Max Stearns
A trigger warning: if you are conservative, Jewish, and considering voting for Donald Trump, I am going to say things that might upset you. If you are a progressive, Jewish or not, who has consistently sided with the Gazans, or even Hamas, you too are apt to be upset.
From the time Donald Trump announced his GOP candidacy in 2015, and especially this past year, it has been difficult to be an American Jew who cares deeply about our democracy and feels a profound connection to Israel.
A rabbi I admire states that Jews may argue with God and even hate God. What they cannot do is ignore God.* I agree. I say that as a Jew. And as an agnostic. Over these past nearing 10 years, I’ve made some new friends, but I’m sure I’ve lost more. I’ve often found myself most upset, even angry, with Jews.
You might then ask how I am describing this post, directed at those against whom I’m most upset, as a love letter. The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. And just as this Jewish agnostic can’t ignore, or be indifferent to, God, nor can I ignore, or be indifferent, to what is happening in the U.S., in Israel, and among so many fellow Jews.
I’ll start with the Trump supporters. My struggle with these fellow tribe members isn’t simply a perversion of history; it’s also a disregard of Judaism. Remember the Genesis story about Abraham fighting God not to destroy Sodom. It’s a remarkable display of what economists call dickering. After God confirms he won’t separate the righteous from the sinners, Abraham starts the negotiation. He gets God to agree to save Sodom if he can find fifty righteous people, then forty-five, and so on, down eventually to ten. Notice who Abraham is fighting God to save. Not Jews.
Yes, the story ends badly, even for Lot’s wife, who joining Lot and their daughters at least initially manages to escape. But it's impossible to read the story and not realize Judaism demands more of us than looking out only for ourselves. Of course, as with airline safety instructions, we must put on our personal masks before we can help others. But the goal—emerging as a beacon to the world—demands looking outward.
I am a constitutional law professor. As a courtroom lawyer might say, please allow me a bit of latitude; I'll quickly connect this. A central struggle in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, and specifically equal protection, is whether the clause is a mandate against laws that treats blacks differently (the colorblind view) or against laws that treat blacks badly (the anti-subordination view). I personally find the colorblind vision less persuasive, both historically and textually, but I can’t say those who disagree lack any plausible foundation.
It turns out there are also two relevant competing narratives emerging from the Holocaust, or Shoah. The simplest lesson is captured in the phrase “Never Again!” As with the Fourteenth Amendment, recent history reveals diametrically opposing meanings attached to this seemingly intuitive phrase. And I’ll confess that until quite recently, I hadn’t seen it. I always assumed one meaning, that “Never Again!” implied never letting fascists regain power because of the unbearable harm, as seen in the Shoah, such a dangerous ideology wrought. I now realize there’s a competing understanding, with “Never Again” instead implying never letting Jews emerge weak or oppressed. On that reading, if the price paid for to avoid oppression is acquiescing in a known fascist leader, however grudgingly, so be it, at least if we aren’t the target.
I am not going to recount the amply documented evidence that Donald Trump is a fascist. And I’m absolutely not claiming Trump embraces all facets of any specific past fascist leader. I’m especially not associating him with that one leader who, merely by mentioning him, means the speaker has lost an argument.
Instead, I’ll say this.
History has revealed multiple fascist or fascist-wannabe leaders. And there is notable variation among such leaders, despite vital common traits. What fascist leaders share is an unbridled commitment to doing whatever it takes to gain, keep, and exercise power; an absolute disregard of whatever inconveniences of democracy get in the way of those pursuits; and a complete willingness and enthusiasm for denigrating entire groups of people, or populations, as the means of currying favor with those who, with or without foundation, regard themselves as specially entitled and egregiously wronged, and who prove especially vulnerable to stories the leader conveys about who they are somehow morally compelled to collectively despise.
In the newer, alternative lesson of the Shoah, “Never Again” isn’t about condemning fascism at all. Instead, it’s a simple lesson about power, and about ensuring Jews aren’t on the wrong side it, fascist or not.
I hope and pray those thinking of voting for Trump reflect deeply on that. The failure of so many fellow Jews to understand its implications is the source of my anger. But I cannot let it transform into indifference.
