Being a child of the sixties, I remember all the fuss about JFK becoming our first Catholic president. Mitt Romney was a Mormon, a fact that
likely sank his candidacy from the start. And when Obama became our
first African American president, the entire country went wild in
celebration of that broken barrier.
Today, identity politics is bigger than ever before. With declared candidates Harris and Booker running around being black, Ocasio-Cortez basking in her Hispanic heritage, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren touting her minuscule drop of Native American blood, it's clear that being something other than a WASP, like the super-white Joe Biden now ahead in the polls, can help a candidate find a foothold. Yet there is barely a blip on the radar that Sen. Bernie Sanders is a Jew. His Jewishness can either be a big help or a big hindrance, but nobody can argue that it's not a big deal. Still it's oddly hush-hush.
Come
on Bernie, we all know you eat bagels with a schmear! How about a shout-out to
your fellow Jews? With the alarming rise of anti-Semitic gestures popping up here and around the globe, it couldn't hurt.
Today, identity politics is bigger than ever before. With declared candidates Harris and Booker running around being black, Ocasio-Cortez basking in her Hispanic heritage, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren touting her minuscule drop of Native American blood, it's clear that being something other than a WASP, like the super-white Joe Biden now ahead in the polls, can help a candidate find a foothold. Yet there is barely a blip on the radar that Sen. Bernie Sanders is a Jew. His Jewishness can either be a big help or a big hindrance, but nobody can argue that it's not a big deal. Still it's oddly hush-hush.
 |
| Illustration by Tim Hamilton |
No comments:
Post a Comment