We already know that Democrats, as a party, have decided that principles matter less than winning a majority in Congress, even if that means sacrificing Jewish security. In Michigan, the party is asking Jews to make the same choice: vote, out of solidarity, to put an antisemite in the Senate. Some Jews have lined up behind Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, with Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leading the way after championing a Maine Senate candidate with a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo.
As I noted in the article linked above, the normalization of antisemitism in the Democratic Party began with the tolerance of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). That tolerance makes it easier to view voting for El-Sayed as acceptable, and it would further reinforce a trend playing out in races elsewhere in the country. The idea of giving antisemites a foothold in the Senate should be not just disqualifying but terrifying.
The Forward’s Rob Eshman acknowledged Jews faced a tough choice but suggested they follow the example of black Americans who have on occasion overlooked candidates’ views with which they disagreed for the larger prize of institutional power. He offers a few examples, but none are comparable to the one facing Michigan’s Jews: They are not being asked to accept a candidate whose legislative ideas are anathema; they are being asked to accept someone who has called Israel’s conduct in Gaza “genocide” and “apartheid,” declined to say whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state, described Israelis as “bloodthirsty” and described American support for Israel in terms of “purchased loyalty.”
A more apt comparison would be if black voters were asked to support a candidate who trafficked in racist tropes because it might flip the Senate. I cannot speak for black Americans, but I would be shocked if anyone considered that an acceptable trade. Why should Jews accept the same standard?
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, had said that she would not attend the Michigan Democratic Party convention because she didn’t feel safe due to rising antisemitism and fears of harassment within the party. Now, she is backing a candidate who could bring that same toxicity to the Senate floor. She has been rightly ridiculed for justifying her endorsement by saying Jewish Democrats should “place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival.”
Sorry, Ms. Nessel, Jewish survival must come first. And putting a man in Congress who advocates policies that pose a threat to Jews’ future is more dangerous than allowing Republicans to maintain control of the Senate.
I understand the motivation. Democrats fear giving U.S. President Donald Trump two more years with a rubber-stamp Congress. However, as JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin wrote, “Endorsing a person like El-Sayed isn’t just about wanting a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. It’s saying that legitimizing Jew-hatred is an acceptable price to pay for achieving such a goal. And it has now become a Democratic Party loyalty litmus test.”
El-Sayed would not be the first Democrat with antisemitic views in the Senate. North Carolina’s Robert Reynolds founded the antisemitic organization Vindicators and opposed admitting refugee children from Nazi Germany before the war; Mississippi’s Theodore Bilbo was a white supremacist; and South Carolina’s Ernest (“Fritz”) Hollings invoked a conspiracy about Jewish control of U.S. policy when President George W. Bush decided to wage war with Iraq.
The difference is what those careers reveal about their eras. Reynolds served when antisemitism was commonplace. By Hollings’s time, it had become shameful, and he was widely condemned. Today, we are sliding back toward Reynolds’s world. Open hostility to Jews is no longer taboo, as our campuses have shown, and today’s version comes with a convenient disguise of claiming not to be antisemitic, only anti-Israel or anti-Zionist. The mask is thin, but it gives politicians cover to say things that would have ended careers a generation ago.
The shift in the Democratic Party against Israel, even by those who claim to be its supporters, has created fears that Democratic control of Congress and the White House could lead to a radical change in U.S.-Israel relations, perhaps even a rupture in which Jerusalem is treated more like Tehran in an effort to force changes in its policies toward the Palestinians. Electing El-Sayed and others like him would move in that direction.
If polls and pundits are to be believed, Michigan Jews don’t have to swallow their pride and vote for an antisemite to fight Trump. The Democrats are favored to win the Senate. They can do it without Michigan if they hold their seat in New Hampshire and win five of the six close races for Republican-held seats in North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Texas and Alaska. Admittedly, that won’t be easy.
Still, even losing the Senate will not be a catastrophe for creating guardrails on the president, given the likelihood that Republicans will lose the House. Democratic control of the power of the purse and investigations will still ensure legislative gridlock and constrain Trump’s agenda.
How this will affect American Jews and Israel will depend on how many of the antisemites and critics of Israel are elected. El-Sayed is not the only problematic Democrat. Several others are running for House seats, and some, like New York’s Darializa Avila Chevalier (who was arrested at a protest against Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last week at the United Nations), are assured of victory.
Democratic Party tolerance of antisemitism may reflect society becoming more accepting of Jew-hatred. It also sets an example for the country that it is acceptable, even at the highest level of American politics. Jews should recognize the danger of this trend. Those in Michigan at least have the power to do something about it.
