Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“woke” is the new caravan.

The revolution will be supervised.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

So many bastards, so little time.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”…Modern Republican Update

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”…Modern Republican Update

by | 79 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , ,

The GOP today, and Trump himself, make a lot of noise about how much they love Israel.  What they really value, of course, is the racist and corrupt current Israeli government–and, some of them, the apocalyptic vision of Israel’s Jews massacred in a final confrontation on the plains of Megiddo, which would thus usher in the arrival of their god: Rambo Jeebus.

Trump is mystified — sincerely, I believe* — that his performative slobbering over Bibi hasn’t translated into support from American Jews, the overwhelming majority of whom interpret  the obligation to “Tikkun Olam” (heal the world) rather differently than does our presidential cager of children and patron of war criminals.

Over the weekend, Trump has explored this mystery, and has reminded us what Jews really are to him. Via Vanity Fair, here’s the shitgibbon speaking to the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida:

He started off by once again invoking the age-old cliché about “dual loyalty,” saying there are Jews who “don’t love Israel enough. After that warm-up he dove right into the stereotype about Jews and money, telling the group: “A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he said.

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"...Crayon Edition

“But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!” (It feels beside the point that neither Elizabeth Warren nor any other Democratic candidate has proposed a 100% wealth tax.) He continued: “Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.”

That’s us.  Jews aren’t really Americans, or not American enough — we’ve got Israel to take care of.  And Cash Rules Everything Around Us. (Not the best acronym, I know.)

You know, the old, familiar hate: the international conspiracy of world Jews, driven only by money, “not nice people at all.”

The Republican Party in any of its forms has not, as I write this, said anything about the shitgibbon’s remarks.

Silence = acquiescence.

That is: GOP is, until clearly demonstrated otherwise, home to and comfortable with exactly the same kind of anti-Semitism that underpinned persecution from pogroms to the Holocaust.  This kind of bigotry doesn’t have to end there, of course, but to avoid an escalation of the same hate that barely a year ago “inspired” the killer in the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh, those closest to the President have to respond forcefully.  They haven’t and on the evidence they won’t.

The Republican Party has been playing on white fears of black and brown humanity for a long time, and it has long been a shock to the conscience how readily so many in power have been to do so instrumentally, not because they “in their hearts” hate black people or whoever, but because it works.

Well, it has, too well — and now the next phase is unfolding: when you unleash hate, sooner or later, it always finds the Jews.

And every other vulnerable minority.  We really are in this together, and 2020 truly is an existential election.

Other than that, how was your day, all you Mrs. Lincolns?

*I think that Trump is genuinely mystified by a lack of Jewish support.  He’d do business with someone he loathes if it made him a couple of bucks. Wouldn’t everyone?

Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of a Rabbi, 1635

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  2. 2.

    Kent

    I’m not Jewish and don’t really live in a Jewish area here in the Pacific Northwest. But FFS, is there any chance any of this is going to do anything but backfire on Trump? I mean seriously. Is he just being a clueless asshole? Or is there a certain MAGA strain in the Jewish population just waiting for permission to go all Trump?

  3. 3.

    Baud

    I think that Trump is genuinely mystified by a lack of Jewish support.

    That’s fair. I for one am mystified by the amount of Jewish support he does have.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    @Kent: There is a MAGA train w/in modern Judaism — especially among some of the ultra-Orthodox. But even though the Jewish fundamentalist community is growing, they’re not a majority.

  5. 5.

    Tom Levenson

    @Baud: Indeed.

    There is, alas, a subset of the group that really, really, misinterprets the “Chosen People” thing…and that lines them up nicely with Trumpismo.

  6. 6.

    Frankensteinbeck

    You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all

    Mildly surprising.  Trump has been spouting the ‘Jews and money’ stereotype for decades, but until now he seemed to think it was a good thing.  I always figured Jews were his Model Minority.  It appears his Nazi buddies are getting through.

    it has long been a shock to the conscience how readily so many in power have been to do so instrumentally, not because they “in their hearts” hate black people or whoever, but because it works.

    I think you need to be ready for the bigger shock, how many of those people do actually hate black people or whoever.  The higher up the economic ladder, the more entrenched the racism.

    *I think that Trump is genuinely mystified by a lack of Jewish support.  He’d do business with someone he loathes if it made him a couple of bucks. Wouldn’t everyone?

    Also, he hates who they hate.  Money and racism.  Surely that’s what motivates everyone?

  7. 7.

    lollipopguild

    This is a two-fer for trump, 1) he appeals to the nazis and wannabe nazis in his cult following by openly being anti-jewish and 2) he can pretend that he is the best friend of Jews just as he is the “best” for blacks and hispanics. He is also gonna get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something even better! He also has a “secret” plan to wipe out isis in 30 days.

  8. 8.

    EmanG

    I wonder if there’s a list of all the pearl clutchers who were so adamant in their criticism of Rep. Tlaib. I’d very much like to hear their view on Don Jon’s comments.

