George Wallace ran some really racist political campaigns but as far I know his daughter never married a black man or decided to celebrate Kwanzaa or claimed to have become a black woman. This was fortunate for Wallace because it prevented any awkward moments around the house.
Trump, on the other hand, has a daughter who married a Jewish man and she then converted to Judaism herself, which is a bit of a downer when you want to make your final pitch in the campaign about the global Jewish conspiracy to “rob our working class, strip our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.”
Josh Marshall says that this indicates that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is “conscienceless,” but that seems like singling out the Jew for criticism here. The decision to use naked anti-Semitism as his closing argument was made in an environment where conscience was lacking from everyone in the room.
For most of this campaign, Jews seemed to be the only minority that was off limits for Trump and his team. I assumed that Ivanka and Jared were the main reasons why Jews were being let off the hook, but it was only a matter of time before they got sold out, too.
Do they care? Did they maybe even suggest this?
All I know for sure is that it indicates a level of cynicism that I’ve never seen before.
I guess Jared was promised the leadership of the NYC Judensraat.
This remark is not cute. You must mean Judennat.
Judenrat.
Would that also describe Sheldon Adelson?
IMHO, as a 62 year old white male jew, yes. Adelson cares for nothing but himself, his money and his view of Israel as a Jewish Rhodesia. And we all know what happened to Rhodesia.
RAGE.
Its not a conspiracy. Its not plotted and Its right out in the open. Its directed by global elites with 0% relevance what religion or ethnicity they are and its global not focused on the US. It is a totally perverse message.
I honestly think I understand what the hell is going thru Bannon’s head. Bannon doesn’t care if they get elected. He is dealing with a hothouse world of rightwing conspiracy and racial politics.
Why would the last message single out Jews? Because NONE OF THE OTHER MESSAGES DID. This is a naked, out and out consolidation of the racialist right for the next generation.
No one except Bannon has ever been able to give the racist right the type of forum they now have. No one except Bannon has ever been able seriously advance the CAUSE as far as he has to date.
Bannon now occupies the position that Rove did after 2008. He is the face of elective racism, the Kingmaker, the dealmaker, the GodFather … at least in the minds of RWNJ minions all over the place.
And THAT was the whole purpose of the last message.
Your point that Josh singles out the one Jewish person in the Trump family, when all of them are at fault, is well taken. However, as most of us know, Josh himself is Jewish and quite thoughtful about questions of religion, race, ethnicity, etc. so I’d chalk it up to a slip up and nothing more.
As a Jew I’m still waiting for my share of that conspiracy pie.
Same here.
I wonder if they purged me from the rolls after someone heard me say that it turns out that Jews have no problems with ghettos as long as they’re the ones manning the guard towers.
I have a hunch you’re a lot younger than I am.
As a kid, the relatives we’d visit in LA included folks with numbers tattooed on their forearms. Auschwitz survivors. A family tree for the other side of the family includes a bunch of dead ends marked with words like “murdered at Babi Yar” or “killed fighting with Soviet partisans” or “sent to death camp”.
I know this concept may seem alien to you, but try to show just a modicum of respect for the dead.
If you want to criticize Israel, do so openly. And maintain some recognition of the distinction between “Jew” and “Israeli”.
Your comment as it stands is just one more bit of hip cynical bullshit.
Herr Drumpfenfurher has been playing footsie with white supremacists, neo-Confederates, and neo-Nazis for the duration of his campaign. The ad hardly surprised me, simply beyond that it took the would-be dictator’s campaign this long to get an ad like this live in front of an audience. There are days when I really barely recognize my own country.
Jews have been getting hit for months, Booman. There’s a bit of a blind spot going on, maybe. But Josh Marshall, for example, called this out specifically, a while back. And it’s been obvious for months. My parents sure didn’t miss it, and called me quite upset.
Anybody recall the people that shared the victory stage with Schwarzennger in 2003?
If Kushner can participate in a campaign with a guy that made his political future possible by locking up Kushner’s father, what couldn’t he overlook?
Would you please elaborate on this? I’ve looked around cursorily and haven’t found anything to match your statement. I’m curious how that went.
Charles Kushner. Indicted by US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Chris Christie which was his “tough on crime” calling card in his 2009 run for NJ Governor.
I can only say the bigger the win against Trump and his racist acolytes, the better.
Anti-Semitism is the symptom of a profoundly unhealthy society.
As is all racism and sexism.
Anti-Semitism is special; it’s a marker.
No, it isn’t. To say so is both false and vile. Blacks say that anti-Black prejudice is also special; which is equally false and equally vile.
It is false, because experience proves that the target is always fungible. The targets are always targets of opportunity. Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc. are all manifestations of underlying sadism, and that is the only thing that is important. You cannot fight what you have misidentified.
It is vile, because to assert most-privileged-target status is to throw all other targets under the bus. This is why I despise Black Lives Matter: because they are telling me that I, not being black, am safe. Well, I. AM. NOT. SAFE. And God damn anyone who presumes to tell me that I am.
