Politics of Jewish Americans

[Carborendum]

Once upon a time I was talking with a Jewish co-worker and asked why so many tend to lean to the left.  His response was "Mainly because of social issues."  He went on to explain that he believed that most conservatives were racist and he truly believed that if conservatives had the power, they would lock him up in a concentration camp.

Interesting take.  Obviously, I disagreed.  And for the sake of office harmony, I didn't bother to debate the issue.  But it certainly seems that the Left is jumping on the Palestinian band wagon and are proud to strut their anti-semitism loud and proud.

Today, we heard about Josh Shapiro, the Mass. Governor who happens to be a Jewish Democrat.  The Governor's mansion was set on fire by a person who seemed to simply be a whack job no matter what political leanings.  Was it politically or racially motivated?  We don't know.  Things have yet to unfold.

What we do know is that whichever his leanings, people will find a way to say that either:

• "he's just a fringe element" or
• "a-HAH!  He's on the other side.  No wonder."

We can hope that reason will prevail and everyone on both sides will recognize that he was simply a whack job.

Edited April 14 by Carborendum

[Phoenix_person]

Criticism of the IDF and Israeli government isn't antisemitism, and that's most of what I see on my side of the fence. I also see plenty of left-leaning Jewish Americans speaking out against Netanyahu and the IDF. The group of lefty organizers I affiliate with has rabbis, imams, and pastors working side-by-side. Sometimes literally.

[Carborendum]

45 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

Criticism of the IDF and Israeli government isn't antisemitism, and that's most of what I see on my side of the fence. I also see plenty of left-leaning Jewish Americans speaking out against Netanyahu and the IDF. The group of lefty organizers I affiliate with has rabbis, imams, and pastors working side-by-side. Sometimes literally.

Really?

Quote

Compared to 2022, assaults, vandalism and harassment rose by 45%, 69% and 184% respectively in 2023.[8] The ADL reported a 200% increase in antisemitic incidents from October 7, 2023, to September 24, 2024, vis-à-vis 2022–23

Wiki

It was already on the rise prior to Oct 7.  Then it rose ANOTHER 200% (in America, not in Israel) after Oct 7.

Edited April 14 by Carborendum

[Phoenix_person]

16 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Really?

It was already on the rise prior to Oct 7.  Then it rose ANOTHER 200% (in America, not in Israel) after Oct 7.

You seem to be drawing political correlation based on circustance, not data. I won't deny that there are fringe groups on my side who crossed the line to antisemitism, but it was swelling on the far right in a big way prior to 10/7. I don't imagine that's changed just because we have a new president. If you have something more than a wiki article linking the rise in antisemitism to leftists specifically and exclusively, I'd love to see it.

[Carborendum]

40 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

You seem to be drawing political correlation based on circustance, not data.

If I understand you correctly, you're making an argument against circumstantial evidence.  What you may not know is that circumstantial evidence can reasonably lead to a guilty verdict in a court of law.  It has to be pretty strong.  But it is considered for determining culpability.

• Look at how many times it happened before vs after?
• Look at how many violent events happen in blue states rather than red states.
• Consider that virtually all of the right were for supporting Israel.
• Consider that we have documented MOBS (not a few individuals) who were pasting photographs of Jewish students on college campuses with the intent to "expose them."  The slogan "from the river to the sea" accompanied these posters to allow no ambiguity of who was promoting this. And many of such Jewish students were attacked.

40 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

I won't deny that there are fringe groups on my side who crossed the line to antisemitism, but it was swelling on the far right in a big way prior to 10/7.

The fringe argument again?  Combine the facts I posted above and then consider the sheer numbers of crimes, nearly 20,000 hate crimes against Jews AFTER 10/7.  Do you really believe some skinheads were somehow "inspired" to do more violence against Jews because of Hamas's attack?  Really?  They were aligning with Muslims instead of Jews?  Seriously?  Why haven't they been arrested?  Liberals don't go to prison for these things.  But conservatives do.

Consider the other data I already linked in another thread about how the majority of self-identified liberals believe political violence is justified?  If simply blaming "the fringe" is your best argument, that isn't an argument at all. 

40 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

I don't imagine that's changed just because we have a new president. If you have something more than a wiki article linking the rise in antisemitism to leftists specifically and exclusively, I'd love to see it.

What does a new President have to do with anything?  But you want more sources than Wiki?  Ok.

Quote

In the U.S., our data shows that 95% of antisemitic incidents motivated by Israel’s policies were perpetrated by far-left or unidentified activists. Just 5% were perpetrated by known far-right activists.

Further indication that antisemitic violence is no longer the sole domain of far-right extremists can be gleaned from an analysis of our data that looked at the geographic characteristics of antisemitism.

We find that antisemitic hate crimes are occurring especially in politically progressive areas of the country. The New York metropolitan area and the Northeast in general, and urban centers in Florida, California, the Northwest and the Midwest are experiencing the majority of antisemitic incidents.

Antisemitism has moved from the right to the left in the US − and falls back on long-standing stereotypes

Notice the Palestinian Flag.  Do you think this was a right wing protest?

Look at the next linked article.  It was surprising just how much The Nation (a progressive publication) exposed about the leftist mindset while still bending over backwards trying to justify it.

Quote

Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—were each asked variations of an apparently simple question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate university rules or codes of conduct, yes or no?” Astoundingly, none of them answered with a simple “yes.” Instead, they each resorted to evasive legalese, hesitant gestures towards “context” and seemingly dispassionate distinctions.

...

Claudine Gay, the former Harvard president who resigned following attacks that dragged on for weeks
       (to be clear, the "attacks" were Jewish students being attacked by those supporting Hamas).

...

 It showed progressives ... lacking the ability to recognize actual antisemitism. 

 

Some Inconvenient Truths About Antisemitism and the Left | The Nation

There is no escaping it.  The skinheads and neo-Nazi's don't have to do anything at all.  They just need to sit back and let the Left do their thing.

Edited April 14 by Carborendum

[Phoenix_person]

3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

They were aligning with Muslims instead of Jews?  Seriously?  Why haven't they been arrested?

If it makes you feel better, there's a neo-Nazi teen currently in custody for murdering his parents and possibly planning an assassination attempt against Trump.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/west/2025/04/14/nikita-casap-case-timeline-of-alleged-homicide-trump-assassination/83082191007/

As for other neo-Nazis (and antisemitic lefties, for that matter) hate speech is considered protected speech. I don't like it either, but if the cops can't arrest the Klan when they do their hate marches, then they can't arrest anti-IDF protesters either. Free speech and all. At least that's what Elon said when he unbanned all the Twitter Nazis.

And no, far-right extremists don't side with Muslims. Most of them would be happy to see both sides annihilated and Jerusalem claimed for Christianity.

3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Consider the other data I already linked in another thread about how the majority of self-identified liberals believe political violence is justified? If simply blaming "the fringe" is your best argument, that isn't an argument at all. 

Don't worry, I won't be blaming the fringe if things turn violent, not while our government is threatening immigration lawyers, deporting people to an El Salvadorean hellhole without due process, and just today demonstrated an unwillingness to abide by a unanimous SCOTUS decision that the administration should facilitate the return of a Maryland man who was wrongly sent to El Salvador. You want to know why peoples' hearts are turning violent against this president? There's your answer. To many people on the left, what he's doing is nearly indistinguishable from the early days of the Third Reich. I haven't quite made that leap yet, but as you can see, I'm keeping a close eye on stories related to how the administration is dealing with perceived threats to its power. And it's not looking great.

3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

 

Notice the Palestinian Flag.  Do you think this was a right wing protest?

I see no antisemitism here, unless protesting against genocide is antisemitic. Antisemitism is often a shield used to protect the Israeli government from valid criticism. That's how I interpret the message in that photo, and I'm inclined to agree with it. Being against Israel isn't the same as being against the Jewish people any more than me being against religion is the same as being against the religious.

Again, I acknowledge that there's rhetoric on my side that I'm personally not completely okay with, and I think a lot of college students in particular haven't thought out their stances very well. University activists are usually well-meaning, but often misguided. And they're usually the ones who end up on CNN, unfortunately. In the face of genocide, though, I don't see a problem with directing harsh criticism towards Israel, and the rhetoric of some college kids doesn't change that. Israel has a country, a strong military, and the means to turn the entire Gaza Strip into glass (which some might argue is their likely end goal). I don't like antisemitism any more than you do, I promise. I just like genocide considerably less. Israel doesn't get a pass because it happened to them 80 years ago. The Palestinian people deserve better lives than Hamas or the Israeli government can give them, and it breaks my heart to see their pain minimized because someone at an Ivy League university said something mean about Jewish people.

[NeuroTypical]

16 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

Maryland man

I keep seeing that phrase.  Dude is an illegal immigrant citizen of El Salvador who crossed the border illegally in 2011, arrested in 2019 and detained by ICE.  He then applied for asylum.  A confidential informant pegged him as an MS13 member out of New York.  An immigration judge denied his asylum request but did grant protection from being deported back to El Salvador.  

