Trump Implicitly Condones Anti-Semitism

I have a lot of things that I would like to say about Donald Trump, but I’ve decided to hold much of that until closer to the election. Nevertheless, there is one matter so egregious that I decided that I couldn’t hold my tongue and needed to address now: Donald Trump is implicitly condoning virulent anti-Semitism.

Yes, seriously.

Let me start near the end of the story (so far…) with a quotation from The Daily Stormer (to which I refuse to link for soon to be obvious reasons), which self-describes as “The World’s Most Visited Alt-Right Website” (internal links removed; emphasis added):

Asked by the disgusting and evil Jewish parasite Wolf Blitzer to denounce the Stormer Troll Army, The Glorious Leader [Trump] declined.

The Jew Wolf was attempting to Stump the Trump, bringing up stormer attacks on Jew terrorist Julia Ioffe. Trump responded to the request with “I have no message to the fans” which might as well have been “Hail Victory, Comrades!”

I declared a troll operation against the Russian kike Ioffe after she wrote a vile hit-piece against Empress Melania for GQ. Ioffe went full LOLCOW*, demanding the goyim give her six million pities because people called her mean names on the internet.

Several times she repeated that Nazi trolls were planning to turn her into a lampshade.

In the tradition of all other prominent LOLCOWs throughout history, she claimed these mocking messages she was sent contained “death threats,” without ever producing the death threats or getting anyone arrested for sending them.

Appearing on CNN, the sick-faced kike admitted the cops told her nothing the trolls did was against the law, and called for laws to be altered to protect her poo widdle feewlings.

Of course, Donald Trump has no need to deny us. They’ve tried this whole “all your fans are racists” thing over and over again, to zero effect.

And we are his most ardent supports. We will be on the ground, getting him elected.

By the way: You all need to get ready to volunteer. We’re going to need a lot of boots on the ground to ensure the evil bitch Hillary is vanquished from the realm.

Have Your Say!

Tell the dirty Jew Wolf Blitzer (זאב ברק)** what you think of his diabolical agenda against us and Our Leader[.]

Go ahead, and read that again. For some context before I move on to substance, here is a bit of the Wikipedia entry on The Daily Stormer and its founder/editor (most internal citations and footnotes omitted; emphasis added):

The Daily Stormer is an American Neo-Nazi and white supremacist news and commentary website. Its editor is Andrew Anglin, who founded it on July 4, 2013 … deciding to write a faster-paced website than his previous one, Total Fascism, which had launched in the previous year.

It has been noted for its use of humor and Internet memes, which have been … cited as attractions for a younger and more ideologically diverse audience. …The site’s rapid growth has been documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, who affirm that it has overtaken Stormfront as the web’s leading hate site. While some white nationalist authors have praised its reach, others have taken issue with its content and tone, as well as with Anglin himself. The website has also received attention for its endorsement of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election….

The Daily Stormer orchestrates what it calls the “Troll Army”, involved in Internet trolling of figures whom Anglin claims are attempting to curtail freedom of speech and the values of Western civilization, receiving attention for its campaigns against British MP Luciana Berger, who is Jewish….

So now let’s back up a bit so that these pieces can be put into a substantive context with Donald Trump. How far back? Just two weeks: April 27, 2016. GQ magazine published the article “Melania Trump on Her Rise, Her Family Secrets, and Her True Political Views: ‘Nobody Will Ever Know’” by Julia Ioffe. Is it a good article? Is it fair? In all honesty, I don’t know because I haven’t read the article and, even if I had, I don’t know the “truth”. But that doesn’t really matter (at least not for the issue being discussed here). Rather, what matters is that Melania Trump thinks the article is unfair*** and, thus, apparently so too does Donald Trump (even though he hasn’t read it either); he just knows what he’s been told about the article. Anyway, Trump’s supporters apparently agree with his view of the article.

So, the starting point is an article written about a Presidential candidate’s wife that the candidate believes is unfair. But that’s politics, isn’t it? For that matter, that’s also the life of a billionaire’s family in the age of gossip columns and so forth, right? And before I go on, ask yourself just how many “unfair” or negative articles have been written about Hillary Clinton over the years.

Obviously, it would have been perfectly fine for Trump supporters to criticize the article, to call out Ioffe for perceived bias, to question GQ’s decision to publish the article, or to write responses to the article focusing on facts or endeavoring to correct alleged falsehoods. That’s a part of the core of how our democratic system works and a primary reason for the freedom of speech and of the press found in the First Amendment. But how did some of Trump’s supporters respond to Ioffe’s article?

Here is where things get … um … messy.

The Daily Stormer responded to Ioffe’s article with this post (again, I refuse to link to the site; internal links omitted):

Empress Melania Attacked by Filthy Russian Kike Julia Ioffe in GQ!