  10. 10.

    Mike in NC

    Jennifer Rubin’s column today in the Post called out Fat Bastard’s twisted views on American Jews not being sufficiently loyal to Bibi’s authoritarian government.

  12. 12.

    dnfree

    Just before the arrival of Trump, a new theater director at the junior college in our area put on a dramatic production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. That motivated me to go back and read it. Amazingly, that slim book has a lot to say about the rich, including the casual racism.   it’s worth checking out if you don’t remember it or have never read it.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    Yair Rosenberg in WaPo:

    So is Trump a philo-Semite or an anti-Semite? The answer is both. The principle that explains his seemingly contradictory outlook toward Jews is simple: Trump believes all the anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews. But he sees those traits as admirable.

  14. 14.

    Warren Terra

    @Kent:

    He has very little Jewish support, and doesn’t particularly seek it. The only Jews who support him are extreme right wingers, who like his support for the Israeli far right. His vocal support of Israel – as distinct from for Jews – is about courting the apocalyptic millennialistic death cult of the American Christian right, an incredibly powerful force in the GOP and in general. They share not only his support for an aggressive right-wing in Israel (that they hope will soon die in a holy war) but also his antisemitism.

    So, no, his public displays of antisemitism will not lose him votes among the people his outspoken support for (a version of) Israel is courting. Quite the reverse.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    From Henry Ford’s The International Jew, volume 3, chapter 43:

    People sometimes ask why 3,000,000 Jews can control the affairs of 100,000,000 Americans. In the same way that ten Jewish students can abolish the mention of Christmas and Easter out of schools containing 3,000 Christian pupils.

    The phrasing of Bill O’Reilly’s original claim about the war on Christmas heavily borrowed from Ford’s anti-Semitic lie from the early 20th Century. As did the John Birch Society’s when they resurrected it for their own purposes in the 50s and 60s.

  19. 19.

    HinTN

    @HinTN: Where’s the god damn edit button?

    Anyway, what I wanted to add was that maybe that didn’t have a noun, a verb, and 9/11 but it still deserves some kind of immortality.

    ETA: Of course the edit function is now available for both…

    Quack, quack, quack

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    When this nightmare started, I used to be grateful that my step dad and so many of the elder friends and mentors in my life who survived WW II and the Holocaust didn’t have to suffer this.  Now I sometimes wish they were here to just tell us to stop complaining and do more fighting.

     

    They were so forking tough, and funny, and they knew how to really enjoy the everyday things of life

  22. 22.

    chopper

    so many goopers are waiting for the days when they can go back to saying this shit behind closed doors.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    @Kent:
    I’m Jewish, and two of my three brothers voted for that douchebag. I’m sure the two are very busy looking the other way (a la Gym Jordan) like they always do whenever Trump goes anti-Semitic.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: On behalf of the Elders, and our glorious leader THE Supreme Babka, I can neither confirm nor deny this.

  27. 27.

    Mandalay

    @Jay:

    just the nastiest anti-Muslim garbage imaginable

    I think the anti-Muslim garbage that comes from Boris Johnson’s mouth is far worse. There is no subterfuge, and the source is the current British Prime Minister (who will surely keep his job and be stronger after the  election).

    And for those who believe Trump is even worse, I don’t think he has publicly said anything approaching “When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s medieval ass?”

  31. 31.

    Dan B

    The anti-Semitism is disturbing but not surprising.  Does it penetrate Stephen Miller’s mind or Sheldon Adelson’s?  The silence from Reform and Conseevative Jewish leaders is also disturbing.

    And what about liberal Christian leaders?  Is there a belief that right wing extremism is just a temporary thing?  The courts are being stacked with conservatives who do not favor minorities.  The Supremes ruling on the Kentucky ultrasound bill is just a preview.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: He doesn’t really like his son in law. He tolerates him, he ridicules him (the oft stated remarks about how he wanted Ivanka to  marry Tom Brady and comparing Brady’s physique to Jared’s), and he relies on him because he’s now part of the family. But he doesn’t like him.

  36. 36.

    Shana

    @dnfree: I reread The Great Gatsby several years ago when my kids were reading it in high school.  It had been about 15+ years since I’d read it in college.  Well worth a reread as an adult, as is most great literature.

  37. 37.

    Sab

    I am from a long time midwestern family, but I grew up in northern Florida in the 1960s. My Ohio public high school was probably about 1/4 or 1/3 Jewish, as was my first husband. I thought I was aware of prejudice.

    I have really had a shock watching my black grandchildren grow up.

    The oldest is the sweetest, kindest, prettiest, most gentle girl imaginable. Right now she is basically a fulltime nanny for her autistic little half-sister. Everyone who works professionally with the little sister loves the big sister.