I agree with you. I’m Jewish and so tired of the worldview shared by so many of my family and childhood friends that seeks to make hatred of Jews exceptional. It’s just plain old bigotry, just like any other kind. The holocaust was horrible but not exceptional. There are holocausts throughout history including several that occurred since WWII. It’s a bigotry within the Jewish community that resists acknowledging this reality.
It is not that the hatred of Jews is exceptional, though that is another interesting discussion, it is that anti-Semitism is institutionally associated with fascism precursors. It is often, unlike other tribalism, associated with anti-intellectualism, and anti-institutional attacks on liberal democracy, law and finance.
you’re talking european history; not universal
As I mentioned below there is an anti-Hakkan parallel marker in South East Asian societies. But those whose culture descended by way of the Age of Enlightenment and who now fulminate against the flabby status quo seem to present pretty reliably with anti-Semitism. I don’t know why; can only guess.
it’s from Hegel’s construction of history (you should read) on top of the medieval constructions; the Hegelian theoretical was adapted and permeated the world view of early 20th century Europe. and specific to Europe (fukayam is a version). that’s why on the theoretical level it’s not specific to fascism. also, usa being more diverse than europe and this being 100 year later, it’s not helpful to define facism in such limited terms
Thanks for the tip, that sounds exactly right. I got an insight into this from Fukayama in the first place.
Agree except BLM isn’t to be despised but to be recognized as a valid response to a contemporary manifestation of violence against a group in the US. In numbers that far exceed any other group singled out and subjected to violence.
You are describing the natural reaction to prejudice as vile, which is about as wrongheaded as they come. If you’re looking for villains, you should look at the perpetrators.
Saying “our victimhood is unique, better than other people’s victimhood” IS vile. It is no good telling a bully that one particular victim is off limits. Other victims will instantly be chosen. This is no improvement for anyone. Would you like to escape persecution (only for a blink of time at best) at such a price?
It is a social and political marker; nothing to do with identity. The same applies to anti-Hakkan sentiment in South East Asian societies. It is a distress marker for a sick society.
What a bizarre assertion. Wherever did you get such an idea? One of the strangest notions I’ve seen asserted in a while (and in the current circumstances, that’s sayin’ sumthin’!).
The response to persecution cannot be to say “protect me/us”, because that is merely to sacrifice all the other victims. The response must be to destroy the persecutor.
black lives have been treated, disproportionately to others, as though they didn’t matter, particularly by law enforcement killings of unarmed black men. (Which is what makes an “all lives matter” response so offensive.)
In these circumstances,
You’ve admitted my points in your own words. The problem is still the fact that police are unaccountable, not any of the particular ways in which they take advantage of their unaccountability. If you look at the effect rather than the cause, you won’t identify the problem and therefore, axiomatically, you won’t solve it.
You’re treating “stop killing me/us disproportionately” and “hold police accountable” as mutually exclusive options/approaches.
They aren’t (hard for me to see how this could be other than transparently obvious to anyone). In fact the former is a major element and instrument for the latter. That seems to merit a “duh”, imo.
Hence the ridiculousness of your assertion that the former “is merely to sacrifice all the other victims”.
It isn’t.
Not even remotely.
A sign the pulpit is re-ascendant over the library as a popular pastime.
Racism and sexism are serious ailments but anti-Semitism is indelible, aggressive and incurable; it is a disease which claims every soul it afflicts. There is no cure and no recovery; anti-Semites only die.
A society which creates a safe-harbour for the insidious sneaking preferred by anti-Semites has already hollowed out part of its heart and given it over to evil. It is not an ideology; it is a fatal, horrible disease that consumes all unless it is burnt out early with a hot poker.
Think of anti-Semitism as the infectious excrement of a diseased mind; a contagious mental health problem.
Personally, I think the evangelical movement is probably a better explanation for a rise in anti-Semitism; Trump just gave them permission to speak out.
“that seems like singling out the Jew for criticism here.”
Not really. To me it seems like singling out the only Jew who’s married into the Trump family.
But just to put this in perspective …
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/295729-poll-clinton-leads-trump-by-42-points-
among-jewish-voters
Even a lot of the Jewish Republicans are jumping ship
http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/350531/jewish-donors-shun-donald-trump-95-of-contributions-go-
to-hillary-clinton/
If you want to get an ideological sense of the Jewish support for Trump, such as it is, you can get it here:
http://forward.com/scribe/347562/two-reasons-trump-deserves-the-jewish-vote/
and here:
http://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/Top-Jewish-GOP-donor-I-dont-care-who-Trump-kissed-or-didnt-kiss-47
1192
Trump has still said nothing that Reagan’s people did not say behind closed doors. The only differences are that Reagan sent out surrogates and they had sense enough to close the door.
If Steve Bannon wants to be Julius Streicher, maybe he’ll meet the same end.
It’s bad enough that he’s replaced Breitbart. I’d settle for his predecessor’s end.