Trump Warns American Jews To Love Him 'Before It's Too Late'

If you love Israel so much, why don't you make out with it? Oh, wait, looks like you are. Gross.

Newsflash: Donald Trump is a filthy racist garbage barge. Film at 11!

Okay, not news at all to anyone on Planet Earth. And not remotely news to the 68 percent of American Jews who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, of which I am one.

Even so, Trump's antisemitic rant this weekend was especially appalling, particularly in light of the deafening silence of his Republican colleagues, none of whom said a single word to criticize it.

“A lot of antisemitism to unpack here. But one thing is clear; Trump has no problem threatening American Jews. “US Jews have to get their act together..before it’s too late.””

— David Leopold (@David Leopold) 1665925812 

Indeed, that is an astonishing number of antisemitic tropes to pack into one knockoff tweet, starting with the assumption that Israel is, or should be, the top priority for American Jews. In fact, we are full citizens of the United States, and questioning our loyalty is fucking gross. We are not in competition with "our wonderful Evangelicals" or anyone else to prove we belong in America. This is our home.

And we are not lesser Jews than Jews in Israel. Or Brazil. Or Canada. Or Timbuktu. Although, if your only metric is love for Donald Trump, yes, we do underperform our Israeli brethren, who have convinced themselves that the GOP's unquestioning support for annexation of Palestinian territory, not to mention the Likud Party, equals support for Jews writ large.

No, I'm not going to talk about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians here, because, honestly what is the point? I have my opinion, you have yours, and neither will affect the reality on the ground. Because in the 74 years since its founding, Israel has grown into a developed economy with the strongest army in the region, and has tacitly allied with its Sunni Arab neighbors. Moreover, Israel has the support of America's 100 million Evangelicals, so it no longer relies on liberal American Jews to advocate for its interests in the halls of power — a fact drawn home by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's open support of Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, both of whom were rejected by the vast majority of American Jews.

Because for all Trump's degenerate bigotry, he does hit upon an important point here, which is that Israel's open affiliation with the American Republican Party — along with all those things we're not going to talk about today — has fractured a major Democratic voting bloc. A third of American Jews will probably wind up reliable Republican voters, having convinced themselves that the party that has ten sitting Jewish senators and 25 Jewish House members is actually hostile to Jewish interests. In contrast, Republicans have Reps. David Kustoff and Lee Zeldin, and Zeldin is wandering off to get his ass kicked by Kathy Hochul in the New York governor's race.

There's also the minor matter that the main avatar for the GOP says gross, antisemitic stuff on the regular. The Washington Post has compiled some of Trump's greatest hits, including “Jewish people who live in the United States don’t love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you?” And referring to Israel as “your country” in a speech to American Jews. And saying that “any Jewish people who would vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” And my personal favorite: "A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all.”

Trump routinely traffics in antisemitic tropes, and in the same breath demands love from American Jews because of his supposed support for Israel. And sure as Shabbos comes on Friday night, he's going to continue to get that support from professional hatemongers like Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro. It's gross and distressing, and we'll add that to the list of shit we don't need to talk about.

But while we're here having this frank talk, let's have a little subtweet for the media figures who called out Maggie Haberman and Josh Marshall for reposting Trump's rant. Because we — Haberman, Marshall, David Leopold, and I — are Jews. So we will decide if republishing Trump's disgusting rant so it can be picked apart, or discussing it obliquely so as not to spread the poison further, is "good" for us, thankyouverymuch .

Okay, try not to get nasty in the comments, please, because that helps no one.

[ WaPo ]

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