I’m glad you brought up his Hunger Games-esque idea of an immigrant fight league, because while I saw articles about it in The Daily Beast and I think HuffPost, when I mentioned it in a comment in another Substack last night, a number of people didn’t know what I was referring to. I don’t care if he was joking; as you said, it’s not remotely funny given his racism in general and his attempts to demonize immigrants in particular. He ignores the fact that his draft-dodging grandfather was an immigrant.
You're right. He, after the fact, says he was joking or kidding, but that's only if someone gives him a hard time. Everything he says is messaging, period.
He ignores the fact that his wife and his in-laws are immigrants. Should his father-in-law enter the ring to fight, or perhaps his wife should be in there with jello! According to Jeff Tiedrich, who also talked about this in his Substack today, Nazi's used to pit Jews against each other to fight to the death in the camps for their entertainment. https://substack.com/home/post/p-145941188?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I have been saying that "immigrants" in the right wing world is today's replacement for "Jews" in Nazi Germany. All of people's problems are being attributed to them and getting rid of them should make the problems go away. Trump is such a NAZI! Also, my mom used to say, "Behind every joke there is a hint of truth!" This is Trump telling us all what he wants to do, and as president, like a big tantruming child he plans to do what he wants to do just as Adolf Hitler did.
I see your point about immigrants being today's replacement for "Jews" in the 1930s, and there are certainly some parallels. But I'm not really happy about the analogy because it minimizes antisemitism as "just another form of xenophobia". Immigrants tend to be a short-term target of opportunity (who even remembers signs like "Irish need not apply"?) Or even the 1980s Vietnamese, who back then have been as vilified as todays southern border crossers)?
Jews have been targeted for centuries, and not just in one country. That puts Antisemitism in a very different category.
Of course, in this specific context, for a wannabe-dictator, either group will serve their purposes well.
Here I am using "Immigrant" as it has evolved as a code word for non-Whites. I have not meant to treat anti-Semitism lightly, but I place it together with racism since often the two go hand-in-hand. Non-Whites have been targets for centuries as well since Christian Europeans "discovered" Africa and America and Asia. If you read Prof. Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, she discusses that there was a convening of global White Supremacists in the Northwest United States at the end of the 1980s, after the Oklahoma City bombing, where she says that plans were made, which I see coming to fruition. The idea was to no longer fight against the government, but to infiltrate it. They would tone down their virulently racist language and use the term immigrant instead. In fact, they would become rabidly anti-immigrant as code for anti Black and Brown people. Since these people imagined themselves to be Christian, and anyone who was not just like them was bad, this would include anti-semitism. They also saw women's role as being that to provide sex gratification to men, make babies and keep the homefront in order. Women who want roles beyond that there is no use for.
The book they follow is The Turner Diaries, which is a plan to make this an entirely "White" Planet with a big, violent race war and wiping everyone else out. That includes White people who are not Christian (as they see Christianity), Hetero, and willing to get with their program. https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/turner-diaries
One of the outcomes of this thinking is these paramilitary organizations who will just as easily go after someone Black as someone Jewish. Unfortunately, she also reports that being a White Supremacist Nation, the courts have often protected these violent White Supremacists. European countries have had racism as long as they have ventured to Africa and elsewhere in the world. Many White Europeans are immigrants to the USA, that is not what anti-immigrant status is a code word against. It is people who do not have "White" skin. I think it is important to recognize that Trump is using the term "immigrants" very much like Hitler used the term "Jews." We should be looking at the idea that you lay the blame of the nations problems at the feet of any group and promise to solve it by putting people in camps and getting rid of them. Once they are in camps, just like in prisons, there are not a lot of people who are looking at how they are being treated and what happens to them. You imagine Asians to be assimilated, but my nephew's girlfriend who is Korean-American was telling us at New Year's Eve how she had to quit her music teaching job because her principal was a White Supremacist, and she could not bear the way he treated her. He wrote a thesis for his EdD where he talked about how White males are disadvantaged in todays school systems. Asian high school students whom I chaperoned on a trip have told me about the hostility they receive, being called monkeys and things like that by some of the "White" students. I don't think Asians feel as assimilated as you seem to feel they are. That is outside looking in. Financial success does not assimilated make, but one may have some of the trappings of this. So while many non-White people may have found success in the US, there is still the constant facing of discrimination. Another book I recommend, which I am reading now is Strongmen: How they Rise, How They Succeed, Why they Fall by Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat who has the Substack Lucid. I have the UK addition which has a different title than the US edition. https://profilebooks.com/work/strongmen/
She is including Trump in a book that has Mussolini and Hitler, but it was written during his first term as president. Let us hope, seeing where he is heading, that he does not have a second term, because it won't be good for anyone. I wish for people to recognize that.
In these days of appalling atrocities committed on Palestine by Israel, as enabled by the U. S., I'm afraid antisemitism has lost much of its legitimacy. Those with the compassion and conscience to criticize this obvious genocide are immediately smeared as antisemites.
