Finding Bad People on Both Sides
In this week’s Politics & Power, Nathan Guttman explores the controversy surrounding republican freshman congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
In this week’s Politics & Power, Nathan Guttman explores the controversy surrounding republican freshman congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
For some, the transition was swift and painless.
On the streets next to Capitol Hill, DC residents broke out into spontaneous dancing, as soon as police lifted the barricades next to their homes at the end of Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony.
Across the country, cheerful Americans posted photos online of champagne bottles popping open, sharing toasts with friends, and showing off Biden-Harris posters and inauguration memorabilia. (There were also the Bernie Sanders memes, but that’s another story.)
For others, however, transitioning to Joe Biden’s America was harder.
Politics & Power columnist Nathan Guttman explores how January 6th’s Capitol Hill insurrection dealth American Jews a double blow.
Before they leave for the Sunshine State, Israel’s government is making sure to show its gratitude to Kushner for four years of holding the administration’s Middle East portfolio, brokering normalization agreements with four Arab countries and shifting America’s policy in the region to a more Likud-oriented posture.
Israelis may not be known for their fancy gifts, but they have a knack for historic symbolic presents.
So what did Kushner find in his goody bag?
The latest news came late last week. Morocco has joined the growing list of Arab countries upgrading their relations with Israel. This list now includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
Despite a failed reelection campaign, Donald Trump and his team registered several notable gains this election season. Trump slightly increased the share of Black and Hispanic Americans voting for him, alongside an impressive turnout from a small but well-organized subgroup: Orthodox Jews. According to polls and estimates, more than 80 percent of Orthodox Jews cast their vote for Trump, making them one of his most approving constituencies in the nation.
Two weeks have passed since election day, and there’s nothing anyone wants more than to put this whole thing behind us. But before we do so, we need to settle the least important question of these elections, yet the one most likely to come up during your (virtual) Thanksgiving, Passover or whatever family dinner table: How did the Jews vote?
Hard to believe, but the elections do not center around the Jewish community, its anxieties, wishes and aspirations.
But this doesn’t mean that Jewish issues are off the table, or out of the stump speeches both candidates have been delivering in their endless rallies these past days.
One of Donald Trump’s favorite lines when addressing Jewish American or Israeli listeners, is that if he ran for office in Israel, he’d get “98 percent” of the votes.
He’s not exaggerating by much.
Just as the remarkable life she lived, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, sparked a mix of awe, appreciation and political controversy. And the coming days will provide much of the same: a celebration of the life of a trailblazing legal giant who served for many as the nation’s moral compass, and at the same time, a fierce partisan battle over the appropriate timing of choosing Bader Ginsburg’s successor.
Remember when Donald Trump first ran for office in 2016 and promised that “we’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning”? Well, it’s a matter of anyone’s political persuasion to judge just how much America has been winning in the past four years and whether there really are people out there who are sick and tired of winning.
But to paraphrase Trump’s promise, could people be sick and tired of too much Middle East peace?