Under Trump, the old anti-Semitism is making a comeback
The GOP candidate sent an inane tweet about Disney’s Frozen to score points on the controversial Clinton ad. Is he playing stupid or something worse?
The motto “Always Fight, Never Apologize” was bequeathed to Donald Trump by his late lawyer and presumed mentor, Roy Cohn. The repulsive mastermind of the McCarthy hearings could also answer Trump’s claim that he can’t be an anti-Semite because he loves his converted daughter and his Jewish son-in-law and grandchildren: Cohn was a full-fledged Jew, yet he hated Jews with a vengeance and persecuted them with undisguised zeal. So it can be done.
But even if we accept Jared Kushner’s assertion, in response to the brave essay posted in his own Observer newspaper by Dana Schwartz that “my father in law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife.” And even if we take at face value the factually-challenged statement of Trump’s adviser and advocate Jason Greenblatt that Trump “has refuted anti-Semitism, loudly and publicly”. his follow up rhetorical question remains unanswered: “Why would Mr. Trump countenance the support of any Jew hater, when he is one of the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel candidates ever to seek national office?”
Why indeed. Greenblatt claims that Trump hasn’t countenanced such support, but things may seem different outside Trump Tower. The facts are that Trump tried to avoid denouncing David Duke for as long as he could; that he has said nothing about the racists and anti-Semites coming out of the woodworks in droves under his umbrella; that he refused to criticize the anti-Semitic trolls who hounded journalist Julia Ioffe after her magazine portrait that Trump’s wife Melania did not like and that he has said nothing about the vicious anti-Semitic social media bombardment of any Jewish journalist who happens to write a bad word about him; that he has refused to let go of the slogan “America First” even though he must surely realize by now that it carries a specific anti-Semitic historical connotation; that he repeatedly lauds tyrants and dictators that are problematic for Jews, including Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein; and that he himself has been known to release the occasional anti-Semitic remark, including his assertion to the Republican Jewish Coalition, more relevant today perhaps than it was back in March, that Jews won’t support him because they can’t control him because they can’t buy him with money. You know, like Hillary Clinton in the star-studded ad that Trump insists has nothing to do with Jews.
But instead of simply apologizing and moving on, as Jewish leaders have begged him to do, both publicly and privately, Trump has persisted in doubling down and making things worse. He asserted on Wednesday that critics who see a Star of David where there is only an innocent sheriff’s badge are “sick”. He insisted that he wouldn’t have removed the offensive ad in the first place, as his staff did, because there’s nothing offensive about it. He completely ignored the fact that the ad was lifted directly from a neo-Nazi website. And then he added insult to injury with an inane tweet that compared the Clinton ad to a poster of a Disney book of Frozen that also featured a six-pointed star. So which is it? Is Trump playing stupid? Pandering to what he assumes is the lowest common denominator of his supporters? Or is there something more sinister at play?
Even if you stipulate that you agree with Trump 100% that the Star of David ad is completely innocent, why is he so totally unresponsive to protests that have come from Jews and non-Jews alike, including Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives? Why is such a self-proclaimed lover of Jews allowing anti-Semitism to rear its head in the middle of his election campaign instead of nipping it in the bud so that it goes back under the rock from which it emerged? How is it rational for Trump to antagonize and alienate so many Jews for no good reason?
Perhaps it’s truly because he never apologizes and always hits back “ten times harder,” as Cohn taught him. Perhaps he thinks that standing tall against the media and refusing to bow to political correctness was, is and will forever be essential to his success. Perhaps he’s counted and then realized that there are far more racists than Jews, who aren’t going to vote for him anyway, because they can always a buy a Democrat like Clinton, as the ad states and as he once implied.