Is anyone going to say it?
Perhaps we all remember the recent non-story attacking Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN 5th) for trafficking in anti-Semetic tropes. Apparently her offense was having the concept of money (I believe she used the word “benjamins”) and AIPAC in the same tweets. It owned the news cycle for days and the message was sent to all the rookies in the House— “watch your mouth”
Okay so now where’s the media? I mean if it really were a liberal Jew media as the right believes, wouldn’t the headline above be the obvious and number one take on the whole ugly fiasco? And dont forget, when Trump rails against the “Media,” his believers hear the whispered “liberal Jew” in front of it. I’m not sure everyone understands how open anti-Semetic tropes are out here in the hinterlands. You find when rightists rail against Hollywood and Wall Street, they don’t mean “corporate cultural control” and “consolidated capital,” they mean “the Jew.” Its Fascism 101. Feed an enemy to people who only half understand how structures of power are working on their lives.
I watched most of the Cohen hearing and I was immediately struck by how wide the cultural divide is in this country. Every Republican on that Oversight Committee all felt like winners of the Worst Eighth Grade Social Studies Teacher of the Year Award. I couldnt believe how basically unappealing these people were. Like there’s hundreds of thousands of people in some district somewhere who willfully choose this person to represent them? Huh?
Now I can’t find a transcript of Republican questioning (anyone know where to find one?) but the whole Republican case was “lyin Jew lawyer’s just out for the money with a book or movie deal.” They just didnt say the word “Jew” out loud. I mean seriously, if anti-Semitic tropes are going to be called out, the GOP performance yesterday was waaay more obvious and extended than Omar’s tweet. And it was performed on the floor of the US House of Representatives.
Now it was actually Michael Cohen who tied Trumpian racism to anti-Semitism. When Rep Meadows was parading Lynne Patton around, he responded
Meadows: She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist.
Cohen: Neither should I, as the son of a Holocaust survivor.
It was a stunning moment, and Cohen left Meadows briefly speechless. And remember as the Meadows-definitely-not-racist spat blew up later when Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI 13th) expressed her discomfort at using “the black friend” trope, she is a Palestinian American.
Much has been made of this photo of the rookie House members on Oversight. They are looking at Cohen, but not with any animosity, and I bet Cohen felt them as his biggest allies on the committee. And I believe they were.
So Trump went to Viet Nam (of all places) to play Peacemaker. But here at home he was having the effect of healing old wounds and bringing people together. A Palestinian American and a Jewish American united to call out Trumpian racism and warn of the dangers he presents to our system of governance.