This interview is part of Moment’s Jewish Political Voices Project. To learn more about the project, click here. To see our other participants, click here. To see all posts from Jeff, click here.
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at Tufts University
Location: Raleigh, NC
Party Registration: Independent
Jewish Denomination: Conservative
Current 2024 Vote: Joe Biden
2020 Vote: Joe Biden
Family: Mother, father, two younger brothers
News Sources: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The Daily, Pod Save America
Do you fear controversy over the results of the presidential election?
I would have to preface this by saying that I don’t feel like many presidential elections are true representations of popular support because we follow the Electoral College, which I believe is an inherently flawed system. It doesn’t actually allow many peoples’ votes to count; I don’t think it represents what the country actually believes. So, from what I’ve seen, I think we’re going to have a repeat of 2020.
During the 2020 election, I was a poll worker and I loved being a part of the democratic process. It also gave me a lot of faith in the democratic process when days later I was seeing people say other people were stuffing the ballot boxes and people were faking their votes. I was like, wait a second. I was there and saw none of this. So that actually brought me a lot of security and a lot of confidence in the election. And that’s kind of carried through.
Are you satisfied with the current options in the presidential election?
I’m feeling a lot of apathy from my peers, and it’s valid apathy. Usually I get really annoyed at friends who say, “oh, I’m not going to vote. I don’t really care.” But when people are seeing what’s going on in Israel-Palestine and they’re seeing Joe Biden take a very neutral stance, rather than truly prioritizing the safety and the security of all human lives there, that gives me pause and that gives my friends pause, and it kind of makes us hesitate to know if our vote is really going to matter.
What issues are you hearing about in your community?
Israel and Palestine I would say is a big issue for a lot of my peers. I guess in my area, people are feeling apathetic toward the presidential election and are not planning on voting for anyone because they don’t believe that anyone is really going to help find an end to the conflict.
I have been hoping that Biden would take more of a stance against Netanyahu and attempt to distance himself from Netanyahu, while he also attempts to establish peace and secure a future for both Israelis and Palestinians in the land that is so sacred to both peoples—and to American Jews as well. But unfortunately, I’ve seen him play the same role that many American presidents and American foreign policy officials have where they play the middle ground.
What do you think of Biden’s performance as president?
There’s not many things that I could speak to as being his accomplishments. One that I remember is his pardon of many people who had committed marijuana-related offenses and were given much higher sentencing than they should have, which I definitely applaud. I don’t remember a ton of his accomplishments. It’s been kind of a reactive administration, and it’s had to be because he’s dealt with so much. But I do think that that is the fault of the administration for not communicating those accomplishments.
How have the October 7 terror attacks affected your politics?
It’s affected my life and it has affected the world, but I’ll still be voting for Biden because there’s no other candidate I can actually morally and ethically vote for given the state of the world. I would say when it comes to down-ballot races, the Hamas attack has actually affected who I will vote for. I’m a big fan of voting locally.