There’s a sordid history to charges of Jewish dual loyalty in the U.S. In the early years of the Second World War, Isolationists opposed to American involvement dismissed the war as little more than a “Jewish cause”. Charles Lindbergh berated Jewish leaders for “agitating for war”. Decades later, when the US senator Joe Lieberman ran on the Democratic ticket for vice-president, pundits questioned whether he was more loyal to Israel than to the US. During the democratic primaries in 2015, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was challenged on his “dual citizenship” with Israel...
Which is all to say that this week Donald Trump finds himself in broad, though unfortunate, company. On Tuesday, the president said that any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat is guilty of “great disloyalty”. Then Trump repeated his smears against the congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, following his impassioned demand last week that the Israeli government block their entry to the country due to their support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“Where has the Democratic Party gone?” Trump said. “Where have they gone where they are defending these two people over the state of Israel? And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
Trump’s latest statement, laced with centuries of antisemitic tropes, is no surprise for a president who has fraternized with avowed white nationalists and blamed white supremacist violence on “mental health”. Still, Trump’s rhetorical gymnastics would be impressive if it weren’t so threatening – he manages to weaponize Zionism, dog-whistle antisemitism and land on his feet, calling himself “the king of Israel”. He’d haul home all the medals if bigotry were an Olympic sport...
trump lays bare his opinion of Jewishness: It's only "good" if it centers around Israel, and only if it aids Israel - actually if it aids Evangelical Christianity - in the ongoing war against Muslims.
As a result, he's opening up the Jewish Americans who don't support this view - which is a vast majority of Jewish Americans - to accusations of "disloyalty" not so much to Israel but towards the United States... which increases the likelihood of direct assaults on their persons and their communities.
There has already been an uptick in violence and vandalism directed toward Jewish communities. A lot of it already tied to trump's support of neo-Nazi supremacists who revel in his diatribes against "The Other" that justifies their violence towards every Non-White ethnicity (which includes Jews in the supremacists' opinions).
Adding onto this is trump's obsessive need for adulation and worship (in this moment, literal). he eagerly tweeted out a reply from a Far Right media host who proclaimed "Israeli Jews love trump like he's the King of Israel. They love him like he is the Second Coming of God." It's irrelevant in trump's worldview that A) Israeli Jews don't believe in Kings anymore and B) Jews do not share the Christian/Evangelical idea of the Second Coming. All that matter is trump buys into the worship that he's the Chosen One... and the rest of us are screwed.
In the last two days, trump insulted Jewish Americans, Jewish faith overall, and the patriotism of Jewish Americans who remain loyal to America.
And he's not finished. trump's work to destroy the faith of every honest Christian and the hearts of every living soul is not yet complete.
Gods help us.
1 comment:
So now the cheese has slid all the way off of his cracker. Can't we just stamp his forehead and send him out to play now?
-Doug in Oakland
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