The deliberately ignorant: It appears fourteen million copies of The Grapes of Wrath have been printed. When I worked in the campus bookstore, lots of them went through the used-book counter, so more than one reader. And there was the movie. But to suggest there was a drought worse than anything since, see the Depression Dust Bowl, brings puzzled gazes from the climate freaks. Can’t make the connection.
Gaza: Setting up to fight from among civilians is a war crime. Blank looks.

Justine Damond; Who?

But Jews I’ve met don’t seem like that.

So, other than that Republicans are icky, I don’t get it.

(To be compared and contrasted with that UN-style Humor link above….)

…Though to be fair to Egypt, they’re probably just not being bribed enough.
(Actually, maybe they ARE!!)

File under: Pump up the volume…
– – – – – – – – – – –
(And this probably should be under that “Here we go again” thread…but the heck with it…)

RFK Jr., revisited; with some strong, forceful, honest, unfettered Fetterman-like pronouncements.
‘RFK Jr. Unleashed: Biden’s Israel “Bait And Switch”, COVID Censorship, And Backing Treasuries With Gold And Bitcoin’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rfk-jr-unleashed-bidens-israel-bait-and-switch-covid-censorship-and-backing-treasuries-gold

IOW, he’s much, much more than just a nutty scion….

And if it’s humor you’re after—no, not the Seinfeld walkout—but Ambassador Jumping (in figure eights) Jack Lew with some wicked standup!
“…Biden admin has no ‘real disagreements’ with Israel”—
https://www.jns.org/lew-biden-admin-has-no-real-disagreements-with-israel/

…Nor would one wish to forget the laughably precious prevaricators at the UN….
“UN blames ‘fog of war’ for major overcounting of Gazan child deaths”—
https://www.jns.org/un-blames-fog-of-war-for-major-overcounting-of-gazan-child-fatalities/

That’s right! Keep those BLOOD LIBELS coming!! (Especially those really cool GLOBAL ones…)

Change is hard. I say this is a big stuff.

Best of luck.

It’s not that simple. It’s hard to go against one’s upbringing and connections.

Seems to me most conservatives have never had to make that choice at an identity level. Of course, that’s part of what being a conservative is about.

I have no idea what you mean by this:

Jews have no such obvious excuses. They don’t live in a cocoon making rational assessment of factors a mere inconvenience.

Jews are young and old, rich and poor, stable and troubled, etc. etc.. The young ones especially have lived – until quite recently – as much in a cocoon as anyone else in the US. For most of them, until October 7th and its aftermath, Israel was a far-off place they’d never visited and didn’t necessarily follow or feel had all that much to do with them. They had only experienced petty anti-Semitism now and then, nothing like what’s going on now. They had grown up in a bubble in which Jews were treated better than in most places and times in history. Now they are becoming more aware in a kind of shock, but it’s new to them and things are in flux.

You also write: “As Jews, they don’t have to invent a self-image.” I have no idea what you mean there, either. Do you think most Jews in America go around thinking that Jewishness IS their self-image? Jews identify like other people: as their professions, as parents, as Americans, as rich, as poor, as Republicans, as Democrats, as heterosexual, as homosexual, as married, as single, as college students, as workers, etc. etc. etc.

Florida’s Jews are now the most conservative of any state. It is difficult to do accurate surveys for a host of reasons, but the best ones I’ve read indicate that in 2020 the Jews of Florida voted in the low 40s for Trump. What’s more, the Jews of Florida are trending more conservative whereas many years ago they were reliably Democrat-voting.

For example:

The ethnic and religious changes in Miami’s Jewish community have naturally had political implications, with the community becoming more conservative in recent years. In his 2014 study, Ira Sheskin found that of nine major Jewish communities around the United States, Miami-area Jews were the most likely to be Republican. The Jewish retirees who 50 years ago identified with the New Deal policies of the Democratic Party have been replaced in part by immigrant Jews who have lived under authoritarian leftist governments. The anti-Castro Cubans [that is, Jewish refugees from Cuba] were the first, but they were followed by Jews from Nicaragua, Venezuela and Peru. Russian Jews came with an intimate knowledge of Soviet Communism. When Republican politicians accuse their Democratic opponents of supporting a “socialist” agenda, the charge resonates among many foreign-born Miami Jews …

Another factor working against the Democrats is the growth of the Orthodox population in the Miami area. A 2020 study by the Pew Research Center found that 75 percent of Orthodox Jews in the United States identify with the Republican Party, while an approximately equal share of Reform or Conservative Jews lean Democratic, so the changing religious profile of the Miami community soon strengthened the Republican position. The extent of the Republican shift became starkly evident in the November 2022 elections. Governor Ron DeSantis took a wide majority of the vote in Miami-Dade County, the first time since Jeb Bush’s election in 2002 that Miami voters backed a Republican gubernatorial candidate. Republicans also won three of the four congressional races in the county and 15 of Miami-Dade’s 22 state legislative seats. Of the winning candidates, none is Jewish, an outcome not seen in Miami since the early 1960s. Across Florida, a Fox News exit poll suggested that 45 percent of Jewish voters supported DeSantis in his reelection bid.

Who is this “we” you are speaking of?

We can comprehend, if not sympatize with AWFL. Their lives are characterized by mush, rounded edges and soft landings. Their decisions are rarely going to make OBVIOUS errors, just….unfavorable endings. Which can be self-ameliorated (is that a word?) by saying, “I was just trying to….” something warm, fuzzy and for which one cannot be blamed. And they are snobbishly dismissive of others.

There are the Walmart conservatives, a grossly over-generalized group who thinks socially conservative but has to or think they have to vote for a living. For benefits. For “programs”. Whether they come to fruition or not. For “fairness”. Tough to be them, but it’s understandable as long as we figure they don’t know or can’t afford to know they’re voting against their own interests ultimately.

The people who seek self identity as the righteous and just and whose ideas–and votes–are “courageous” to the extent they are counterintuitive, at least to rational people, and opposed by the proles.

Various racial minorities have been skillfully misled for generations.

Jews have no such obvious excuses. They don’t live in a cocoon making rational assessment of factors a mere inconvenience. They don’t have to vote for a living.

As Jews, they don’t have to invent a self-image.

While we can comprehend the foregoing without sympathizing with it, and in addition see those honestly trying to destroy our society, we can see no reason for Jews to vote as they are said to vote. That’s frustrating. We may ridicule AWFL, but we have something to ridicule.

I am not particularly enraged. I do have a hard timed with people who are so ignorant that it must be purposeful. Those chap my butt.

Jews voting against their interests puzzles me.