Hard-core Trump supporters are gritting their teeth to get through a week in which a major opponent, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, is about to romp to victory in the Georgia gubernatorial primary. The media will inevitably declare that Trump's endorsement does not matter, or that GOP voters have moved on.
Well, Trump's endorsement does matter. But maybe not in Georgia, where Republican voters have never been particularly fond of him, as opposed to neighboring Alabama and Florida. My thesis on Trump has long been that he has appeal to urban and rural conservatives, less so to suburban ones.
And Georgia is fairly suburban. Suburban residents aspire to a settled and comfortable life. Trump is a disruptive presence. Suburban voters don't mind an occasional disruption. Sometimes it's necessary. But if it goes too far, people in the suburbs don't want it around any more. Hence Trump's stumbles in GA.
I maintain that the only potential 2024 candidate who can appeal across all of these geographic categories is Tom Cotton. He's from rural Arkansas; he went to Harvard; he worked on Wall Street; he fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's not the evening's entertainment, but he gets the job done -- without a fuss.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...