Forward Forum

Jews Are Not as Liberal as It Seems

On Social Issue, Yes. On Economy, Not So Much.

By J.J. Goldberg

(Page 2 of 2)

What happened? Apparently the respondents in the earlier surveys were looking for something they couldn’t quite name, vaguely involving community and belonging, and when they couldn’t find it they chose a reasonable-sounding surrogate — Israel or social justice. Every so often, in fact, another survey comes along that offers only the original three choices — “social equality,” Israel and religious observance, but no “Jewish people” — and gets the original answers, led by social equality. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s nostalgia.

Yes, the fact that social justice places first among three choices is significant. But it’s a default, a place-holder, and that’s an important caveat.

More troubling, from a liberal standpoint, is something the new survey seems to get just right: a striking gap between respondents’ overwhelmingly liberal views on social issues and their distinctly moderate-to-conservative views on issues of poverty and the economy.

This isn’t something the pollsters hoped or expected to find. You can tell by the questions they asked: Of the 16 questions that pinpoint policy issues and offer a clear liberal-conservative choice, no fewer than 10 address economics and poverty. That’s what the pollsters wanted to know about. It’s worth noting, by the way, that the sponsoring organization, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the polling group, the Public Religion Research Institute, have strongly liberal leanings.

How do the results break down? Of the six noneconomic questions, five drew liberal responses above 60% (four of the six, in fact, scored 70% liberal or higher). The exception was a question asking whether a growing influx of immigrants strengthens or threatens American society. Only 57% picked “strengthen.”

Of the 10 economic questions, on the other hand, only three drew liberal responses above 60%, while four questions actually yielded decisively conservative majorities. Among them: whether poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs (54% agreed) and whether you’d agree to pay more in taxes to fund federal programs that help the poor (52% would not). And a whopping 90% say they “admire people who get rich by working hard.”

This is not your bubbe’s liberalism. It’s the politics of a community that’s made it financially but still feels like outsiders. We’ve stayed loyal to the party of outsiders and the weak. We sympathize instinctively with other nervous minorities, particularly those with whom we most easily identify — someone’s pregnant daughter, gay brother, immigrant grandparent. On the other hand, we worked our way up the ladder of free enterprise, and we’ve no patience for anyone looking for handouts.

Actually, this is what used to be called Rockefeller Republicanism. Toward the late 1960s it became a wing of the Democratic Party known as “social liberalism.” Working-class Democrats, uncomfortably shoehorned into sharing the same party, called it “limousine liberalism.” This was just before they bolted and became Reagan Democrats.

And that, dear pilgrims, is the problem with our social liberalism. The civil liberties we treasure — for gays, women, immigrants, religious minorities — can’t survive in the long term without a thriving Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party can’t thrive without the white working class. Social liberalism can’t survive without a progressive economic agenda. You can’t defend minorities unless you first fight for the majority.

Contact J.J. Goldberg at goldberg@forward.com