President Trump on Tuesday promoted a group called Jexodus, highlighting the argument that Jews should leave the Democratic Party as it becomes engulfed by anti-Semitism.
I’ve been chronicling how leading Democrats have normalized anti-Semitism by laundering it as mere criticism of Israel even when it is not, and I would love a world in which Jewish Democrats took a stand. Taking a step back and looking at the issue as a dispassionate political analyst who is also quite familiar with the Jewish community, I don’t see that happening on a mass scale in 2020, for a number of reasons. Though I wouldn’t discount a longer-term shift in partisan loyalties.
Just by way of background, in this case, Trump was reacting to a Fox and Friends appearance of Elizabeth Pipko, a former campaign staffer who is now a spokesperson for a group called Jexodus, which bills itself as an organization of millennials calling for Jews to leave the Democratic Party over its anti-Israel policies and tepid response to anti-Semitism in their own ranks.
Trump tweeted: “’Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a lot of anti Israel policies start under the Obama Administration, and it got worsts & worse. There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.’ Elizabeth Pipko, Jexodus.”
“Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a lot of anti Israel policies start under the Obama Administration, and it got worsts & worse. There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.” Elizabeth Pipko, Jexodus.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2019
The reasons why Jews are unlikely to defect in large numbers come down to some fundamentals, and some specifics about Trump and the issues at stake in 2020.
Though Jews have generally voted Democratic for decades, their support has varied. In 1980, for instance, Jimmy Carter only beat Ronald Reagan 45 to 39. Whereas Barack Obama carried 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, that number dropped to 69 percent in 2012 and 71 percent in 2016.
Over time, however, a few things have changed. One is that surveys show many Jews are secular and less connected with Israel than previous generations. There is also a raging debate about the effects of the significant rise in intermarriage on Jewish identity within the community. While I have many strong opinions on these developments, for our purposes, it’s just important to recognize that a significant number of Jews don’t consider policies on Israel, or even what a candidate means for Jews, when voting — let alone prioritize such considerations over other issues on which they identify as liberal.
Also, a lot of the Jews who do consider a candidate’s policies on Israel when voting are already voting Republican, and many have shifted in recent election cycles. The drop-off in support for Democrats among Jews, which ranged from 76 to 80 percent from 1992 to 2008, to the 69 percent and 71 percent in 2012 and 2016, no doubt is already reflective of the anti-Israel turn of Democrats that occurred under Obama. In a sense, we’ve already gone through a mini Jewish exodus. It’s just that those who already changed affinities represented the low-hanging fruit for Republicans, and now they’ll start to run into more resistance among Jews with stronger ties to Democrats.
Viewed on its own, the rise of the anti-Semitic Left should still be expected to increase defections, particularly among older, moderate Democrats. In a normal election year, with a more normal Republican candidate, I’d be more open to the idea that we’d see a large-scale shift in partisan loyalty.
But Trump is not a normal candidate. The populist takeover of the Republican Party is frightening to many American Jews, as is Trump’s nationalist rhetoric. A Democratic Jew who is turned off by what’s happening to his party, is likely to see Trump as just as prejudiced if not much more so than Democrats. The fact that he’s been the most pro-Israel president ever may not factor much into their consideration. What’s more, there are a whole host of economic and social issues on which most Jews identify as liberal. So for many Jews, they’ll see a choice of a Democratic Party that has become overly tolerant of anti-Semitism, but who they otherwise largely agree with, and a Republican Party with whom they largely disagree, who is led by somebody they see as emboldening bigotry. They are likely to grasp on to any reassuring statement by a Democratic presidential candidate to avoid having to cast a vote for Trump.
If nothing else, there may be one reason why Jewish Democrats won’t defect in large numbers, and that’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If Trump were re-elected, those who favor liberal policies would have to pray she could hang on until she was nearly 92 years old to ensure she’d be replaced by another liberal vote on the Supreme Court. Those are pretty high stakes.
Now, it should be noted that religious Orthodox Jews tend to be much more conservative, and a majority of them identify as Republican. Though they make up only 10 percent of the population, they are more likely to get married, and they have birthrates that are significantly higher than less religious Jews. Their children are also more likely to grow up with a strong sense of Jewish identity and connection to Israel. So, there’s been some speculation that if current trends continue, in a few decades, as Orthodox Jews make up a larger share of the population that identifies as Jewish, that you could see more of an erosion of loyalty to the Democratic Party.
I also think that if Democrats continue on their current path, they could offer many Jews no choice but to defect, if Republicans ever revert to nominating more traditional candidates.
So there are definitely broader longer-term trends at play that could lead Republicans to win a greater share of the Jewish vote, but I’m skeptical those trends will manifest themselves as early as 2020, with Trump at the top of the ticket.
