Long ago, in the 18th century to be precise, Americans believed that politics were the answer. It has long become apparent that politics are the problem, and that too much of them will drive you mad. Americans are surprisingly traditional, so they still talk about “midterm madness”, but why wait? American politics are mad all year round.
And how are the Jews (high on neurosis, low on psychosis) faring in this midterm season of our discontent? Mostly, they are discontented. In this they as usual resemble their fellow Americans more than Israeli Jews, who score off the charts in the global happiness index and are never slow to tell you why.
In July, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 13 per cent of Americans thought the country was “going in the right direction” under Joe Biden. Only 27 per cent of Democrats approved of the great unravelling. These are spectacularly bad numbers.
Ally Seifried credit Facebook (2)
Ally Seifried (Facebook)
The Republicans, despite their best efforts to sabotage themselves by overreaching on the Supreme Court and underachieving when it comes to shedding Donald Trump, may win both Houses of Congress next week.
But back to the Jews. And off to Nevada, the southwestern state where the Republican Adam Laxalt is running neck and neck with the incumbent Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto.
Laxalt, a former attorney general and naval officer, has the support of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Donald Trump, Miriam Adelson (widow of Sheldon the Generous), and one Robert Beadles, a big donor to Nevada Republicans and a big fan of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. It is not entirely surprising that Cortez Masto, the first Latina elected to the US Senate, has an endorsement from AIPAC.
If there is a MAGA movement, it is a rabble of self-starting opportunists and cranks trying to capitalise on the Trump presidency.
Catherine Cortez Masto GettyImages-1428442389 (1)
Catherine Cortez Masto (GettyImages)
Their collective madness is overrunning the lower levels of the red-state Republican Party, with the approval of much of the membership. In the Republican run-off in Oklahoma’s Senate District Two, Jarrin Jackson, an ammunition store owner and self-published author, has boiled his campaign down to the basics: “I ain’t owned by the Jews. I worship Jesus Christ.”
The other candidate in District Two, Ally Seifried, also worships Jesus. She is an accountant who used to be an assistant to a state senator.
In case you mistake her for a professional pol or even some kind of communist, her website says she’s “100 per cent Pro-Life, NRA Member, Trump Tough”, and compares her brother’s service in the US Marines to her willingness to fight the “Biden White House and the liberals in Congress” in the Oklahoma state house. I don’t know if there are many Jews in Oklahoma’s District Two, but it might be time they considered moving to District Three.
Over in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, AIPAC is backing the Republican via its new “super PAC”, the United Democracy Project (UDP).
Readers with nothing better to do and a prodigiously strong memory will recall last May’s Democratic primary.
The UDP backed Steve Irwin — not Steve Irwin the Australian who got killed by a stingray, but Steve Irwin the moderate Jewish Democrat who received a mountain of money from the UDP and lost to Summer Lee, a much more left-wing African American Democrat, by a single point.
The UDP is now backing Mike Doyle — not Mike Doyle the retiring Democratic incumbent, but Mike Doyle the Republican candidate. That’s right: Mike Doyle the Republican candidate is running to replace Mike Doyle the Democrat who is retiring after many years of being forthcoming. Seems sensible enough.
Dominic Green is a Wall Street Journal contributor, a Washington Examiner columnist and a fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute
