|
November 10, 2024
Five Key Takeaways:
1) It's been 401 days since October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel on Simchat Torah and murdered 1,200 people (including 44 Americans). More Jews were murdered on that day than on any day since the Holocaust. Hamas wounded 3,300 and took 251 hostage during a day of brutal savagery and sexual violence; 101 hostages, many dead, some raped and possibly pregnant, remain captive in Gaza.
2) The 101 remaining hostages include seven Americans, four probably alive: Keith Siegal, Omer Neutra, Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Itay Chen, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Gad Haggai. A ceasefire conditioned on releasing all hostages must remain a top priority.
3) We are on the road to fascism but we are not there yet. Kamala Harris conceded with grace and class. We cannot succomb to despair. We must meet the moment with hope and optimism, knowing that we are right and we only need to convince a small percentage of Trump voters to win next time. In the meantime, the next four years will be hard, especially for the most vulnerable members of our society, and even more so if we remain silent.
4) Jews were among the few segments of the electorate that did not shift toward Trump. Jewish voters supported Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by 45 points nationally (71-26) and by 52 points in Pennsylvania (75-23).
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week, fun stuff, and upcoming events.
This is a reader-supported newsletter. You're welcome to read for free, but if you get something out of this newsletter, you can give something back by credit card or PayPal, by Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (last four phone digits are 9479), or by check. Thank you.
Hi Steve,
I was right about everything in my newsletter last week except who would win. Trump is every bit as dangerous, corrupt, and incompetent as I said he was. My prediction that Harris would win was based on Winston Churchill's observation that "Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else."
I was wrong but was Churchill wrong? I think not. We elected Trump again. But we can still try something else.
We are on the road to fascism and illiberal democracy but we are not there yet.
Kamala Harris conceded with grace and class. I'd show you Trump's concession speech from 2020 for comparison but four years later, he has yet to concede his loss in 2020. Joe Biden too displayed the grace and class we have the right to expect from our leaders.
Kamala Harris will not incite a violent insurrection to overturn the election results. Democrats will not storm the Capitol. If Democrats win control of the House, they will certify the election. If they are in the minority, the vast majority will vote to certify. They will not cry about phony charges of election fraud this time.
Living in a democracy means accepting the results of free and fair elections, even those that don't go your way. Harris and Biden modeled this understanding last week. Democracy works only when the side that loses has a chance to win next time. That's the right we need to preserve.
Trump will attempt to implement as much of Project 2025 as possible. It will be up to us to use whatever levers of power we have to fight as much of it as we can. To the extent we succeed, Republicans will benefit because Trump will not be as bad as we said he was.
To the extent we cannot stop Trump, and if we can stop Republicans from undermining our electoral system, we must win in 2026 the same way we won in 2018 and 2020: hard work and enthusiasm.
Maybe Trump will reduce the price of eggs. The more likely result is that his proposed tariffs will increase inflation across the board. Trump seems not to realize that consumers, not foreign countries, pay for tariffs.
The question then becomes whether voters will blame Trump. Those who are in a cult of anger and resentment might not. But Harris probably lost because her administration was blamed for inflation even though inflation was a worldwide phenomenon caused by the post-COVID recovery and even though her administration implemented policies that significantly slowed the inflation rate. Uninformed or misled voters blame incumbents whether incumbents deserve blame or not, and as others have pointed out, you eat groceries, not democracy.
Some Trump voters resented coastal elites and pointy-head college professors who can't even park a bicycle straight. Some are bigots who viewed Trump's Madison Square Garden hate-fest positively.
I offer this by way of explanation, not excuse. There is no excuse for supporting a 34-time convicted felon who paid hush money to cover up sex with a porn star four months after his wife gave birth to prevent Americans from knowing his true character before an election, a would-be authoritarian with no respect for democracy who stole classified documents, incited an insurrection, refused to accept the results of a lawful election, was found legally liable for sexual abuse, compiled a terrible record as president, and repeatedly engages in antisemitic rhetoric and emboldens white nationalists.
The good news is that nearly half the country understands this. Instead of despairing that half the country has lost its way, we should take hope knowing that half the country has not lost its mooring and that we have a solid base to build on. Trump barely won half the popular vote and if a few hundred thousand votes out of 150 million total votes had gone the other way in swing states then everyone criticizing Harris's campaign would be praising its brilliance.
Democracy is hard work that never ends. It's never one and done. Don't fall into despair. That's what authoritarians count on. They wear you down, tire you out, and while you are sleeping they try to privatize as much of government as possible so that the oligarchs, not you, are in control.
Don't accept any of Trump's attempts to undermine our democracy as normal or right. We must speak out. If you're not comfortable speaking out, support this newsletter--I will not stop speaking out.
On Tuesday, our country took a big step toward fascism. We are not there yet. It's still up to us. When you're feeling down, read this letter that E.B. White wrote in 1973 to someone who lost his faith in humanity. We can do this.
Will Trump add free psychiatric care for Jews to Obamacare? Trump repeatedly said that Jews who don't vote for him ought to have their heads examined. Jews were among the few segments where Trump made no inroads.
Jewish voters supported Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by 45 points nationally (71-26) and by 52 points in Pennsylvania (75-23). Read the press release, polling analysis, topline polling results, national crosstabs, and Pennsylvania crosstabs,
Trump knows it. He thanked many groups for their support but not Jews. We should wear that omission as a badge of honor.
Rob Eshman explains that to our credit, "American Jews, with democracy foremost on their minds, refused to reward someone who fomented an attack on Congress, rejected the results of a fair election, and trafficked in divisive, often antisemitic rhetoric."
You'll see some polls with other results. If even Trump knows that the polls showing more Jewish support for him are unsound, you should too. The test is not who conducted or paid for the poll. Those who commission any poll might choose not to release certain results but they won't fudge the results--the reputation of their pollster is on the line.
The test is whether the questions themselves are biased ("you're not crazy enough to vote for this guy, are you?") and whether the methodology is sound. This memo describes the methodological challenges of polling Jewish voters.
Any poll that does not meet these challenges or does not disclose enough information about its methodology for you to evaluate whether it met those challenges is a poll you can disregard. Thus far, the polls showing that Trump did well among Jewish voters have failed to meet the requisite standards. This applies to results you like, too. No way that Harris got 78% or 79% of the Jewish vote.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. No one pointed out any substantive errors in last week's newsletter. There were two typos that did not change the meaning.
In Case You Missed It:
1) President Biden called the antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam "despicable."
2) JCPA response to the election of Donald Trump. We have the right to expect this level of moral clarity from all of our Jewish communal institutions. 501(c)(3)s are not required to surrender their values or mute their criticism of policies counter to their values.
3) Jews named Josh will be 6% of U.S. governors (and 50% of Jewish governors).
4) I was quoted in this analysis from Arno Rosenfeld.
Tweets of the Week. Joe Biden and Alex Edelman.
Twitter Thread of the Week. Rabbi Shai Held.
Video Clip of the Week. Jon Stewart.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder (yes, I wrote it). If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism and on the IHRA definition of antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
I hope you enjoyed today's newsletter. It takes time to write and costs money to send. If you'd like to chip in, click here and fill in the amount of your choice. You don't need a PayPal account. If you see something that says "Save your info and create a PayPal account," click the button to the right and it will go away. Or you can Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (last four phone digits are 9479). Or you can send a check.
| 
