First seen on Hot Air but from the NY Post. Great read highlighting four liberals who are voting Republican for the first time.
Meet the Jewish Americans who feel abandoned by the Democrats, now voting Republican for the first time
Melissa Chapman: ‘I’ve been kicked out of left wing spaces‘
Melissa Chapman always considered herself a bleeding heart liberal — but she left the Democratic party after she claims it “betrayed” Jewish people.
“I’ve always been a Democrat, and I really believed that the Democrats were going to protect me, because I’ve done everything a good Democrat should do,” the 50-year-old Staten Islander told The Post. “Then October 7th happened, and I was completely abandoned.”
Chapman, a mom of two, runs a blog where she champions progressive causes, from LGBT rights and animal rights to Black History Month. However, after the Hamas attacks which killed 1,200 and took another 250 hostage, prompting Israel’s military to respond in Gaza, she found herself castigated online in the progressive social media communities she’d long been a part of.
“It’s a horrible time to support Israel and be a Democrat, and I just don’t think there’s any space for us anymore,” she said. “As a Jew, you have to disown Israel in order to be accepted into the Democratic community.”
The post-October 7th reaction has caused Chapman to think often of her late father, who was a Holocaust survivor: “If he were alive today, I don’t know what he would say. I don’t know, but would he say this is like what happened in Germany before Hitler took over?”
As we head into election season, Chapman “1000%” plans to vote Republican down the ticket, from the local level to the presidential level.
“I never thought I would be voting Republican in my entire life,” she said. “But it’s like living in a twilight zone. As a Jew living in America, I don’t believe the Democratic Party has my best interest at heart.”
Danny Cohen: ‘The Democratic party has a cancer
After a lifetime as a Democrat, Danny Cohen decided his party now “has a cancer” in the form of antisemitism.
“There’s been a hijacking of the Democratic Party,” Cohen, 56 of Brooklyn, told The Post. “Right now the Democratic Party has a cancer. It seems like all the antisemitism is just coming out of the woodwork.”
In the wake of October 7th, Cohen changed his party registration tepublican.
“The response from the left really shook me to my core,” Cohen, who was raised in a Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, said.
“I can’t be part of that party anymore. I don’t want to have anything to do with these people. It’s a corrupt party now. It’s a hijacked party. This is not the party that I grew up with.”
As a Jewish person, Cohen says he feels uniquely unsupported by the left: “It’s no longer a party that is fighting for human rights because you can’t fight for human rights, except for Jewish rights
Over the past year, the standup comic says left-wing antisemitism has been overwhelming.
“We have ‘The Squad.’ We see what’s going on in college campuses. We see what’s going on during these protests. It’s taking to the streets, and it’s getting crazy,” he said.
Sarah Sarkin: ‘Being a liberal was a huge part of my identity’
Sarah Sarkin once took to the streets to protest Trump’s election in 2016, waving an “Anybody but Trump” poster. Now she’s voting for him in 2024.
“Being a mother and watching everything that happened in October made me make the switch,” Sarkin, who is raising her infant son in Syracuse, said. “Those images are still seared and tattooed into my memory, and it was just horrifying to see some of the reactions on the left.”
Although she considered herself “as Democrat as can be” until recently, Sarkin, 31, re-registered as a Republican.
“It was a lot of silence on the left, and that really speaks so loudly to how a party that I once thought was for equality and for protecting us is really not for equal rights,” Sarkin told The Post.
“Being a liberal was such a big part of my identity, so it was a weird thing for me to switch over. But I’m at a different part of my life now, and it’s time for me to change.”
Marin Faiella: ‘I’ve never voted Republican before’
Marin Faiella has never voted Republican in her life, but this November she’ll be casting her ballot for Trump.
“I think at the end of the day, it’s clear whose policies are aligned with a safer, stronger allied relationship with Israel,” she told The Post.
Faiella has always considered herself staunchly pro-choice and generally progressive. But October 7th upended her priorities.
“My number one priority is overall safety and security for myself as a Jewish person,” Faiella said. “If your basic 101 safety isn’t in place, then you can’t really advocate for any additional rights.”
Faiella, who lives in the West Village and works in real estate, says pro-Palestine demonstrations in New York City have been a wakeup call.
“I saw what was on the streets — celebrations, people shouting and dressed as terrorists here in New York City,” she recalled. “After October 7th, I was just scared to death, in terms of being a Jewish person in the city.”
The progressives’ reaction to October 7th inspired her to change her registration from Democrat to Republican last November, but she says “the writing has been on the wall.”
“There were plenty of warnings that were preludes to what we’re seeing out in the open now, like Bella Hadid and the woke crowd that have been all in on Free Palestine,” Faiella said. Hadid is of Palestinian descent.
Although she was initially conflicted about re-registering as a Republican, she is feeling confident in her choice.
“I’m not anti-Democrat, but I’m definitely anti-extreme Democrats,” she said. “I continue to feel more and more confident and comfortable in my skin and my new affiliation. I can always change back, but this is where I feel it’s appropriate to be at this point in time.”
For Faiella, it all comes down to fundamental safety for the Jewish community.
“We could be Germany [in the] 1930s if we didn’t have the government and law enforcement on our side,” she warned. “If that ever changed, we wouldn’t be safe here anymore.”
Again via NY Post.
1 comment:
I feel very little sympathy for them. They've made their beds for decades while simultaneously championing policies (like limitless immigration) that are now endangering them. They did this all the while using their mouthpieces to denigrate and insult anyone and everyone that was not "on the right side of history".
...and people routinely talk about how smart they are. I don't see it.
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