It’s difficult to say what a U.S. presidential election will mean for the Jewish people when the identity of the candidates is not only in flux, but dramatically so.

First there was Joe Biden, whose debate performance had him seeming quite possibly not up to running again, and like finishing the term upright would be a stretch. Would he stay the course?

Then there was Donald Trump, also not a chicken of the spring vintage, but more crucially someone who just came this close to being assassinated. This, in turn, led to a new wave (?) of right-wing cancel culture, with Libs of TikTok poster Chaya Raichik getting a Home Depot employee fired for not keeping her visceral reaction to this to herself.

BREAKING: Home Depot confirmed this person is no longer an employee. https://t.co/LMfoMU5ava pic.twitter.com/DoH9JR2lsL

Do you require a Canadian angle, too? Professor Shoshana Jacobs, a biologist at the University of Guelph, also posted about the assassination attempt in a manner some found insufficiently sombre (“When 4 inches really matters”) but that was not in fact a wish that the bullet hadn’t missed.

Hi @uofg, this one of your professors? pic.twitter.com/kI0d4cr5tb

Today #UofG issued a statement in response to comments made over the weekend by a University of Guelph Professor. Find our full statement here: https://t.co/CfxN0pkCVq pic.twitter.com/jPQNbthy09

Everyone who’s been calling Trump a Nazi since his election or since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol—an everyone including some Jews—now has to spell out that their wish for Trump to vanish from the political arena is not in fact a desire for him to be dramatically offed in what would doubtless be the start of even more violent political unrest. Even those who simply dislike Trump as a candidate but don’t think he’s evil had to walk on eggshells for a minute there, lest their harsh rhetoric be interpreted as basically violence. This seemed to........

© Canadian Jewish News