|
December 4, 2022
Key Takeaways:
- If you doubt that the Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump, ask yourself why Republicans are not condemning Trump for dining with two notorious antisemites.
- Some Republicans pretend to be surprised, but Trump's antisemitism was not a deal-breaker when he twice won the GOP presidential nomination, and it won't prevent him from winning the 2024 nomination.
- Any Republican statements that fall short of condemning Trump by name and do not include a commitment not to support him in 2024 are exercises in sycophantry and cowardice, nothing more.
- This is not a "both sides" issue. Only the Republican Party has leadership that condones and engages in antisemitic rhetoric, and the only question is what it will take for the self-preservation instincts of the few Jews who still vote Republican to kick in.
Read to the end for upcoming events and fun stuff.
You're welcome to read for free, but if you want to chip in to help defray the cost of the newsletter, click here to pay by credit card or PayPal. Just fill in the amount of your choice. Or Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (if it asks, the last four phone digits are 9479).
Hi Steve,
Pretending won't make it so. If it did, Donald Trump would not have won in 2016. He won because the press treated the Republican Party as a normal party long after the facts proved otherwise. Barry Goldwater planted the seeds with his states' rights 1964 presidential campaign, and Richard Nixon made it official with his dog whistles to the "racist silent majority."
We’ve known since at least 2012 that, as political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein wrote, the Republican Party "is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."Sounds kind of MAGA, doesn't it? Yet the press, and most of us, clung to the narrative that the GOP was a normal political party.
If we had seen the Republican Party for what it was in 2016, we would not have been surprised that despite attacks against Trump by his rivals for the GOP nomination, Trump won. The primaries were decided by GOP voters primed and self-selected by decades of racist appeals, and Trump's foghorn was louder than his opponents' dog whistles. Trump is not an aberration--he is today's Republican Party.
Trump will win the GOP nomination in 2024. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the GOP flavor of the day, but as Mark Leibovich explains, DeSantis is a flawed candidate who would not match up well against Trump. Republicans know it, which is why they are dancing around Trump's dinner with Ye and Fuentes even as they feign shock that Trump would associate with less than honorable characters.
Not one Republican member of Congress or governor ever condemned Trump for any of his antisemitism for at least the past five years. Who did they think Trump was all this time? But now they are acting amazed that Donald Trump would dine with antisemites. Weren't they the ones who told us that Trump could not possibly be antisemitic because Ivanka was Jewish?
Yet even today, Republicans are not saying anything nearly as disparaging of Trump as they did in early 2016, before they forgave Trump his sins. (In March 2016, Republican Jewish Coalition Chair Norm Coleman said that he would never vote for Trump because Trump is a bigot, a misogynist, a fraud, and a bully--the RJC since became one of Trump's biggest cheerleaders and never condemned any of his antisemitism.)
As Karen Tumulty wrote, since Trump's dinner with Ye and Fuentes became public knowledge, "we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though doing that is anything other than basic human decency...But depressingly few were willing to even mention Trump himself."
NPR has a running tally of GOP comments on Trump's dinner party. The few Republicans who have spoken about Trump's meeting with Ye and Nick Fuentes have danced around the issue, sometimes condemning the meeting, sometimes calling on Trump to condemn Ye and Fuentes, but "you’ll notice," Jamelle Bouie writes, that while some "Republicans are willing to condemn Fuentes and Ye and Trump’s decision to eat dinner with them, they are not willing to go so far as to draw any conclusions about Trump himself." Except Kevin McCarthy, who falsely claimed that Trump condemned Fuentes.
It shouldn't be so hard to condemn Trump for antisemitism--this is far from the first time for Trump--but the "each side should condemn its own side" crowd is suddenly silent, almost as if that was all a game. GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy took a page from the George Costanza playbook and did the opposite, promising unrepentant antisemites Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene important committee assignments in the next session.
If the media is serious about covering politics, it will ask every Republican who even comes close to condemning Trump two questions: 1) Where were you for the past six years? and 2) yes or no, will you support Trump for president if he is the 2024 nominee? Otherwise, we're letting Republicans play the same game with antisemitism that they played in 2016.
Any condemnation of Ye or Fuentes from Republicans that does not include an unequivocal condemnation of Trump for meeting with them and a commitment not to support him if he is the 2024 nominee is an exercise in sycophantry and nothing more. As JDCA CEO Halie Soifer said last week, "all leaders of the Republican Party who fail to unequivocally condemn Trump, by name, for his embrace of antisemitism are complicit in Trump’s dangerous extremism and hate.”
Republican condemnations of Ye and Fuentes that fail to mention Trump hosted them at Mar-a-Lago last week are worthless exercises in cynicism. Republicans who have indulged Donald Trump must call him out for the vile, repellent bigot that he is and make it clear that he is a pariah. Enough is enough.
David Frum is right: "Hanging out with Holocaust deniers is bad. But so is trying to overthrow an election by fraud and violence—and that was not a deal-breaker for this GOP. Trump’s attempt to blackmail Ukraine into fabricating anti-Biden disinformation was bad—and that was not a deal-breaker. Trump’s invitation to Russia to help in the 2016 election, his real-estate business with Putin while running for president, his blurting valuable secrets to the Russian foreign minister—all were bad, but none broke the deal."
Trump's antisemitism did not break the deal when he twice won the GOP nomination for president and it won't break the deal now. The only question is what it will take for the self-preservation instincts of the few Jews who still vote Republican to kick in.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Senate runoff is the only Senate race in the country, but no Republican senators or representatives have said anything about Herschel Walker's antisemitism problem.
Don't pretend this is a "both sides" issue. Antisemitism is mainstream only in the Republican Party, but the House GOP overlooks antisemitism within its ranks. The White House said last week that "Bigotry, hate, and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America - including at Mar-A-Lago." If only our Republican friends could bring themselves to say that.
Last Week's Newsletter.
ICYMI. Jonathan Jacoby and I wrote an oped on Kevin McCarthy and the weaponization of antisemitism that's getting positive reviews--if you like it, share it.
Print Interview of the Week. Isaac Chotiner interviews the ZOA's Mort Klein. Chotiner has mastered the art of letting his subjects make fools of themselves simply by asking the right questions and quoting them.
Tweet of the Week. JoJoFromJerz.
Twitter Thread of the Week. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
Classic Twitter Thread of the Week. Glen Weldon.
Best Reason to Stay on Twitter. This tweet and the replies. (Watch this if you don't get it.)
Video Clips of the Week. James Austin Johnson sings “Jingle Bells” as Bob Dylan through the decades and Trae Crowder on Kanye and the GOP.
This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the home of the viral Top Ten Signs You Might be at a Republican Seder (yes, I wrote it).
If someone forwarded this to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
Donations are welcome (because this costs money to send). If you'd like to chip in, click here and fill in the amount of your choice. The link lets you use a credit card or PayPal. If you'd rather pay by check, please reply and I'll send you the mailing address (do not send checks to the P.O. Box). Or you can Venmo to @Steven-Sheffey (last four digits of phone number are 9479).
I accept advertisements. Let me know if you're interested.
| 
