Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
August 8, 2024
In August 2000 during the presidential campaign Democrat candidate for vice president Joseph Lieberman noted that there is “currently a constitutional place for faith in our public life.” Additionally, “the Constitution does not provide for freedom from religion,” Lieberman said in the Los Angeles Times of August 28, 2000.
Senator Joe Lieberman, a moderate Connecticut Democrat turned Independent who died on March 27 at age 82, ran as the first Jewish candidate of a major American political party for either president or vice president. The time of Lieberman’s selection by presidential candidate Al Gore (D-TN), became one of tremendous pride within the Jewish community. Lieberman, a religious Jew, kept kosher (followed Jewish dietary laws), and observed Shabbat. His Democrat Party celebrated Lieberman’s nomination.
Fast forward eight presidential cycles to 2024, and the mere mention of a Jewish candidate for vice president made many in the Democrat Party apoplectic. It’s too big a risk, reported by many in the so-called legacy media, to have a Jew on the ticket, as though, in this particular case Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro contracted leprosy and required quarantine. Many believed Shapiro would be Kamala Harris’ choice to join her on the ticket as candidate for vice president. It just made sense.
Shapiro is a popular governor in a vital swing state that, with him on the ticket, tips the odds in the Democrat’s favor. Of the other possible vice presidential picks, Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) does not bring executive experience to the ticket the way a governor does, although Arizona is an important state - a border state overrun with millions of illegal aliens since Biden-Harris took office on January 20, 2021, that should favor former President Donald Trump. And Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a radical socialist who would simply double-down on Harris’ well known radical progressiveness. Minnesota is almost certain to fall into the Democrat’s column on November 5, thus Walz adds nothing to the ticket either geographically or philosophically. Shapiro is less radical than Walz, the eventual pick by Harris, and Walz is less likely to overshadow Harris than Shapiro would. Additionally, it is less likely Walz has any presidential aspirations, when Shapiro is almost a certain entry into the Democrat’s 2028 primary process.
But, an anonymously registered website, NoGenocideJosh.org included a petition urging Harris not to select Shapiro to be her vice presidential nominee. This is clearly demonstrative of the direction the Democrat Party has traversed for years - complete with the belief Israel is an apartheid state and a genocide state, and therefore, Shapiro, by virtue of being Jewish is guilty by association. “The antisemitism on display isn’t only a political and electoral blight on everyone associated with it, it is an affront to all Americans who want our country to remain an open and tolerant society for everyone - including Jews,” said Daniel Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress in The Wall Street Journal on August 2.
In fact, if the Democrat Party actually had a transparent process following the coup orchestrated to replace Biden, and gave its primary voters - those 14 million now disenfranchised Democrats who voted for Biden during the primary season - a real option, either a mini-primary before the upcoming Democrat National Convention, or an old fashioned open convention floor fight, it is reasonable to suspect Harris might not be the nominee of her party. As it is, Harris is the nominee of the Democrat Party having earned absolutely zero primary votes, winning absolutely no primaries or caucuses, and must stand in defense of the Biden-Harris administration’s failed policies.
But the Democrats could not risk alienating its ever growing, ever vocal radical pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, antisemitic wing. Even if Shapiro underwent a process to “de-Jewify” himself, as Matthew Foldi suggested on Chris Plante’s Newsmax program The Right Squad, he still would be unacceptable to the aforementioned antisemites of the Democrat Party. But even as a Jewish candidate Shapiro foolishly supports a two-state solution in the Middle East, and has been as critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Harris, Biden, and Walz. Shapiro called Netanyahu “a dangerous and destructive force” and “one of the worst leaders of all time.” This after taking much criticism for an editorial he wrote in 1993 in his college newspaper at the University of Rochester. “Palestinians will not coexist peacefully,” Shapiro wrote. “They do not have the capabilities to establish their own homeland and make it successful even with the aid of Israel and the United States. They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.”
But the Jewish double-standard persists. Shapiro is still held responsible for his editorial from 31 years ago, while the media and the Democrats are rehabilitating Walz for “misspeaking” about his military service. Which is more egregious?
