Biden’s betrayal of Israel sees the rise of the ‘Never Biden’ voters

In 2016, America was introduced to the “Never Trump” voter, people who contended that they were conservatives but that Donald Trump was such a disgusting human being that they couldn’t vote for him. By 2020, two things had happened: Some of them decided that, given his four years of successful conservative governance, they could vote for him despite his personality; others overtly or covertly joined the Democrat party. Now, it’s 2024, and we’re seeing a new breed of “Never” voter: The Jewish “Never Bidens” of the Democrat party.

I first learned that there was a name for these awakening Jews when a friend sent me an email with an incredible quotation: “My ‘Never Again’ is trumping my ‘Never Trump’ these days.” In other words, the fear of another Holocaust is so great that Trump seems like a great option when compared to Biden.

I eventually traced the quotation to an Eli Lake essay at The Free Press entitled “The Rise of the ‘Never Bidens’: Donors who once worried more about Donald Trump now see the president’s bid for a second term as the greater threat to America.” Lake wrote about four very generous Jewish political donors, all of whom have been open about the fact that Biden’s decision to back Hamas, a genocidal, anti-American terrorist group, has given them second thoughts about their prior sense of revulsion when it comes to Donald Trump. Here’s the full context for that amazing quote about “Never Again” versus “Never Trump.”

Cliff Asness, a Republican donor who says he “spent well over seven figures” to support Trump’s primary opponent Nikki Haley, told The Free Press that “My ‘Never Again’ is trumping my ‘Never Trump’ these days.”

“Biden is a huge disappointment, really a moral outrage with this arms embargo being only the latest and greatest outrage,” continued Asness, the co-founder of AQR Capital Management. “Despite my long opposition to him, this makes me more likely, though I haven’t quite gotten there yet, to see Trump as the better of two bad alternatives.”

Some might say, “Well, Asness is a Republican, so of course he’ll return to the home base for elections.” Maybe, but what about Haim Saban, a major Democrat party donor, who issued a strong warning to the Democrat party about Biden’s decision to support Hamas:

There’s also the Democrat hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who suddenly figured out after October 7 that academia, to which he’s donated staggering amounts of money over the years, is a hotbed of virulent, genocidal antisemitism. I find his X account endlessly amusing as I watch him try to persuade himself that the Democrat party can be saved. That hope is fading as he slowly realizes that it’s the Republican party that recognizes that Israel must be defended for two primary reasons: (1) It’s the morally right thing to help a liberal democratic ally fight a terrorist group and (2) that same terrorist group (backed by Iran) is coming for America once it’s done with Israel. In other words, Israel’s enemy is our enemy.

Ben Shapiro is also a Never Trumper who’s become positively enthusiastic about Trump. I don’t know what Shapiro did in the 2016 election when he was terribly worried that Trump would govern as a dictator. By the 2020 election, when his fears failed to materialize, Shapiro became a very reluctant Trump supporter. Now, Shapiro has said that he would walk over broken glass to vote for Trump:

I’m seeing this same shift in the Democrat-run pro-Israel Facebook group to which I belong.

Here’s how I understand the shift: Over their 4,000 years of existence, a span that has been distinguished by almost non-stop war and persecution, there are nevertheless three primary traumas that have shaped the Jewish psyche: The Babylonian exile, the destruction of the Second Temple, and the Holocaust. The Holocaust is the most recent and the one that Israel’s and world Jewry’s enemies are openly anxious to repeat.

Every Jew fears another Holocaust. After WWII, the Democrat party impliedly promised to be philosemitic and to protect the Jews from a new Holocaust. Even for those Jews who were not already leftist (as many are, thanks to old anti-Tsarist sentiments and academia), that promise drew their vote. Republicans, with their casual white shoe, banker, country club antisemitism, were just too risky.

Now, though, Jews have reevaluated that risk. It’s the Democrat party that threatens them at home. And while it’s true that Jews cannot shift the vote in Michigan or Minnesota, it’s also true that Democrats have long received a great deal of money from Jewish voters. If that money dries up and the Jews stay home, the Democrats may find themselves wishing that they’d picked the other side in the Israel-Hamas war.

Image by Andrea Widburg

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