By DEBORAH STAMBLER | Contributing Writer
The Pacific Palisades Republican Club welcomed Larry Greenfield for their 2016 Speaker Series on Thursday, Feb. 18. The topic for the night’s discussion: “Why Jews are still voting Democrat.”
Greenfield is a well-known speaker, a Fellow in American Studies at Claremont College and Executive Director of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.
As a longtime Jewish Republican activist, his ties in the community led to his appointment as Executive Director of the Jewish Institute for National Safety Affairs in 2012.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
Greenfield led off the evening’s talk with a joke that not only got laughs, but pointed to the importance of choice and options in America.
The big choice coming up for the Republican party is narrowing down the field of candidates for the Presidential race. Greenfield said that he likes both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
To the audience of 60 people, Greenfield said, “We Republicans have perhaps struggled a little bit as the minority. And I wanted to talk to you tonight about why I think it’s been difficult to bring Democrats over to our party even when Democrats admit that today’s Democratic party is not the party of our parents’ era.”
He said that Obama moved more to the left and away from a centrist view and past bi-partisanship over issues like national security doesn’t currently exist.
This led Greenfield into his dissection of why Jews don’t vote Republican, which he broke down into four main areas.
The first reason he called sociological, saying, “People tend to vote the way their parents and grandparents voted. It does break down over time, but many people are still voting for FDR for the 23rd consecutive time.”
Greenfield said, “The second major reason why Jews still vote Democrat, even if Republicans are wildly more supportive of Jewish interests… fear of Republicans, fear of Christians and fear of the establishment is what they believe Republicans represent.”
He coined this “Fear of the Cross.”
He talked about Republican support on issues in Israel and alignment between Jewish teachings on the issue of abortion and many in the Republican Party.
The third reason Greenfield outlined, he called ideological. He illustrated his point by saying that if the Democrats waved a flag for the party it would say, We Care. The Republican branding message is What Works?
He spoke about the Jewish people finding the message of We Care appealing because “Jews are religiously inspired. They want to be good people.”
From there he discussed the failure of Democratic policies in urban areas, schools and with unions.
Finally, Greenfield emphasized Jewish philosophy, asking, “What is this deep anxiety as a minority, this victim status, this self-negation, self-hatred, self-denial?”
He posited that there are Jews on the left who are more comfortable with victim status and are running away from Jewish identity. His talk circled back to the way cultural identity and identity politics influence voting practices, particularly regarding views on the establishment and Israel.
The Palisades Republican Club will hold its next event on March 10. For more information, visit palisadesrepublicans.org.
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