We can assail Trump's carefully crafted follies all we want. The man is however, a mirror of his electorate. NSS, right? The fact is that there is, and has always been, a lot of hateful people in America who vote their rages. It's THEM, the spiteful supporters, that ARE the problem, ultimately. It's the same people who waged battle against a united country, started the KKK, Jim Crowers, etc. They've cowardly hidden behind nationalism, religious self righteousness, their own version of reality, and provincialism. It's no wonder that when a Wack-Crack(er) comes espousing their mantras, loud and clear on PA systems, thereby speaking for these chicken shits, thus Trump.
I have for quite some time pointed out that Trump isn't like Hitler but Mussolini. January 6 was Trump's March On Rome. Incredibly, much of Italy's Jewish community continued to support Mussolini right up to the point when they were put on trains to the death camps. And today there are a lot of politically conservative Jews supporting Trump.
A comment on your interview with Mark Leibowitz: He mentioned the Tories in England giving Boris the boot as an example of Conservative politicians acting responsibly. They were doing exactly what your friends at The National Review and others are doing now--finally turning on their leader when he becomes a political liability, but not before.
To this day, I cannot understand why not instantly condemning David Duke was not only *not disqualifying* for Trump’s candidacy but was barely a news story. It certainly never got the coverage of the “Mexican rapists” or the “grab ‘em by the p****!” comments, which, while also abhorrent and disqualifying, didn’t seem quite as bad in comparison.
I think it was the strange way Trump refused to condemn Duke that made me first think there was something deeply disturbing about him. He claimed he couldn’t really say anything about Duke because he didn’t know much about him or that they hadn’t met. I very clearly remember saying to myself: Either he’s more ignorant than I realized or that he’s completely amoral.
I also have never met David Duke nor do I know much about him - apart from the whole “being the leader of the KKK” stuff. But I sure as hell know I don’t want his endorsement! If I happen to be running for office and some interviewer told me I had his support on *anything*, I would reject it and start questioning my life choices. It should have been *reflexive*. Instead it took a couple of days. A couple of day! To weigh the risk/benefit ratio of condemning the leader of the freaking KKK!!! And the Republicans nominated him anyway. Everything else on his long ledger of racist/anti-semitic behavior was par for the course.
"not instantly condemning David Duke was not only *not disqualifying* for Trump’s candidacy"
I think it is what got him elected. That was a dog whistle to the racists in America who have felt marginalized since the 1970s. Trump let them know that he was one of them, or at least he accepted that their feelings were valid and that he would defend them. It is Nixon's Southern Strategy taken to its logical extreme.
Sad but probably true. I totally didn’t even think about it from that angle because I thought white supremacists were an anachronistic irrelevant minority whose votes weren’t worth courting. I’ve since changed my mind :(
<b>“Governor DeSantis has not reached out to us,” Priller stated.</b>
That’s from the Amanda Carpenter article. Seems like a question any Republican candidate for president in 2024 is going to have to answer. Are they going to pardon J6ers and Trump as well if he’s not the nominee for the party.
Wanted to say too how much I love Charlie’s podcasts and Next Level as well. Just started listening a week or two ago.
Trump is indeed "a great unifier." He somehow manages to unite haters of many different varieties to support him. And he has also united rinos and dems against him. He craves attention, and he's still getting it. Love him or hate him, we're all still obsessed with him. But the problem is much deeper than Trump. MAGA is a force of its own, with or without Trump. MAGA also unites haters of many different varieties to support extremist regressive Republicans. We need to be as united against MAGA as we are against Trump.
Trump managed to get endorsed both by Louis Farrakhan and David Duke in his 2016 campaign! Only Nixon could go to China, and only Trump could unite the worst Black hatemonger in America with the worst White hatemonger in America!!!
Great article. I just finished listening to Ultra, a podcast from Rachel Maddow. Before you ignore my comment based on Rachel Maddow being pretty left, I found the series fascinating and unfortunately, pretty contemporary, considering the topic is over 60 years old. (Summary: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.) I would love to hear your take on this.
