Whoever this guy is, he has more common sense than all the members of Congress put together. . .
Perspective of a Rabbi
Please take a moment to digest this provocative article by a Rabbi
from Teaneck, N.J. It is far and away the most succinct and thoughtful
explanation of how our nation is changing. The article appeared in The
Israel National News, and is directed to Jewish readership. 70% of
American Jews vote as Democrats. The Rabbi has some interesting
comments in that regard.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai
Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey.
The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is
that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President
and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship,
incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility.
And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the
facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the
chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of
Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he
ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could
have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited
from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle. Romney
lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost
because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues –
of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and
aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a
majority of the electorate. The simplest reason why Romney lost was
because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.
Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the
giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in
which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on
food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they
did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive
two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both
disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off
the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to
vote. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.
The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the
secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of
winning an election in which “47% of the people” start off against him
because they pay no taxes and just receive money – “free stuff” – from
the government.
Almost half of the population has no skin in the game – they don’t
care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do
they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from
their children and from the Chinese. They just want the free stuff
that comes their way at someone else’s expense. In the end, that 47%
leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not
bode well for the future.
It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against
such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence,
the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for
a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay
for it. That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the
inescapable conclusion that the electorate is ignorant and uninformed.
Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other
voters – the clear majority – are unintelligent and easily swayed by
emotion and raw populism.
That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote with
their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to
produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He
needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who
throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away
their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for
the rich.
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai
Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!”
Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”
Truer words were never spoken.
Obama could get away with saying that “Romney wants the rich to play
by a different set of rules” – without ever defining what those
different rules were; with saying that the “rich should pay their fair
share” – without ever defining what a “fair share” is; with saying
that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to “fend for themselves”
– without even acknowledging that all these government programs are
going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit
spending.
Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a
Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women
that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could
appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and
shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the
current immigration laws.
He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship
between governments and unions – in which politicians ply the unions
with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the
politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide
more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the
money is gone.
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will
soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in
California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from
the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that
attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of
that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That
is why he won.
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective
sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed.
That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential
goodness as a person; his “negative ads” were simple facts, never
personal abuse – facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a
loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc.
As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace
the devil’s bargain of making unsustainable promises. It turned out
that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan – people of substance,
depth and ideas – to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes
of their opponents.
Obama mastered the politics of envy – of class warfare – never
reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and
cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups. If
an Obama could not be defeated – with his record and his vision of
America, in which free stuff seduces voters – it is hard to envision
any change in the future. The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to
a European-socialist economy – those very economies that are
collapsing today in Europe – is paved.
For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results
demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for
a president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as
hostile to Israel. They voted to secure Obama’s future at America’s
expense and at Israel’s expense – in effect, preferring Obama to
Netanyahu by a wide margin.
A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is
inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action against Iran
and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative. The US will preach
the importance of negotiations up until the production of the first
Iranian nuclear weapon – and then state that the world must learn to
live with this new reality. But this election should be a wake-up
call to Jews. There is no permanent empire, nor is there an enduring
haven for Jews anywhere in the exile.
The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration
has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only
hastens that decline. Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and
materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral
foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only
increase in years to come.
The “Occupy” riots across this country in the last two years were mere
dress rehearsals for what lies ahead – years of unrest sparked by the
increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits
and the bounty of the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace
of redistribution. If this election proves one thing, it is that the
Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back.
Perspective of a Rabbi
Please take a moment to digest this provocative article by a Rabbi
from Teaneck, N.J. It is far and away the most succinct and thoughtful
explanation of how our nation is changing. The article appeared in The
Israel National News, and is directed to Jewish readership. 70% of
American Jews vote as Democrats. The Rabbi has some interesting
comments in that regard.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai
Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey.
The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is
that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President
and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship,
incompetence, economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility.
And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the
facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the
chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of
Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he
ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could
have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited
from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle. Romney
lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost
because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues –
of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and
aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a
majority of the electorate. The simplest reason why Romney lost was
because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.
Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the
giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in
which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on
food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they
did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive
two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both
disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off
the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to
vote. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.
The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the
secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of
winning an election in which “47% of the people” start off against him
because they pay no taxes and just receive money – “free stuff” – from
the government.
Almost half of the population has no skin in the game – they don’t
care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do
they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from
their children and from the Chinese. They just want the free stuff
that comes their way at someone else’s expense. In the end, that 47%
leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not
bode well for the future.
It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against
such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence,
the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for
a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay
for it. That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the
inescapable conclusion that the electorate is ignorant and uninformed.
Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other
voters – the clear majority – are unintelligent and easily swayed by
emotion and raw populism.
That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote with
their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to
produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He
needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who
throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away
their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for
the rich.
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai
Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!”
Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”
Truer words were never spoken.
Obama could get away with saying that “Romney wants the rich to play
by a different set of rules” – without ever defining what those
different rules were; with saying that the “rich should pay their fair
share” – without ever defining what a “fair share” is; with saying
that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to “fend for themselves”
– without even acknowledging that all these government programs are
going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit
spending.
Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a
Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women
that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could
appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and
shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the
current immigration laws.
He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship
between governments and unions – in which politicians ply the unions
with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the
politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide
more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the
money is gone.
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will
soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in
California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from
the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that
attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of
that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That
is why he won.
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective
sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed.
That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential
goodness as a person; his “negative ads” were simple facts, never
personal abuse – facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a
loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc.
As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace
the devil’s bargain of making unsustainable promises. It turned out
that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan – people of substance,
depth and ideas – to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes
of their opponents.
Obama mastered the politics of envy – of class warfare – never
reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and
cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups. If
an Obama could not be defeated – with his record and his vision of
America, in which free stuff seduces voters – it is hard to envision
any change in the future. The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to
a European-socialist economy – those very economies that are
collapsing today in Europe – is paved.
For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results
demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for
a president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as
hostile to Israel. They voted to secure Obama’s future at America’s
expense and at Israel’s expense – in effect, preferring Obama to
Netanyahu by a wide margin.
A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is
inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action against Iran
and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative. The US will preach
the importance of negotiations up until the production of the first
Iranian nuclear weapon – and then state that the world must learn to
live with this new reality. But this election should be a wake-up
call to Jews. There is no permanent empire, nor is there an enduring
haven for Jews anywhere in the exile.
The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration
has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only
hastens that decline. Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and
materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral
foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only
increase in years to come.
The “Occupy” riots across this country in the last two years were mere
dress rehearsals for what lies ahead – years of unrest sparked by the
increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits
and the bounty of the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace
of redistribution. If this election proves one thing, it is that the
Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back.