Right Wing Chareidim and Obama

I guess 'tis the season to be talking politics, and in its own way, this subject circles back to Chareidi/Yeshivish hypocrisy. One reason the RWNJs (Right Wing Nut Jobs) like Toby Katz and Yaakov Menken hate the Democratic Party is because the RWJNs hate liberal politics, a concept that has, especially in recent decades, been part of the image of the Democratic Party. Democrats, they will tell you, have no or bad values, have no or bad family values, and have no or bad morals.

And so the Jewish RWNJ movement, headed by our dear friends over at Cross-Loving Currents, Yeshiva World, and many far right wing institutions and individuals, side with the Christian, Evangelical, family values "loaded" Republican Party (a party whose member have been caught many more times, proportionally, than members of the Democratic Party, by the way) rather than the more fair-minded Democratic Party.

Here's the kicker. One major issue we Jews have had for many centuries is a lack of Achdus, as stated in Megillas Esther (it is Adar, now, after all...): "יֶשְׁנוֹ עַם-אֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד בֵּין הָעַמִּים" - there is a nation scattered and SEPARATED amongst the nations. In current politics, I've only seen one candidate state over and over again that we need to bring this country back together again as ONE NATION, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of whether a person is a Democrat, an Independent, or a Republican. We are ONE nation in the United States. Have you heard McCain, Huckabee, Romney, or Guiliani, or even Hillary Clinton stating this? No. Because none of them believe in this. They all have their own agendas that have nothing to do with the good of the country. They are old-school politics and it's time to be rid of them.

Obama has spoken of issues that have everything to do with good moral standing: He calls for healthcare for everyone, education for everyone, bringing jobs back to this country, ending poverty, and lowering the cost of living. Not once has he mentioned gay marriage, a huge sticking point for RWNJs. And you know why? I don't think he finds that to be a major issue, or even a minor one, when this country faces so many other challenges that actually affect the population of the US as a whole. He refuses to use 9/11 as a scare tactic to get votes, as Giuliani and the other Republicans tried to do. He wants to save the lives of American troops BY BRINGING THEM HOME.

Obama isn't calling for change just for the sake of change, as so many Republicans keep claiming. He's calling for change of specific issues and situations that, if allowed to go unchecked, will ruin this country even more than Bush and his Republican cronies have ruined it up to now.

And above all, he's calling for the unity of this country. He's calling for us to be AMERICANS, not Democrats, or Republicans, or anything in between. Just AMERICANS.

So I ask: What is so bad about calling for Achdus? Well, from a Chareidi/Yeshivish standpoint, this means allowing acknowledging people they'd just as soon never acknowledge.

"...יֶשְׁנוֹ עַם-אֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד בֵּין הָעַמִּים"