Jewish voting patterns in the US, and in Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

Many people seem extremely interested in this topic, far beyond what might be expected by the sheer numbers.

But it’s not as easy as one might think to poll Jews on their voting behavior. Here’s a discussion about it. The gist of the situation is that the numbers are small, there is no one group doing the polling and results depend on the pollster’s agenda, and a representative sample of Jews is very hard to get. The latter question is an especially important one because results depend on the number of Orthodox Jews polled, and it’s not an easy task to get that right and to get responses from that group.

Another problem with polling is that Jews in big blue cities vote differently than rural Jews or Jews in red states, so the mix of urban and rural, blue and red, has to be calibrated carefully, too.

I don’t think we really know that much about how Jews are voting, except that it’s virtually certain that the majority in this country vote as Democrats.

While I’m at it, there’s something else I’ve been meaning to mention, which is that I don’t think most people are aware of the huge differences between the Jews of the US and the Jews of Israel in terms of personal history and ethnicity. I’m not just talking about growing up in this country versus growing up in that country; I’m talking about background. Jews are far from a unitary group in either country, but in general the Jews of America are much less likely to be the direct descendants of Holocaust survivors. Sure, they have relatives who died in the Holocaust, but for the most part they are not close relatives, whereas the Ashkenazi Jews of Israel have a higher percentage of very close relatives who were murdered or who were Holocaust survivors with direct experience of the conflagration.

Another demographic difference is that only about half of Israel’s Jewish people are descended from European Jewry. The other half are refugees, and/or the children and grandchildren of refugees, from Arab countries. The US contains some of the latter group as well – in fact, I know a couple of them – but they constitute a much smaller percentage of America’s Jewish population than of Israel’s Jewish population.

In Israel:

Nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Europe, while around the same number are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia. Over two hundred thousand are, or are descended from, Ethiopian and Indian Jews.

The Ashkenazi Jews of Israel are more inclined to be on the left and the Mizrahi Jews of Israel (those from Arab countries) are more inclined to be on the right (see this). And of course, as in the US, the more religious Jews in Israel have more children than less religious and/or secular Jews:

Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] women have 7.7 children on average while the average Israeli Jewish woman has over 3 children.

All of this affects voting behavior, and is one of the reasons – IMHO – that the Jews of Israel are to the right of Jewish voters here. It also sharpens the voting issues in Israel that people feel their lives are at stake, day after day, in a way so obvious it can’t be denied.

Can Trump get through the firewall?

The New Neo Posted on by

The media is bound and determined to present Trump in the worst light possible, and Harris in the best light possible. To do this they will outright lie, distort the facts in more subtle ways, and ignore what doesn’t fit their narrative. For the most part, social media puts its finger on the anti-Trump scale, too.

It is propaganda, and do not underestimate its influence, which is pervasive.

One of Trump’s many problems, now that the Democrats got the impediment of Joe Biden out of the way, is to cut through all of that. During the 2016 campaign the anti-Trump propaganda was already present, but since then we’ve been subjected to nine years (starting in the summer of 2015) of it, nonstop and escalating. The lies build on the previous lies to form an edifice of anti-Trump lies, and there is also widespread ignorance about the good things that haven’t been covered or that have hardly been covered.

At this point there are a lot of Trump supporters and there are also a lot of people who would never vote for him (or perhaps for any Republican). It may be that those two groups are roughly equal in number, so let’s ignore them for a moment. It’s those voters in-between who matter in this particular election. But even they have been subjected to that relentless 9-year anti-Trump campaign in all its manifestations.

Let’s take commenter “Bauxite” at this blog, who does not like Trump but who is not – if I’m correct – any sort of Democrat. He (I assume “Bauxite” is a he; apologies if I’m wrong) writes:

If Harris was relentlessly being defined as a San Francisco progressive, who holds all of the positions that she held until about two weeks ago and utterly failed to manage the border, she might have to come out and actually take questions from the press and respond.

Instead, for the first two weeks of her campaign, when the fight to define her was on, Trump chose to focus his attacks on calling her a DEI hire and questioning her racial identity. These attacks did not land, to put it mildly. Harris is more than happy to have a campaign about diversity, firsts, and Donald Trump’s bad manners.

If Harris isn’t taking any flack on issues that the electorate actually cares about, she’s going remain behind her moat. Trump has already kissed away the best timing he will ever have in this campaign with frivolous drivel. It is debatable whether he has time to recover. It is less debatable whether he possesses the character and temperament to recover.

I disagree utterly with the first paragraph there. The MSM has its own agenda and they will interview Harris if and when they think it will help the Democrats, or if something absolutely seismic occurs with her – and those interviews, if they do occur, will be designed to enhance her campaign. The press does not respond to Trump’s accusations except to supposedly “debunk” them.

For paragraph two, I agree that we’ve heard little from Trump except tangential remarks that could hurt him as well as help him. The “Kamala wasn’t black till recently” remark was at the National Association of Black Journalists get-together, and it was in response to a question about whether Kamala was a DEI hire. The questions at that interview were in the form of “gotcha” queries and the press controlled the narrative. In fact, his remark may have helped him with black male voters, but it’s not clear whether that’s correct, and in any case it allowed the press to control the narrative.

But the press controls the narrative for the most part anyway, and they have a virulently anti-Trump agenda.

Take a look at the transcript of that Trump appearance. He said more – a great deal more – than that remark about Kamala’s ethnicity. But the press picked up on that and practically nothing else, as though that’s all he said. And that’s what always will happen, and Trump can’t avoid making occasional remarks that they’ll exploit.

Is this a character flaw of Trump’s? I’m not at all sure, because sometimes the amplification of his controversial remarks actually helps him more than it hurts him. Those who hate him will not be changing their minds, but what about those in the middle? I don’t know the answer, but that’s the question.

However, all one has to do is remember the Romney campaign in 2012 to realize that the press will do this to any Republican candidate. You can say that it’s easier to do it to Trump because he gives them more ammunition, but as I’ve said, the ammunition cuts both ways. Romney wasn’t into saying controversial things, but the press made the most of what he did say and it very much framed his image, particularly among women. Remember “binders of women”? If not, take a look. And if you think it didn’t matter, think again; it was a big deal among the vast majority of the women I know.

So the question I would ask everyone is this: how do you know what Trump has said and what he hasn’t said about Harris? Isn’t it that the MSM has amplified a controversial remark, and then it’s discussed and discussed until the next remark comes along that they can exploit?

As far as Harris is concerned, it was only on July 21 that Biden said he wasn’t running, and endorsed her. That was about three weeks ago. You can take a look at Trump’s public appearances since that date, and see the full transcripts of his remarks at this site. As far as I can see, he’s done the aforementioned interview with black journalists, a press conference, and a rally in Atlanta since then. He’s also posted on TruthSocial, and then last night there was the interview on “X” with Musk.

If you look, for example, at the transcript of the Atlanta rally (about a week ago), you’ll see plenty of hard-hitting policy criticism of Kamala Harris. But it doesn’t get covered that way, and most people aren’t in attendance at the rally.

The press conference transcript is here. Of course, as with all press conferences, Trump is responding to questions, and therefore doesn’t have total control of the topics. But here’s a quote about Harris (he said many other things about her, but this is the one most relevant to Bauxite’s critique and suggestions) [my emphasis]:

Question: How have you recalibrated your strategy to compete against Harris?

Donald Trump:

I haven’t recalibrated strategy at all. It’s the same policies, open borders, weak on crime. I think she’s worse than Biden because he got forced into the position. She was there long before. She destroyed San Francisco. She destroyed California as the AG, but as the DA, she destroyed… San Francisco… Friend of mine, Bob Tisch, you all know the Tisch family, he was in many cities with companies. He said the greatest city in the country is San Francisco. That was about 20 years ago, and he passed away a while ago and he would be looking down, said, “What happened?” He thought it was the best city in the country. He had divisions there, loads, and he would be looking down in horror now when he sees. She destroyed no cash bail, weak on crime. She’s terrible.

And then there’s this from the transcript of yesterday’s interview with Musk:

Well, the good thing is that you and I have and some people, very few, we can get the word out. Although sometimes it’s hard because they don’t want to print it, you know, like, like we’re having a great conversation right now. Kamala wouldn’t have this conversation. She can’t because she’s not. You know, she’s not a smart person, by the way. She can’t have this conversation.

Or:

[Harris] is considered more liberal by far than Bernie Sanders. She’s a radical left lunatic. And if she’s going to be our president, very quickly you’re not going to have a country anymore. And she’ll go back to all the things that she believes in.

She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero. Now, all of a sudden, she’s saying, no, I will. I really want to see frackets — that if they got in the day she got in, she’ll end fracking. …

A lot of people thought she’d pick sort of the opposite [as VP], but she picked an anti-Israel radical left person. But she is far worse, they say, than Bernie Sanders. If we have her as a president, if we have a Democrat at this moment as a president, I don’t think our country can survive.

