
Even those who may have predicted Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris could not have forecast the size and scope of his triumph. How sweeping was Trump’s win? He actually increased his support among both Jewish and Muslim voters.
Think about that for a moment: In the middle of the longest and deadliest Israeli war in decades, Trump somehow managed to convince a number of Americans on both sides of this intractable and bitter conflict that he was better positioned than his opponent to end the violence in a manner that would be acceptable to them.
He can’t, of course, and he won’t. Gaza is a zero-sum game, and there is no possible solution that will satisfy both Israel and Hamas. But Trump’s remarkable aptitude for tapping improbable sources of political support has reshaped the American political landscape. Unlike his victory in 2016, which could be blamed on James Comey, Vladmir Putin or the electoral college, there is no way to avoid the reality that Trump has tapped into a powerful emotional current shared by many of our fellow Americans, resentment that is no less powerful because those on the other side of our political divide do not understand it.
Nowhere are these abilities more apparent than in this country’s debate over the future of the Middle East. The same candidate who won unprecedented support from nonwhite voters and exactly half of the pro-choice vote in last week’s election persuaded a number of voters who felt that the Biden Administration had not done enough to help Israel since last Oct. 7 – along with a number of other voters who felt that the Biden Administration has done too much to help Israel – that he was on their side. Many of Trump’s opponents see these unlikely accomplishments as examples of the once-and-future president’s “dark arts,” his knack for telling audiences exactly what they want to hear. Whatever it is, it has worked for him.
The task now for Democrats and other Trump skeptics is to resist the temptation to reflexively vilify his backers and instead devote that same time and effort to learning how his supporters made their voting decisions in the first place. That will be the difficult but unavoidable precursor to winning them back. This will be an especially challenging task in our Jewish community, where the anger and revulsion that a majority of American Jews feel toward Trump is difficult to measure with conventional tools.
Most of those in the Jewish community who voted against him did so for reasons other than his or Harris’ approach to Israel, while the Middle East appears to be the animating force for most of those Jews who do support him. Even though Trump significantly increased his vote total among American Jews, the majority who voted for Harris can easily dismiss his growing number of Jewish backers as marginal voices in our political dialogue, with wildly different priorities.
Trump did especially well among Orthodox Jews, reflecting his success at attracting religious voters of most faiths in an increasingly secular society. Persian and Mizrachi Jews, Israeli emigres and those whose families came more recently from Eastern Europe boosted his vote totals as well. So the temptation to minimize the import of these “others” can be tempting for many less religious and more Americanized Jews. That would be a mistake.
It’s easy to write these differences off to cultural and religious factors, and then pretend that they can be ignored. But a strategy based on denial is doomed to failure. Democrats across the country are beginning to understand that their party has lost touch with traditionally reliable constituencies. And the need for American Jews to come to the same realization is even more important.
We are still barely 2% of the country’s population. If we choose to ignore or demean each other, we simply weaken our ability to protect ourselves and our community.
We are still barely 2% of the country’s population. If we choose to ignore or demean each other, we simply weaken our ability to protect ourselves and our community. The Gaza War has reminded us that deep strains of antisemitism still flourish on both extremes of the political spectrum here. But the more divided we remain, the more vulnerable we will become.
Dan Schnur is the U.S. Politics Editor for the Jewish Journal. He teaches courses in politics, communications, and leadership at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the monthly webinar “The Dan Schnur Political Report” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall. Follow Dan’s work at www.danschnurpolitics.com.