A dirty Russian kike has attacked the wife of Our Glorious Leader in an article in GQ.

The tricky Jewess Julia Ioffe tricked Melania Trump into doing a profile, then attacked her family, accused her of getting plastic surgery, and claimed she committed fraud with a beauty product she sold.

If you look up “ratfaced kike” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Julia Ioffe. [The article on The Daily Stormer includes a photo of Ioffe with a yellow Star of David badge photoshopped onto her to resemble the badges that Jews were required to wear in Nazi Germany.]

…

Unsurprisingly, the Russian kike Ioffe has made a career out of attacking Glorious Leader (EAST) [Vladimir Putin]. ….

She has a Twitter.

Here she is retweeting an article by her ratfaced racial kin Eli Lake claiming that Donald Trump got the idea of putting one’s own country first from Adolf Hitler (we’ll get to this kike later).

Please go ahead and send her a tweet and let her know what you think of her dirty kike trickery.

Make sure to identify her as a Jew working against White interests, or send her the picture with the Jude star from the top of this article.

It’s important because:

The Jew is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: “I’ve been found out.”

Gogoogogogoogogogo

Because I’d bet dollars to hot dogs she’s a LOLCOW.

Obviously, the first question to ask is what Ioffe’s religion has to do with her article on Melania Trump (and I wonder whether The Daily Stormer is aware that Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka is a Shabbat observant Jew…). One might also ask where that degree of seething anger and hate originates. But still, at this point, the post from The Daily Stormer could be put off to the crazed views of a single racist.

Until the so-called “Stormer Troll Army” took up the call to arms and leapt into action.

As described in The Guardian (most internal links omitted):

In the 24 hours since her profile of Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, appeared in GQ magazine, the Russian-American journalist has received a torrent of antisemitic, vitriolic and threatening messages from supporters of the Republican frontrunner.

…

On Thursday, Ioffe answered a phone call from an anonymous caller who played a Hitler speech. She received another call from “Overnight Caskets”. On Twitter, users posted photos of her face superimposed on a mug shot from Auschwitz. …

“It’s unsettling,” she said on Thursday night. “I started the day off having a sense of humor about it but by the end of the day, after a few phone calls like this, with people playing Hitler speeches, and the imagery, and people telling me my face would look good on a lampshade, it’s hard to laugh.”

Ioffe is one of America’s top feature writers. A former staff member at the liberal New Republic magazine, she freelances for publications such as the New Yorker and New York Times.

…

“This is not a heavily critical article. There is nothing in it that is untrue,” Ioffe said. “If this is how Trump supporters swing into action what happens when the press looks into corrupt dealings, for example, or is critical of his policies?”

Ioffe worked as a reporter in Moscow for three years. During this period, she experienced antisemitism and witnessed colleagues receive bouquets of funeral flowers at work. But never as a journalist working in the US.

“The irony of this is that today, when I was getting all of this horrible antisemitic shit that I’ve only ever seen in Russia, I was reminded that 26 years ago today my family came to the US from Russia. We left Russia because we were fleeing antisemitism,” Ioffe said. “It’s been a rude shock for everyone.”

To give a taste of the sort of anti-Semitic vitriol directed at Ioffe, here are just two of the images sent to Ioffe (both from the article in The Guardian):

(Note in the picture on the right, Ioffe is shown as a prisoner of “Camp Trump” and “KLAuschwitz”.)

I recognize that politicians are not responsible for all of the crazy or hateful things that their supporters may say or do. But that sort of inoculation only goes so far. When the supporter in question is not just an individual but an online newspaper and, perhaps, the most popular hate site on the internet, then the views being expressed are more than those of a single individual. And when an an “army” of supporters engages in inappropriate behavior (and that’s a pretty charitable phrase given the context) on a candidate’s behalf, then that candidate has a duty to at least comment upon if not repudiate the conduct and the rhetoric associated with it.

Recall that in 2008, Pastor John Hagee endorsed John McCain but when information regarding Hagee’s claim that Hitler was fulfilling G-d’s will came to light (not to mention Hagee’s anti-Catholic rhetoric), McCain did the right thing: He repudiated Hagee’s comments and then he rejected Hagee’s endorsement:

Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.

Shortly thereafter, McCain also repudiated the endorsement of Ron Parsley, a pastor who claimed that Islam is an inherently violent religion. That is how a man with integrity and a sense of morality handles these sorts of situations. I disagreed with McCain on many policy ideas, but he was absolutely able to recognize when he, as someone who wanted to be the leader of our democratic society had to take a stand against certain voices and views, even if those voices and views were his supporters. And for that I commended him at the time and do again now.

So did Donald Trump repudiate The Daily Stormer, the Troll Army, or the anti-Semitic comments directed at Ioffe? What do you think?

