arrows on the butterfly ballot meant.

An election’s outcome can potentially be flipped by bad ballot design – not just the misalignment of rows, but also choices as seemingly minor as the order of candidates’ names, which disproportionately favors those at the top of the ballot.

This sounds less like a ballot problem and more like an electorate problem.

On the one hand, I can totally believe this, but on the other hand I think anyone who would get confused by this probably doesn't know who Ben Shapiro is.