Will Frankel ’17, Opinion Editor
During Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate on CNN, popular conservative writer Ann Coulter tweeted out “Cruz, Huckabee Rubio all mentioned ISRAEL in their response to: ‘What will AMERICA look like after you are president.’” This was quickly followed by another tweet, “How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?” (Of course, Coulter censored the ‘F word’, because she wouldn’t have wanted to offend anyone).
The latter tweet received 2,205 re-tweets and 2,299 favorites. Coulter is the author of ten New York Times bestsellers, and was named one of the top five most influential conservative women in America by Human Events Magazine. So, let’s analyze the implications of these comments, coming from a leading conservative voice.
First, she is factually incorrect. The thrust of her argument is that multiple Republican candidates were unnecessarily pandering to Jewish-American voters by making a question about what America will look like under their presidency into a question about Israel. In fact, the question was not about what America would look like, but what the world, as a whole would like, making Israel entirely material to the question. In fact, the debate’s moderator Jack Tapper, specifically emphasized foreign policy achievements in contextualizing the question, by discussing Ronald Reagan’s challenge to the Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the wall.
More importantly, Coulter’s comments marginalize Jewish-Americans by equating support for Israel with being Jewish. By stating that support for Israel is targeted at garnering Jewish votes, Coulter is suggesting that Jewish-Americans are some kind of mindless herd that supports a candidate just based on their support of Israel. Her comments undermine Jewish-Americans ability as independent citizens and voters capable of looking beyond Zionism to other issues, and suggest Jews can only evaluate a candidate based on their policy towards our brethren in Israel. In short, she suggests that Jewish-Americans are not capable of decision making like the rest of voters.
Indeed, Coulter’s suggestion that Jewish-Americans will vote just on Israel is filled with assumptions. Namely, she assumes that Jewish-Americans care only about fellow Jews in Israel. Compare Coulter’s response to talk of Israel to her response to discussion of other issues American Jews are likely to consider important. The Pew Research Center found that Jewish-Americans are significantly more likely to care about, discrimination suffered by African Americans, Latinos, and Muslims than average Americans. Yet, when Rand Paul spoke in the debate about how marijuana prohibition laws disparately affect racial minorities, Ann Coulter did not accuse Paul of pandering to Jews. Why? Because Coulter assumes, if not directly in her words, then in her selective choice of when to speak up, that the only issue Jews can be reached on is Israel: a demeaning generalization.
Furthermore, Coulter’s views are not only stereotypical, but also factually incorrect. The Public Religion Research Institute found that in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, only 4% of Jewish-Americans reported Israel as the central issue in deciding their vote. In fact, just like the rest of Americans, the majority of Jewish-Americans voted principally on the issue of the economy. Thus, Coulter’s assertion that candidates stressing their pro-Israel positions is simply to win the hearts of Jews ignores the reality that by and large, Jewish-Americans think and vote the same way as the rest of the population. Why? Because, contrary to the assumption of Coulter, Jewish-Americans are not some irregular group. We are, in fact, normal Americans, whose ethno-religious background does not determine how we think.
You see, Ms. Coulter, many Jewish-Americans, myself included, want to support conservative Republican candidates. Though Jewish-Americans have almost always voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, I want to break that mold and stand with conservatives for issues on which we see eye to eye.
Long have we, along with the entire nation, understood that Republicans stand strongly with Israel when others have not. Long have we understood that Republicans stand strongly with Jews against the spread of radical Islamic terrorism, and its anti-Semitic undertones that threaten not only Jews, but also all the world’s free peoples. The problem is that polemicists like Ms. Coulter continue to homogenize support for Israel with Jews, and Jews with support for Israel. This is what drives us away from the Republican Party and conservatism.
Ms. Coulter wants Republicans to spend less time trying to garner Jewish support. If her goal is indeed to lose the Jewish vote, she is certainly succeeding.