Until now, Trump has also posted on TruthSocial, but that’s more or less an echo chamber. I don’t know what messages he’s posted there, but I can almost guarantee they have included branding Harris as a San Francisco progressive who’s been destructive to that city, because that’s something he’s been saying for a while. Now he’s posting on X again, starting very recently (I believe yesterday), and checking it out just now I saw this:

Exactly what Bauxite is complaining that he didn’t do. But perhaps Trump could be criticized for not doing this sooner? Well, I went to YouTube, and found that the same ad was posted there two weeks ago. Where did the ad air? I don’t know, other than YouTube, and I don’t watch TV for the most part.

This is a lengthy post, but my basic message is one I’ve delivered before, and not just about Trump: how do you know a person or people haven’t done something, if the MSM isn’t reporting on it? Of course a candidate should be able to get past that – must be able to get past that – but how? People may not trust the MSM (and many social media outlets) but one or the other or both still shape their perceptions – and that’s even true of many people on the right as well as the left. This may happen by omission even if we’re unaware we’re being influenced.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Kamala is the media’s sweetheart all of a sudden. Please see this. And also:

(2) What’s going on in Kursk? Darned if I know, but it seems embarrassing for Putin at the moment.

(3) Trump has returned to Twitter/X:

As of this writing, Trump’s account has put out five posts already, and they seem to be coming out every few hours. It’s also pretty obvious the former president isn’t the one doing the posting. Instead, the messages are well-curated and professionally presented. They aren’t in all caps. They aren’t rants about Brian Kemp and Joe Rogan. They are a complete shift in tone.

Seems like a good idea. Will it matter?

(4) The EU is threatening Musk:

Europe’s Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton reminded the world’s richest man of his legal obligation to stop the “amplification of harmful content.”

The EU in July charged X, which Musk bought in 2022, for failing to respect its social media laws. The platform faces multimillion euro fines.

“As the relevant content is accessible to EU users and being amplified also in our jurisdiction, we cannot exclude potential spillovers in the EU,” Breton said in a statement posted on X.

Breton added that “any negative effect of illegal content” could lead the EU to take further action against X, using “our full toolbox, including by adopting interim measures, should it be warranted to protect EU citizens from harm.”

Poor fragile EU citizens who need to be protected against whatever Trump will say. It’s not hard to see why these bureaucrats are so widely detested. As I wrote in a comment today, I believe that the left in Europe would love to use lawfare on Musk and arrest him a la what the left did to Trump. Whether they could succeed depends on whether they could extradite him. Perhaps a Harris administration would oblige.

(5) Such an interesting chart:

Melanie Phillips succinctly explains what happened in the recent British election that gave the left such an enormous victory, and why

The New Neo Posted on by

It can be difficult for Americans to understand the way British elections work. I think Phillips gives the clearest explanation I’ve heard. The recent overwhelming victory by Labour gave the left enormous power, and because of the margin of victory the PM Starmer will remain in power for five years. That is more than sobering; it’s awful, because an enormous amount of damage can be done in that time to Britain and to the world.

Of course, the Conservatives were pretty awful themselves; that’s why this happened. But as Phillips points out, Labour is worse.

The gist of what happened isn’t that the left is popular in Britain. It’s not, and it got nowhere near a majority compared to the votes on the right. But the right was split into two factions, and in many many instances that meant that, although the right got far more votes than the left, the left won the seat.

Phillips explains (the segment I’ve cued up is about eight minutes long):

Another thing Starmer did was pretend to be more moderate than he actually is. Sound familiar?

Pennsylvania can’t count fast …

The New Neo Posted on by

… although the voting results in Pennsylvania count very much.

I’m talking about this announcement:

Pre-emptive warning: don’t blame us, we can’t count fast!

From Ron DeSantis:

Les Sylphides, Margot Fonteyn, and me

The New Neo Posted on by

The other day I was watching a video about Margot Fonteyn, the most famous British ballet dancer of the mid-twentieth century. The video featured a few seconds of her dancing in Fokine’s Les Sylphides. It was a role I immediately recognized, because at the age of fourteen I had danced that exact role in a summer arts camp. Same choreography, pretty much the same everything, except that of course I was nowhere – and I mean nowhere – near as good as Fonteyn.

