[Big A]

Podhoretz asks why do Jews support Democrats. On the face of it, if you view electoral politics as a reflection of socioeconomic tendencies, then Jews as a group and broadly speaking, shouldn't support the Democrats. So either the theory of socioeconomic tendencies is wrong, or the Jews are an anomaly. Now having said that, it's also true that many many people who support the GOP come from the middle class, the lower middle class and working class, so in theory, they are also voting against their own socioeconomic interests.

Perhaps the theory is wrong and people vote along more abstract lines, lines of sociophilosophic tendencies, or socioreligious tendencies. Or maybe they're just plain stupid and will vote however people tell them to.

What is true is that the generation of American Jews who are first generation is dying out. These were the children of socialists, communists, union organizers, Trotskyites, the red diaper babies and so on. But their children are confronted with a different set of challenges - not making it to the middle class but staying there. Our outlook is quite a bit different than theirs was. We're probably not as likely to lean left for left's sake. On the other hand, limousine liberalism is in some ways, like obesity, a disease of affluence. Many American Jews can afford to represent against their own interests because it doesn't cost them anything to do so. They can afford to support every half assed revolutionary cause, every gaggle of liberation armies, every whale every spotted owl every filthy starving child somewhere. A mile wide and a millimeter deep is the extent of their concern. It's cheap it's easy, it's branding.

But I digress.....