I read an article titled “West Hempstead Petitions For Woodfield Road Lights.” I thought I was reading one of the Jewish Nassau County papers. Instead, it was the Queens Jewish Link. In another article, Moshe Hill admitted that he is a member of the West Hempstead Republican Club. There is a third writer who also moved to West Hempstead. If this trend continues, we may have to change the name of the paper to the West Hempstead Jewish Link. There has been a lot of discussion involving Goldy Krantz concerning whether to stay in Kew Garden Hills. It would be interesting for the three writers to address the issue of why they left the community. Maybe we can learn from their circumstances how to try to keep others from leaving Kew Gardens Hills.
Now to my main article. Election day is fast approaching. There have been many Democrats and some Republicans, including Representative Liz Cheney and former Republic National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who argue that democracy is on the ballot. They fear that Republican elections deniers will win positions where they can influence the next election and make sure that their party wins. There are also some candidates who espouse Q-Anon and other conspiratorial theories. The worst may be the candidate for Nevada Secretary of State, who in a campaign commercial claimed that the only reason Democrats win any seats is due to vote rigging orchestrated by George Soros (a Jew) and that he is going to stop it. Sounds like something out of the pages of Der Sturmer (an antisemitic publication in Nazi Germany).
The reaction of many Americans is that this is being overdramatic. For them, it is more important to consider economic issues such as the rate of inflation. Thus, since many blame the Democrats for the situation, they will vote for the Republican candidate - no questions asked.
We should look at history to see the danger of that approach. In Germany in 1928, before the Great Depression began in August 1929, the Nazi Party garnered 2.6% of the vote, 12 seats out of 491 in the Reichstag. In September 1930, it rose to 18.3% of the vote and 107 seats. In July 1932, they increased to 37.3% of the votes, or 230 seats. That made them the biggest party. It was not that all of a sudden everyone became a Nazi. People looked at the economic situation and felt that the current government was not handling the issue well and decided to take a chance on the Nazis. A review of the Nazi platform was what we refer to as populist. They were going to make Germany great again. The German people who voted based on economic concerns ignored the portion of the platform that indicated that Jews were not citizens of Germany.
This may be the most famous, but is it not the only time when people voted in authoritarian figures without appreciating the consequences because of the shortsighted view of looking at the economy.
The goal should be to make sure that these election deniers are not successful. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor, may be considered “moderate” compared to some of the Republican candidates running for governor in other states such as such as Kelly Lake of Arizona and Douglas Mastriano of Pennsylvania. However, Congressman Zeldin, even after the attack on the Capitol, joined many Republicans in challenging Arizona and Pennsylvania’s electoral vote count. Also, after the attack on the Capitol, Zeldin made a false equivalency of those who stormed the Capitol with the disturbances during the Black Lives Matter protests. He also refused to condemn Trump for his action or non-action on January 6 or his false claims of election fraud. Zeldin also refused to vote for the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol. None of this is in Moshe Hill’s article trying to convince Democrats why we should vote for Zeldin.
Moshe Hill does mention Tulsi Gabbard, who switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, to prove that the Democratic Party is bankrupt, and we should vote Republican. In fact, it proved the opposite. When she ran for president, Ms. Gabbard was Russia’s favorite candidate. Percentagewise, she received the most favorable views on Russian TV. Among other things, it was due to her position of not supporting the rebels against the Assad Regime, which was supported by Russia. Then she came out in support of Russia in its war against Ukraine. She fits well with a party where there is praise for dictators such as Putin, as exhibited by Trump and Tucker Carlson. A few days ago, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that if the Republicans take back the House, there will no longer be a blank check for military support for Ukraine. Authoritarianism trumps democracy.
Bad policies can be changed. It is a lot harder to change the form of government when it goes from democratic to autocratic. Maybe those who are worrying about the threat of democracy are being overdramatic. However, history has shown that there are times where such a laissez faire approach to a perceived threat has led to dire consequences.
Warren S. Hecht is a local attorney. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.