From Haaretz:
Tribalism Fuels Orthodox Jews’ Support for Trump
They risk becoming the Jewish version of the ‘Alt-Right,’ a community that champions its own ethnic interests even when the result is outright bigotry.
Peter Beinart Aug 31, 2016 6:32 PM
Obviously, Jews, being naive newcomers to organizing politically, must be taking lessons from those ancient masters of the game, the ‘Alt-Right.’
Haaretz 2012:
“If Israel does not survive as a Jewish democratic state, I want to be able to tell my children that I did what little I’m capable of. I’m a writer, so what I can do is to try to sound an alarm. I just want to be able to say that to them.”
The man speaking is Peter Beinart, the journalist, essayist and author who became American Jewry’s most prominent prophet of doom following the publication of his 2010 article, “The Failure of the Jewish Establishment.” It is a role that will now be cemented in stone with the publication of his new book “The Crisis of Zionism,” in which he calls on American Jews “to defend the dream of a democratic Jewish state before it is too late.”
…there’s a part of me, as a Jew, who, when I look at the AIPAC conference, says: ‘Wow, we’re good. Who else could do this?’ I feel the same way when I see the list of Nobel Prize winners.
…“I think one question that American Jews who are on the left have to face is how much they care about this compared to everything else. People say, ‘Yes, and what about global warming?’ That’s part of the reason I don’t come at this from a purely universalistic perspective. You say to people: You have to be involved in this struggle because it’s the struggle of your people, it’s your honor.”
COMMENTS:
* “You have to be involved in this struggle because it’s the struggle of your people, it’s your honor.”
This is what Peter Beinart believes: He and his co-ethnics get to have an “our people”. We don’t.
* #ALTJEW we are here we are not going away. any jew who supports islamic immigration is signing their own death warrent. nothing bigoted about wanting to be safe. nothing bigoted about wanting your neigborhoods free of 3rd world backward cultures. remember who were the first to do whiteflight in NYC & the n east? the jews. now many live in suburban gated areas, their memories have come up short.
* I actually have a lot of WN friends these days. If they accept me, I accept them is how I look at it. And I understand their critique of disproportionate Jewish power and influence.
* They’re either not really your friends, or not really WN as the term is usually understood. It’s possible you hung out with a bunch of Breitbart-level American nationalists who are willing to accept minorities who play by the rules, but read the Daily Stormer or TheRightStuff’s response to Joshua Seidel. They don’t want any Jews, period (and are quite forceful about it).
I suspect the background is the neocon takeover–they’re afraid if they let any in their movement will eventually be run by Jews. I think the Buckley purge had more to do with WFB wanting to look respectable to the general public (WW2 was still fresh in everyone’s mind and he probably could see which way the civil rights movement was going)…but I can see where these guys are coming from.
* Check out Jewamongyou, Lion of the Blogosphere, and Pragmatically Distributed.
* Really, the best definition of “alt-right” is “whites who are as racially conscious as non-whites and Jews”. Alt-right journalists could cut and paste pieces straight from Beinart, such as that last sentence: “You have to be involved in this struggle because it’s the struggle of your people, it’s your honor.”
* To champion tribal or ethnic heritage is to prefer one’s own kind (family, relations, extended family as contained in religious, language and cultural bonds) over those that are not your kind. Be it gracious or insidious, it’s a preference. Call it intolerance if you must. But my preference for my brother or my mother, rather than a stranger, is a feature, not a bug, of life existence.
But Beinart thinks this shameful? That sound you’re hearing? Exploding heads…
* Unfortunately, I think Trump will lose. But if he wins, things will get C*R*A*Z*Y real fast. Soros-driven civil disobedience, assasination attempts, impeachment hearings, and I wouldn’t even completely exclude a coup followed by a crackdown.
In general, the amount of craziness in the air seems to be increasing. If future scientists identify some environmental cause of global mental instability and plot its variations through time, this would be one of the peak periods, together with the late 1960s and early 1990s.
* I see that Mr. Beinart’s opinion is heavy in moral argument. Is moral argument like alcohol in that genetic lines develop resistance after long exposure? If so, how do the world’s people line up in tolerance to moral argument?
* Alan Dershowitz, David Brooks, Abe Foxman, Jennifer Rubin, and John Podhoretz have no tribal identity. It’s just a coincidence that they want different immigration policies for Israel and the United States. I usually to cut Beinart some slack (since he admitted that he was wrong about the Iraq War, and understands that Jewish liberals who support the Israeli right are hypocrites) but this piece deserves ridicule.
* I took a walk through Boro Park today. The vast majority of the Yiddish signs I saw were pro Trump.
* Nobody tell Haaretz about us alt-right sympathetic Jews (and no, we’re not self-hating, and yes, we’ve read KMac, and yes, we understand that WN is important in the alt-right and no, we’re not in favor of our own expulsion or extermination). Their heads might explode.
If as the comment above says Jews favor Clinton over Trump 2:1 that’s a lot better than I thought, given the relentless parade of anti-Trump pearl-clutching articles in Tablet, Forward, Haaretz, etc.
* Remember, Bill Clinton’s presidency sparked the rise of the “militia movement”, which was obviously overhyped by liberals, but there was the development of that whole subculture, which overlaps with the anti-New World Order, conspiracy theory subculture and the white nationalist subcultures. These subcultures were overhyped by liberals, but there was genuine related craziness during the Clinton administration, like the Oklahoma City bombing. These subcultures have only grown and become more popular with the rise of the internet and the Obama administration. Things have gone more liberal, and Hillary would be even more liberal than her husband’s administration, so there might be some craziness if Hillary wins as well.
The amount of craziness in the air is due to the rise of the internet and the fragmentation of people into different online subcultures and communities. People are increasingly inhabiting different mental worlds.
* Don’t count Hillary out!
When Bill pardoned those welfare/school scamming rabbis and machers from Rockland County, the word went out from the bull rabbis and Hillary got 1214 (of 1215!) votes in one of the ultra-Orthodox ‘villes.
She knows how to buy the black hat vote.
* I just read an article about a radio interview on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show and Jonah Goldberg.
The bottom line of what Goldberg had to say was that the alt-right was like an onion with layers. In the center was the core alt-righters who are racists, nuts etc. Then there are some outer layers of somewhat saner, nicer people that had been led astray.
But after Donald Trump is humiliatingly defeated, these saner alt-righters can be herded like good little sheep back to the true conservative fold, and all will be well, and they will follow orders (I guess from Goldberg et al) as they should.
* I listen to HH, and heard the interview, and this is about right. Hugh’s been doing quite a bit of Righteous Republican hygiene-maintenance in the past couple of days, bringing on guests (e.g. Rich Lowry yesterday) who denounce the alt-right racists and explain how they’re not quite the same as the ‘nationalists’ and ‘populists’ who support Trump, but who can indeed still be reclaimed as good Republicans.
HH is good on many issues, but he’s a typical baby boomer who’s terrified of being called racist, and he’s got potential career advancement in TV at stake, so he’s trying to support Trump’s candidacy while simultaneously washing his hands of him; it’s not always so pretty to listen to . . . .
* I am sure it must help that Trump’s grandchildren are being raised Orthodox. The Orthodox are not too keen on gay marriage or electing women into positions of leadership. At least Hillary dresses modestly.
Since the Orthodox have to walk to synagogue on the Sabbath, they tend to live in urban neighborhoods and not partake in White flight which means that they are often surrounded by Black or Latino neighborhoods, often with less than ideal inter-community relations. I have been suprised at how Anti-Semitic some Blacks are in in New York City. Unlike native Black Americans, the heavily Caribbean immigrant population in Brooklyn does not associate Jews with the civil rights movement (not that Hasids were ever marching from Selma to Montgomery). For various reasons, the Orthodox tend to be somewhat immune to the standard media Narrative.
By the way, it looks like New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind will not be invited to Corey Booker’s Purim party next year.
* What you are all missing is that whilst it seems obvious to you that liberal Jews are really pursuing their own ethnic interests by promoting liberalism, to Peter Beinhart it seems obvious that by promoting liberalism they are going against their own ethnic interests. The truth is somewhat in the middle: most Jews support liberalism, the dominant ethical ideal of our time, making larger or smaller exceptions when it contradicts their own interests LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. I remember when I was at university and the last all-male choirs were being “desegregated”; many people were upset, but they all had good explanations for why there should be an exception to liberalism in this case, because music is important to them and thus matters unlike things that are important to other people, which don’t.