Another way history is repeating itself is the complicity of certain Senators (Johnson and Grassley at least) as well as others such as Devin Nunes and of course Rudy Giuliani, in publicizing Russian propaganda. Andrii Durkach, who was one of their top sources in trying to smear Joe Biden via "dirt" about Hunter and Burisma, was just indicted on money laundering charges, but the complaint contains this statement:
“Kremlin-backed Ukrainian politician and oligarch, Andrii Derkach, was sanctioned for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on behalf of the Russian Intelligence Services,” said Assistant Director in Charge Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI New York Field Office. “While participating in a scripted Russian disinformation campaign seeking to undermine U.S. institutions, Derkach simultaneously conspired to fraudulently benefit from a Western lifestyle for himself and his family in the United States. The FBI will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to identify Russian intelligence operations, disrupt Russian information laundering networks and bring to justice those who seek to engage in criminal conspiracies to undermine the integrity of U.S elections and evade U.S. sanctions.”
I have listened to this as well. They never taught us this in school. Like the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, I had never heard of this. Which is the point, no doubt.
What I find fascinating, and somewhat comforting, is this has happened before and we survived it. What I find disturbing is that it was white washed from the history being taught in schools. If there was no internet, I would have NEVER known about it.
I am really enjoying the Ultra podcast. Well, it also pisses me off that I wasn't taught it as well but better late than never, I suppose. I am telling friends and family about it as well. The older generation than me (I am generation X) didn't hear it either. I am telling my adult kids as well and, of course, they were not taught it either.
Same here and I am OLD and closer to it and never heard about it. I did know about America First, Charles Lindbergh and Burton K. Wheeler but from Plot Against America the Phillip Roth novel not a history book. I feel the same listening. People fought back then and we are doing it again.
I do not know about the suburbs in the nation as a whole, but over the last 20 years the Atlanta suburbs have gone strongly Democratic. Atlanta is like California. The outer burbs went for Romney in 2014, but in 2020 they were strongly in favor of Biden. Gwinnett county went to Romney in 2012 by 9%. In this year's runoff, it went to Warnock by 25%.
There's two small problems with the ADL survey cited in Charlie's Politico piece. For one, the highest rated statement, "Jews stick more than other Americans", can be read (as I read it) as a religious community that tends to stay within its community. That's applicable fairly broadly of folks that define themselves by their faith. I don't know if the wording od that statement makes good sense. It could be that I'm misreading it.
Second, "Jews are just as honest as other businesspeople [Probably false]" is a statement that goes in a lot of different directions depending upon how the reader interprets it. That's poor wording.
It's peculiar, because the rest of the statements listed seem to be pretty on point and get directly at a poor perception that someone could have about a Jew.
Trump didn’t move the embassy to Jerusalem for the Jewish people. He did it because evangelicals are obsessed with Israel. It plays a prominent role in end times mythology and the second coming. He was transactional, as always. He doesn’t care about the Jewish community, Israel or Christians. He is no friend, let alone a good friend, to anyone.
MTG, Ye, Gaetz, Desantis, Tucker, Bohnert, Kari, Fuentes, Jones, Gosar, etc. You can argue all you want about who's making the kool-aid and who's drinking the kool-aid. At the end of the day it's still Trump who owns and runs the kool-aid factory....
Thoughts and prayers to Ruy Teixeira, his one-man show "The Democrats are Wrong and Doomed Because They are Hopelessly Captured by the Woke Left" had really rough November. Glad to see him trying to get back on his feet.
His thesis in "The Emerging Democratic Majority" was oversimplified by others into "demography is destiny"; if he seems a little too strident in trying to correct that myth, maybe it's because it seems to be as impervious to evidence for its devotees on the Left as the myth of "widespread voter fraud" is for that one's devotees on the Right.
Jews know what antisemitism is, and it’s not only the abuse of Hasidism. It’s everything else you listed. Most of American Jewry are not unapologetic Israel supporters, but many Orthodox are.
And I don’t think you understand that where the Hasidism reside makes that building, or block, or district NOT liberal.
I don’t think we Jews need an explainer; we know what we experience.
We can assail Trump's carefully crafted follies all we want. The man is however, a mirror of his electorate. NSS, right? The fact is that there is, and has always been, a lot of hateful people in America who vote their rages. It's THEM, the spiteful supporters, that ARE the problem, ultimately. It's the same people who waged battle against a united country, started the KKK, Jim Crowers, etc. They've cowardly hidden behind nationalism, religious self righteousness, their own version of reality, and provincialism. It's no wonder that when a Wack-Crack(er) comes espousing their mantras, loud and clear on PA systems, thereby speaking for these chicken shits, thus Trump.
Thank you for the Politico article.
I have for quite some time pointed out that Trump isn't like Hitler but Mussolini. January 6 was Trump's March On Rome. Incredibly, much of Italy's Jewish community continued to support Mussolini right up to the point when they were put on trains to the death camps. And today there are a lot of politically conservative Jews supporting Trump.
