Activist and actor Yuval David is a self-described gay, progressive American-Israeli, so his decision to pull the lever for Donald Trump wasn’t one he took lightly.
“Nobody forced me to be politically homeless,” he told Fox News Digital. “It was a place that I found myself because I didn’t feel included and I didn’t feel represented in the communities that I thought were supposed to represent me. So, when I made that decision to no longer be a Democrat… and when I made the decision to vote for Donald Trump, it was based on my values and it was based on my own safety.”
The Emmy Award-winning actor, filmmaker, activist and lifelong Democrat has had roles in TV shows such as “Madame Secretary.” He said that following Oct. 7 and in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, he felt like an outcast in the Democratic Party and safer within the Republican Party.
“The post-October 7th world seems to have amplified everything, it feels like it has concentrated so much of what I’ve been noticing happening within our society for many years,” he said. “I oftentimes will say that antisemitism isn’t rising, it’s already risen. I’ve been waving the red flags about anti-Jewish racism that I’ve seen within my own communities, within the LGBT [community], progressive liberals and even within Democratic spaces.”
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“Post October 7th, there are those hateful bigots who hate Jews, who have felt justified, have used Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and terror support as justification for hating Jews,” he added. “That requires, on their part, a massive amount of mind-twisting, which can only happen because they drank that Kool-Aid, they understood the misinformation and disinformation propaganda as facts, or they purely are hateful bigots and want it to rise up against Jews for any reason they could find.”
David said that for a long time, his liberal, progressive views were part of both his American and Israeli identity.
“I always was proud of the fact that Democratic values are Jewish values, that liberalism is ingrained in Zionism and I was seeing my own movements that I was part of, both in the United States and globally, move the goalposts. My values didn’t change.”
David said a huge turning point for him was when he marched in the Washington, D.C. pride march in June 2024, alongside other Jews and allies of the Jewish people, where they were subject to physical and verbal abuse.
“Pride is always an event that includes so much joy and celebration where people understand the concept of intersectionality and intersectional identity, where we represent so many different communities and we’re able to bring it all into this one proudful space,” he said. “What I witnessed during this LGBTQ pride in Washington, D.C. … was nothing short of shameful, demoralizing and truly hurtful, actually, physically and emotionally.”
David related that his Jewish group was physically assaulted in the middle of the pride march, including people jumping over the barriers, breaking their Israeli pride flags, knocking over people, pulling down their backpacks and punching his camerawoman. He described it as an upsetting culmination of what he’s seen manifesting within multiple different factions of the LGBTQ community for years.
“People tell us that as Zionists, Zionism being the movement about the self-actualization of the Jewish people with a connection to our homeland, they tell us that Zionists can’t exist in Israel, we can’t exist in the Middle East [and] we can’t exist anywhere else. Apparently we couldn’t exist in this pride march. “So what does it mean Zionists go home?” he asked.
“It’s the antithesis to the values of the LGBTQ movement, values of inclusion, values of diversity, values of unity without conformity,” he added. “But now it seems like these progressive movements, which include the LGBTQ movement, have forced uniformity and conformity and that’s not diverse.”
While David said he doesn’t feel at risk as a gay man in America, he does feel at risk as a Jew.
“The amount of death threats that I’ve received on social media and in real life is horrific and is unacceptable and is anti-democratic and is also anti-American,” he said.
“I’ve been physically assaulted as a Jew,” he added. “We’ve seen what’s been happening on college campuses, where people feel that it is perfectly justifiable to interrupt Jewish professors who are teaching a class, to interrupt Jewish students as they are part of a Jewish affinity space or to have these encampments on campus blocking Jews and Zionists from crossing.”
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David said he is alarmed by college campuses overrun with students who are openly supporting Hamas, a terrorist group that butchered Jewish and foreign nationals in Israel on October 7. But, he said the Trump administration has been much more vocal in its fight against antisemitism compared to the Democratic Party.
“The Democratic leaders seem to hesitate to even acknowledge this problem,” he said. “Under Trump’s administration, the Department of Education made it clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act also protects Jewish students from discrimination. That’s something that previous administrations completely failed to enforce. So, once again, I felt represented and protected by this administration.”
“If the same things were happening against black people, LGBT people, women, Muslims, Native Americans, it would be swiftly condemned,” he said. “So I noticed all of this anti-Jewish racism being allowed. And you know what? Trump called it out for what it is and swiftly took action against it.”
Yuval described the LGBTQIA+ movement as one of the most successful social and political movements that America has seen in contemporary history, but now he said the movement has gone too far.
Instead of being a movement that unifies and celebrates tolerance, acceptance and diversity, it seems to have forced people to only be part of a specific political party. In essence, David said, he has noticed a “quiet censoring” and a “closeting” of conservative LGBTQ members.
“I always said that that’s unacceptable,” he said. “We’re supposed to be diverse … because the LGBTQ community is the most diverse community in the world, because we’re part of every other community.”
David also disputes any claim that Trump is an anti-LGBTQ+ president.
“Under his administration, Trump pushed for a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality in countries where being gay is still punishable by death,” he said. That’s not something that an anti-LGBTQ+ leader does.”
“If anything, Trump has been more consistent on LGBTQ rights than any other Democrat,” he added. “He also appointed Richard Grenell, who’s the first openly gay person to hold a cabinet-level position. That’s not a token hire, but he hired somebody who is leading critical foreign policy initiatives.”
He also said Trump’s policies regarding transgender issues, like banning biological males from competing in women’s sports and restricting medical transitions for minors, are about fairness, protecting kids, understanding science and comprehending the psychological and therapeutic needs of people who do choose to transition, instead of being about attacking the LGBTQ+ community.
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“We’re actually finding that there are many lesbian, gay, bi and even trans people who agree with these stances,” he said. “But, the far-left progressives tried to silence us. That was another reason why I started to feel unsafe myself within my own movements… We’re seeing way too much fearmongering, instead of people looking at the facts about what the administration is actually doing.”
But, David believes that the Democratic Party can and should correct itself.
“I think seeing what the results were of this past election and that we have this new administration in office, the Democratic Party now needs to take that as a lesson,” he said. “How can they course correct? How can they represent all Americans? And how can they lean back into the values that they claim to represent?”
While David said he still considers himself a liberal, he now clarifies that he is an “old-school liberal.”
“My values haven’t changed, but I now call those progressives… fauxgressive or regressive because they’ve gone against the values that I thought were part of the progressive movement,” he said.
“Everybody should have a seat at the table,” he said. “As long as you’re not trying to kill somebody who’s also at the table, as long as you’re not trying to erase, closet or censor somebody else who’s at that table, we need to have those conversations.”
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The LGBTQ movement should be about inclusion and diversity, Yuval said, but unfortunately, he hasn’t seen that in far-left spaces as of late.
“Ironically, I’ve found that conservatives are the ones who allow LGBTQ+ people to speak freely,” he added. “I’ve had real conversations with moderates and even right-leaning individuals. Meanwhile, the progressive left tries to shut me down the moment I don’t align with all of their talking points.”
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