As anyone not living under a political rock knows, Keith Ellison is currently the most talked about potential future DNC chair. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Chuck Schumer have decided to back him. However, there is one big set of misgivings worth mentioning:
The election of Ellison "would bode badly for Jews," longtime Democratic consultant Dr. Hank Sheinkopf told JNS.org. "His positions on Israel fit the pattern, noted by recent research, of identified liberal anti-Israel bias and the movement of Democrats away from Israel."
Ellison's controversial statements and actions date back to the 1990s, when he served as a local spokesman in Minnesota for Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam movement. Ellison raised eyebrows when he publicly claimed in 1995 that Farrakhan "is not an anti-Semite."
Since his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007, Ellison has emerged as one of the most vocal congressional supporters of the Palestinian cause. He has organized letters urging more U.S. pressure on Israel, voted against funding Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system, and spoken at fundraising events for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a hardline anti-Israel group. While visiting Hebron this past summer, Ellison tweeted a photograph of a placard accusing Israel of "apartheid."
Why this matters
In 2012, Obama won the Jewish vote by 39%. In 2016, Hillary won the Jewish vote by 47%. This is a speck of good news in terms of voting blocs in a pile of sh*t; from ‘12 to ‘16, from 44% victory with Latinos to 36% win with Latinos; from 87% win with African-Americans to 80% win with African-Americans. With white voters (aggregate), from 20% loss to 21% loss with whites.
Given Obama's Jewish margin from 2008 to 2012 went from 56% down to 39%, I wish I saw more appreciation from Democrats that at least one voting bloc looked up this year. In fact, it almost seems like some don’t seem to think much of it. Alan Dershowitz, a legendary progressive and supporter of Democrats, is making a point that a lot of Jews outside professional partisan politicians have made privately; how can Congressional Democrats and progressives really attack go crazy about Bannon's private anti-Semitic comments from a divorce case when elements of BLM superfluously add BDS into their platform out of nowhere, how groups from the left that have gone far beyond criticizing Israel into demonization, delegitimization, and double standards, when this site still has more Israel-tagged articles than Bush or Trump tagged ones?
One only has to read the comments and posts from these places to see it devolve from criticizing Israeli polices into "AIPAC runs our government, banks," to singling out "Jewish involvement" in slavery, comparing the Palestinian situation to the Holocaust even tho the Palestinian population has gone up, where the Jewish population was decimated by the Holocaust (Zogby did this) and everyone knows this, or that some on the left think Israel-Palestine is the most important foreign policy issue out there; subjects like Tibet, Kashmir, or Sudan get nowhere near the attention Israel/Palestine does, both from Americans and non-Americans (so that cancels out the “we fund them” bit). BDS groups on campus, and the anti-Semitic attacks they inspire (and did pre-Trump), aren't coming from the right.
Sure Chuck Schumer is backing Keith Ellison, but does not constitute some kind of Jewish OK to Ellison. Fact is half the world's Jews are in Israel and that means many friends, relatives, and family of American Jews, not merely some holy site. So when the potential Democratic Party leader like Ellison accuses the Jewish state of "apartheid," its hard to just let it sit. Or his role in trying to hurt the DNC platform on this issue. And don't try to say "but Bernie Sanders is Jewish" because he lost Jewish voters to Hillary bigly.
Its also not a coincidence that America, which has far more pro-Israel polling numbers than European countries, also has a far lower incidence of anti-Semitism than European countries.
I, and other long-time Democratic Jewish voters will not be part of a party that becomes like the British Labour Party; now rife with anti-Semitism, Jew-hatred, not merely "anti-Zionist not anti-Semitic" BS. In the UK, Jews who had longtime been Labour voters, switched sides last year to the Tories. This also happened in Canada; Jews used to vote Liberal, now they don't.
People who want Democrats to win should take note that because America will always be a capitalist country where campaign donations matter, that losing anywhere from a third to two thirds (both in ‘12 and ‘16) of the money to run campaigns will not only elect more Republicans, but do so potentially in landslides.
Democrats should probably also take note that while most Jews in government are still Democrats, there is a new Republican one from Trump-red Tennessee, Kutsoff, and a Greitens from Missouri as governor. In the age of Trump, that should be a surprise. He’s a helluva politician, so don’t think he’s just gonna neglect Jews in 2020.
Progressives and Democrats cannot afford take the Jewish vote for granted. Or well they can, as long as they're OK with New Jersey and Connecticut potentially becoming Presidential swing states. Or more House/Governor seats. Hate to sound “arrogant,” but we Jews were the outside financial support for the Civil Rights movement, the LGBT-movement, and other social movements as well. A little appreciation and respect ought to be in order. Preserve what you got; you don't know what it was until its gone.