Posted on 11/05/20
| News Source: JNS
Trump’s better-than-expected showing, despite many Jews thinking that he’s a hatemonger, speaks volumes about the chasm between the two warring Jewish political tribes.
We already knew that the chasm that separates those Jews who vote for Democrats and those who vote for Republicans was already wide. The partisan split between all Americans who vote for the two major parties is growing all the time. But is there any gap greater than that between two branches of the same ethnic/religious tree that separates the Jews who voted for former Vice President Joe Biden and those who voted for President Donald Trump?
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As a general rule, analyses of the Jewish vote in presidential elections tend to be a sterile exercise that has more to do with a contest for what amounts to nothing more than bragging rights between Jewish Democrats and Republicans. But this year, measuring the breakdown of the Jewish vote turned out to be more significant than that. By doing a lot better among Jewish voters than his opponents expected, Trump demonstrated that there may actually be some persuadable voters among Jews and that they can be won by appealing to their attachment to the State of Israel.
Yet in doing so, this election also proved that the gulf between those who were willing to cast their votes for him and the majority who didn’t is more than a spirited disagreement. It’s a function of a stark demographic reality in which the notion of a unified Jewish community has been proven again to be a myth. The only way to understand the 2020 campaign is to realize that the talk of two distinct warring American Jewish tribes that neither understand nor want much to do with each other is not a metaphor. It is a harsh reality that must be acknowledged and taken into account in every discussion about communal life.
More data will be forthcoming in the future as the vote is studied in detail. But the initial exit polls of the 2020 electorate do demonstrate that Trump improved upon his performance in 2016 when he won approximately 24 percent of the Jewish vote nationally. Read more at JNS