He's not a "Maryland man", he's an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was denied asylum, but a judge said "we won't send you back to El Salvador".   Calling him "Maryland man" looks an awful lot like a blatant attempt to manipulate the narrative with a falsehood.  (I'm not accusing you @Phoenix_person, I'm guessing you're like me, a target of the attempt to manipulate.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-deportation-salvador-maryland-abrego-garcia-7b17b702b77a24d92a28dd4be5755fdd

 

Both sides are pushing him into the spotlight.  Folks mad at Trump paint him as a family man trying to do good in America.  Trump and ICE paint him as an MS13 gang member, foreign terrorist, who engaged in human trafficking, who is here illegally.  And we're deporting such people as quickly as we can find them.  One side is headlining a pic of him holding his kid looking like a dad.  The other side (Trump and ICE) seem totally uninterested in presenting evidence to the American public to substantiate their claims.  When it comes to swaying public opinion, Trump is losing.  "Trust me bro" isn't selling well.   But as of yesterday, the president of El Salvador is refusing to give him back.   So what's left to talk about?

Edited April 15 by NeuroTypical

[NeuroTypical]

15 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

if the cops can't arrest the Klan when they do their hate marches, then they can't arrest anti-IDF protesters either. Free speech and all.

Well, we can't arrest any American anti-IDF protesters.  Free speech and all.  That's the valid analogy.  But we can arrest and deport any illegals in those protests, and revoke the visas of anyone here legally who participates in them.   

Any guesses what happens to Americans who go visit, say, Japan or Germany, and decide to participate in protests against the policies of those countries?   Any guesses what happens when you do it in China or Mexico or Chile or Russia or North Korea or Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia?

 

Edited April 15 by NeuroTypical

[Phoenix_person]

2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

So what's left to talk about?

The fact that a Trump-friendly SCOTUS unanimously ordered his return to be facilitated, for starters. And we're not doing it because the president of El Salvador doesn't want to? I thought Trump was a master negotiator, art of the deal and all. And he's just going to cave to the dictator of a country the size of New Jersey?

Trump is testing the limits of his power, and so far no one has done a very good job of stopping him. That may not concern you on your side of the fence, but it looks pretty terrifying from where I sit, especially given that Trump just yesterday floated the idea of extending deportations to legal US citizens.  He wants to charge people with acts of terrorism for vandalizing cars, and his vindictiveness towards his political opponents has never been subtle. First they came for the illegal immigrants... 

2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Any guesses what happens to Americans who go visit, say, Japan or Germany, and decide to participate in protests against the policies of those countries?   Any guesses what happens when you do it in China or Mexico or Chile or Russia or North Korea or Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia?

Maybe I was just naive, but when I signed up to wear this country's uniform, I did so under the belief in American exceptionalism (I was 17, to be fair). We always prided ourselves on the fact that we are NOT North Korea, China, or Saudi Arabia and that even our allies couldn't match our civil liberties. I guess that's no longer the case.

To be clear, I get the legal gist of what you're saying, and you're not wrong. My main issue isn't that non-citizen dissenters are being deported, it's that we're deporting a wide array of nondesirables to a place that supposedly makes Gitmo look like the Four Seasons. I don't think that's somethong we should be doing at all, but definitely not without due process. Yes, I know due process is for citizens (for now). But what we do with the least regarded of our residents speaks volumes about our values as a nation, and right now I'm deeply ashamed of where we are. But hey, at least the stock market has been stable and eggs are cheap again, right?

[NeuroTypical]

38 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

Trump is testing the limits of his power, and so far no one has done a very good job of stopping him.

Honestly, I'm of the same mind here.  Trump is an interesting conglomeration of stuff I support and stuff that worries the crap out of me.  I'm concerned about 3 of the 5 constitutional crises he's given us in the last week.  

 

40 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

Maybe I was just naive, but when I signed up to wear this country's uniform, I did so under the belief in American exceptionalism (I was 17, to be fair). We always prided ourselves on the fact that we are NOT North Korea, China, or Saudi Arabia and that even our allies couldn't match our civil liberties. I guess that's no longer the case.

Nah, no valid point there.  There's nothing conflicting about exceptionalism AND strong borders.  Or exceptionalism AND choosing to not let our enemies in to defend and advance the agendas of brutal murderous evil Hamas.

 

42 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

But what we do with the least regarded of our residents speaks volumes about our values as a nation, and right now I'm deeply ashamed of where we are.

Ouch - right in the Christianity!  That phrase "the least" is big.  What we do to the least of us, we do to Christ.   But if we're going to look at who truly is "the least", I would be looking at the victims of those horrible people we pulled out of our prisons and sent to El Salvador.  "The least" include our poorest and least advantaged citizens that have had to fight harder for resources after Biden let in 11 million illegal immigrants.   Dealing with "the least" of those immigrants demands strong walls, wide gates, and reasonable laws that balance our charitable nature as a free and rich people, and our ability to remain a cohesive free rich nation.

Here's a claim: The more you read about the history of human migration, the less deeply ashamed you'll be.

 

47 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

But hey, at least the stock market has been stable

If you're gonna toss a cheap shot, at least make sure it hits.  This is my 401k as of today: 

I'm up 8% over the last 12 months, and 13% average for the last 3 years.  My basket is similar to most working American's baskets.  I'm not doing anything special.

Heh - where were your potshots in 2023, or 2020, or 2019, when the market went down in similar amounts?

[Ironhold]

21 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

If it makes you feel better, there's a neo-Nazi teen currently in custody for murdering his parents and possibly planning an assassination attempt against Trump.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/west/2025/04/14/nikita-casap-case-timeline-of-alleged-homicide-trump-assassination/83082191007/

As for other neo-Nazis (and antisemitic lefties, for that matter) hate speech is considered protected speech. I don't like it either, but if the cops can't arrest the Klan when they do their hate marches, then they can't arrest anti-IDF protesters either. Free speech and all. At least that's what Elon said when he unbanned all the Twitter Nazis.

"Sometimes, the easiest way to destroy someone is to just let them keep talking." - bit of internet advice. 

A lot of these "hate" groups and such were so very public in their actions through social media that it allowed everyone from local residents to watchdog groups to law enforcement the ability to see what they were doing and make plans accordingly. For example, at one point there were multiple channels on YouTube dedicated to cataloging the actions of these groups for the sake of providing information to the public about their activities. 

The crackdowns against these groups very often also snagged the watchdog groups and others who were trying to track & investigate them, and in general made it difficult for even law enforcement to continue tracking them. 

So as much as we might not like what Elon and others did by opening social media back up, it's actually allowed a greater level of surveillance and scrutiny while helping to remove the "forbidden fruit" aspects. 

[Phoenix_person]

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Nah, no valid point there.  There's nothing conflicting about exceptionalism AND strong borders.  Or exceptionalism AND choosing to not let our enemies in to defend and advance the agendas of brutal murderous evil Hamas.

Agreed. I also believe that if we're going to send someone to a Central American death camp, we should be absolutely sure that they're actually guilty of what we're accusing them of.

And it turns out I was likely wrong about due process not applying to non-citizens, according to the same Constitutional amendment that arguably should have prevented Trump from running a second time.

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

 

Ouch - right in the Christianity!  That phrase "the least" is big.  What we do to the least of us, we do to Christ.   But if we're going to look at who truly is "the least", I would be looking at the victims of those horrible people we pulled out of our prisons and sent to El Salvador.  "The least" include our poorest and least advantaged citizens that have had to fight harder for resources after Biden let in 11 million illegal immigrants.   Dealing with "the least" of those immigrants demands strong walls, wide gates, and reasonable laws that balance our charitable nature as a free and rich people, and our ability to remain a cohesive free rich nation.

Again, I agree. But again, we don't seem to be bothering to find out if these people are actually guilty of what we're accusing them of. And I don't know about you, but I'm not just going to take Trump's word for it. If we can justify ignoring the rule of law for non-citizens with legal status, how long before we're trying to justify doing so for citizens?

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

If you're gonna toss a cheap shot, at least make sure it hits.  This is my 401k as of today: 

I'm up 8% over the last 12 months, and 13% average for the last 3 years.  My basket is similar to most working American's baskets.  I'm not doing anything special.

Cool. Now imagine you're in your 20s and just started working on your 401k within the last 5 years. I don't think you'd be so confident in your nest egg. I didn't have a 401k until last year (not a lot of employers offer that in my former line of work, and I never had enough to justify trying to start my own). Let's just say I'm glad that the VA has my income sorted out for the forseeable future.

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Heh - where were your potshots in 2023, or 2020, or 2019, when the market went down in similar amounts?

