The Oct. 4 issue of the Great Neck News must have been rather disturbing to Dr. Stephen Morris, a frequent contributor to the Readers Write section of the newspaper.
The editorial titled, “Blame the Tea Party” stated that the government shutdown was due to “the growing radical right in the Republican Party.”
Since Dr. Morris boasts that he was one of the founders of the Tea Party on Long Island, this had to constitute a major annoyance.
Then to add insult to injury, the News printed a letter from Esther Confino, which accused Dr. Morris of fantasizing about the consequences of the Affordable Care Act and lying “about its actual provisions.”
Three cheers for Ms. Confino!
Interestingly, both Morris and I grew up in Brooklyn and may have been exposed to similar experiences. Yet, we evolved as polar opposites on the political spectrum.
Since my days as a political science major at the University of Rochester, I have been a proud leftist active in many local and national campaigns.
He, on the other hand, espouses positions to the right of Attila the Hun.
As someone interested in political motivations, I began to wonder how such a divergence could come to pass.
One explanation comes from the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry. It suggests that “leftist” leanings can be explained by identifying with the underdog.
Conversely, fascist and other right-wing ideologies may have resulted from youngsters being maltreated in their youth, but, oddly, identifying with the oppressors.
This notion is discussed in Dr. Robert Lindner’s classic “The Fifty Minute Hour,” but offers only a partial explanation for one’s liberal or conservative predilections. Other explanations follow.
My boyhood in Brooklyn was a formative time. It was the era of FDR, the New Deal and World War II. President Roosevelt, for whom I “campaigned” for at the age of seven, was beloved by the Jews.
In fact, I rarely encountered a relative or acquaintance who wasn’t a Democrat. Since this was a time when Jews in Europe were being murdered by the Nazi’s, those of us living in the U.S. felt very vulnerable.
We rallied around any politician who demonstrated concern for our plight and those of our overseas brethren. One might imagine that when Hitler’s hordes were defeated and the threat to our existence vanished, our allegiance to the Democratic Party might lessen. But this was not the case.
An examination of voting statistics from 1984 to the present proves conclusively that despite the fact that Jews were largely middle and upper class and should have voted with their economic interests, they didn’t. Here are the percentage of Jewish voters supporting Democratic presidential nominees: 1984 Mondale 67 percent, 1988 Dukakis 64 percent, 1992 Clinton 80 percent, 1996 Clinton 78 percent, 2000 Gore 79 percent, 2004 Kerry 76 percent, 2008 Obama 78 percent and 2012 Obama 69 percent.
Regardless of whether the Democrat won or lost, was popular or not, he always garnered a significant majority of the Jewish electorate’s vote. The only voting bloc to rack up consistently higher Democratic percentages was African-Americans.
What might explain this voting pattern among Jews?
Again, there are two possibilities. The first is that Jewish voters aren’t too bright – that they are creatures of habit who, ritualistically, pull the Democratic lever.
This theory also implies that Jews vote against their economic self interest. This idea was articulated by Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg in a New York Times article on Nov. 2, 1984. “In America… the comfortable and the rich usually vote their pocket-books. A notable exception to this rule has been the Jews who, despite their striking economic and social rise in the last generation, have continued to vote with ‘have-nots.’”
This phenomenon occurs both on the left and the right. Author Frank Thomas writing in “What’s the Matter with Kansas” points out that residents of this very red state do themselves a disservice whenever they cast a Republican vote. The question now becomes—what motivates people to cast ballots for those who will reach into their pockets by raising taxes?
Here the answer is simple. “Tikkun Olam,” the Biblical injunction to repair the world. The Torah is explicit in its mandate to help the stranger. We honor the ancient directive “to be a light unto the nations.” In the words of Rabbi Alexander Schindler, “To be a Jew is to be a goad to the conscience of humankind, to bear a heart of flesh and blood and not of stone.”
Most Jews take these admonitions seriously. Always in a minority and having experienced throughout our long history expulsions, pogroms and the holocaust, we are sensitive to the needs and wishes of those who suffer. We identify easily with blacks, Latinos, and members of the LGBT community. This explains why Jews have been in the forefront of the civil rights, anti-war, gay and lesbian, environmental, trade union and feminist movements.
Jews were notable supporters of anti-racism in the U.S. Joel and Arthur Spingam were early leaders in the NAACP, Stanley Levinson (whom I knew) was an advisor to Martin Luther King while Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were brutally murdered in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964.
The catalogue of liberal, socially conscious Jews is almost endless. This is our legacy – one of which we should all be proud. Why then does Dr. Morris focus on his fight against higher taxes? (See his letter
in the Oct. 11 edition of the News).
We live in interesting times.
Tea Party members in the House of Representatives have almost destroyed the Republican brand. Congressional approval is at an all-time low.
As Sen. McCain has stated, only blood relatives and paid staffers like the job being done in Washington. But I am optimistic. Dr. King wrote that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice, and my knowledge of history leads me to believe that America has always been about the expansion (not the contraction) of democracy. If this be so, then the Tea Party is just a blip on history’s screen.
The record shows there was once a “Know-Nothing Party” in the mid-1850s and the 20th century saw the rise and fall of the “Dixiecrats.”
This will also be the fate of the Tea Party for they are, clearly, on the wrong side of history.
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
