Jewish Democrats, in particular, have a job to do in their party, just as #NeverTrump Republicans had a job to do in theirs. For the danger to American Jewish voters is now manifesting itself in both parties—and Jewish Democrats need to face up to that fact right now, or else there won’t be a party in this country that refuses a prominent place to bigots. If Jewish Democrats think their party will be a welcoming place for them, (never mind electable at the national level), with a former associate of the Nation of Islam as its chairman, they’re meshuggah. That Keith Ellison is even a serious candidate for the top DNC post is part of a broader trend of hostility to the Jewish State and Jewish concerns initiated by the outgoing administration. The White House’s decision last month to abstain on a United Nations Security Council resolution denying any Jewish connection to the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, followed by John Kerry’s endless speech blaming Israel for his own failures while throwing around words like “apartheid,” were not accidents. The resolution was approved and shepherded by the White House. The occupant of the White House is Barack Obama, who will continue to live in Washington and retain a great deal of influence over Democrats. After their surprise loss, the Clintons are gone for good. They’re kaput. Those are facts.
A war is already brewing for the soul of the Democratic Party. On one side are many of its Jewish voters and donors. On the other side are hard-left activists and agitators who make a very public point of wanting those people purged. Some of these agitators, like Bernie Sanders, are not even Democrats yet strangely expect, and are offered, deference from the very party leaders and influencers whom Sanders and his acolytes want to expel in their “revolution.” I would encourage Democrats concerned about the future of their party to read a recent New Yorker article about a podcast produced by a group of anti-capitalist Brooklyn Twitter personalities that has become quite popular among young, politically conscious millennials. Christening themselves the “Dirtbag Left,” the hosts of Chapo Trap House epitomize last year’s “Bernie Bro” phenomenon in that they are aggressively masculine-to-the-point-of-misogynistic leftists whose politics mix the nihilistic gonzo sensibility of Hunter S. Thompson with the narcissistic machismo of Andreas Baader. Good luck with that.
It is an article of faith among this crew that Sanders would have handily defeated Trump had Democrats abjured the counsel of their perfidious “neoliberal” donor overlords and nominated a 74-year-old socialist for the presidency. This bit of retrospective insanity is driving the push for Ellison’s chairmanship of the party, and it betrays the penchant for half-baked fantasizing so common on the regressive left.
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