How the Dems Do It

I've always wondered why. Why do African Americans vote 90 percent for Democrats? And why do Jewish Americans vote 75 to 80 percent for Democrats?

The fact is that, unless you apply extraordinary pressure to people, they won't sort out that strongly. You only have to talk to people to realize how much they vary in their opinions, for no apparent reason.

If you are an evolutionist, that makes sense. People naturally cover the waterfront on opinion. Some people end up right. Some people end up wrong, er, left.

The only way you can make people line up in agreement is to frighten them. There's nothing scandalous about that. It's just the way humans organize against a perceived threat. Hate and fear are the drivers of unity.

So I always wondered: how do Dems manage to frighten African Americans? How to you get to the natural division of, say 60-70 percent to 80-90 percent? I knew about guys like Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton. But they coudn't put fear and hate of Republicans into the entire population of African Americans. Could they?

Then came 2008 and Reverend Wright. Now it all makes sense. If every large city has a preacher or two like President Obama's Reverend Wright, then you've got the horsepower to keep 80-90 percent of African Americans frightened of white America, and determined to stay together to defend themselves against the threat of white racism.

Obviously, activists are doing something similar to keep the Jews at home in the Democratic Party. But how?

The fact is that Jews are afraid of Christians, and with reason. Down the ages, whenever things went wrong, Christians blamed the Jews. When the Black Death spread across Europe in 1348, for instance, Christians started to accuse the Jews of poisoning the wells. So Jews are trained, you might say, to expect trouble from Christians. Of course, in the 20th century, the main threat came first from racist Nazis and then from classist Communists. Then the Arabs decided to wipe Israel off the map. And now in Europe the secular left is turning against Jews and against Israel, especially in the universities.

Yet Jews are still frightened of Christians, even in the United States where conservative Christians are particular friends of Israel.

Then it came to me, as I read the rant of a liberal acquaintance about how conservative Christians want to create a theocracy. Eureka! That's how it's done! You don't really need a conspiracy. Liberals are naturally annoyed with the rise of conservative Christians. All it needs is enough people--like our friends in the netroots, for instance--to rage away at the Religious Right and worry about an imagined danger of theocracy and you'll keep the Jews frightened of Christians and keep them home in the Democratic Party.

But one day, of course, the whole climate of hate and fear will collapse. One day some issue will come up, and the scales will fall of the eyes of African Americans or of the Jews. But that day is not yet.

But we are conservatives. We are optimists. Some day, our liberal friends will drive African Americans and Jewish Americans out of the Democratic Party. One day the fear play won't work any more. And it can't come soon enough. For all our sakes.