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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28224 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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The Israel/Hamas conflict is really interesting because it is tearing the progressive coalition apart.

In every other major news event recently (BLM riots / Covid lockdowns / Ukraine war) there has been an unambiguous correct orthodoxy that is strictly enforced on all members of the coalition. Even slightly wavering from the party line is sufficient for cancellation.

Early on in the war, it seemed like we almost go to a similar point. There were strong efforts to make support for Israel the official party line. A few people even got canceled for expressing support for Palestine. But the inconvenient truth is that a majority of the progressive rank and file supports Palestine over Israel.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Neither party feels like a natural home for Jewish people right now. Will Jewish people start to lean towards the Republicans? Will the Democrats abandon their progressive wing? I guess we'll see. The conflict has been a real mask-off moment for who the real anti-Semites are in America.

To use the UK as a parallel example, provided this source is correct (the link to the paper it cites is broken) Jews here voted 31% for Labour and 30% for Conservatives. Remove don't knows and it's 36% to 35%. The actual election result was 29% to 36%, so they were somewhat more likely to vote Labour than the general population.

Then Corbyn became the leader of Labour after their 2015 election loss and, to massively simplify, falls firmly on the pro-Hamas wing of progressivism, and arguably doesn't even care about domestic progressive policymaking at all because he's a foreign policy wonk. So at the next election, Jews voted 63% for Conservative to 26% for Labour, the latter likely holding up somewhat only because the third party left-wing option had collapsed. The actual election results were 42% and 40% respectively.

Note, Jews supporting the Conservatives was used by some as a deflection for Corbyn's antisemitism on the basis that they'd be politically motivated to smear opposition candidates, but prior to him showing up, Jews did not align with the Conservatives, or any other party, in any particular way.

It has been darkly amusing to watch the "NAZIS ARE EVERYWHERE, WE MUST FIGHT BACK" crowd going to bat for the honest-to-goodness "Round up the Jews and exterminate them" authoritarian brigade.

I recognize that secular progressive types believe that Satan isn't real, and that the idea that the Adversary reveals himself through his accusations is a silly backward superstition. But as bets go, it continues to pay out.

Edit: a word

Adversary reveals himself through his accusations

I didn't know this was a common idea? Is there some background reading for it?

I don't know whether it qualifies as "common idea" but Satan's role in Catholic doctrine is as "the accuser" or "the prosecutor". And there is a related idea that as it is what he does, he cannot do otherwise. Satan accuses God of being a narcissist, a hypocrite, and power-mad because those are the facets of God that Satan sees in himself. This manifests itself in trad-cath circles in various ways, including the old saw about for every finger pointed there are 4 pointed back.

Will Jewish people start to lean towards the Republicans?

They'll more likely support Hamas than Republicans, exceptions like Kushner aside. That's how powerful Democratic hold over respectability is.

They'll more likely support Hamas than Republicans, exceptions like Kushner aside.

As a Jewish man, i can’t even begin to describe how misinformed this is. Believe you me, we are the furthest thing from a monolith, with the quirky Larry David-esque stereotype being but a minuscule sliver of the diversity of the American Jewish community.

Consider this: just today in my random internet readings, I’ve come across Jewish opinion running the full gamut: from far-right hawks like Ben Shapiro, to stereotypical campus, progressives, academic leftists, deeply religious orthodox and pickup-driving gun toting southerners. We are all of that and more, plus everything in between.

Your random internet readings give you a qualitative view, not a quantitative one. The vast bulk of American Jews, aside from the ultra-orthodox, are Democrats through and through.

This is meaningless though without the accounting for the political leanings of where Jews happen to live. I’m willing to bet if you the average Jew was no more democrat leaning than the median voter in his county, you’d still come away with Jews, measured at the national level, leaning democrat. But normalize for the political leanings of where Jews live and I guarantee you’d see a very different picture.

Even if their Democratic lean is caused by location (which I doubt), they're still not going to vote Republican; it's just not done.

Jews have been leaning more republican in the last number of elections

That's normalizing out the result though. If they had more political diversity, they wouldn't all chose to live in those places.

If they had more political diversity, they wouldn't all chose to live in those places.

What's your evidence that the causality always goes from location to political views?

I read the above comment as pointing in the other direction. That people with 'urban' political views are more likely to move to the city and less likely to move away.

Secular Jews have 70% intermarriage rates, Orthodox are more conservative politically. Realignment is already happening, but it will take a while for it to show up in polling data. The main thing that affects how Jewish populations vote is religious conservatism, not really secular politics (even zionism). British Jews are more Orthodox than American Jews and the majority vote Tory, in recent years this was construed as a backlash against Corbyn's pro-Palestinian sentiment, but this was incorrect. In 2015, before Corbyn and when the Labour party literally had a Jewish candidate for PM, polling suggested only 22% of British Jews would vote Labour, 69% planned to vote Tory. 65% of British Jews are at least nominally Orthodox, perhaps 15-20% (if that) of American Jews are.

As the American Jewish population becomes more Orthodox political alignment will slowly switch.

“become more orthodox” -> does this mean Jewish population goes up or down? I assume Orthodox Jews have more kids, but I assume way less than the super Orthodox ones in Brooklyn?

does this mean Jewish population goes up or down?

You need to define the term "Jewish population" for this question to make sense because the parent relies on an intermarriage rate.

People with Jewish ancestry? Probably up. People with Jewish ancestry >50%? Probably down. People who identify as Jews? Also probably down, unless it becomes trendy. That's the short term anyways, long term, the numbers could increase with the birth rates that the orthodox have.

Estimates of the US Jewish population vary significantly because of the high rates of intermarriage and large non-observant population. In the long term I’d guess the population would rise. Modern Orthodox have fewer children than Chareidim (Ultra-Orthodox), but often still well above replacement.

I don't think Jews are quite as captured by slave mentality/outgroup bias as other progressive whites.

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