Amerikkalaiset juutalaiset, Obaman perintö ja Yhdysvaltain presidentinvaalit Commentary-lehdessä 2015–2016

What kind of views did conservative Jewish Americans have about the presidential elections in 2016 and the Republican candidates? The article offers answers to this question by examining the writings in Commentary, a prominent Jewish neoconservative journal.

The article shows what kind of expectations conservative American Jewry had for the next president, how they saw the legacy of Obama, and what kind of changes they hoped for. Commentary’s writers criticized Obama for his handling of U.S.-Israel relations, the Iran nuclear deal, and the health care reform. The writers also criticized and mocked Hillary Clinton. In their view, the Democratic Party was drifting increasingly towards the liberal left and promoting identity politics and “postmodernism” which they saw as a threat to the country.

The writers did not find a suitable candidate to support, though. Several writers expressed concern about Trump’s candidacy. When the journal addressed in spring 2016 what could be expected of the Trump presidency, none of the areas of policy seemed promising in their view. Neither did they support Ted Cruz. Trump was, though, like them, deeply against the views and causes of the liberal left. Most of the opinions in Commentary seem to have risen from neoconservative political views; not so much from the Jewish background of the writers. The two exceptions were the extensive coverage of the policies concerning the U.S.-Israel relations and the coverage about antisemitism, especially among the Alt-Right. The writers expressed concern as Trump did not condemn the antisemitism within this group that, in large part, supported him.

Like the other conservative intellectuals, also Commentary ended up being politically homeless in the presidential elections of 2016. In autumn, the editor-in-chief John Podhoretz expressed his strong dissatisfaction with both Clinton and Trump and implied that he was possibly planning to not vote at all.