Shmuley Boteach, you got it so wrong

Create any list of populists you care to name – the well known and the obscure.

Start with Julius Caeser and go right up to the present. Left-wing and Right-wing. It doesn’t matter who you pick, the result is the same.

Populists seek, by their very narcissism, to have all the answers to the problems that confront troubled societies. They appeal to those who are not getting ahead – who are disenfranchised or feel subjugated (and often are). Populists undermine social cohesion. And for most of them, in providing the answers to all the ills that confront their societies, they blame and often demonise ‘the other’.

And don’t we know who that means!

Populists undermine the very foundations of the democratic order. And so many invariably become tyrants.

Shmuley Boteach – in choosing to endorse the latest American Presidential populist who has all the answers to all that confounds the USA you have done a terrible disservice.

I read your article on why you want to vote for Trump. The real reason is you cannot stand Hilary Clinton. You don’t have to, and you can warn of the dangers of her Foreign Policy advisors. You can rant on and on about the Iran deal but to use this to endorse Trump is dangerous in the extreme because populist leaders have historically been a disaster for the Jewish world.

I know you are a Republican Boteach, but that doesn’t concern me. What frightens me is your short-term willingness to endorse a man who wishes to win by fear and negativity, disenfranchise migrants, punish women for having abortions and probably sink the American (and global) economy like he has a number of his business ventures.

And when it gets tough, he will tend, like all these grandiose narcissists, toward tyranny and fiat.

And you call your organisation the Jewish Values Network. There is not a Jewish value in backing Trump, and worst of all, you know it. Vote for no-one if you have to, but never back a populist. Especially one who got his supporters to raise their right hand in a faux salute.

Shame on you Shmuley.