Dem
51
GOP
49
If you are a person who distinguishes between the "good" Black people and the "bad" ones, you're a racist. There's just no getting around it. Same thing with the "good" and "bad" Mexicans, or the "good" and "bad" Chinese people, to name two other prominent examples from U.S. history. And note, we mean this as a rhetorical device; we presume that anyone reading this site would not actually engage in this sort of behavior.
If you followed the headlines yesterday, you probably know where this is going. If a person distinguishes between the "good" Jews and the "bad" Jews, they are an antisemite. There's just no benign justification for that kind of sorting. And so it is that Donald Trump reminded us this week, once again, that he's fundamentally antisemitic. Oh, he may have some Jewish people working for him, and some Black people, and the like, but he absolutely sorts these groups into "good" and "bad" and we all know it. Think, for example, Ben Carson and Clarence Thomas versus people from "sh**hole countries."
Trump used the occasion of Rosh Hashanah for his latest display of his true colors (presumably not blue and white). He hopped onto his boutique social media platform and reposted a flier that begins thusly:
Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices going forward. Happy New Year!
The rest of the flier contains a clumsily written list of reasons why Trump is not a Natzi (sic) or Anti Semite (sic). If you care to read it for yourself, you can do so here.
Trump's clearly outlandish and offensive statement was called out by Jewish members of Congress, Israeli media, American media, and sane conservative media. GOP politicians and Trump-friendly media, on the other hand? Not a peep, as far as we could find.
Polls show that if Trump is the Republican nominee, he's going to lose the Jewish vote to Joe Biden (or pretty much any Democrat) by about 50 points (roughly 70% to 20%). That makes Jewish voters just about the most Democratic-leaning group outside of Black women. The former president surely isn't fooling himself into thinking that attacking the 70% as people who "voted to destroy America" is going to have any meaningful impact on his fortunes with Jewish voters. In fact, between his Rosh Hashanah message and the Kanye West fiasco, he is almost certainly moving backward with this particular interest group.
However, while Trump does not need, and will not get, a big chunk of the Jewish vote, he does need 100% of the bigot vote. He not only needs those folks to be with him, but to be motivated to get to the polls. And these sorts of racist/sexist/antisemitic dog bullhorns are how he does it. In other words, in case you forgot, you should be bracing yourself for an ugly, ugly campaign, particularly if you are a member of one of the many groups who will be targeted by Trump's bile. We don't enjoy being the bearers of bad tidings, but there it is. (Z)