Well, that’s settled.
“Trump’s Son-In-Law: The Donald Is Not Anti-Semitic And He’s Not A Racist.”
But he plays one on TV.
imagery that can be interpreted
Meaningless imagery, huh? Interesting publishing stance…Yup, the boy’s not merely a rich in-law but a Trump flunkie.
You guys, not re-tweeting blatantly racist material again and again and again is hard work. It literally takes an army of handlers to pull that off.
When you have to keep saying it over and over…
The Onion already held this debate: http://www.theonion.com/multiblogpost/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-regio-11534
“If even the slightest infraction against what the speech police have deemed correct speech is instantly shouted down with taunts of “racist” then what is left to condemn the actual racists?” he wrote. “What do we call the people who won’t hire minorities or beat others up for their religion?”
Got to love this incredibly crappy argument. If someone, somewhere is doing something worse, how can what I am doing be considered bad? How can you call me a thief for stealing $1000 when there are people out there stealing $5000? How can you call me a racist for saying and doing obviously racist things when there are people out there who lynch black people?
Apparently Trump has never been directly anti-Semitic to his daughter’s husband. Amazing!
Because we have no idea of Trump’s actual net worth, we have no idea what price Kushner put on his integrity. I hope Kushner he happy with the sale. Because there’s a no return policy on this.
If you are explaining how someone is not a racist and a Jew-hater–you are losing.
“Donald Trump is not anti-Semitic and he’s not a racist.”
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” – Kurt Vonnegut
But he plays one on TV.
That is exactly the point that this rich child of a real estate crook chooses to avoid: Trump is legitimizing Nazis, klanners and other racists by playing footsie with them. And he’s doing it in an immoral and (one would hope) shortsighted grab for votes.
Hitler had Jewish relatives…
High five to Dana Schwartz for the open letter. And wow, Kushner’s head is buried pretty far in the sand. Or some other place.
If my father in law’s fast-moving team was careless in choosing an image to retweet, well part of the reason it’s so shocking is that it’s the actual candidate communicating with the American public rather than the armies of handlers who poll-test ordinary candidates’ every move.
If you’re using a “fast-moving team,” you’re not the “actual candidate communicating with the American people.”
I think the kid is right. The Donald is not an anti-Semite and not a racist, at least not in the sense that the KKK is racist (I agree with Josh’s essay yesterday about Trump’s racism). What he is, is someone who has no scruples or principles, someone who is totally (and I mean that literally) devoted to what he thinks to be his own interest, someone who will do anything–yes, anything–to advance himself.
I’m not sure that’s better than being anti-Semitic or racist. It might even be worse.
“If even the slightest infraction against what the speech police have deemed correct speech is instantly shouted down with taunts of “racist” then what is left to condemn the actual racists?” he wrote. “What do we call the people who won’t hire minorities or beat others up for their religion?”
Jared, we call them “racist” too. I really hate that the right does this and that so many others allow them to get away with it. Just because you aren’t holding a rope with a dead black man swinging at the end of it doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Just because you do hire minorities, even have a few black friends doesn’t mean you’re not racist. It means you’re a complicated human being just like the rest of us. On, I think, All in with Chris Hayes last night, someone made the point that just because you love your mother and you’re nice to her doesn’t mean you’re not a misogynist. A person is perfectly capable of loving the hell out of their mother, wife, daughters, and other female relatives and still thinking women are basically worthless. Racism isn’t a binary choice. Neither is antisemitism. You can both have a Jewish son-in-law who you like and admire and at the the same time still think Jews are money-grubbing sociopaths.
But I’m way off course here. Who knows or even cares if Trump is really an antisemite? It really doesn’t matter because what he’s shown time and again is a willingness to play around with antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, etc. He’s willing to use some of the ugliest, nastiest, deadliest seeds of hate in order to rouse the crowd and get votes. Maybe he’d cut it out completely if he got elected, maybe not. But it doesn’t fucking matter. Anyone who’d use these things, who’d split open these wounds, who’d inflict this pain on others isn’t fit to lead and shouldn’t be allowed to even visit the WH. Whether this is hatemongering for pay or for play, it should be treated exactly the same because it’s just as harmful and hurtful to the country and especially to those who are the targets. That should be enough.
My father in law is not a racist, but racists are voters too!
This piece, Welcome to the Age of Trump, from the Guardian is terrific. Excerpt:
What’s more, for many of those on median incomes, the financial squeeze is only one part of a double betrayal. The US has grown steadily more liberal over the last two decades, with a loosening of attitudes to diversity, gender equality and sexuality, a trend that is especially pronounced among the young and well-educated. The symbols of it are obvious, whether that be a black man in the White House or the law that allows same-sex couples an equal right to be married.
For many of those angry white males this is deeply unsettling. A society that gives a prominent and equal place to, say, black men or gay women can seem to contradict the values in which these traditionalists (some would want to call them reactionaries) were raised. Put more harshly, one of the consolations available to a straight, white, working-class American man of the past was the knowledge that there were others below him in the social hierarchy. He was in a society that validated him above the gay, the non-white and the female. Now that knowledge, along with the job and the affordable home, has gone. Recall that the title of a landmark book on white southerners in the age of civil rights was There Goes My Everything.
Here is the podcast if you’d rather listen: