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Israel had its first general election since 2022 on Tuesday. Israel is an experiment in ethnonationalism, but it is also an experiment in proportional representation. Every conceivable minority group or special interest has their own political party. There is a party for Russian immigrants, a party for Ashkenazi Haredim, and a separate party for Mizrahi Haredim. Arabs of course vote for entirely separate parties from Jews (by custom, not law).
Israel is the most right-wing democracy in the world. In Israel, you can vote for the racist party (Likud), the extremely racist party (Religious Zionism), or the racism über alles party (Otzma Yehudit, literally "Jewish Power"). You can even vote for the pro-racism but anti-Netanyahu party (Together), or the pretending-not-to-be-racist party (Yashar). If you feel like sticking it to the man, there is at least one viable actually-not-racist party (The Democrats). Some would argue the Arab parties (Joint List and Ra'am) are non-racist, but others would say that they are just as racist but in the opposite direction.
The Knesset has 120 seats, so 61 seats are needed for a majority to form a government. Most of the results are in, and it's looking like deadlock.
Estimated seats by bloc
Netanyahu Bloc - 53
"Change" Bloc - 48
Arab Bloc - 19
In European legislatures, is is customary to have a cordon sanitaire against parties perceived as far-right. In Israel, there is a cordon sanitaire against the Arab parties. The Netanyahu bloc has lost its majority, but there is no clear opposition bloc large enough to form a government. Israeli Arab turnout was through the roof.* Bedouin nomads rode into town on camels to vote. The conventional wisdom seems to be that forming a coalition with any of the Arab parties post-October 7th is political suicide. If no one can form a majority, there could be another election as soon as next year.
*Netanyahu is accusing the Arabs of voter fraud. I have no idea if this means anything.
I thought about posting this as a top level comment, but this seems like as good a place.
What do people think the consequences of Jews leaving the Democratic party will be? Prior to like 5 minutes ago, Jews were up there with blacks as the most left-wing group in America, with something like 80-90% supporting Democrats over Republicans. However as Third Worldism has become the dominant ideology within the Democrat party, Jews are being shown the door. Jewish politicians and operatives who refuse to bend the knee on Palestine are being made to feel very uncomfortable. And the party is starting to nominate anti-Semitic politicians like Abdul El-Sayed to major positions. It's become common knowledge that, regardless of their position on Israel, a Jewish politician could never win the Democratic nomination for President. The Josh Shapiro fantasy lasted all of 2 minutes.
And, contra their reputation for self-loathing, Jews are actually starting to flip parties. According to one recent poll, 64% of Jewish voters will support the Republicans over Democrats this cycle.
Personally, despite being a Gentile, I've always felt a degree of connectedness to Jews to the point where many of my best friends are Jews. I also believe that Ashkenazi Jews are easily the most intelligent ethnic group on the planet. This is reflected in their vast contributions in the scientific and creative fields. Something like 40% of all Nobel Prizes in the sciences have been awarded to Jews. But I also believe that the political influence of Jews over time has been so incredibly negative overall that it undoes all the good things. (Communism is doing a lot of work here).
So for 100 years, you had this small but incredibly smart, creative, rich, and politically active group has pointed like a gun at the Republican party. And now.. it's not. I don't think we'll see the gun turned around and used in the other direction, but this feels big.
A huge decline in Democratic Party organizational ability as ideologically-motivated Jews are replaced with corruption-motivated Third Worlders
A possible easing of the extreme pro-left bias in the legal profession
Less fundraising for Democrats
Of course, this is also not a great place to be for Jews. They paid the Danegeld to the Democratic Party and have been repaid with contempt. But any anti-semitism they feel now will be trivial compared to what they experience when President AOC leads a Democratic trifecta.
Whoever thought the Republicans would be the best best for Jews? We're only 10 years away from this Tweet by Matt Yglesias (often called the worst tweet of all time).
Even with that recent poll, I'm finding it hard to believe Jewish people I know will switch parties. I mostly know very americanized jews. They seem very bought into the progressive stack.
Intellectually I know it should be possible. Black people should be a prime example. They were heavy republican coded after the civil war until the 1930s.
There is a general animosity I feel towards both parties. They are when slightly down in competitive races the party of competence and sane governance. And when up in unclose races the party of special handouts for favored allies, open corruption, and blatant lies.
Yes, I also believe that any switch will be temporary. Secular Jews are just inherently turbo libs.
But... what if the Democrat party just shuns them? It doesn't mean that Republicans benefit from their incredible intelligence, wealth, and organizing ability. But neither will the Democrats. Huge sea change.
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I don’t find it hard to believe. I know and am friends with numerous Jews. El Sayad scares them.
Also wouldn’t be surprised in Michigan if the black Christian cohort simply doesn’t vote for him.
I've been following that race closely and Michigan is a possible Republican flip.
The Democratic primary was a farce, with two white HR ladies running against one Arab. So of course they choose the one who isn't like the other. Faked polls may have also played a roll. And of course Sayed is the exact kind of politician who gets excitement with the online crowd but fizzles with real people.
Jews obviously aren't going to vote for Sayed in large numbers, but that's a small number of overall votes. The bigger issue is that he's not very popular in the black community, with some evidence suggesting that the negative ads saying "El Sayed cares about the West Bank more than West Detroit" is doing some damage. It also happens to be true, which helps.
There's growing evidence that this electorate is going to be even older than previous years, with early voting data in many states showing the under 40 crowd at numbers far below previous elections.
If blacks and young people stay home, and Sayed only draws 30% of the black vote, he's going to need a massive bloo wave to have a chance.
What do you think El-Sayed’s they/them ad is going to do to the race?
Are you talking about this ad with the eggs and bananas?
They're saying it's such a bad ad that it must have been put out by the opposition.
Doesn't this just reconfirm that he is obsessed with Israel at the expense of being a normal person? It will play well with the online left I'm sure, but everyone's vote only counts once, and how does this help increase black turnout or get seniors to vote for him?
On a more factual level, Israel is not responsible for eggs being expensive.
Not going to lie, I'm going to blackpill if he wins. The logical part of my brain says there's no way its possible. People can't vote for this guy, he's awful. But the vibes-based part of my brain says "you're rationalizing what you want to be true".
El-Sayed is up 3 points in the polls and over 70/30 in the prediction markets.
The only whitepill I can give you is that this isn't really a Michigan vote of confidence for El-Sayed. To the median voter a midterm election is just a weirdly confusing referendum on the incumbent president, and the incumbent president's approval margin in Michigan is now around negative 20. It's impressive in context that a Republican with a mostly-Trump-aligned record is only 3 points down.
While it sucks for Republicans that Trump is down 20 points in favorability, I imagine the favorability of Democrats is not much higher.
Polls consistently underestimate Republican support and have only gotten worse. Who even answers the phone these days? I also don't trust the prediction markets and would even put money on Rogers at those odds if the tax treatment of the prediction markets were not so awful (for me, that would mean 40% tax if I won, and no deduction if I lose. No thanks!). That's perhaps why the market is so tiny and easy to manipulate.
I'll freely admit that my confidence is not that high however. The voice in my ear saying "what if you're wrong" is loud in general and deafening in this case.
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I thought it was put out by a supporter, but he's stated the ad does not speak for him (although did not outright condemn it, or say where he differed in stance. Standard politician stuff).
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Trying to read ev results is just p hacking with a massive dose of hopium. It's meaningless unless you preregister a methodology and even then has very little power.
Probably, but do you have any evidence to back this up, or is it just vibes?
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