By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Voting statistics from Pennsylvania’s Bucks County: Donald J. Trump cracked 60 percent in two precincts in Northampton Township and 60 percent in a Middletown Township precinct, and he reached 57 percent in a Bensalem precinct.
While Trump won countywide, Northampton, Middletown and Bensalem are home to a large portion of the 57,000 Jews who live in Bucks County. What an opportunity to vent six years of rage against the anti-Israel mob that habitually attaches itself to the Democratic Party.
Pennsylvania is the last place where Vice President Kamala Harris needed a Jewish voter revolt. A wide range of causes helped Trump return to the White House, but there can be no doubt that a shift in the Jewish vote contributed. The Jewish vote was probably not necessary to determine the ultimate results, but there are sufficient Jewish numbers in five of the seven battleground states to be a large part of the equation.
Sam Markstein, a spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition, appears to have overstated the case, telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Jewish Americans were a major part of the winning coalition for President Donald J. Trump’s historic victory last night – including record-setting levels of support in key battleground states like Nevada – which hadn’t been won by a Republican in 20 years – as well as Florida, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania.”
While Markstein offered no evidence, I was able to find some numbers in Jewish communities thanks to Bucks County election workers, who listed unofficial results for each municipality.
Among swing states, Pennsylvania’s 300,000 Jews comprise the largest amount in the battleground state with the highest number of electoral votes, totaling 19. Pennsylvania’s numbers are followed by Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada.
The majority of Jewish voters wanted Harris elected as our next president, and there is usually a segment of Jews who will vote Republican if they distrust Democrats to help Israel and, for that matter, protect their own fellow citizens who are Jewish. Jewish conservatives who consistently vote Republican comprise a substantial minority. Election 2024 was the most contentious election involving Israel I can remember, which means that the swing segment must have expanded last Tuesday.
I was very tempted to join this segment, but I believed that Harris was far better for America than Trump could ever hope to be – and I wonder if Trump ever hoped to be good for America. I appreciate that Trump supported Israel during his first term as president, but we have serious concerns in America that Trump is expected to ignore if not worsen. That includes protecting those Arabs and Muslims who abide by our laws.
Peter Beinart, a Jewish writer notorious for senseless criticisms of Israel, writes in Sunday’s New York Times, “Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians – funded by U.S. taxpayers and live-streamed on social media – has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation.
“Many Americans roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction have no personal connection to Palestine or Israel,” he continues. “Like many Americans who protested African apartheid or the Vietnam War, their motive is not ethnic or religious. It is moral.”
The intentions of some may indeed be moral, but their one-sided attitude is immoral. All the more reason for Trump to weaponize all the resources of his government and his political operation to bury the anti-Israel mob. By no means does that cover all Arabs and Muslims – only the extremists.
This gives Trump the opportunity to prove he is good for something. The object here is not revenge. It is survival. Many of these people are dangerous. Haven’t they proven that? Obstructing traffic is sufficiently life-threatening. How many ambulances are forced to sit in stopped traffic?
They stand behind terrorists who massacred 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. That should tell us more than enough of their intentions with Israel. Outside Israel, we are aware of their attacks on Jews and vandalism of synagogues and other Jewish facilities.
They have an agenda. We cannot reach any conclusions, but it should not surprise us if they plan to seize control of our government. Their brothers in delusion did that in Gaza.
I have come to believe that the progressive movement, however anyone defines it, sabotaged the election because of how they sought to achieve their goals. They antagonized many voters and gifted Republicans with lots of grist for the mill. The progressives’ approach was not the only cause of the outcome, but Harris would be measuring the drapes right now if not for the progressives’ mangling of the process.
Over the years, they moved in three different directions which they attempted to tie together. Their mission to establish programs and policies to improve the lives of vulnerable citizens is a noble one. They wanted to address gun violence, health care, abortion rights, decrepit urban schools, tax equity, substandard wages, affordable housing, etc.
Simultaneously, they equated the oppression of our lower classes with the struggles of the Palestinians, and this of course intensified after 10/7. Their campaign was one-sided as they ignored Israeli losses. They lied, they broke the law, they openly displayed antisemitism, they engaged in violence, they made excuses for the terrorists, they treated the conflict as a civil rights movement, they praised killers who endangered their own people.
Sure, they have legitimate concerns over the sacrifice of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli attacks, but they undermined their movement so much that it is hard to sympathize any longer.
They also invoked policies that most people usually oppose, do not think about or do not understand. Republicans have had a field day with “defund police” and transgender issues.
Arab Americans sunk Harris’ chances in Michigan, as they intended to do on grounds that the Biden-Harris administration did not restrain Israel’s military response in Gaza. Trump received 42 percent of the vote in Dearborn, home to the largest Arab-American population in America, and Harris picked up 36 percent. Jill Stein, the pro-Palestinian Green Party’s candidate, received 18 percent, making her the only winner in Michigan.
Such was the pattern in all the seven battleground states, though the margin was closer in some. Stein made a respectable showing in each state in the wake of promises that advocates for the Palestinians will take their votes elsewhere.
Some Muslims are actually confident that Trump will be their friend, the Times reports. “I think he won the hearts and minds of many Muslims,” said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Pennsylvania founder of Muslims for Trump. “This guy is a Muslim-friendly guy.”
Others fear that Chowdhury will be disappointed. Trump will “pursue policies that will make them more furious,” said James Zogby, a founder of the Arab American Institute in Washington and a member of the Democratic National Committee, according to the Times. “The more they see what’s going to happen, the less enchanted they’ll be.”
Zogby’s projection is more of a sure bet than that of Chowdhury for his “Muslim-friendly guy.”
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist
Simpler answer than the excuses written. By a significant margin, all Americans, even those parsed by the Divisive Obama/Liberal politics of divide and conquer, were fed up with leftists and their choking controls over common sense.
Agree with both.
Bruce Ticker’s illuminating analysis of what I deem a “reactionary” vote in Trump’s favor because the progressives in the Democratic Party caused trepidation for Jewish voters fearful of a “sellout” of Israel’s security by a Harris/Walz administration. For many Jewish voters the Harris/Walz platform and posture, which naturally included pandering to the progressive left, provoked a form of “political schizophrenia”. They reasoned that Harris was better for America in general but to vote for her would be to sellout the needs of Israel and Diaspora Jews. The human constitution is not sophisticated enough to maintain a departmentalization. Thus, they eschew cognitive dissonance, conflict, and inconsistency in favor of a candidate that will protect their basic needs for survival while rationalizing all the other aspects as consistent with their decision even though in fact they are not. So, the Jews in swing states like Pennsylvania bit the bullet, voted for Trump, and put their concerns for climate change, access to abortions, and other critical matters out to pasture. A sad, but real, commentary on human behavior and predictive analytics of voting behavior. At the end of the day, Harris trying to appease both Jews and Muslims caused her to lose both.