Despite all this, I’m compelled also to mention where I agree with my fellow small “c” conservative Jews.
This past July, I traveled to Israel to visit family and learned that in coordination with the World Jewish Congress, a group of predominantly conservative and libertarian law professors would be touring the Hamas attack sites, meeting with family members or others victimized by the events on October 7, 2023, and engaging with academic and military experts. I wanted to join the trip but was concerned that my personal ideology was out of sync with other attendees. I inquired about this, and I was encouraged to do so.
During this wrenching trip, we visited Kibbutz Nir Oz, the Nova Music Festival site, an attacked IDF facility, and the car cemetery; we watched a brutal film composed of clips by Hamas warrior cell phones as they engaged in truly unimaginable brutalities against innocent civilians, young, old, women, babies, and men; and we discussed military protocols that are strikingly contrary to the dominating accounts captured in one-sided, progressive media. The events of October 7 are more brutal than the worst scenes from the Game of Thrones.
Just as I can’t here detail the case for Trump’s fascist ideology, nor can I do so in response to overwhelmingly egregious distortions dominating progressive news outlets and feeding campus protests. I must add that, although it is important, in this letter I cannot make the separate case for why I am persauded that Kamala Harris truly supports Israel and cares about the Jewish people. This video does that quite effectively. My love letter isn’t a book or even a law review article. But I will say this.
For those disinclined to vote Harris because of the Biden/Harris Israel policies, I encourage some serious investigation and soul searching. Rather than simply buying into chants about colonialism and genocide, learn what those words mean. Learn about past overtures to a two-state solution, and about Israel relinquishing land for peace. Learn about civilian-to-military casualty ratios, especially in urban warfare. Learn about how Hamas diverted humanitarian aid throughout its history, and especially during this war. Learn about the diversion of such resources to build a stunning network of underground tunnels, rather than to improve the lives of civilians. Learn about Hamas food hoarding. Really learn about what happened on October 7. Just learn.
I also need to say this as clearly as I possibly can: none of this learning in any way should belittle the tragic harms befalling Palestinians in Gaza. It's not only possible, but morally compelling to care deeply about Israelis and about Palestinians. We can condemn Hamas, and yes, we can criticize specific Israeli leaders, while also hoping and working toward a genuine solution that allows those residing in that part of the world to live with dignity and to imagine a better future.
Returning to the profound moral obligation to learn, also learn about Trump’s 2016 campaign. Learn about how its centerpiece was a Muslim ban. Learn how that was later gerrymandered to ensure that the Supreme Court would allow it. And learn how it did so by disallowing any consideration of Trump’s actual anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric.
And if you don’t have time for all that learning, or at least not prior to the election although I hope you might after, for now do this. Watch Trump’s most recent Madison Square Garden rally, from last night, October 26, 2024. And ask yourself whether your decision to not vote for Kamala Harris based on what you think you know about Israel and Gaza, rather than what a deeper dive might reveal about what might well be the single most complex historical military engagement in the world, all with the result of throwing support to Trump, is the personal legacy you wish to leave.
The United States is at an inflection point. There is a great deal to be angry, even hateful, about. What there isn't time for is indifference. The ultimate question to be resolved next Tuesday, November 5, 2024, is whether we, fellow Jews, on the hard right or libertarian, or on the progressive left, care deeply enough, expressed through love or anger, to ensure that when this election ends, our nation has the opportunity to heal and to begin healing the world.
For this post, please refrain from commenting on the blog, although you are welcome otherwise to reach out to me. Thank you.
*This is apparently inspired by this quote, which is attributed to Elie Weisel: "For a Jew to believe in God is good. For a Jew to protest against God is still good. But simply to ignore God--that is not good. Anger, yes. Protest, yes. Affirmation, yes. But indifference? No. You can be a Jew with God. You can be a Jew against God. But not without God."- The Trial of God. The only source I'm able to find is here, but I will update if I locate a better one: https://www.facebook.com/eliewieselfdn/photos/for-a-jew-to-believe-in-god-is-good-for-a-jew-to-protest-against-god-is-still-go/1611241855801667/