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Source: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-and-the-great-partisan-sort-in-american-politics/
U.S. Politics Broke Bipartisan Support for Israel
(Times of Israel) David E. Bernstein - In his essay on the "sorting" of American politics and its implications for Israel advocacy, Uriel Zehavi argues that Israel lost Democratic support not because of any one war or settlement announcement, but rather that Israel became trapped inside the broader "great sort" of American politics, the decades-long process by which nearly every politically salient issue gets absorbed into partisan identity. Once that happened, a bipartisan consensus on Israel became structurally unstable. In an earlier era, both parties contained ideological diversity. Liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats created overlapping coalitions. But modern American politics no longer functions that way. Party identity now acts as a master category through which voters interpret almost every issue. Once progressive activists increasingly coded Israel as aligned with nationalism, militarism, and American conservatism, many Democratic voters followed elite cues from their own ideological ecosystem. At the same time, evangelical Christians and conservatives embraced Israel even more strongly, making support for Israel increasingly identified with Republican identity. The result was a widening partisan gap that could not have been avoided regardless of Israeli policy choices. Organizations built for a consensus era are trying to defend ground that no longer exists. Instead of one message aimed at a unified political center, Israel advocates may need entirely different arguments, messengers, and vocabularies for Republican and Democratic audiences. Nevertheless, there remains overwhelming revulsion among mainstream Americans, including most Democrats, toward terrorism and overt antisemitism. After Oct. 7, many Americans were horrified not only by the massacre itself but by celebrations of the attacks on elite campuses and social media. The more that radical anti-Israel movements fuse themselves with excuses for terrorism, harassment of Jewish students, or conspiracy-laden rhetoric about Jews and power, the more they may repel most Americans who still distinguish between criticizing Israeli policy and celebrating mass murder. The writer is a professor at the George Mason University Law School.