The only major harm it would cause is that they wouldn’t be able to say in the wake of an attack, “What? Me responsible? It’s not like I vetted these guys myself. It’s some bureaucrat’s fault!”
But we’ve already seen that the FBI Director does not believe that it is possible to thoroughly vet these refugees. (Funny how he wasn’t expressing “actual expert judgement” earlier in the thread!)
That’s no help for me at least. The only time I’ve ever found the Republican more appealing than the Democrat in any election (and I vote in off years, off-off years, non-November elections, everything) was in a county sheriff’s race.
Then you should vote Democrat. You can of course advocate for the party to change from within.
Even though I’m very much on the GOP bandwagon, I will vote for Clinton if the GOP nominee is someone I can’t support, and there are a couple of them. Trump and Cruz come to mind.
If Kasich were the nominee, I could actually stomach him as president although he still would not get my vote over any of the three Democrats currently running. But he has no chance anyway so the point is moot.
I don’t get your “one issue” at all. If any Jews went from Obama to Romney in 2012, it was a very small number – Obama won Jews in 2008 hugely, and still won a big majority of Jews in 2012. Most American Jews support the Iran deal, because it’s a really good deal, according to nearly all the experts. Netanyahu negotiated horribly, misrepresented the facts, acted incredibly disrespectfully in an unprecedented way to the President, and played politics with terror and fear in his own country, and chose to side with Iran’s mullahs instead of Iran’s moderates.
Actually Ihad been thinking how amusing it was that the same people who glommed onto his discussing the limits and difficulties of the vetting process as the Gospel completely ignored his clear statement that this plan is impossible to implement.
No, I never argued that the FBI Director was incorrect or inexpert in his opinion that vetting is not ever going be to provide absolute certainty. It cannot. Ever. But of course this law says no one comes in unless he personally states what he has testified he cannot ever state.
I don’t recall my endorsing this GOP bill.
I agree with all of this, FTR. Fuck that asshole Netanyahu.
Obama’s Jewish vote margin in 2008: 57% (78 Obama-21 McCain)
Obama’s Jewish vote margin in 2012: 39% (69 Obama-30 Romney)
Romney gained more with Jews than any other group over McCain.
Still that means that 2/3 of the Jews voted for Obama. And looking at the current Republican frontrunner’s I don’t think that the Republicans will reach the numbers that Romney got.
Why not? I mean while Hillary is popular among the Jewish community, the Democratic brand is taking a hit. Obama’s approvals aren’t moving up as fast as they could’ve been had he not grandstanded on this. He’s in the mid-40s, which is not sub-40 (where Carter, Bush I in 1992, and Bush II was in 2008, when incumbents lost the White House), but he’s not firm above 50 (where the incumbent parties won the popular vote [most cases the election] like in 1972, 1984, 1996. Mid-40s approval is tossup: see 1976, 2004, and 2012.
Also, it may not nec. occur at the Presidential level but it would have more of an impact on the congressional one.
2012 was not a tossup. I think there we have moved into a new era where we cannot compare approval ratings to the ones presidents got in the past. Republicans are now almost completely unwilling to give approval to a Democratic president, and the left wing of the Democratic Party is also likely to express disapproval while continuing to vote for Democratic candidates. So from here out, I think approval in the forties is going to be pretty strong.
Yes, instead of doing amazingly with Jews, like he did in 2008, in 2012 Obama only did extremely well. He lost a very small amount of Jewish support, as he did from several other demographics. He went from a huge electoral win to a big electoral win.
And American Jews generally support the Iran nuclear deal.
I would not want to see us kowtowing to AIPAC and Likud, but just as a matter of political reality you can’t just pooh-pooh a drop like that. If we dropped that amount among Latinos or African Americans, it would be very damaging even if a large majority of them still supported us.
ETA: Fortunately Jews are a much smaller percentage of the population, and tend to be concentrated in states Democrats already have in the bag anyway.
One other interesting point that congressman made is that it costs twelve times as much money to bring a refugee to the U.S. as it does to pay for them to be sheltered somewhere safe near Syria. So even if you think it’s symbolically important to actually bring a decent number of them here, regardless of the financial inefficiency, that is going to be a strong political point for their side as it allows people to rationalize closing the borders without feeling guilty about it.
No question that taking 69% of a demographic, a 39% margin, is a solid win of the group.
Still the long term trend line is less solid of a Democratic win. (Numbers from here.)
Democratic Presidential margin among Jews; margin of the election overall; amount different than overall
2000 Gore v Bush 60% 0 60
2004 Kerry v Bush 49% - 3 52
2008 Obama v McCain 57% +7 50
2012 Obama v Romney 39% +2 37
Again, still fairly reliably Democratic, but maybe not as overwhelmingly so?
Then again one can take a longer view yet and years of being only 40 more D than the country overall have occurred before: '88 Bush v Dukakis only +36; '80 Carter v Reagan only +16 … (and the next election, Mondale v Reagan, was a +54 difference than the national vote).
Thing is as noted … Hillary is acceptable enough to both the progressive Jewish voters and those who are more of the AIPAC crowd, while there is not one of the GOP hopefuls whose pandering to Christian fundamentalism is not enough to drive all but the Orthodox Jews away. Her margin with American Jews will likely be a solid bump back up.
This is good, proactive thinking from Donald Trump:
But I’m not sure special identification goes far enough. That after all is hidden in one’s pocket. Shouldn’t they have something on the outside of their clothing? Maybe a yellow crescent pinned to their lapel, something along those lines.
Well here’s the rub. Read this coverage of it in the NYT.
(Bolding mine.)
Thing is, Ms. Horn, that one of that group will win in New Hampshire. Someone has to. So, so much for that.
Lo and behold, Canada is now implementing a policy that doesn’t sound too far removed from what I suggested:
I note too that this fundamental point played a key role in the debates on two Sunday talking heads shows yesterday. On ABC’s This Week, Donald Trump was interviewed and kept insisting that when he sees images of the refugees it’s “mostly young, strong men”, while George Stephanopoulos kept trying to correct him by pointing out that women and children are the majority. Then on Meet the Press, the pro-refugee side made an argument that appealed to people to open their hearts and think about “three year old orphans”.
If only there were a proposal out there that could completely shut down Trump’s argument, and still allow for any number of three year old orphans to come in…
What do you mean “fortunately?” Jews, unlike Muslims, have progressive social views. You should honour the Jews and not only because they have views on actual issues you have, but because of their role in making the party into what it is. Or more accurately, America, with Haym Solomon onwards. The Jews played a big role in civil rights too you know.
Sorry, that was worded poorly, which if I were a college administrator would mean I’d now be out of a job.
What I meant was that a double digit decline in Democrats’ margin among Jewish voters does not hurt us nearly as much as a double digit decline in the margin among black or Hispanic voters would. If I could trade white Christian voters for Jewish ones, I’d do that all day.