Both Greg Dworkin and teacherken have brought up Josh Marshall’s tweetstorm concerning his experience of anti-semitism during this election. I came across Josh’s tweets first thing this morning and read quite a few of the conversations that erupted throughout his tweets. One of the observations that got me thinking was why the disconnect between the fact that Trump’s daughter and son-in-law are Jewish and his obvious courting of the anti-semitic crowd such as bringing Steve Bannon into his campaign.
Here are my thoughts on this:
- Donald Trump was raised in a family steeped in white nationalism. This mindset is most probably ingrained into his very fundamental thought processes to the point he is probably not fully aware of it.
- Donald Trump is emotionally detached. He never speaks of his family members with any kind a paternalistic emotional warmth. Ivanka is sexy. Don Jr. and Eric are great business men. His youngest is good with computers. Tiffany basically does not exist except when it serves him well. He has never given any consideration as to the economic well being of those he has done business with. He could care less. It is not his problem.
- Donald Trump will do anything to promote Donald Trump. It has been shown over and over his version of facts and ideological positions depend on what serves him best.
Trump wants power. He wants to show the world he is Number 1. His business is basically run by his children at this point according to articles such as Eichenwald’s review of his foreign business entanglements. He provides the name and reputation, but not much else at this point. He became bored and worse yet, he was no longer making headlines in the news. He had already dipped into politics once in 1988, but at the time he was fully occupied with his business which created headline news regularly, so his attempt was pretty half-hearted. Now that he no longer was physically tied to his business, politics most likely seemed the best way to get back the attention he so craves.
I do not think he had to think very hard to make the decision to court the Alt-Right. His adult sons seem to be pretty steeped in it. His rise in politics using something as provoking as birtherism ensured he would become the center of attention both in the media and behind the scenes with the economically and politically powerful leadership of the Alt-Right. This is a group he would be comfortable approaching considering his upbringing. They in turn would be able to connect him with the more “mainstream” groups they affiliate with that have provided them the means to gain the power Trump so desperately wants.
If you have noticed, Ivanka has been very quiet since the convention. Except for the maternal leave announcement, she has had little to do with the campaign. Her brothers, however are very active in his campaign and have been unabashedly recruiting the white nationalist vote whenever they can, through twitter memes and even tv shows, while Trump’s campaign claims that the activity is all innocent and misunderstood.
Who knows what Donald thought, if much of anything, when Ivanka converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner. We will probably never know. However, I truly believe he has not once given a thought to how his courting of the Alt-Right might affect his own family members. That is just not part of his emotional make-up. It seems both his adult sons have this same mindset. The Alt-Right is familiar to him, has provided him the connections he needed to get to where he is now, and like him, has no problem distorting facts or just making things up to increase support.
Trump has also tried to court the more conservative Jewish vote speaking at AIPAC and declaring he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This reflects, most likely, his connection with Jared Kushner. His stance on “Radical Islam” and Muslims in general also are probably attractive to the more hardline Jewish voters. However, note he does not court this voting block as a regular part of his campaign. Frankly they just cannot give him the same connections the Alt-Right can. In his mind, courting both is not a conflict of interests, because they both benefit him politically, thus no conflict.
His complete incapability of seeing the disconnect and the harm he does to his own daughter and her family is par for the course with Donald Trump. His desire to be the BEST, the MOST POWERFUL, person in the world is really all that matters. The scary thing, much like his business has been taken over by his more competent children because he basically lost interest in anything but the money and prestige, Trump’s Presidency would also be taken over by those who are more competent to govern, or at least their version of governance, for the same reason. He would be the face, while folks like Mike Pence and Steve Bannon would be the policy makers and media drivers.
Ivanka and Jared will not dare to speak out against any of this as I am sure they know first hand what Donald would do to them if they did. I would hate to be in their position, and just imagine what it would be like for them if Donald Trump actually became President.