Several years ago, pre-pandemic, as I compiled my semi-annual list of things I'd like to do in the upcoming half-year, I committed myself to purchasing two new subscriptions that would challenge my mental capacity. After soliciting advice, some helpful, some perfunctory, I settled on paid electronic subscriptions to The Forward and The Atlantic. I have maintained each on autopay ever since. Each week I strive to read six pieces in The Atlantic and ten in The Forward, with reasonable adherence. While The Forward specializes in news and commentary targeted to a Jewish audience, The Atlantic is more eclectic. It has staff writers, some very experienced, some promoted to journalism's big leagues after time in the minors. It has frequent contributors, usually people who hold professorships with areas of study. Each day's edition, as the electronic version has new articles daily, includes one or more essays from independent contributors. In the political year, politics dominates the daily content. The editors make sure that its readers like me receive analytically driven opinions worthy of the college grads who subscribe. As the American election results had little ambiguity, experienced political mavens went to work sorting out their pet conclusions as to why our ballot boxes reflected a clear preference for Republicans across geography and most demographic categories.
Two members of a think tank, More In Common, addressed polarization as perceptions, some right, others I think erroneous.
Their op-ed asserts that Republicans prioritized their principal goals as a party, inflation control and immigration control. As they campaigned, that was the message the voters received. Democratic voters, when polled, set their top issues as inflation control and health care access. Conceptually, there is very broad consensus on these concerns that does not segregate by party. Everyone has either modified what they purchase from the grocery due to price, or at least grumble about what they perceive as cost exceeding value. We all find our periodic doctor visits, or medical dependencies, a hardship in some way. It could be economic costs of insurance or medicines, limited availability of appointments, doctors who look at screens instead of us, or concerns about how much of the medical care we get mismatched to what we really need. People in some parts of the country feel the immediate impact of illegal border crossings more than others, but we've probably all encountered people from Latin America when we dine out or watch our neighbors have their yards upgraded. Whether properly documented or not, we suspect that they cannot all be. We live the same way irrespective of our political imprints. We shop, travel, eat, go to work, drive on the highways beyond our own towns, have mixed feelings when we send our kids off to school each morning. America offers a lot of common ground. We all know, and pretty much agree on where the failures emerge, with some contention over who is at fault.
As the two authors note, with data to present, the perception of what the Democrats as a party aspire to deflects this common ground in favor of minority views. Gender identity, ethnic entitlements, redress of historical wrongs, indignities of self with linkages to global groups with their grievances absorbed into our own. That is not at all inflation control or health care. Yet it hijacks the priority concerns, becoming subordinate to people with much smaller constituencies but more visible platforms. Their essay focuses upon how issues of subordinate broad concern, indeed widespread unpopularity, became the disseminated face of the Democratic party. Where the authors and I diverge is that they see this as a faulty perception. I see it as a very accurate perception, one in keeping with my own personal experience, undoubtedly magnified throughout the American population by people just like me with parallel personal encounters.
On another personal semi-annual assessment, I concluded two years into retirement that I needed more human interaction. The pandemic had just upended our lives. My Senior Program at the state university where I mingled with others most weekdays had shut down. Synagogue services paused, as Zoom was not an option for an Orthodox congregation on the Sabbath. As I compiled twelve initiatives, I committed myself to joining two new organizations. I had never engaged in formal politics, but my Representative District sought committee members. I volunteered, gaining one of the two seats on that committee allotted to my voting location. Great people. We met monthly, mostly electronically. On a few occasions, the elected officials arranged committee gatherings in a central location with refreshments and their presence. Interesting, affable people. The State Rep and Senator each had mental agility, an understanding of legislation, and a willingness to engage with nobodies like me. We chatted about ourselves, about how to make schools more effective, why medical care has become more problematic for both doctors like me and patients like everyone else, about insecurities we shared with our changing world. The 2020 election brought a Presidential change, one welcome to us, as most of us had met the new President when he represented us in the Senate. The year also brought a US Census. My polling place and the acreage it served would be shifted to a new State Representative as district lines were redrawn by the state legislature. My seat would be shifted to the Committee of the new district, as the Democratic Party infrastructure apportions its committees by state representative. Nobody contested my seat. We met the first Monday of every month by Zoom. However, our representative had no interest in engaging in committee meetings. My Senator would remain the same, though she focused more on the previous district. Another Senator had a territory partly within this district. She came to the Zoom meetings, making a favorable impression. As a school teacher, she had interest and familiarity with public education, a big item in the state budget and top concern of many citizens. In addition, my new committee chairman had contacts with the central party, bringing statewide office holders to our meetings. We never met each other live, the forum where people exchange their spontaneous thoughts. Agendas came across as more trivial, though the new district had greater prosperity than my old one. Hardly anyone challenged the elected representatives who agreed to appear, which may be why so many agreed. Discussions involved procedures and some land use, which is not the purpose of the committee. I found the people half ideologues, half dull, with crossover between the halves. I learned that some had been national committeemen for Senator Sanders' delegation. What lacked were people like my neighbors. People who worked in the offices and the labs, folks with a business, people young enough to have kids in school. Many had been with the committee for decades. One relative newcomer had once held office, another chummed with people of title. Yet, I did hold the chair, a financial professional of skill and party loyalty, in proper esteem. And the new committee contained a personal friend, a member of my own synagogue with his agenda that saw his home's property value in jeopardy based on a land use issue that had languished for years.
