by Sheldon G. Adelson
When members of the
Democratic Party booed the inclusion of God and Jerusalem in their party
platform this year, I thought of my parents. They would have been
astounded.
The immigrant family in
which I grew up was, in the matter of politics, typical of the Jews of
Boston in the 1930s and '40s. Of the two major parties, the Democrats
were in those days the more supportive of Jewish causes.
Indeed, only liberal
politicians campaigned in our underprivileged neighborhood. Boston's
Republicans, insofar as we knew them, were remote, wealthy elites
("Boston Brahmins"), some of whose fancy country clubs didn't accept
Jews.
It therefore went
without saying that we were Democrats. Like most Jews around the
country, being Democratic was part of our identity, as much a feature of
our collective personality as our religion.
So why did I leave the party?
My critics nowadays
like to claim it's because I became wealthy or because I didn't want to
pay taxes or because of some other conservative caricature. No, the
truth is that the Democratic Party has changed in ways that no longer
fit with someone of my upbringing.
One obvious example is
the party's new attitude toward Israel. A sobering Gallup poll from last
March asked: "Are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with
the Palestinians?" Barely 53% of Democrats chose Israel, the sole
liberal democracy in the region. By contrast, an overwhelming 78% of
Republicans sympathized with Israel.
Nowhere was this change
in Democratic sympathies more evident than in the chilling reaction on
the floor of the Democratic convention in September when the question of
Israel's capital came up for a vote. Anyone who witnessed the
delegates' angry screaming and fist-shaking could see that far more is
going on in the Democratic Party than mere opposition to citing
Jerusalem in their platform. There is now a visceral anti-Israel
movement among rank-and-file Democrats, a disturbing development that my
parents' generation would not have ignored.
Another troubling
change is that Democrats seem to have moved away from the immigrant
values of my old neighborhood — in particular, individual charity and
neighborliness. After studying tax data from the IRS, the nonpartisan
Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported that states that vote
Republican are now far more generous to charities than those voting
Democratic. In 2008, the seven least generous states all voted for
President Barack Obama. My father, who kept a charity box for the poor
in our house, would have frowned on this fact about modern Democrats.
Democrats would reply
that taxation and government services are better vehicles for helping
the underprivileged. And, yes, government certainly has its role. But
when you look at states where Democrats have enjoyed years of one-party
dominance — California, Illinois, New York — you find that their liberal
policies simply don't deliver on their promises of social justice.
Take, for example,
Obama's adopted home state. In October, a nonpartisan study of Illinois'
finances by the State Budget Crisis Task Force offered painful evidence
that liberal Illinois was suffering from abject economic, demographic
and social decline. With the worst credit rating in the country, and
with the second-biggest public debt per capita, the Prairie State "has
been doing back flips on a high wire, without a net," according to the
report.
Political scientist
Walter Russell Mead summed up the sad results of these findings at The
American Interest: "Illinois politicians, including the present
president of the United States, have wrecked one of the country's
potentially most prosperous and dynamic states, condemned millions of
poor children to substandard education, failed to maintain vital
infrastructure, choked business development and growth through
unsustainable tax and regulatory policies — and still failed to appease
the demands of the public sector unions and fee-seeking Wall Street
crony capitalists who make billions off the state's distress."
At times, it seems
almost as if Obama wants to impose the failed Illinois model on the
whole country. Each year of his presidency has produced unsustainable
deficits, and he takes no responsibility for his spending. Worse still,
unemployment has become chronic, and many Americans have given up on
looking for work.
Whenever Obama deplores
the wealthy ("fat-cat bankers," "millionaires and billionaires," "at a
certain point you've made enough money," and so on), it tells me that he
has failed to learn the economic lessons of Illinois, and that he still
doesn't understand the vital role entrepreneurs play in creating jobs
in our society.
As a person who has
been able to rise from poverty to affluence, and who has created jobs
and work benefits for tens of thousands of families, I feel obligated to
speak up and support the American ideals I grew up with — charity,
self-reliance, accountability. These are the age-old virtues that help
make our communities prosperous. Yet, sadly, the Democratic Party no
longer seems to value them as it once did. That's why I switched
parties, and why I'm now giving amply to Republicans.
Although I don't agree
with every Republican position — I'm liberal on several social issues —
there is enough common cause with the party for me to know I've made the
right choice.
It's the choice that, I
believe, my old immigrant Jewish neighbors would have made. They would
not have let a few disagreements with Republicans void the importance of
siding with the political party that better supports liberal
democracies like Israel, the party that better exemplifies the spirit of
charity, and the party with economic policies that would certainly be
better for those Americans now looking for work.
The Democratic Party just isn't what it used to be.
This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Full disclosure: Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson own a company that is the primary shareholder of Israel Hayom.
Sheldon G. Adelson
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2826
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment