The Great Divide

This past week I was having lunch one day with three fellow Jews. One asked why I thought there was an increase in anti-Semitism. My reply was not well received. I spoke about the growth of the Left, and how Leftists had come to increasingly dominate the Democratic Party. I mentioned how the Left despises Israel, and how that hatred of Israel spills over into a hatred of Jews in general, especially if those Jews show even the slightest support for the Jewish nation. I pointed out that it was Leftists who shouted down pro-Israel speakers on college campuses across the country. I discussed that an anti-Semite such as Ilhan Omar was able to make one anti-Semitic comment after the next, while the Speaker of the House not only refused to condemn her, but actually excused her comments and defended her. Of course, I acknowledged the anti-Semitic, white supremacist, Neo-Nazis as also being a serious problem. Unlike the Left, however, the Neo-Nazis have no home in any mainstream political party. "Too political" an explanation I was told.

I was frustrated. Not because they disagreed with me - that I am used to. It was as if they simply were not comprehending what I was saying. An Op-Ed in the 2/25/20 Wall Street Journal referred to an Axios poll from 2018. "61% of Democrats thought of Republicans as racist, bigoted or sexist. About half of Republicans described Democrats as ignorant or spiteful." (Charles Lipson's Op-Ed.) I prefer "uninformed" to "ignorant." My explanation was too political? The greatest perpetrators of anti-Semitism in history were the National Socialists in Germany - a POLITICAL party also known as the Nazis.

Which brings me to this current election season. Notwithstanding Joe Biden's victory today in South Carolina, Bernie Sanders has a strong possibility of becoming the Democratic nominee for President. Sanders spent his honeymoon in the USSR! "No one who shares Middle America's core values of freedom, democracy and entrepreneurship would choose to honeymoon in the Soviet Union." (Joseph Sternberg in an Op-Ed in the 2/28/20 WSJ.) But that was not all. No, Sanders saw fit to praise the Soviet subway system, and praised worker programs and youth programs. The Soviets killed tens of millions of their own people. They had the gulags. They had the KGB to make sure no one dared attempt to speak freely. They had breadlines and empty store shelves. But Sanders saw fit to talk about their subway system. Sanders is what the Soviets would call a "useful idiot."

Sanders also has been speaking admirably of Castro and Cuba, as well as other Communist regimes. "You know, when Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program? Is that a bad thing?" No, it's great. It allowed him to make sure the people could read only what he wanted them to read - only his Communist propaganda. The killings, imprisonment of political dissidents, government control of the press, nationalization of private businesses, "appropriation" (stealing) of private property - not really worth mentioning. After all, Castro had a literacy program.

Being a Leftist first, and a Jew somewhere way down the line, Sanders is an anti-Semite, and has affiliated his campaign with a number of anti-Semites. (Accused anti-Semites include Linda Sarsour, who acts as a surrogate for Sanders, Matthew Duss, who is his foreign policy adviser and Faiz Shakir - his campaign manager. Google them.) At one of the recent debates, Sanders referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "reactionary racist." While he always managed to find nice words for murdering Communist regimes, not so for Israel or Netanyahu. Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. Netanyahu was instrumental early on in shifting the Israeli economy from socialism to a free market economy. The result has been an explosion of free enterprise and high-tech, unsurpassed by almost any other country in the world. Equally bad, not a single one of the other Democratic candidates on stage pushed back against the false description of Netanyahu.

The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington. In the past, leaders of both parties attended and spoke at AIPAC's annual convention. Sanders: "I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason I will not attend their conference." Honeymooning in a country that murdered millions was okay, but speaking at AIPAC, which advocates for a two-state solution in the Middle East is unacceptable. Elizabeth Warren also said she would not attend AIPAC, as did Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, along with former candidates Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Beto O'Rourke.

In my 7/17/16 post I discussed "Classical Liberalism." Leftists, which make up a growing portion of the Democratic Party, are not liberals. Many, no doubt, started out as classical liberals, but just went along when the party abandoned such liberal ideals as free speech, tolerance for opposing views and support for a free market economic system (capitalism). In the Sternberg Op-Ed he discussed why Jeremy Corbyn, the Labor Party leader in the UK, suffered such a dramatic defeat in their recent election. Corbyn and Sanders are alike in a number of ways. Support for a socialist program. Support for the Palestinians over Israel. Sternberg: "British voters concluded that the danger of a leader who didn't share their values was greater than the risk even of Brexit."

I have said it many times before. The reason for the great divide in this country is values. A Democratic Party that once shared in the American value system now has a Leftist vision for the country and the world. As Sternberg noted, Corbyn lost in a country that had suffered under socialist policies, and when they had enough of the poverty of socialism they voted in Margaret Thatcher. In the 1930's, some in the US had a flirtation with socialism and communism, but the American people have never had to live under such a regime. One hopes that they do not need to experience socialism to reject it. "Socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, political prisoner of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.