(the video should start at 7:08; if not forward to that point or click this link)

A few things to note: First, Trump doesn’t initially even answer Blitzer’s question or respond to the notion of anti-Semitic attacks; rather he talks about the article (which he hasn’t read) and praises his wife. And he goes on and on. He does not address the query regarding anti-Semitism directed at Ioffe. Rather, if you really listen to Trump, it sounds to me like he is justifying virtually any sort of attack on Ioffe because he doesn’t like the article and because Melania is a good person. Or something. (And don’t forget Trump’s previous pledge to find ways to loosen libel laws so that he can sue media that is “unfair”.) Then, when Blitzer presses him, Trump retreats into the “I don’t know anything” response that he previously used to defend his refusal to repudiate support from white supremacist David Duke (see video below). When asked again, Trump says that he doesn’t have a message “for his fans” essentially because the media is dishonest. In other words, in Donald Trump’s America, anti-Semitism is just fine and need not be repudiated if is used because of a message that Trump doesn’t like or directed toward a person that Trump doesn’t like (or because of dishonest media which, I’m sure, supporters of The Daily Stormer … and Trump? … will tell you is controlled by Jews … like Wolf Blitzer).

Here is the video of Trump responding to and failing to repudiate comments by David Duke and the KKK. See if you spot a pattern.

 

And, if all of that wasn’t enough, just a few days after the incident with Ioffe, David Duke once again spouted off on his radio program:

“I think these Jewish extremists have made a terribly crazy miscalculation, because all they’re going to be doing by doing a Never Trump movement is exposing their alien, their anti-American, anti-American majority position,” he said.

“They’re going to push people more into an awareness that that the neo-cons are the problem, that these Jewish supremacists who control our country are the real problem, and the reason why America is not great.”

So far, Trump has also failed to repudiate these virulently anti-Semitic comments.

I can’t finish without linking to this video from a Trump rally in March. The video went viral on Twitter and Trump, who we know is very active on Twitter … was silent.

 

Is Trump an anti-Semite? I don’t know. I sort of doubt it (and if he is, I suspect family gatherings with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids may be a bit awkward). But to quote Ted Cruz (really? Am I really quoting Ted Cruz? Sigh), I do think that Trump may be “utterly amoral”. He doesn’t seem to have any shred of decency or ability to take a moral stand that might be even the least bit inconvenient. Rather, he seems to condone (or at the very least remain silent) about conduct that is utterly repugnant and offensive to our society and democratic principles so long as it benefits his egotistic ideals.

Trump may not be an anti-Semite and obviously not every Trump supporter is an anti-Semite. But it appears that something in Trump’s message or persona is appealing to the anti-Semites in our midst. I think it tells us a lot about Trump that he won’t unconditionally condemn and repudiate anti-Semitism (or racism, but I’ll leave that discussion for another day) and make clear that he doesn’t want or need the support of anti-Semites. And I think it should scare us when we combine his refusal to condemn and repudiate with the appeal of his message to the anti-Semites who seem emboldened to publicly espouse their hate. His refusal to condemn hateful rhetoric is to implicitly condone that rhetoric. That is the message his anti-Semitic supporters are taking from his silence (“Hail Victory, Comrades!” said The Daily Stormer).

Trump’s refusal to condemn and repudiate rank anti-Semitism is reason enough to disqualify Trump from being seriously considered an acceptable candidate for President.

Moreover, Trump’s refusal to condemn and repudiate anti-Semitism should be a warning to everyone, but to Jews in particular, I hope that this will serve as a warning for just how important it is to Jews and our community that Trump be kept as far away from the White House. We Jews are fond of saying “Never Again” but now we need to add to that the new refrain “Never Trump”.

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*The repeated phrase LOLCOW means “a person you get extensive laughs from, who doesn't know they are being made fun of. They can often think they are admired for what they are doing, but secretly are being laughed at constantly.”

**According to Google Translate, the Hebrew actually translates to “Wolf Lightning”.

***Melania’s Trump’s statement on Ioffe’s article, posted on Trump’s Facebook page on April 27, 2016:

The article published in GQ today is yet another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting. Julia Ioffe, a journalist who is looking to make a name for herself, clearly had an agenda when going after my family. There are numerous inaccuracies in this article including certain statements about my family and claims on personal matters. My parents are private citizens and should not be subject to Ms. Ioffe’s unfair scrutiny.

Furthermore, the statement surrounding the performance of my skincare collection is completely false. The company in which I was involved with did not honor the contract and did not meet their obligations and as such the courts ruled in my favor.

I am hopeful that the media will begin to cover me fairly and be respectful of my family's privacy.”

Melania Trump

Note that if the article is inaccurate, Trump could sue Ioffe and GQ for defamation. And if there is one thing that Donald Trump is not shy about it’s threatening to sue people.