In November 2008, I was devastated that Barack Hussein Obama was elected president, but reluctantly accepted his win, believing Americans were so overly focused on electing our nation’s first biracial president that they blissfully ignored his radical lineage.

Then I patiently waited until 2012.

Surely after four years of the left-leaning Obama administration, Americans who valued freedom would realize their mistake and send the radical community organizer back to Chicago (or Martha’s Vineyard). At the very least, my fellow Jews would put space between Obama and their ballot just as Obama tried to put space between the United States and Israel. But contrary to Dick Morris’ nightly proclamations on Fox News, Obama handily won re-election.

By Inauguration Day 2013, I had two choices: slit my wrists or get active. I decided to join a Republican organization and a few weeks later attended my first meeting.  

When I told my mother, who was born on the cusp of the Great Depression, that I was now a member of a Republican club, she was devastated. Years before, she and my father grudgingly accepted that my husband and I “converted” to being Republican but becoming active in Republican politics seemed to be going too far.

For my Jewish parents who came of age during World War II, there were only two political parties: Democrat or Democrat. Perplexed, mom asked, “Why did you join a Christian organization?”

That’s how she, and many Jews today, view the Republican Party. Based on my personal experiences, maybe mom was right.

And then came The Donald

The “America First” president, Donald Trump, enthusiastically followed through on major campaign promises. By 2020, there was no denying that Trump was the most pro-America, pro-Israel president...ever.

That led to the “Jexit movement.” when thousands of Democrat Jews re-registered as Republicans. But it shouldn’t have been thousands of Jews; it should have been an avalanche of millions of Jews reregistering!

Even with mounting evidence of anti-Semitic bias in the Democrat party, meshuggeneh American Jews did what American Jews have always done and voted Democrat. A huge percentage voted for the incoherent, basement-dwelling Joe Biden against the best interests of the United States and its closest ally Israel.

Just look at what happened on September 21, when the Democrat party’s growing anti-Semitic wing insisted that $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system be removed from a bill to keep the United States government-funded. The funds will probably be approved later (most likely attached to the 2022 Defense Appropriations Bill), but this doesn’t change the fact that exuberant anti-Semitic Democrats successfully removed important defense funding for the State of Israel.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 2020 was not much different than past elections when Jews voted overwhelmingly for the Democrat presidential candidate:

• 2000: 79 percent for Al Gore
• 2004: 76 percent for John Kerry
• 2008: 78 percent for Barack Obama
• 2012: 69 percent to re-elect Obama
• 2016: 71 percent for Hillary Clinton
• 2020: 76 percent for Joe Biden

Per The Conversation, other religious minorities similarly voted for Biden:

• Muslims: 85 percent
• Buddhists: 77 percent
• Hindu: 78 percent

2022 midterms opportunities

To avoid being the permanent minority party, the Republican Party and Republican organizations must welcome—really welcome—people of all faiths. Religious minorities comprise a small percentage of the U.S. population but are important constituents in certain districts, cities, and states. To paraphrase a famous quote attributed to Senator Dirksen about Congressional spending, “A few voters here, a few voters there, and pretty soon you’re talking real number of voters.”

Republicans must not lose this outstanding opportunity to register Jews and other religious minorities. Let’s call them “Kennedy Democrats,” after a beloved Democrat whose views are more in line with today’s Republican Party. These moderates have watched in horror as Democrat party leaders bestowed outsized support for thug organizations such as Black Lives Matter. Surrounded by escalating violence, reckless homelessness, and primitive Covid-related lockdowns, and mask mandates, they feel helplessly ignored. Many can’t walk down their neighborhood streets without fearing a brutal attack.

These “Kennedy Democrats” are struggling with rampant inflation that is destroying their paychecks and savings, even as Democrat leadership showers illegal aliens entering through the southern border with taxpayer-funded housing, education, and medical care. Many invading illegal aliens have neither been tested nor vaccinated for COVID-19 and thus their dispersal to many far-flung cites across the U.S. might be a super-spreader event of enormous proportions. We can only imagine the immense government giveaways for Afghan refugees due to Joe Biden’s humiliating capitulation to the vicious Taliban.

Even the most apolitical among these moderates are bewildered when forced to wear a mask while Democrat leadership and entertainers party without the Fauci covering. Or when they hear Democrat congressmen shout “defund the police” while hiring their own personal security protection.

Many dispirited “Kennedy Democrats,” especially religious minorities whom Democrats have always taken for granted, are realizing that their values align with the Republican Party: limited government; the importance of property rights; belief in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights; constitutional separation of powers; stopping Critical Race Theory curriculum; and the right to bear arms, to name countless areas where yesterday’s Democrats are today’s Republicans.

Assuming the Republican Party and Republican organizations want to attract people of all faiths, heartfelt prayers, and spiritual invocations should be given so that every person in the room can say, “Amen.” Think of this as “confirm culture” – the polar opposite of Marxist cancel culture, confirming that people from many different faiths are welcomed in the Republican Party.

It took me several years to go from acknowledging that my values aligned with the Republican Party to re-registering and even longer to join an organization and become active. As an enthusiastic Republican, I want patriotic Americans of all faiths to proudly shout, “God Bless the Republican Party and God Bless the United States of America!”

Now everyone can say “Amen!” to that!

Robin Itzler can be reached at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com.

Image by Andrea Widburg

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