By Andrew Silow-Carroll, Times of Israel—
Two of my favorite television shows are about what I think it’s fair to call the “New America.” In Master of None, on Netflix, Indian-American comedian Aziz Ansari plays a struggling actor in a very real and diverse New York. His best friend is the son of Chinese immigrants. His girlfriend is white. And the plots have revolved, pointedly but never heavy-handedly, around the portrayal of minorities in mainstream media, and the struggles of immigrants chasing the American dream.
In Transparent, on Amazon, an alarmingly and hilariously dysfunctional Los Angeles family comes to terms with their father’s late-life realization that he (she) is transgender. Jeffrey Tambor plays Maura Pfefferman, the aging Jewish college professor who ditches a lonely suburban life for one in which gender and sexuality are fluid. Both of his daughters enter into same-sex relationships, and the question of whether they are gay, bi-, or adventurous seems to be left intentionally ambiguous. A son, Josh, is straight, promiscuous, and desperate for love.
Both shows represent a multicultural, urban America in which differences of all kinds are not just tolerated but celebrated. The immigrant characters in Master don’t need to prove themselves to the American “mainstream,” whatever that is, and don’t apologize for expecting America to live up to its promises. The LGBTQ characters in Transparent don’t suffer for their natures or their choices — at least when it comes to gender and sex (the Jewish characters mostly suffer from one another, but that’s an old story).
This is an America completely at odds with the one that has made Donald Trump the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Consider these stats, from political journalist Thomas B. Edsall:
Poll data from the Pew Research Center shows how much Trump depends on the politically restive white working class. His backing from voters with a high school degree or less is twice as high as it is from those with college degrees; the percentage of men lining up behind him is eight points higher than the percentage of women; voters from households making $40,000 or less are 12 points more likely to cast a Trump ballot than those from households making more than $75,000.
In other words, Trump’s base tends to be white, male, undereducated, and struggling financially. But that doesn’t necessarily explain Trump’s appeal. After all, if economic self-interest were their only motivation, such voters might well support Bernie Sanders, who blames big business and crony capitalism for the inequality that has suppressed wages and decimated the working class.
But put it all together, and you get a chunk of the electorate for whom the New America is hardly America at all. If you were to create a composite from the Pew stats, you’d have a white guy who has almost nothing in common with the kinds of characters in Master or Transparent — that is, brown, Jewish, nontraditional, college-educated, pluralistic. These shows don’t represent to him what’s new about America, but what’s wrong with America. And worse, the seeming success of these characters, he feels, comes at the expense of “real” Americans like him.
Trump’s real ideology is murky, but his targets are clear: Immigrants bring problems and take away jobs. Muslims represent the worst kind of threat: an internal one. America is corrupt and fallen, and by opening its doors to foreigners, tolerating difference, and insisting upon “political correctness,” it has suppressed the very people — that is, middle-class white families — who once made the country great.
I don’t know how much Trump actually believes this stuff. As a developer from New York, he has lived among, socialized with, and made billions from and with the kinds of people portrayed in both of the shows above. But that doesn’t matter to his followers. Like McCarthy before him, he appeals to their suspicion that America is rotting from within, too weak or too tolerant or too deluded to remember that it was at its strongest before women, minorities, immigrants, and gays demanded a piece of a now-shrinking pie.
And now various polls are suggesting, as Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at U.C.L.A., puts it, that Trump has built “a significant part of his coalition of voters on people who are responsive to religious, social and racial intolerance”:
Nearly 20 percent of Mr. Trump’s voters disagreed with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Southern states during the Civil War. Only 5 percent of Mr. Rubio’s voters share this view.
Mr. Trump’s popularity with white, working-class voters who are more likely than other Republicans to believe that whites are a supreme race and who long for the Confederacy may make him unpopular among leaders in his party. But it’s worth noting that he isn’t persuading voters to hold these beliefs. The beliefs were there — and have been for some time.
And that, ultimately, is why I see Trump as a threat, not just in what his candidacy means for America as a whole, but what it means for us as Jews. His message — of distrusting the foreign, of rejecting the new, of abhorring pluralism — is directly opposed to our history in this country and our best interests as a minority. And it is empowering people who reject the very notion of racial and ethnic diversity.
It’s not immaterial that Transparent is immersed in a deeply Jewish environment. The Pfeffermans stock up for the Yom Kippur break-fast at Canter’s Deli, Josh falls in love and impregnates his mother’s rabbi, a daughter is haunted by a grandmother’s youth in Weimar Berlin. The sexual and gender journeys taken by its characters are on a continuum with the social and religious upheavals experienced by their forebears. Jews flourished in this country because we had the freedom to shed the burdens of the past and embrace a future of opportunity.
It’s the kind of freedom and opportunity that makes Trump’s base extremely angry — just as their anger makes me extremely afraid.
Horrible article.
I totally agree! The Believing Hebrews of the Old Testament and Yahweh would NEVER condone the blatant sins
portrayed in these programs. Remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? Yep, the same will happen
again if we ALL continue down the present ugly, horrible and anti-God path we are on.
Disgusting article she trashes Trump who only wants.To protect America from an influx of Muslims to kill Jews and Christians that Obama is,bringing in.
After reading this with the way she hates Trump I wonder,if she voted for Obama.As a number of Jews did notice when he ran there was nothing like this article saying,how bad Obama would.Be for America if there had been you probably have heard the cry Racism.
I’d be more concerned if Hillary or Sanders got in yes he,is a Jew.No Jew that I know of as ever been elected to the office,of president in my lifetime.
Hillary would only follow in Obama’s footsteps.
All thru the bible, say Moses running from the bad king and G-d opened up the water so they could run to safety, G-d did not tell moses to stop and embrace the enemies, but killed them ,,in many different situations, bad article
First, I am myself NOT a Trump fan! But, I do NOT agree with much of this article, but I would agree that Trump would NOT be the best American President for the Jews and Israel! Ted Cruz would be my pick. Btw, sadly it appears many American Jews will vote the American Democratic ticket? Just amazing!
Hmmm. No, I am not a Trump fan either. Nor am I a fan of sin. I don’t hate homosexuals, but their lifestyle is contrary to Scripture, and Scripture doesn’t change. Homosexuality produces no life and Elohim is about life. Back to Trump: I just think that many are duped by his marketing tactics. They want someone who will buck the system and stand up to the media and they think Trump is the man. People are angry that politicians literally get away with murder(abortion, Benghazi, Vince Foster…), are endangering the lives of Americans with pro-terror policies and importing not needy immigrants, but vengeful extremists, while weighing us down with laws the lawmakers don’t abide by. No Trump is not the man; he has no integrity. Both Cruz and Carson have integrity without which no one can govern righteously.
I enjoyed a very fruitful meeting with people associated closely with the Donald Trump campaign. I was able to share with them the deep-rooted, heartfelt concerns of the pro-Israel community in the United States, Jewish and Gentile. I can honestly say that these people, who are working tirelessly for Mr. Trump, “got it.”
While the Trump people are convinced that Mr. Trump “doesn’t mean it” when he says he will be “neutral” when it comes to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs, I explained that the very word “neutral” in that context fills us with dread. How can he be “neutral” when dealing with those who target Israeli school buses, who lob rocks at civilians driving with their children on the roads in Israel, and who convince their own children that the greatest achievement is to murder Jews wherever they are?
Does Mr. Trump intend to be “neutral” when it comes to Palestinian Arabs who have maimed and murdered Americans in Israel? Would he, like President Barack Obama, insist Israel release Palestinian-Arabs who have murdered American citizens? Would Mr. Trump be “neutral” in trying to negotiate between Jews and the Nazis?
The Trump supporters understood that, at the very least, we need to hear that, before engaging in negotiations, he will insist that the Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish state.
They also understood that Hillary Clinton considers herself “pro-Israel,” because, she says, she wants Israel to make concessions, at its own expense, and carve out of its own land — territory Israel needs to defend itself — a Palestinian state. The pro-Israel community needs reasons it should support Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton. “Neutrality” on Israel won’t cut it.
Mr. Trump is the presumptive candidate of the Republican Party, and, as such, he may very well be the next President of the United States. As an ardent supporter of Israel, I believe it is my duty to advocate for Israel with Mr. Trump, and to hope and pray that, when he can show us he is the one who will safeguard Israel’s security, to support him wholeheartedly as he wends his way to the White House.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg