Kirchik who whose presidential candidates he has supported since 2004 is a savvy lapsed Republican, who characterizes himself as “a homeless former Jewish Republican voter”. He knows more about politics than I will ever know or care to know. He is not a fan of Donald Trump, to say the least.
I have taken excerpts from his incisive article, some being out of context, but all of interest and enlightening whether you be from the Right or from the Left.
Kirchik takes the Democrats to task: “The Democratic Party’s future that’s at stake. By giving free reign to the most irresponsible and reactionary voices we… ended up with Trump”. I assume he is referring to either/or Obama, Sanders or Clinton.
“Jewish Democrats need to face up to that fact right now, or else there won’t be a party in this country that refuses a prominent place to bigots. If Jewish Democrats think their party will be a welcoming place for them… with a former associate of the Nation of Islam as its chairman, they’re meshuggah. That Keith Ellison is even a serious candidate for the top DNC post is part of a broader trend of hostility to the Jewish State and Jewish concerns initiated by the outgoing administration.”
“John Kerry’s endless speech blaming Israel for his own failures while throwing around words like “apartheid,” were not accidents”.
”The occupant of the White House is Barack Obama, who will continue to live in Washington and retain a great deal of influence over Democrats. After their surprise loss, the Clintons are gone for good. They’re kaput. Those are facts”.
” A war is already brewing for the soul of the Democratic Party. On one side are many of its Jewish voters and donors. On the other side are hard-left activists and agitators who make a very public point of wanting those people purged”.
“It is an article of faith among this crew that Sanders would have handily defeated Trump had Democrats abjured the counsel of their perfidious “neoliberal” donor overlords and nominated a 74-year-old socialist for the presidency. This bit of retrospective insanity is driving the push for Ellison’s chairmanship of the party, and it betrays the penchant for half-baked fantasizing so common on the regressive left”.
“The emotions upon which right-wing populism draws—national identity, peoplehood, culture, tradition—are more visceral than the class-based interest aroused by the left-wing variant”.
“There is no objective evidence to suggest that moving the Democratic Party further to the left will help its electoral fortunes”.
“The moral of the story is that putting their heads in the sand… won’t work for Democrats. Obama was a historic president, a witty man, and a good writer. But anyone who looks at his legacy abroad must acknowledge that it has been an unmitigated disaster”.
” Obama’s main foreign policy—partnering with Iran’s repressive and vile theocracy—has led to the deaths of 500,000 people in Syria and a migrant crisis…”
” It also, incidentally, has been terrible for Israel. None of that was defensible. It was a catastrophe, and the endless denial of that reality by the White House and its echo chambers, and by well-meaning team players, played a part in electing Donald Trump”.
And as for me and my fellow Israelis, Baruch Hashem.
As for you other guys: “Stop pretending that everything will be OK. Take it from me [Kirchik], a homeless former Jewish Republican voter: It won’t be OK”.