The more Trump does for Israel, the more we hear from some analysts that he is doing this for Christian evangelical voters. Abe Silberstein writes this week that Trump bends over backwards for the Jewish state so as to win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin:
If the 2016 results are any indication, Trump can’t afford to even lose votes at the margin. The votes of a few thousand religious conservatives in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will weigh heavily on whether he wants to release a [peace] plan that will, naturally, require some concessions from Israel, however minimal.
If this is the case, Donald Trump has not gotten the memo. Trump is, we would all agree, a master politician, and in the last week he has held big rallies in the crucial swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, and in both speeches, Israel was a throwaway. Trump rushed through the Israel script in his rally December 10 in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
I withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran nuclear deal, a disaster. I recognize Israel’s true capital and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem. For years you watched as your politicians apologized for America. Now you have a president who is standing up for America, and we are standing up for the people of Pennsylvania. You’ve never had that better year. Never
Trump’s speech last night in Battle Creek, Michigan, went on for two hours and was largely unscripted, and aimed at turning impeachment to political advantage. Israel was brief and scripted, the same as Pennsylvania:
I recognized Israel’s true capital and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem and we also recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights– a big deal. For years you watched as your politicians, apologized. Remember?
Trump did go on about Iran last night — “By the way I ended the Iran nuclear deal, I hope you’re happy” — but that was in the context of saying Barack Obama should have been impeached for ending some sanctions on Iran.
Nothing about his antisemitism order, or that Democrats are turning against Israel, a big theme of his speech to a Jewish audience in Florida December 7, with his biggest donors present, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.
If Israel meant anything to the voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania, wouldn’t Trump have gone on about it, for even a fraction of how much he talked about gas prices, abortion, health care plans that rip babies from the womb, climate change, the terrible Paris climate accord, the yellow vests in France, lower taxes– any of the issues that he seems to think are going to move the swing states? I think so.
Last night he even went on about how much he’s done to clean up the water in Flint, MI. “Who were the geniuses who did that to you?… It hurt the people. We’re getting it fixed.” Trump knows how to connect with some voters, and Israel just isn’t one of those ways. Unless he’s speaking to a Jewish audience.
Thomas Friedman explained Trump’s motivation a few weeks ago in New York: “A huge check from Sheldon Adelson” and winning Jewish votes in Florida.
Apologies for the repetition; but here are some experts, mostly liberal Zionists, who say Trump is doing it for the evangelicals. Yossi Alpher at Peace Now. Ori Nir of Peace Now. David Rothkopf. Aaron David Miller and Dan Kurtzer in the Washington Post. And you can read Ido Aharoni, former Israeli consul, explaining that evangelicals just don’t care that much, here.
If a politician is a narcissist with intellect as small as his ego is large, yes, I agree that Trump is a master politician.
He lists three things that have absolutely nothing to do with “standing up for” either America or the people of Pennsylvania. The guy really is an idiot…I mean, master politician. ;-)
I don’t know about master politician. His personality as outrageous anti- politician has worked for him.
A few lines about Israel are all he would need for rightwing evangelicals who care about that issue. If you knew anything about that culture from the inside ( which I do , as a teen long ago) you would know that in their eyes God wants America to support Israel. That’s all he needed to say. They know which side he is on and what he has done.
On abortion and social issues that conservative Christians care about, traditional Republican politicians have had to keep their various factions together. The rich guys want their tax cuts and couldn’t care less about criminalizing abortion. But they need the votes of socially conservative not terribly rich Christians . So you promise conservative judges, nibble away at abortion rights, and talk about that. You also support coal and any other industries ( like fracking) that might employ some of the locals and you speak about climate change as a socialist plot by elites who hate blue collar whites. I haven’t watched the speeches, but I assume he said things like this.
The liberal Zionists you mention ( and others) like to overstate Christian Zionist influence, but you like to understate it.
PHIL “The more Trump does for Israel, the more we hear from some analysts that he is doing this for Christian evangelical voters.”
Perhaps that is why the residents of Israel refer to it as the Christian evangelical state.
I too have noticed Trump’s references to Israel in his speeches seem short and almost perfunctory.
I think the “liberal” Zionists claim Trump is sucking up to Adelson and Israel for the Evangelicals because they don’t want to focus on Adelson’s and Israel’s obvious, huge influence on Trump. That could bring up Israel’s huge influence on the Democrats (without the Evangelicals). And that could bring up Israel’s huge influence on the corporate press (without the Evangelicals). Which could bring up Israel’s huge influence on America’s regime change wars. Everybody’s trying to keep this gigantic mastodon under the radar, at Israel’s behest.
I live in a red Southern state. Many people I know are Republicans, Christian (evangelical and non-evangelical), and big Trump fans. From my conversations with them, they mostly know Israel from the Bible–not as a political issue. When I mention how much foreign aid the US gives to Israel, they get angry–as in “Why are we giving them all that money? Why do they need it?” This tracks with Trump’s negative views on foreign aid–he seems to be really against giving money to other countries and constantly complains other that country’s are not contributing enough, etc. The only exception I can think of is Israel. He never rails against money for Israel. Or mentions it at all.
People I know generally have very little awareness of Israel and its importance to American politics. They think of Israel in context of its place in the Bible. They have no particular thoughts on the treatment of Palestinians because they don’t know about it. When I describe it, they seem surprised–it’s new information. The are also morally offended. Same reaction when I talk about BDS and the laws being passed in the US to combat it. They just don’t know anything about it. But when I talk about it, it’s a pretty clear cut and dried First Amendment issue to them. Afterall, they boycott various things themselves. I think we all do that.
Oh–I’m not Jewish. I got interested in this from reading Jimmy Carter’s book and because I had a pen pal from Israel. And there was so much that was just so clearly wrong. You rarely get that in life.
I think popular opinion will shift once more people outside of the Jewish community are aware of what’s going on.
(From my own perspective, I find it interesting to read lists of all the countries that provided support of any kind in our most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is nowhere to be found on those lists. Oh what a friend we have.)