The dance was the section of the ballet called the Prelude. The choreography requires the dancer to express the idea of listening to the music and being inspired by it. I actually have a photo of myself in the role, and I thought it would be fun to try to take a screenshot of Fonteyn at the same moment in the piece. Here’s the result:

And here I am at fourteen:

Here’s the whole segment of Fonteyn in that part of the ballet, which I later found on YouTube. I think it’s very lovely and captures a great deal of her special subtle quality:

As the sun sets on British and Canadian liberty

The New Neo Posted on by

Another piece of bad news from Britain:

You can be jailed for social media posts that fall into some nebulously-defined “hate speech” category, and to make things even more ridiculous, at least one British cop, this one being Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, is arguably threatening to extradite people who make unacceptable social media posts — from Britain or even from “farther afield.”

It helps a bit to have a constitution that codifies the right to freedom of speech, as ours does. The Brits don’t have that.

But where there’s a will to subvert free speech, there’s a way, even with a First Amendment. However, note that the language of the First Amendment only discusses what Congress is barred from doing. Social media is not only the mechanism for the Brits to arrest people whose speech they consider hateful, but huge social media companies themselves can and do censor speech even without the government arresting anyone. This is certainly already true in the US, and has been for many years.

This past Thursday we also had this news from Canada. That link is to an essay written by Jordan Peterson, who was ordered to undergo re-education or lose his psychology license:

Canadians once again have a very hard choice in front of them. The Supreme Court has essentially decided (or, more accurately, failed to take responsibility and therefore decided by default) that the much-vaunted Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be completely ignored by the regulatory bodies that license professionals in Canada. There are two conclusions that must be drawn in the aftermath of this decision. The first is that the Charter itself is not worth the paper it is written on. If comparatively low-level bureaucrats can suspend its most important provisions, more or less at will, it is a document with no real force whatsoever. I suspected as much when it was implemented back in the 1980s, and it is certainly the case that my worst suspicions have been justified.

Worse, however, is the clear consequence for professionals and those they serve in Canada. My fellow citizens: it is now a legal requirement in your sad state for the lawyers, engineers, teachers, physicians, psychologists and social workers who serve you — often in your hours of most desperate need — to lie to you, in order to ensure they are not transgressing against the ideological assumptions of those who fly the flag of the radical left.

Chilling.

Huxley’s Brave New World, language, and the family

The New Neo Posted on by

I read Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World shortly after I had read Orwell’s dystopian Nineteen-Eighty-Four. I was around thirteen years old at the time, and I didn’t quite get Brave New World although I did finish it.

In my opinion both are masterpieces, but Orwell’s novel was much more straightforward and easy to understand, as well as more frightening to me. Huxley’s work was more complex and subtle in its message. I think I perceived only about half of the content’s implications – in particular, the social programming through science. I only partly understood the rest of what was happening in that future world: the desire to eliminate human suffering by eliminating human freedom, and the huge costs humanity and individuals would pay in such a society.

Over the years, however, I’ve re-read Brave New World several times, and each time I read it I appreciated it more than before. I see our current society and current predicament as an amalgam of the two, but more like Huxley’s vision than Orwell’s. Yet I see people referencing Orwell more often – perhaps because more have read it, or at least excerpts from it?

Although it was Orwell who discussed in great depth the use of language as mind-molding propaganda – his invention of Newspeak is genius – Brave New World doesn’t ignore the use of language. In Huxley’s work, it’s the elimination of certain words as obscenities that is especially interesting in light of certain trends today; I’m thinking of the drop in the birthrate in Westernized countries and the fall in the marriage rate.

You may recall that, in Brave New World, society’s designers had not only eliminated the family but had made words like “mother” unspeakable obscenities that were offensive to even utter. Interesting, no? And remember, Huxley’s book was published in 1932, nearly a hundred years ago:

‘And “parent?”?’ questioned the D.H.C.

There was an uneasy silence. Several of the boys blushed. They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science. One, at last, had the courage to raise a hand.

‘Human beings used to be…’ he hesitated; the blood rushed to his cheeks. ‘Well, they used to be viviparous.’

‘Quite right.’ The Director nodded approvingly.

‘And when the babies were decanted…’

‘”Born”,’ came the correction.

‘Well, then they were the parents–I mean, not the babies, of course; the other ones.’ The poor boy was overwhelmed with confusion.

‘In brief,’ the Director summed up, ‘the parents were the father and the mother.’ The smut that was really science fell with a crash into the boys’ eye-avoiding silence. ‘Mother,’ he repeated loudly rubbing in the science; and, leaning back in his chair, ‘These,’ he said gravely, ‘are unpleasant facts; I know it. But, then, most historical facts are unpleasant.’

Here’s another quote from the book:

“Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance. “Though you probably don’t know what those are,” said Mustapha Mond. They shook their heads. Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy. “But every one belongs to every one else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb.”

If you’ve never read the book, or if you haven’t read it in a long long while, you might want to take a look.