    She is confronted almost every day. Incredibly slow service in suburban restaurants (first group seated in waitress’s section, last group with orders taken, and only served when my husband finally complained to the waitresss. Yes we did tip her normally afterwards.) Rude grocery store cashiers (not always, but surprisingly often.)  Some of them accusing her of having stolen our bank card ( even when I am standing beside her.) She lives around the block, and a neighbor called the police when she borrowed ( “stole” ?) our lawnmower.

    I don’t know how much of this she notices. She never says anything. But it happens all the time. I never had anything like this happen to me.

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @MomSense:
    One of my many second fathers died last week at 91. The last of my parents’ good friends. You’re right; they would have been appalled. This second father endowed a foundation that supports sending students to D.C. to lobby for causes important to Reform Jews (un-Jewish stuff like the environment, civil rights, etc.). He was too frail to get into politics, but I know he’d have had a bunch of choice words about Trump and the GOP.

  40. 40.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Trump has been spouting the ‘Jews and money’ stereotype for decades, but until now he seemed to think it was a good thing. I always figured Jews were his Model Minority. It appears his Nazi buddies are getting through.

    I think you’re misreading this.  Trump sees calling them brutal killers as a compliment.  Like any Fascist, he sees the world as a struggle, and nice people who try to help others are a bunch of suckers who deserve all the awful things selfish assholes like Trump do to them.  It’s one of the ways he justifies his awfulness to himself; that’s just the way the world works.

  43. 43.

    MomSense

    @Adam L Silverman:

     

    HA!!

    I had a sigint fail with my neighbors who had a baby who was just a few months older than mine. Somehow our baby monitors synced.  Mom came over one day red faced and wanting to know if I had heard anything.  She heard me talking on the phone with my sister and panicked thinking I had heard their sexy time the night before.  Thankfully I hadn’t, but I did wonder what they had been listening to from my monitor.

  45. 45.

    Jay

    @Mandalay:

    certain rich people, in certain minority communities, went all in on the Islamophobia, from millions of dollars in ads to funding and promoting hate sites.

    funny thing is, history has shown, over and over, that when you enable, promote and foster hate, try to whip up riots, “cleansing” and let slip the rabid dogs,

    you don’t get to control whom they bite, because the haters hate many many more than you have promoted, and once set free, the haters have their own “lists”.

    some people think that their money, their status, their infamy will protect them, but it won’t. At best, it will allow them when the time comes, to beg for a place in the Camps as a Kapo or Bitch.

  47. 47.

    Mainmata

    @Frankensteinbeck: Trump, being a monumental narcissist, chooses to believe that no one acts or behaves in good faith, that everyone is corruptible and therefore he can manipulate anyone to follow him. He is a very nasty person and incapable of telling the truth. I think he will be surprised at how many people he motivates to vote against him next November.

  49. 49.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

     

    Sorry to hear about your second father.  It’s hard to lose them – they were always larger than life.  I’m thinking of V and I who shared such a wicked sense of humor.  The best times were when they forgot I was there and they would reminisce.

  53. 53.

    JPL

    @Shana:”They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that held them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”

    I’m so tired of cleaning up their shit.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @MomSense:
    Yes! My mom’s last lucid moments were spent with her two oldest, closest girlfriends. I slowly backed out of the room so as not to intrude, but I always loved their conversations, spoken or not.

  57. 57.

    Sab

    @MomSense: We went to a family picnic on my sister-in-law’s deck one time. She had her inside stereo transmitting outside to the speakers on the deck. Instead, the speakers picked up sexy time from the neighbors’ baby monitor.

    After the initial shock, we all decided it was hilarious. We never told the neighbors.

  63. 63.

    Citizen Alan

    @Dan B:

    The silence from Reform and Conseevative Jewish leaders is also disturbing.

    Kapos gotta come from somewhere, I suppose

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Warren Terra:

    They don’t prove the existence of acquaintance, let alone affection.

    The presence of children- not to mention plenty of photographs of the two together- proves acquaintance.  I agree that there’s no proof of love.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: John would know for sure, but I think it may be the old ad service, and they don’t give a fuck what we say.

  69. 69.

    Warren Terra

    @Roger Moore:

    The question was about the conditions that were met for the marriage to occur. And even before modern technology existed, the presence of a dynastic heir didn’t necessarily prove the nominal parents had ever met.

  75. 75.

    Bill Arnold

    @Keith P.:

    Has Trump claimed to be King of the Jews yet?

    Not quite, but he did tweet quote this, likening him to the King of Israel

    “Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…and the Jewish people in Israel love him….
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019

    ….like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God…But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for…..
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019

    …..all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow! @newsmax @foxandfriends @OANN
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019

    So yeah, Rambo Jebus, at least in the minds of many American evangelical voters, including those who are theologically committed to the destruction of Israel.
    Israeli support for DJT is a very big mistake.

  76. 76.

    HumboldtBlue

    @MattF:

     

    That’s solid analysis and ties in with his admiration for murdering war criminals, he thinks they’re tough guys doing what tough guys do.

Comments are closed.