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So, in the end, it wasn’t even close. Donald Trump comes back to the White House on the back of a campaign filled with all-over-the-shop messaging, especially when it comes to Jews and Israel.
There has been much written about how Trump is good for Israel, and I’m tempted to agree. He certainly has no great love for the Palestinians and their cause and is tied to Bibi as an anti-establishment populist who can seemingly survive any scandal. He’s tough on Iran, and doesn’t underestimate the existential threat that Israel faces as it fights on multiple fronts
This is all good for Zionist Jews, and the growing community of Maga-frummers especially in New York that have flocked to him for these reasons. It’s understandable. But, and this is a huge caveat, there is much for American Jews to be concerned about.
First, the unpredictability. It’s a pretty ironclad rule of history that times of great upheaval are basically never good for the Jews. In times of economic strife, class conflict and political divisiveness, somehow extremists always come back to blame the Jews. You can see this now as the Maga universe grows to include both the virulently anti-Israel Muslim communities of Michigan as well as antisemitic alt-right figures like Nick Fuentes, who famously visited Mar A Lago with Kanye West during the peak of Trump’s unpopularity in the wake of January 6. Trump embraces chaos and chaos is bad for Jews. It’s as simple as that.
When it comes to foreign policy, again Trump is unclear. In his first term, leaning on the Jared Kushner-led faction around him, he made peace in the Middle East. He was publicly supportive of Israel in the way that pretty much every mainstream Republican has been for half a century. This time? He’s culled all the Kushnerites and replaced them with a coterie of isolationist, America-first ideologues, whose only motivation is to get America out of the world’s business, no matter the cost to its allies. To this end, Trump was increasingly vague towards the end of the campaign about what he would do with Gaza, aside from saying he would end the war. If he suddenly loses interest in helping Israel pay for its multi-front war, Netanyahu could find himself without many options.
In the swing state of Michigan, after all the column inches and panic from the Democrats, it turns out that the malicious spoiler campaign of the Greens and Jill Stein didn’t matter. Achieving less than 1 per cent of the vote, and a third of the 100,000 uncommitted voters that pledged their support, the big Green surge was a mirage. But there is a certain anger there, that Trump courted late in the campaign. Trump is ultimately a petty and flippant politician, and he threatened Jews multiple times that they would be “fools” to vote for Kamala. He doesn’t respect much other than loyalty and Jews at large have never been hugely for Trump. His support has a conditional feeling to it - that he will support Jews and Israel only if they can do something for him. As he put it at a rally a few months ago, "If I don't win this election - and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens because if 40%, I mean, 60% of the people are voting for the enemy - Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years,"
But ultimately, American Jews are Americans first and foremost and there are millions of them waking up today worried about the basic fabric of their country’s democracy. They’re worried about abortion access, and LGBT protections and what the Supreme Court will look like for the next half a century. These are real, valid issues that go beyond identity, beyond Israel and antisemitism.
I see why people think that Trump is the answer to the rising hate on American streets and campuses. I understand that it may feel like a repudiation of those that have relentlessly mocked us, lied about us and denigrated the losses of October 7. We don’t know how the Trump story ends, but what we do know is that when demagogues rise, it never ends well for us.
English (US) ·