The GOP's long, fruitless courtship of Jewish voters

For years, Republicans have hoped that their ever-increasing hawkishness on Israel would win over more Jews, but the trouble was that most Jews have feelings about Israel that are more complex than whether you’re “pro-Israel” or not. The Republican brand of “support” for Israel is essentially the adoption of a right-wing, Likudnik position on any question related to the country, and most American Jews have a different perspective on those questions than Republicans do, whether Republicans are dancing the hora and singing “Hatikvah” or not.

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Why is that? Because most American Jews are liberals, and that isn’t going to change. People have written entire books on why that is, but the result is that for Jews to move significantly into the Republican column, they’d have to overlook the GOP’s positions on social issues, economic issues, environmental issues, and most every other kind of issue. And all because the GOP candidates are eager to tell them about “my good friend Bibi Netanyahu”? Not gonna happen.

And it isn’t just issues. Most American Jews are exactly the kind of cosmopolitan coastal dwellers on whom conservatives have spent so much time in recent years pouring their contempt. It isn’t lost on Jews when Republicans extol the residents of small towns in the heartland as the “real” Americans, the ones brimming with genuine virtues, whose hearts beat to the rhythm of country music and who couldn’t care a lick for what a bunch of overeducated urban elitists think. Like every minority group, Jews know exactly what it’s like to be judged not quite as American as the members of the majority, and even if they experience only a fraction of the discrimination they once did, they empathize with those the GOP turns its gaze of suspicion on today, whether it’s Hispanics or Muslims or anyone else.

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