JEWISH WORLD

Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, who made the determination that they had to rush the cockpit of their hijacked plane. Simply allowing the terrorists to continue on their course to crash into the White House was unacceptable. Though their chances of success or survival were slim since they were doomed anyway, they had no choice but to fight back. Conservatives therefore embraced Trump in the same man- ner as the last resort in order to save the country. Though the analogy was deeply offensive, Anton’s essay explained as well as anything else that year why, despite his flaws, Trump could retain enough Republican votes in order to be elected. Anton, who subsequently briefly served in Trump’s National Security Coun- cil, now sees the 2020 election in the same way since he believes that Democrats are plotting a coup to win in November one way or another. As one critic of his work noted, in the mind of many on the right, “Flight 93 did not end with the 2016 vote; we are forever on the plane, endlessly in danger, no mat- ter who has seized the controls.” Liberals dismiss Anton’s current views, just as they did his 2016 analysis, as conspiratorial ravings. But it’s painfully obvious that most Democrats now feel the same way about the 2020 election. T hey have been predicting that Trump would destroy democ- racy and install an authoritarian racist regime the moment he won the Electoral College. Their rage, frustration and anxiety have only grown as every magic bullet — whether it was the myth of Russia collusion or a partisan impeach- ment — that they thought would make the bad dream of 2016 go away proved a bust. Characteristically, Trump has fueled their fury with his constant trolling and inappropriate state- ments, even though in terms of actual governance, the policies that his administration has pursued have been largely normative con- servatism, as well as unprecedent- ed support for Israel. Though their rights are still very much intact, that hasn’t stopped many liberal Jews from continuing to engage in hysterics about Trump. His opponents blame him for everything terrible that has happened on his watch, like the coronavirus pandemic, which goes with the territory for any president. They have also striven cease- lessly to link him to every act of extremist violence on the far-right. And despite his many condemna- tions of such extremism, they seize on every time that he refuses to be cajoled into yet another such pro- nouncement as proof that he is plotting tyranny or worse. While some of this is his own fault, it still doesn’t excuse the over-the-top calumnies that are now flowing. In any normal year, Jews who understand that the Holocaust is not a political football would con- demn Biden’s analogizing of Trump to Nazi propaganda minis- ter Josef Goebbels. Sadly, even otherwise sober observers like Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt approved of this calumny because it fits in with her liberal political worldview. Lipstadt and even former ADL director Abe Foxman appear to think there’s nothing wrong with an ad from the Jewish Democratic Council of America comparing the Trump administration to the rise of the Nazis. While there is plenty of room to criticize Trump, the Jewish Dems, as well as Lipstadt and Foxman, should be ashamed of themselves for cyni- cally playing the Holocaust card in this manner. At the same time, many conser- vatives look at the Black Lives Matter riots, the willingness of Democrats to wink at the violence and those extremists taking part, as well as threat of court-packing, in the same way, liberals view Trump and the Right. The open threats of violence in the streets from the Left if Trump wins or the outcome of the election is in doubt from even respected outlets like The Atlantic is triggering the same sort of Flight 93 fears on the Right. The stakes in this election are very high. But, neither four more years of Trump, or of Biden and Kamala Harris, are going to turn America into either Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union. That’s why responsible people — even those with strong convictions about the outcome — ought to be discouraging the storm of fear- mongering about the election, which is starting to resemble an exercise in mass hysteria, rather than encouraging it. As bad as Trump or Biden may seem to you, we are not passen- gers on Flight 93 or, for that mat- ter, German Jews who were insuf- ficiently alarmed about the rise of the Nazis. No matter how fervent your political opinions, now is the time to stop “unfriending” people who disagree with you on Facebook. And unless you are really interested in making your future in either the Jewish state via aliyah or are so enamored of cold weather and ice hockey that you feel impelled to move to Canada, stop talking about moving there next year. Let us instead listen to rather than demonize each other. And let’s realize that if we care about the country’s future, the way to save it is to not succumb to the siren calls of tribal culture war that — no matter where their origin — are a greater threat to democracy than either political party. Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS (Jewish News Syn- dicate). Election continued from page 25 That means political opponents are viewed not as friends, relatives and neighbors, but as bad people. 30 JEWISH WORLD • OCTOBER 16-22, 2020