Dennis Prager explains why he left the Democratic Party in the early 1980s after voting for Jimmy Carter. He traces how many American Jews developed a Pavlovian fear linking right-wing politics to Nazism, making Republican votes feel like a betrayal of Jewish identity. He argues the Democratic Party has abandoned American Jews, leaving no moral case for supporting it.
I left the Democratic Party in, in the early '80s. I stopped voting Democrat. Well, I did vote for Jimmy Carter the first term. That was the last Democrat I voted for. So I understand the almost primal affinity of American Jews to the Democratic Party. Most American Jews associate right-wing with the inevitable downhill slide to Nazi or Nazism. That's right-wing. It's a Pavlovian response in most American Jews. Right-wing leads to Hitler. I know this because I'm an American Jew and I Remember when I first voted Republican? I felt that I was sinning against the Jewish people and Judaism. That's how hard it was to vote Republican. But as I said then, and I was right, I did not leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me. And now If it is not obvious that the Democratic Party has left American Jews, it will never be obvious. There's no excuse to vote Democrat by any decent person.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
