Democracy 2024: # 44

Before getting into the heavy or depressing stuff, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the fact that the Texas Rangers won the World Series this past week for the first time. I was pleased to see this especially because my favorite living President (not even a close contest) George W. Bush must have been quite thrilled. After all, he was once the Managing General Partner of the Rangers before becoming Governor and President, but as a lifelong baseball fan, he has kept up his Rangers fandom all these years. I know how it feels when the team you root for finally wins it all after years of heartbreak. I was a lot younger than Dubya is too.

I watched him throw out the first pitch of Game 1 in Arlington (and wow the Rangers sure dominated on the road this post-season and barely won at home except for this particular game) and was pleased to see a rousing ovation for the 43rd President. I thought he would be warmly received but you never know these days. After all, Democrats used to hate, hate hate him but many of them have smartly gained perspective. Unfortunately, the Republican Party I was once so enthusiastic about seems to no longer exist. There are relatively very few "Bush Republicans" who are willing to admit it. Some upper class suburbanites who live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex who may have had World Series tickets might qualify though. It would be interesting to see their recent voting habits.

It also occurred to me that among all MLB franchises, the Rangers probably play in the most conservative "territory." The African-American Mayor of Dallas recently changed his party affiliation to become a Republican. While I do not particularly care one way or another, I also read something that said the Rangers were the only MLB team not to have some sort of "Pride" event. In any event, congratulations to the Rangers and their fans, which thankfully do not include Ted Cruz.

Now, I have to write about things that are not enjoyable to write about. Chief among them is the ongoing situation in Israel and Gaza. If anybody has been reading this over the past few weeks, my feelings should be well-known. I am still trying to come to grips with the attitudes of some people in the United States. I have always known anti-Semitism exists and as a Jewish-American have been mostly able to shrug it off my entire life. I have never really encountered anybody who insulted me face to face. I have dealt over the years with hateful anti-Jewish emails, which largely came from my association with a political blog comment section some time back.Those people were definitely on the left. A particularly smug leftist used to accuse me of being a "Nazi sympathizer" because I voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. Others on this website did not agree with him, but they also largely let his comments pass without any judgment against him in that small community.

More recently, some people online whom I used to be allied with in the Republican Party have tried to suggest I am a "self-hating Jew" because I did not vote for Donald Trump. In their view, because Trump was good for Israel (highly debatable in my view) that I am being "disloyal." Trump himself has said such things about the vast majority of American Jews, who happened to not vote for him. In this mindset, the loyalty of these people should be to Israel and not America, and that is about as anti-Semitic as it gets.

It goes without saying that white supremacists and others on the fringe right have a deep seated resentment of Jews. Since October 7 however, we have been seeing shocking incidents of left-wing anti-Semitism. One does not have to dig very deep into social media discussions to see people who advocate trans-rights, gay rights, and womens' rights and every other progressive "woke" cause you can think of, take the side of Palestinians against Israel, even if that means excusing or minimizing the actions of Hamas. This is of course completely illogical because Israel is the only "liberal" country in the Middle East and everything that these social justice warriors say they support are unthinkable in Gaza or throughout the Arab world or in Iran. There have been instances of Jewish-Americans having property violated in this country and being accosted by strangers, some of whom have been yelling "Hitler was right." The people yelling such things are not the folks who marched in Charlottesville, at least not the ones who had the Tiki torches.

I heard 20 years ago a speech about how "the left hates Israel" and I used to talk about it to liberals and many took offense. Now, it seems hard to ignore. As angry and betrayed I have felt (and continue to feel) towards the Republican Party in this Trump era,  one cannot ignore the polls that show Republicans largely support Israel's right to defend itself and sadly most Democrats, at least in these surveys, do not. I have long wished that more Republicans and conservatives would have joined me in standing up early to Trumpism, including the ridiculously bigoted and un-American calls for Muslim bans and the like. Mainstream Democrats should consider that they are dealing with a similar situation, especially as it relates to young people and and anti-Semitism.

I could not possibly do justice to discussing the roots of anti-Semitism or why it persists around the world but it must be spoken out against and opposed, such as bigotry against Muslims should. The Biden Administration was given plaudits for standing with Israel in the immediate wake of the attack against it but political pressure is mounting. There is so much talk these days about "ceasefires"and "pauses" and there is a lot of nuances about what all those things mean exactly but we can be sure that Hamas is not interested in any sort of "pause" in their desire to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. They openly say so. They are actively planning more and more attacks on Israel and yet so many people, including American politicians think Israel should be standing down.