Was either Committee a face of the Democratic Party? Maybe the second one. More political hobbyists, though the first had its ideologues. The elected officials, though, all dependent on the support of the various Party structures, never forgot their primary mission of making their districts and our state as a whole the type of place people would want to live. Contented voters reelect. While we only have one dominant party, we have contested primaries.
I attended every meeting, engaged sometimes, bored other sessions. Rarely irritated, but even then rationalized by knowing that everyone on the screen was personally ineffectual but enabled elected officials of quality to emerge. I took my turn at the nuts and bolts of political committee operations, failing miserably at my one attempt at contacting voters by an automated phone bank.
Buddha once advised his disciples that when their personal experiences diverged from what their leaders promoted, act on experience. My turn came soon, exposing the face of the Democratic Party to me in an unflattering way. A young man had just requested to join our committee. He had recently authored an op-ed in the local newspaper advocating a Gaza ceasefire. I did not read it, and opposed what he recommended, but I also know that the newspaper has to select from a broad array of opinions submitted to their editors. They chose his editorial, so at least the writing must have been coherent. When he came, he requested that our Committee go on record as supporting a resolution by Rep Cori Bush demanding an end to hostilities in Gaza. The massacre of October 7 2023 transformed me. This Congresswoman was the placard carrier of the anti-Jewish African American view that we are oppressors who must be contained because we have too much control. A scripted anti-Semite. A River to the Sea you don't belong in usurped land type. And I once lived in the City of St. Louis that elected her. I remained polite. This is not the purpose of our committee. Our committee does itself a disservice disconnecting its upper middle class highly educated October 8 Jews. The rest of the Committee thought this made the Democrats stand for the oppressed. I prevailed on a technicality, as he was not a committee member who could make proposals. After adjournment, I stayed on Zoom with the chair and one or two others. These guys could spout the slogans. I happen to be very knowledgeable about this subject, its history, its many facets. Those I dealt with were not, and did not care to be. Their slogans and alignments would suffice. At the next month's meeting, we voted on his membership in the Committee. I voted yes. The Big Tent should be the Democratic Party's foundation. Now with standing he brought it up again. He had support. Just like on the news, you could see who the River to Sea crowd were. Some were on that Zoom. That became the face of the Democratic Party to me that evening. I resigned from the Committee the next day. The chairman telephoned me. We agreed that I would think about it for a month. When the pre-meeting email reminder arrived, I affirmed that I am not willing to watch the committee that should be focusing on local issues that we all experience veer in that direction. I would not be back. My party has elected officials that I can support in their primary races, including another Jewish candidate who would ultimately get elected Governor.
A more chance encounter with the face of the Democratic Party came later. As I was departing, a dedicated politico, one who ran legislative campaigns, applied to return to the District 10 Committee after an absence. He had experience as a political operative, so having him offer those skills would advance the Committee's purpose of keeping Democratic candidates in office. By chance, I would meet him not long after. For several years I have engaged in a labor of love, scoring scholarship applications from HS seniors and medical students on behalf of a local foundation that administers the scholarship funds. This organization holds two receptions each year which I make an effort to attend. At the summer event, I saw the name tag of the man I had recently voted onto the committee. He had decided to run for a new vacancy in the state assembly. Our conversation touched a little on the committee. I told him why I departed. We did not discuss any issues related to his candidacy, but more to the fine organization that sponsored the event we were attending. A cordial chat, then we went our own ways to the snack table.
Months later, in the midst of the primary campaign, his opponent's husband and daughters knocked on my door. They being Jewish, recognized my mezuzah and Shalom welcome mat. I listened to his description of what his wife supports, which is not very different from what I support. I briefly told him why I had resigned from that district committee six months earlier. Apparently, her primary opponent, the gentleman I had found affable at the reception, had confronted her as an inferior candidate because she was a Zionist. That from a talented operative in my own District Committee, whose endorsement he had. The primaries took place in September. The Party Choice for that seat, their committeeman, lost to the lady whose family had knocked on my door. Their choice for Governor, the incumbent Lt. Governor, lost to my candidate. So even within the Party, its committee could not get the very middle-class Democratic suburban public, those people with degrees from America's most prestigious institutions, to vote for their less capable candidates. My perception and that of my neighbors linked progressive ideology to less capable.
Not entirely accurate. We did elect the first trans woman to Congress. While trans is one of the characters that Republicans successfully linked to an undesirable Democratic social agenda, this lady, and she definitely looks female in person, spent her years in our State Senate functioning as a statesman, crafting legislation that considered minority sensitivities. And while the progressive face has its intersectionalities where Jews sympathetic to individual causes are not welcome because we've been labeled their oppressors, this lady has been very gracious to us. I met her at the Jewish National Fund breakfast, the ultimate of advocacy for Zionism. While this stands out to me personally, it highlights the exception. The real face is the support of scripted anti-Semites who think they know which oppressors will galvanize their political base. It does, but at a very high price in November.
