all seem far too prevalent among the followers of the presumptive Republican nominee. In a sense we should not be surprised. First, his rhetoric has fueled a lot of it, legitimizing open expressions of things that have never been very far beneath the surface for a segment of American society. Second, to be realistic, it is not at all surprising that such expressions have found resonance in the Republican party, which has for half a decade moved in the direction of building upon resentment. I think one can make an argument that the acceptance speech by Barry Goldwater in 1964 marks a clear beginning of Republicans accepting the notion of legitimizing what otherwise might be considered extremism, and there should be no doubt of that direction given Ronald Reagan beginning his general election campaign in 1980 at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, with that county’s unfortunate connection with one of the most brutal examples of extremism, the killing of Cheney, Schwerner and Goodman and their bodies buried in an earthen dam.
In our day and age, we are seeing these expressions take a new form, one of cyberbullying. From the sexism aspect, it is an all too common phenomenon against women online.
It has now blossomed as well into outright anti-semitism.
This comin Sunday, the New York Times has an important column in its Sunday Review section which went live yesterday. By Washington DC based Times editor Jonathan Weisman, it is titled The Nazi Tweets of ‘Trump God Emperor’.
Please note the quotes. It is not “The Donald” who is making these tweets, it is followers who identify with him.
And before I go on, I will note, as does Weisman, that Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism when she married her Observant Jewish husband, and Trump has bragged about his Jewish grandchildren. But that is irrelevant to what is happening.
Weisman begins thusly:
THE first tweet arrived as cryptic code, a signal to the army of the “alt-right” that I barely knew existed: “Hello ((Weisman)).” @CyberTrump was responding to my recent tweet of an essay by Robert Kagan on the emergence of fascism in the United States.
“Care to explain?” I answered, intuiting that my last name in brackets denoted my Jewish faith.
“What, ho, the vaunted Ashkenazi intelligence, hahaha!” CyberTrump came back. “It’s a dog whistle, fool. Belling the cat for my fellow goyim.” With the cat belled, the horde was unleashed.
The anti-Semitic hate, much of it from self-identified Donald J. Trump supporters, hasn’t stopped since.
Let me make a small digression, which I do not want misunderstood. I realize that no political figure can be held responsible for all actions of those who claim to be supporters . Yet at the same time when there is a pattern that is provoked, I believe someone who seeks to be a major leader, Presidential or otherwise, has a responsibility to reject in the strongest terms possible those words and actions that are over the line, that despite the protections of the First Amendment really should not be tolerated. The failure to make such a condemnation is grounds to question how that candidate/political figure is choosing to run. The rejection should be without modifications or rationalizations — some things should just not be acceptable, no matter how strongly we may otherwise support a candidate.
I am not going to go through all the examples that Weisman cites. You should read the entire piece. Whether you are like me of Jewish background or not, you should be dismayed and disgusted by what you will read.
There is one paragraph that, given, what I have just written, I feel I must quote and discuss:
I am not the first Jewish journalist to experience the onslaught. Julia Ioffe was served up on social media in concentration camp garb and worse after Trump supporters took umbrage with her profile of Melania Trump in GQ magazine. The would-be first lady later told an interviewer that Ms. Ioffe had provoked it. The anti-Semitic hate hurled at the conservative commentator Bethany Mandel prompted her to buy a gun.
Please note the words by Melania Trump. That is simply not acceptable, by the spouse, by surrogates, by the candidate.
I have a clear memory of when Al Gore was running for President and was in NYC standing with Ed Koch and the then mayor made a somewhat nasty remark about Jesse Jackson Gore immediately said that on this topic the mayor did not speak for him — with Koch right next to him. That is the appropriate response. And that remark was a lot less vile than what Weisman and others have experienced.
Jonathan Weisman has chosen to leave almost all of what has appeared on his timeline up, even when Twitter officials suggested he block people. He wants people to see what is happening.
He even provides his twitter handle (@jonathanweisman) for those who would like to explore further what he has experienced. Might that open him up to further disgusting attacks? Perhaps.
He offers some personal history — growing up in the Atlanta area, his family attending a synagogue that had been bombed, living in Marietta where Leo Frank was lynched. He writes of that background
All of that seemed like buried history until now. In Mr. Trump, many in the alt-right have found an imperfect vessel for their cause, but they have poured their rage into his campaign without impediment. Mr. Trump apparently takes all comers.
It is this seeming unwillingness of Trump to reject extremists, of his wife’s and his apparent willingness to rationalize violence of deed and word, that is very troubling.
It should be.
I will again urge you to read the entire piece.
And I will close as does Weisman, because I think his final words explain why this is so important, and not just for those of us of Jewish background:
We in the news business are taught to find and write up both sides of a story, with respect and equal time to all opinions. But that line is difficult to walk when one side is shoving you in the back. In The New Yorker this week, Adam Gopnik, quoting Alexander Pope, asks, “Is there no black or white?”
His answer: “The pain of not seeing that black is black soon enough will be ours, and the time to recognize this is now.”
Indeed.