How many times can ruy be wrong in a 24 month period? Guy is always wrong
Please send those Democratic organizers to Texas. We're dying under the yoke of Republican hypocrisy, misogyny, racism, and abject ignorance.
A comment on your interview with Mark Leibowitz: He mentioned the Tories in England giving Boris the boot as an example of Conservative politicians acting responsibly. They were doing exactly what your friends at The National Review and others are doing now--finally turning on their leader when he becomes a political liability, but not before.
To this day, I cannot understand why not instantly condemning David Duke was not only *not disqualifying* for Trump’s candidacy but was barely a news story. It certainly never got the coverage of the “Mexican rapists” or the “grab ‘em by the p****!” comments, which, while also abhorrent and disqualifying, didn’t seem quite as bad in comparison.
I think it was the strange way Trump refused to condemn Duke that made me first think there was something deeply disturbing about him. He claimed he couldn’t really say anything about Duke because he didn’t know much about him or that they hadn’t met. I very clearly remember saying to myself: Either he’s more ignorant than I realized or that he’s completely amoral.
I also have never met David Duke nor do I know much about him - apart from the whole “being the leader of the KKK” stuff. But I sure as hell know I don’t want his endorsement! If I happen to be running for office and some interviewer told me I had his support on *anything*, I would reject it and start questioning my life choices. It should have been *reflexive*. Instead it took a couple of days. A couple of day! To weigh the risk/benefit ratio of condemning the leader of the freaking KKK!!! And the Republicans nominated him anyway. Everything else on his long ledger of racist/anti-semitic behavior was par for the course.
"not instantly condemning David Duke was not only *not disqualifying* for Trump’s candidacy"
I think it is what got him elected. That was a dog whistle to the racists in America who have felt marginalized since the 1970s. Trump let them know that he was one of them, or at least he accepted that their feelings were valid and that he would defend them. It is Nixon's Southern Strategy taken to its logical extreme.
Sad but probably true. I totally didn’t even think about it from that angle because I thought white supremacists were an anachronistic irrelevant minority whose votes weren’t worth courting. I’ve since changed my mind :(
<b>“Governor DeSantis has not reached out to us,” Priller stated.</b>
That’s from the Amanda Carpenter article. Seems like a question any Republican candidate for president in 2024 is going to have to answer. Are they going to pardon J6ers and Trump as well if he’s not the nominee for the party.
Wanted to say too how much I love Charlie’s podcasts and Next Level as well. Just started listening a week or two ago.
Trump is indeed "a great unifier." He somehow manages to unite haters of many different varieties to support him. And he has also united rinos and dems against him. He craves attention, and he's still getting it. Love him or hate him, we're all still obsessed with him. But the problem is much deeper than Trump. MAGA is a force of its own, with or without Trump. MAGA also unites haters of many different varieties to support extremist regressive Republicans. We need to be as united against MAGA as we are against Trump.
Trump managed to get endorsed both by Louis Farrakhan and David Duke in his 2016 campaign! Only Nixon could go to China, and only Trump could unite the worst Black hatemonger in America with the worst White hatemonger in America!!!
And Trump also unites the haters who hate him as well. He is an amazing catalyst.
Great article. I just finished listening to Ultra, a podcast from Rachel Maddow. Before you ignore my comment based on Rachel Maddow being pretty left, I found the series fascinating and unfortunately, pretty contemporary, considering the topic is over 60 years old. (Summary: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.) I would love to hear your take on this.
Another way history is repeating itself is the complicity of certain Senators (Johnson and Grassley at least) as well as others such as Devin Nunes and of course Rudy Giuliani, in publicizing Russian propaganda. Andrii Durkach, who was one of their top sources in trying to smear Joe Biden via "dirt" about Hunter and Burisma, was just indicted on money laundering charges, but the complaint contains this statement:
“Kremlin-backed Ukrainian politician and oligarch, Andrii Derkach, was sanctioned for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. Presidential election on behalf of the Russian Intelligence Services,” said Assistant Director in Charge Michael J. Driscoll of the FBI New York Field Office. “While participating in a scripted Russian disinformation campaign seeking to undermine U.S. institutions, Derkach simultaneously conspired to fraudulently benefit from a Western lifestyle for himself and his family in the United States. The FBI will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to identify Russian intelligence operations, disrupt Russian information laundering networks and bring to justice those who seek to engage in criminal conspiracies to undermine the integrity of U.S elections and evade U.S. sanctions.”