You know I'm not one to make excuses for Democrats. Heck, I can't even fully blame Trump for the COVID crash. That would have happened with a Dem in office too.

[NeuroTypical]

17 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

Now imagine you're in your 20s and just started working on your 401k within the last 5 years. I don't think you'd be so confident in your nest egg.

I have a 20's kiddo, who just started working on her 401k within the last 5 years.  We had a talk about how this drop is probably the best thing that could possibly happen to her, and if the market dropped another 50% it would be the most absolute best thing ever.  Because as she continues to contribute over the next 5 years, she'll be buying more shares for cheaper with the same contributions.   If the market had stayed high, she would be buying fewer more expensive shares with each contribution.

Everyone in their 20's, 30's, even 40's who is saving for retirement should jump for joy at any market correction that lowers the price of the shares they're still buying.   

(Not understanding this is a common misconception.  I picked it up somewhere along the path to my finance degree.)

 

17 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

And I don't know about you, but I'm not just going to take Trump's word for it.

Trump seems unconcerned with convincing random Americans about how rigorous the due process has been.  It's not a good look, I agree.  That said, there is zero amount of evidence/proof that ICE could release that would possibly convince the left that -enough- due process had been given.   If tomorrow, Trump declassified all the court records and evidence, and it was good, the narrative would simply shift to how Trump is a liar and ICE is evil and you can't believe anything either of them say.  Like the anti-DOGE narrative, full of people who refuse to go to doge.gov and look at the giant wall of receipts. 

Edited April 16 by NeuroTypical

[JohnsonJones]

On 4/15/2025 at 10:59 AM, NeuroTypical said:

I keep seeing that phrase.  Dude is an illegal immigrant citizen of El Salvador who crossed the border illegally in 2011, arrested in 2019 and detained by ICE.  He then applied for asylum.  A confidential informant pegged him as an MS13 member out of New York.  An immigration judge denied his asylum request but did grant protection from being deported back to El Salvador.  

He's not a "Maryland man", he's an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was denied asylum, but a judge said "we won't send you back to El Salvador".   Calling him "Maryland man" looks an awful lot like a blatant attempt to manipulate the narrative with a falsehood.  (I'm not accusing you @Phoenix_person, I'm guessing you're like me, a target of the attempt to manipulate.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-deportation-salvador-maryland-abrego-garcia-7b17b702b77a24d92a28dd4be5755fdd

 

Both sides are pushing him into the spotlight.  Folks mad at Trump paint him as a family man trying to do good in America.  Trump and ICE paint him as an MS13 gang member, foreign terrorist, who engaged in human trafficking, who is here illegally.  And we're deporting such people as quickly as we can find them.  One side is headlining a pic of him holding his kid looking like a dad.  The other side (Trump and ICE) seem totally uninterested in presenting evidence to the American public to substantiate their claims.  When it comes to swaying public opinion, Trump is losing.  "Trust me bro" isn't selling well.   But as of yesterday, the president of El Salvador is refusing to give him back.   So what's left to talk about?

I think the problem is he was denied due process.

That is a cornerstone of judicial and legal rights. 

For example, if I decided you were an illegal immigrant, and illegal immigrants were not granted due process, I could simply deny you due process and send you to a Prison in El Salvador.

Now, if those people hated you (and this is why you were originally given assylum, because they would kill you) and wished you harm, once there you would have no protection. 

It probably wouldn't take a genius to figure out what may happen.

No, let's say you were actually a US citizen.  Doesn't matter, I already denied you due process.  Doesn't matter if it was a right guaranteed to you as a US citizen.  I deemed you an illegal, and without due process to say anything different, you were judged and the sentence executed forthwith.

Our ideas of what he is or should have had done to him can be important, but due process and other legal rights should be held as important things to uphold, otherwise no citizen will be safe from the same actions that sent this man to a prison in another nation.

[NeuroTypical]

8 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I think the problem is he was denied due process.

In August and September 2019, dude had two hearings on his request for asylum.   His petitions were denied by US Immigration Judge David M. Jones.  He was not given amnesty, he was not granted residency, he was granted protection from getting shipped back to El Salvador because of the threat from a rival gang.  That's his due process. 
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.1.1.pdf   

 

@JohnsonJones If you think he was denied due process, could you clarify why you think that?  I mean, he shouldn't have been shipped back to El Salvador, that's the 'clerical error' everyone is talking about.  But the only people who claim he shouldn't get deported, seem to be speaking out of ignorance or believing falsehoods. 

 

Edited Thursday at 08:12 PM by NeuroTypical