Cultural cringe is strong because it taps into people’s prejudices, but it’s also weak when it comes to policy.
Biden’s people bet that they could slap an arms embargo on Israel and still draw in Never Trumpers. That’s proving to be a bad bet. He forgot that most of these folks disliked Obama’s policies and only backed Biden because he was supposed to be a moderate. Now after Afghanistan, Israel is looking like the last straw for a lot of people who, both Jewish and non-Jewish, had been committed Never Trumpers.
It’s a small sampling but much of it’s coming from some influential Never Trumpers.
Beyond that, a lot of American Jews who didn’t think that Biden vs. Trump had that much of a difference on Israel after Oct 7 have now come to see it in very stark terms. I’ve seen private texts and messages from generally apolitical people (and most people are apolitical) indicating a major shift.
After getting Sen. Schumer, Rep. Nadler and the assorted ‘Rabbis for Hamas’ in the Reform movement on board, Biden’s people thought that they were doing fine. That was a fundamental misreading of the situation.
Two things have happened.
- People who were Never Trumpers (Jewish or not) could lie to themselves that Biden was better on foreign policy. Now that has come apart.
- American Jews who thought that there wasn’t much of a difference between the two parties and didn’t follow the congressional shenanigans have been disabused of it.
This is a gamechanger.
Biden has alienated two parts of his base, American Jews and liberal Republicans and Democrat foreign policy hawks. He’s exposed himself as Obama 2.0. The impact won’t be immediately obvious in the polls, but it will hurt him.
{Reposted from FrontPageMag}