We saw the image of the Democratic Party, accurate or not, on TV last fall. My alma mater made the news as its President got baited for all to see by a Congresswoman. As students and non-students expressed support for a massacre as a legitimate liberation technique, our university president spoke of context. With the financial protection of tenure, faculty of the highest IQs came out in support of River to Sea by any means necessary. I think they vote Democrat, just like me, but for very different reasons. They have no alternatives as Republican agendas summarily reject what they promote. The Democrats make space in their big tent. Those profs may not have an alternative voting pattern, but I do, with enmity to those folks as a campaign asset. I didn't change my vote, but the national electorate rebuffed that view in a very consistent way.
My alma mater was at the forefront of not just pro-Palestinian but pro-Hamas advocacy. Nobody is more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight than me. I want them to have prosperity and stability. Nobody is more in favor of people of color succeeding. But as a United Way Donor, I got invited to their annual meeting, even winning mucho dinero in their raffle. This umbrella charity, this resource for the disabled, the disadvantaged, the elderly, had become woke right down to Spelling Bees for the Community peppered with buzzwords of Black victimhood. The United Way exists to help these people succeed. Their approach won’t accomplish that. After the meeting, I approached the spelling champion, a personable young man to ask if he watched the National Spelling Bee. He knew nothing of it. The coach apparently lacked the saichel to realize that his kids, dedicated to their own learning, could move themselves ahead in a national forum. They are the face of the Democratic party, with people like us with marriages of long duration, diligence to our profession, generosity to our people and their people, and reverence for the icons of American history who enabled what we have, now labeled as their oppressors. River to the Sea with fists in the air and faces obscured.
Those are the side issues that divert attention. But prices and immigration drive decisions of voter preference. I did a seminar this year for a course that I take at the state university's senior division. The course is part of an ongoing series on NYCity, as the instructor has a fondness for Broadway and lived there much of his life. Due to the economic activities that dominate our region, science enterprise, corporate law, banking, and medical care, many from Metro NY have settled here to make our living, including me. We are very attached to this course in retirement. My presentation involved people who a visitor to NYC might meet. City employees, vagrants, street vendors, and diplomats. NYC has people assembling from everywhere. In researching the section on vendors, I found an advocacy group that compiles data about who the people manning the stands on the street are. They originate disproportionately from Latin America, with a second cluster from North Africa. Those who sell food are regulated separately from those who sell merchandise. Of the food vendors about a quarter are undocumented residents, about an eighth for the merchandise sellers. And that's from their own advocacy group. Remove them all, as the incoming administration suggests, and hardship will likely ensue, both to other illegal residents who work and shop at the vendors and people who work, visit, or live in Manhattan where lunch at the cart is a welcome convenience. Being sympathetic, or at least not disruptive, could have been the Democratic public face, one that affirms the kindness that most people of either party have. They didn't take that approach. The Republicans had a plan, likely a trouble-making one with an element of cruelty. The Democrats not only did not propose a plan, but held the responsibility for the current circumstances.
And prices. I do the family grocery shopping. Once a week I read every page of the circular of my principal supermarket. As I review each column, I write desired items on a notepad. On the front, things I must get. On the back of the page, items I would consider, a much longer list than the front. From this I can plan menus for the week around what discounts the grocer is willing to share with me. A challenge, almost like a sport, to keep the conglomerates that supply most of our food competitive with each other. And they are. Price gouging claims, the face of the Democratic progressives, seem inaccurate. Prices are not uniformly excessive. Things with licensed team logos and pharmaceutical patents carry enormous premiums. Intellectual property is lucrative, but defensibly so. Raw produce, meats, and seafood, those commodities, always have discounted items. The highly processed foods, those snack items, sodas, prepared foods for reheating, carry the brunt of inflation. I suspect this reflects supply chains, as these concoctions by the best and brightest of the corporate food labs require global input of ingredients all being at the factory at the same time. They also support consumer panels that maximize the taste acceptability to the public and assess what people are willing to pay. That part will probably not change much as political ideologies shift every few years in America. Democrats controlling prices? For medicines they did. For food, there's a very big downside when products people want become scarce. What can change are incentives to producers. Part of the Republican campaign to address the problem, even if not a great solution.
My wife defaults to MSNBC when she needs a break from more redeeming PBS and TCM. Their talking heads spent the campaign telling us the dangers of Donald Trump. He spent the campaign telling us how he would use Presidential power to address our woes. My conscience and character told me to vote blue, and I did. My intellect, those mental elements of binah and saichel incorporated into our Jewish central prayer each day, questioned that.
Did the Red Wave crest because squeaky wheels within the Democratic party misrepresented it, as The Atlantic's essayists state? I don't think so. The product distinction between the two voting options seemed clear. Inflation and health were concerns for sure, but solutions did not emerge. The face of the party repels even people like me with multiple university degrees and generational gratitude for what FDR and LBJ did to enhance lives of Americans in economic or racial disadvantage. That summarizes my experience this past year. The voters saw a very accurate position of the party the majority rejected. They acted on experience, just as Buddha advised us.
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