I have listened to this as well. They never taught us this in school. Like the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, I had never heard of this. Which is the point, no doubt.
What I find fascinating, and somewhat comforting, is this has happened before and we survived it. What I find disturbing is that it was white washed from the history being taught in schools. If there was no internet, I would have NEVER known about it.
I am really enjoying the Ultra podcast. Well, it also pisses me off that I wasn't taught it as well but better late than never, I suppose. I am telling friends and family about it as well. The older generation than me (I am generation X) didn't hear it either. I am telling my adult kids as well and, of course, they were not taught it either.
Geez.
Same here and I am OLD and closer to it and never heard about it. I did know about America First, Charles Lindbergh and Burton K. Wheeler but from Plot Against America the Phillip Roth novel not a history book. I feel the same listening. People fought back then and we are doing it again.
I do not know about the suburbs in the nation as a whole, but over the last 20 years the Atlanta suburbs have gone strongly Democratic. Atlanta is like California. The outer burbs went for Romney in 2014, but in 2020 they were strongly in favor of Biden. Gwinnett county went to Romney in 2012 by 9%. In this year's runoff, it went to Warnock by 25%.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/12/07/raphael-warnock-win-georgia-senate-county-democrat-cnntm-berman-vpx.cnn
In the Dec. 6 runoff, DeKalb county turnout was 53% and Warnock got 87% of the votes.
https://www.dekalbcountyga.gov/sites/default/files/users/user3667/ElectionSummaryReportRPT%2025-04.pdf
There's two small problems with the ADL survey cited in Charlie's Politico piece. For one, the highest rated statement, "Jews stick more than other Americans", can be read (as I read it) as a religious community that tends to stay within its community. That's applicable fairly broadly of folks that define themselves by their faith. I don't know if the wording od that statement makes good sense. It could be that I'm misreading it.
Second, "Jews are just as honest as other businesspeople [Probably false]" is a statement that goes in a lot of different directions depending upon how the reader interprets it. That's poor wording.
It's peculiar, because the rest of the statements listed seem to be pretty on point and get directly at a poor perception that someone could have about a Jew.
Trump didn’t move the embassy to Jerusalem for the Jewish people. He did it because evangelicals are obsessed with Israel. It plays a prominent role in end times mythology and the second coming. He was transactional, as always. He doesn’t care about the Jewish community, Israel or Christians. He is no friend, let alone a good friend, to anyone.
MTG, Ye, Gaetz, Desantis, Tucker, Bohnert, Kari, Fuentes, Jones, Gosar, etc. You can argue all you want about who's making the kool-aid and who's drinking the kool-aid. At the end of the day it's still Trump who owns and runs the kool-aid factory....
Thoughts and prayers to Ruy Teixeira, his one-man show "The Democrats are Wrong and Doomed Because They are Hopelessly Captured by the Woke Left" had really rough November. Glad to see him trying to get back on his feet.
The Democrats who won the close elections last month weren't Woke Left
His thesis in "The Emerging Democratic Majority" was oversimplified by others into "demography is destiny"; if he seems a little too strident in trying to correct that myth, maybe it's because it seems to be as impervious to evidence for its devotees on the Left as the myth of "widespread voter fraud" is for that one's devotees on the Right.
What the GOP thinks antisemitism really is: Saying bad things about Israel
What liberals think antisemitism really is: QAnon, Kanye, Groypers, Great Replacement Theory, the occasional mass-shooting at a synagogue
What antisemitism really is: Hasidic Jews getting stabbed on the regular for wearing religious garb in public in places as liberal as Brooklyn and NJ
Jews know what antisemitism is, and it’s not only the abuse of Hasidism. It’s everything else you listed. Most of American Jewry are not unapologetic Israel supporters, but many Orthodox are.
And I don’t think you understand that where the Hasidism reside makes that building, or block, or district NOT liberal.
I don’t think we Jews need an explainer; we know what we experience.
Wow, I believe this is a spot-on description.
Marjorie Taylor Greene did not refer to "Jewish space lasers" as such, so that phrase should not be in quotes. She blamed Rothschild Inc., and I think she claimed not to know the Rothschilds are Jewish. You may of course be skeptical about that, but let's not rewrite statements as far too many people do. https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/marjorie-taylor-greene-penned-conspiracy-theory-laser-beam-space-started-deadly-2018