November/December 2009

Why Jews Vote Like Puerto Ricans (and not Episcopalians)
Eric Alterman

You know the saying: “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Essayist Milton Himmelfarb coined this witticism back in 1950 and Jews who embraced neoconservatism have been waiting for their brethren to start voting like Episcopalians—that is Republican—ever since.

Way back in April 1973, in the wake of Richard Nixon’s landslide reelection over George McGovern, the influential neoconservative journalist Irving Kristol predicted a move to the right in Jewish politics. “This is not a temporary phenomenon. Jewish politics in the decades to come are going to be very different from what Jewish politics have been in the past century and a half,” Kristol said.

Every four years we hear the same thing. The most recent book-length complaint is Why Are Jews Liberals? by former Commentary editor-in-chief Norman Podhoretz. “In 2008,” he writes, “we were faced with a candidate who ran to an unprecedented degree on the premise that the American system was seriously flawed and in desperate need of radical change—not to mention a record powerfully indicating that he would pursue policies dangerous to the security of Israel.” This is nonsense, of course, a signal more of neocon desperation than of anything having to do with Barack Obama’s actual views. And it was treated as such, since Obama beat John McCain among Jewish voters by nearly 60 percentage points. Jews were behind only African-Americans in their overwhelming support for Obama.

What underlies Podhoretz’s argument, often unstated, is the fact that Jews have grown rich and should start protecting their prosperity. It may have made sense once upon a time to identify with the huddled masses of the world, back when we were peddling schmatas on Delancey Street, but now that we’ve conquered Scarsdale and Shaker Heights, well, who are we kidding? What drives the neocons truly bonkers is the fact that the wealthier the Jewish community becomes, the more likely it is to be liberal. Ronald Reagan, for example, got a larger percentage of Jewish votes in Brooklyn than he did in Scarsdale and Shaker Heights. Only the Orthodox Jews, who tend to be the poorest members of the Jewish American community, tend to pull the Republican lever.

Nathan Glazer, the eminent sociologist, puts the complaint thusly: “[W]hatever the promptings of their economic interests,” Jews have consistently supported “increased government spending, expanded benefits to the poor and lower classes, greater regulations on business, and the power of organized labor.” The assumption here is that the self-interest of the well-to-do lies in the party of trickle-down and supply-side economics; the one that increases economic inequality at the expense of social investment. As Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, noted in his review of Podhoretz’s lengthy kvetch in The New York Times Book Review: “The veracity of everything he believes is so overwhelmingly obvious to him that he no longer troubles to argue for it. Instead there is only bewilderment that others do not see it, too.” Wieseltier goes on to argue: “It is not a delusion, not a treason, to vote against your own economic interest. It is a recognition of the multiplicity of interests, the many purposes, that make up a citizen’s life.”

What’s fascinating is that while the Puerto Rican voting patterns of Jews receive plenty of defense from those who believe that Judaism itself speaks for liberal values—or that the modern Jewish experience provides an argument for liberal egalitarian politics—nobody makes the argument that we Jews, so famous for being so smart, have figured out that our economic self-interest lies in liberalism as well.

In fact, while Bill Gates and Warren Buffet may benefit from Republican economics, almost all the rest of those of us who work for a living do not. From 1960 to 2005, the gross domestic product measured in year-2000 dollars (in other words, taking inflation into account) rose an average of $165 billion a year under Republican presidents and $212 billion a year under Democrats. Meanwhile, on the average annual rise in real per capita income (that’s the statistic that puts money in your pocket), Democrats also score about 30 percent higher. Wondering how George W. Bush administration’s pro-wealthy people’s policies affected the above? The Census Bureau numbers say it all: Median household income fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295.

Inflation numbers tell a similar story, as do unemployment figures. Journalist Michael Kinsley analyzed the annual Economic Report of the President and found that Democrats average a 3.13 percent inflation rate during their presidencies while Republicans average 3.89. As for the unemployment rates, the record is the Democrats’ 5.33 percent versus Republicans’ 6.38. And under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republicans and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats. The bottom line doesn’t lie: Democrats do Republican economics better than Republicans do.

If you ask me, Jews are even smarter than we get credit for. Everybody always wonders why we don’t vote our economic interests—and gives us props for what a moral, caring people we are—and here we’ve been voting our interests the entire time.

Eric Alterman is a professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and City University of New York’s graduate school. His latest book is Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America.