Understanding the Trump presidency

For many months now, the White House has been deliberating over the Jewish issue. On one hand, there has never been a president as “Jewish” as Trump. His daughter converted to Judaism, his grandchildren are Jewish, and his closest advisers are staunch allies.

In Israel there is a consensus that he has been the best president for Israel in American history, whereas our brothers in America see things in the opposite light. Only 20% of US Jews voted for him in 2016 and intend to do so again. The vast majority supports the Democratic Party and loathe the best president the Jewish people have ever seen with every fiber of their being. A stiff-necked people, if you will, updated for the 2000s.

The Jewish establishment, as well as the American media – where Jews are hardly underrepresented – is hostile to Trump and he is unable to understand why.

“So many of you voted for people in the last administration. Someday, you’ll have to explain that to me, because I don’t think they liked Israel too much, I’m sorry,” he told the Israeli American Conference earlier this month.

Trump then went on to discuss the Jewish community’s efforts to block the appointment of the current US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who has played a key role in many of the historic steps Trump has taken.

“We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more … Because you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people – they don’t love Israel enough,” Trump said, bringing the audience to its feet.

Trump already knew that later that same week, he would issue an executive order on battling on-campus anti-Semitism, as violence against Jews in America is something that can no longer be ignored: Eleven people were murdered at a Pittsburgh synagogue last year. A woman was murdered and three others wounded in the shooting at a Chabad synagogue in Poway, California in April. Between the two deadly attacks there was a string of physical and verbal assaults on Jewish people and institutions throughout the US.

From hatred to partnership

Trump’s speech at the IAC was a watershed moment for both the Jewish community in the US and his presidency.

When a US president goes directly from a meeting of NATO leaders in London to a Florida resort solely to speak at the largest organization of Israelis living abroad, it shows that the Oval Office is home to the first “Jewish” president – perhaps not in terms of his ethnicity, but certainly in terms of his thinking and his openness to the Jewish lifestyle.

True, there was nothing new or dramatic in his speech, but for Trump, it’s never been about content – American voters realized that long ago, while the Democrats and much of the media were still insisting on treating Trump like a babbling child instead of looking at his overall message.

Not only did Trump speak directly to the participants in an event organized by a group that defines itself as a “living bridge” between Israel and American Jewry, mere days later he signed the executive order banning BDS activity on college campuses that receive federal funding. There is a reason he is listening to and embracing the Jews.

Yes, these gestures could serve his own interests, but above all, they shows us that Trump isn’t like other US presidents, who saw Israel and the Jews through a political or religious prism. For Trump, the Jews are part of his family. Trump’s words last week show the change he has undergone in the past three years, from a candidate who looked suspiciously on Jews and Israel as opponents to a president who sees them as partners in every sense.

America’s second capital

So Trump took advantage of the second anniversary of his recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel to declare (if not explicitly) Jerusalem America’s second capital. By signing the executive order, he has changed the federal definition of Jewishness from a religion to a nationality.

How important is it to Trump to make these gestures? Very – because he needs to reinvent himself and he cannot depend on the goodwill of the voters and the flourishing economy.

Trump is heading into the most fateful year of his life. He will have to get himself reelected on his own merits and not as a vote against the previous administration. His speech to the IAC and the executive order, which also defines anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, will serve him well at the voting booths, especially with Florida Jewish voters in a position to tip the scales in his favor and give him the state’s 29 electoral votes.

“The Jewish state has never had a better friend in the White House than your president, Donald J. Trump,” he told the IAC, making it clear that while American Jews might have the Jewish state, their president was in Washington.

These words fit in well with a letter then-President George Washington wrote to the Jews, in which he told them that “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

Not ‘me,’ but rather ‘you’

The path that has taken Trump to such intense identification with Israel and the Jewish people started off somewhat differently. When he announced his candidacy in 2015, many thought he was getting into the race as a media gimmick or to use the campaign to boost his business affairs. Whether he really wanted to run for president or not, Trump was surprised by his sudden popularity with the unseen America. He realized that his strength lay with constantly campaigning, because the president had to give people a good reason to get out of bed in the morning and feel hope and pride.

The people also realized something the media refused to: it’s not enough to talk to the voters – candidates have to talk about the voters. Instead of focusing on “I,” Trump focused on “you” – and won. Indeed, even those who detest Trump would agree that he is an iconic president, one who symbolizes a change in the times as well as a change in outlook.

Trump rebranded the Republican Party from one that was known as a friend of corporations and the wealthy into a party that looks after the ordinary worker. Trump took the party from supporting free trade at any price to one that does not hesitate to apply sanctions and tariffs on its big rival, China.

Trump also managed to build a new coalition of voters that includes not only his Republican base, but also independent and anti-establishment voters who were charmed by the fact that he didn’t play by the rules and was not hampered by political correctness, like the Democrats. But Trump can’t assume that his coalition of voters will remain strong. Polls are showing him in a precarious position in certain key states, especially if Joe Biden wins the Democratic primaries.

The first ‘Jewish’ president

The war on BDS that Trump declared last week could have ramifications for the direction in which the US federal government is heading, as well as the US Constitution. On one hand, Trump and the Republicans will argue that freedom of speech is also freedom not to support speech that does not serve the federal government’s interest. On the other, Democrats – led by Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) – will insist that the First Amendment forbids the government from placing conditions on resources and intervening in content that is taught and promoted at public universities and colleges.

Trump is betting that the Supreme Court will side with him. The court will say that while the First Amendment allows a free market of opinions and that every citizen has a right to express his or her own opinion, no matter how scandalous, the First Amendment does not require the government to remain neutral.

His decision to change the rules and turn the Republican Party into one that fights for minorities in general and Jews in particular, could be another sign that Trump is trying to “steal” one of the characteristics most identified with the Democrats.

Whether he wins or loses the battle for hearts and minds, Trump has laid down the basic outline for his campaign. The battle for the American spirit began in Florida. The first “Jewish” president has put his full weight behind branding the Republican Party as the most pro-Zionist since Harry Truman’s campaign in 1948. He hopes it will serve him, and the nation, well on Nov. 3.