Frankly, the pressure on Joe Biden and his party is building and is going to get even worse  The vocal activists in the party simply do not like Israel and hate the general idea of "war" (of course overlooking the people who started the war.) Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib put out a video the other day in which she openly incorporated a chant that favors the destruction of Israel as well as saying that her fellow Democrat Joe Biden is complicit in "genocide." Democrats are worrying, perhaps for good reason, that their support among Muslim-Americans might plummet and that any sort of fall-off could hurt them in places like Michigan. Tlaib is openly threatening as much. There is plenty of evidence to show just how unenthusiastic young liberals, especially those of color, are towards Biden, and if they do not vote for him, he may very well lose. Thus the pressure for Biden to put distance between himself and Israel is going to be immense. We will see what the old man is really made of.

Jewish-Americans are and have for generations have heavily voted for Democrats (which of course used to frustrate me greatly as a Jewish GOP activist.) If Biden goes wobbly are they now going to abandon him in greater numbers for the likes of Donald Trump? That would be hard for many to do, but there is a huge and grown chasm among Democrats over this issue. Voters at large may say images of large rallies and people caring Palestinian flags chanting anti-Israel and anti-American slogans and this chaos may produce a backlash and lead some to supporting the "chaos candidate" and the one who unironically casts himself as the candidate of "law and order" Donald Trump.

We are now just about a year away from the 2024 election. There will be some things to take into consideration from voting this coming Tuesday that political partisans will try to overemphasize. If a Democrat somehow wins the Governorship of Mississippi (I will write in detail about that race tomorrow), you can expect the party to proclaim a landslide against Republicans is in the offing. If the Republican candidate in Kentucky beats conventional wisdom (as at least one poll now shows a much tightened race) and knocks off the incumbent Governor, you can be certain that Republican partisans will be hollering that Biden is headed for a landslide defeat. Everyone should be cautious. Off-year elections the year before the Presidential vote usually do not mean all that much.

With Congress back in session, it was quite a divisive and silly week. The Senate fought one particular obstructionist over military promotions but most of the news was in the House were there were censure resolutions and motions to expel a Member and votes about Hamas and anti-Semitism on college campuses and all sorts of efforts to get people "on the record" in advance of the next election. I think the anti-Hamas resolution should have been a slam-dunk and while it passed easily, I am quite surprised that so many Democrats did actually vote against it.

The other matters were more ridiculous in general and I think the average American voter just looks down on the whole circus. I do think that Rashida Tlaib should be censured for her recent comments and actions but Marjorie Taylor-Green is not the one who should be leading the effort. She obviously has her own issues with anti-Jewish statements in the past. The particular censure resolution against Tlaib contained exaggerations and falsehoods so I would have voted against it (or maybe Present) too. 

While indicted New York Republican Congressman George Santos ought to resign out of sheer embarrassment, I think having a vote to expel him from Congress was a bad idea without due process. All of these things set a bad precedent. Santos will have his day in court. Beyond that the voters in his district, including in a primary, will have their say too. I do not think it will work out well for him. The effort by his fellow New York Republicans who represent difficult districts to remove him from office seems more about them trying to provide themselves with political cover for 2024.

Finally on this general topic, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should not allow indicted New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, accused of being a foreign agent, to have any sort of access to classified material. He should resign too but also should not be expelled entirely without due process. Other matters of sanction can be done.

I am trying to find a way to wrap this up soon. I have not even talked at all about the ongoing Presidential campaign. The Trump civil trial in New York is generating a lot of headlines. He is expected to testify in open court this coming week which of course will be a spectacle, even if non-televised. There continues to be a lot of talk about his various "gag orders."

Otherwise, the other Presidential candidates are chugging along without too much attention. It now seems that Nikki Haley has definitely surpassed Ron DeSantis for second place in both New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina.This is all pretty bad for DeSantis, who is basically in the position of needing to take first place in Iowa or be done as a candidate. This week though he actually suggested that Donald Trump should have the "balls" to show up to debate.

One can hardly blame DeSantis for wanting to change the topic away from his footwear. This is a story that would be funny if there was not so much actual craziness going on in the world. Basically, pro-Trump allies have what they believe is photographic evidence that DeSantis wears lifts in his cowboy boots which may actually be a version of high-heels. They are probably right. There is definitely something going on with DeSantis's boots and I do not believe his claims that he is 5 foot 11. Does any of this really matter though? Well, probably not, but it is hard to feel much sympathy for DeSantis, who sold his soul to Trump years ago and who has been on a personal crusade against drag queens in recent months.

So, now DeSantis says he will wear a boot on his head if Trump shows up to a debate. What does that even mean? That might actually cause Trump to show up. Trump probably wears lifts too. He certainly wears enough makeup and possibly a girdle. 

For those in the Republican Party looking for a Trump alternative (who is not too anti-Trump perhaps), Nikki Haley seems to be on a better trajectory that DeSantis and also walks better in heels.