What is actually the more egregious matter within the Democrat Party is the worsening, virulent antisemitism problem - a modern day “Jewish Problem.” It’s obvious Shapiro made more sense for the Democrats, but the party puppeteers are more concerned with losing the Muslim votes in Minnesota and Michigan, than keeping the Jewish voters from Pennsylvania. Antisemitic and anti-Israel House members Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) lead the so-called Squad which includes recently defeated Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO). Their level of antisemitic, anti-Israel rhetoric and votes, along with the overwhelming majority of the Democrats in Congress who have stood by and supported the antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments on the myriad college campuses, including from Kamala Harris herself, who has offered support to those very campus denizens and disruptors.
“Let’s be honest, Kamala is the most anti-Israel member of Biden’s team, always siding with Hamas and Iran’s interests. Shapiro and Walz’s views on Israel aren’t that different. But Harris catered to her pro-Hamas, antisemitic base who opposed Shapiro because he’s Jewish,” posted Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“It’s amazing that despite America’s right, left, and center agreeing that Josh Shapiro was Harris’ best pick for VP, at the end of the day, Shapiro being Jewish disqualified him. It says so much about the state of today’s Democratic Party,” posted former US Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), also on X.
Even Democrat operative Van Jones had to admit the Democrats have an antisemitism problem. “...you have antisemitism - that’s gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot. But there’s some anti-Jewish bigots out there… How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts of the party? So that’s going to have to get worked out,” said Jones on CNN’s Newsroom.
Bush demonstrated her intense antisemitism on Tuesday night in a screaming rant upon losing her primary. Her venomous attack against AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) sounded harsh and unhinged, as she bellowed “I’m coming to tear your kingdom down!”
“She’s a full-on antisemite,” said Morgan Ortagus, former State Department spokesperson during the Trump administration of Bush. “Not only did she and Jamaal Bowman lose, they lost overwhelmingly - that’s important. She also was very threatening last night in her ‘concession’ speech, and she threatened to tear AIPAC’s kingdom down,” added Ortagus, founder of Polaris National Security.
And quoting Isaiah 54:17, Ortagus said “No weapon formed against me shall prosper,” as a message to the vanquished Bush.
Since Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrat Party has taken the Jewish vote for granted. Roosevelt hardly lifted a finger to help the Jews in Europe being slaughtered by Hitler and the Nazis during the Holocaust of World War II. Jimmy Carter oversaw a peace treaty that forced Israel to surrender land. Joe Lieberman understood how dangerous Barack Obama would be when Lieberman agreed to speak at the 2008 Republican National Convention for his friend and GOP nominee, the late Arizona Senator John McCain.
The Democrat Party of 2000 openly welcomed an observant Jewish vice presidential candidate, while the Democrat Party of 2024 is under the thumb of pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, antisemitic hatemongers who support the tent cities, rallies, graffiti, and the occupation of buildings on myriad college campuses. It is high time for the Jewish voters, who are not a monolith, to tell the Democrat Party where to get off. After 70 years of empty promises from both sides of the aisle, Donald Trump kept his word and moved the American embassy in Israel to its true capital, Jerusalem. Trump moved the needle toward a lasting peace with the Abraham Accords involving Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Beyond Israel and the growing antisemitism of the Democrat Party, there is out of control prices of food and gas, out of control inflation and mortgage rates, and out of control crime, thanks to Biden-Harris. There is an out of control invasion to the tune of more than 10 million illegal aliens who are sucking up resources meant for Americans such as free lodging while there are homeless veterans, such as free healthcare while Americans struggle to keep their own insurance, thanks to Harris, the border czar. Democrats have long opposed the school choice that legislators have taken advantage of in a most hypocritical manner. Why should anyone believe there will be an end to these problems as Biden-Harris morphs into Harris-Walz, a ticket of radical socialists who never met a tax or regulation they didn’t like? That is why it is imperative to vote for Donald Trump and help Make America Great Again.
Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.
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