I was actually thinking the same thing as I wrote it. I am horrified by the atrocities the Israeli leadership (not "the Jews" or even "Israel") are committing in Gaza, and have been committing for decades in both Gaza and the West Bank.
But to be clear: actual antisemitism is very real. Far too frequently, Jews are targeted for their religion or ethnicity or religion. So are Palestinians and other groups, of course, but the fact that this persists for centuries does make Jews special.
One of my constant gripes is that, even before Gaza, people like Netanyahu, and unfortunately many accomplices in the US and elsewhere, conflate legitimate criticism of Israel. That cheapens the very real issue of Antisemitism.
I believe that the answer isn't to discard the concept of antisemitism, but rather we, non-Jews and Jews alike, need to reclaim it and limit it to the serious matters it is.
As an aside, the term itself is also unfortunate, because the historic term Semites includes Palestinians as well as Jewish Israelis (and a few other groups).
I agree with you. I resent anyone who blindly accepts what the Israeli leadership is doing. And I particularly admire those Jews who oppose(d) Zionism, including Albert Einstein, some orthodox sects, and quite a few other people. The stranglehold that AIPAC and Israel have over the US government is astounding and must end. The genocide in Gaza, though, is just the most recent of the many evil gifts to the weapons manufacturers through our efforts to control and exploit the world. Death for dollars and dominance.
Zionism is a complex topic. At this point, Israel has been there for 70 years, and that can't, and shouldn't, be undone. Trying to undo it would mean yet more violence, this time against totally innocent Jewish people living in that area. So the feelings from Albert Einstein's era are really not relevant any more today.
Unfortunately, the actions of a few people in the top echelon of Israeli government (and in other countries, including the US) are fanning the hatred to the point where a peaceful solution seems less and less possible. You are right that all this predates the current Gaza situation. 9/11 was largely motivated by the lopsided US support for Israel.
The people I blame most for this whole mess are actually the British (again, leadership, not population) up to the 1950s or so, who disregarded the Palestinians and just handed over the land as if it was unpopulated.
In my former place of work, the person recently hired at the top was systematically getting rid of Black people who were outspoken (can we say NDAs), my Jewish friends escaped that systematic removal but there is a lot of pressure on LGBTQ+ colleagues and trumped up reasons to get rid of them as well. My closest friend is a Jewish Lesbian and she is faced with censorship and discrimination that she choses to accept to support her children through college. Once they are done, she is out of there. The Christian right wing is taking over.
IS the story out in much of the media? I have given up watching any news outlets and only follow a few sub stacks for info. I feel those of us following Jay and others may be in a little info bubble - many people I know are not seeing any of this. Then they go with the “joke” aspect when I bring anything up.
Seriously now (sorry) it isn’t easy to round up 11 million people. There will be lots of ‘mistakes’ when the roundups begin and no one will be safe. And there will be no one to go and appeal to to correct the mistake if you’re taken in.
Mistakes are already happening. I recall a case of a young US citizen accidentally getting deported to the Dominican Republic a few years ago. To make matters worse, he was disabled and couldn't articulate himself. Pretty horrific situation.
Given his recent obsession with a Russian MMA fighter and that he talked this idea over with someone he knows from the UFC, it wouldn’t surprise me. Of course, I’m sure they only told him about the book because we all know he doesn’t read anything but a teleprompter, let alone a book written by a non-white person no matter how highly respected that book is.
Interesting, can you elaborate? As an aside, Arnold Schwarzenegger also was an illegal immigrant. Which is not all that surprising. Historically, that was always considered a minor issue, and after a few years, it would be forgiven through a mechanism similar to a statute of limitations. That mechanism kept being renewed for most of the 20th century, but today is still stuck in the 1970s.
I was on this yesterday - can't remember my source, but I'll find it for you tomorrow. The really fun thing about it is it had to do with him AVOIDING MILITARY SERVICE IN GERMANY!
After reading up a bit more: there's a lot of misleading information here. For one, he wasn't even a citizen of Germany, but a citizen of Bavaria (which at the time was kinda in and kinda out with Germany, much as the UK and the EU were for a long time). He also legally immigrated to the US, and probably didn't even deliberately avoid military service.
The claim about "illegal immigration" took me by surprise because it didn't make sense. At the time, Europeans could immigrate to the US just by showing up at Ellis Island. If you weren't sick, you were in. Immigration back then was as easy (if you were white) as coming as a tourist is today (for Chinese, that's another story - the Chinese Exclusion Act was just passed). And sure enough, Frederick immigrated just like millions of others.
And he probably didn't even deliberately avoid military service in Bavaria, so that whole discussion turned out to be a red herring. All that happened was that he was very young when he immigrated (he was 16). That was, of course, quite typical back then. "Young man, go west" and all that. It's the age when you are looking what to do with your life.
Bavaria had a law that made *e*migration illegal for boys; and that law was indeed motivated by conscription. But that has of course no bearing on US immigration law. And, given that he was still several years from conscription age, likely also had no bearing on the motivation on Frederick Trump.
Bottom line: his son Fred and his grandson Donald turned out to be rotten apples, but I don't see any thing improper to judge the grandfather by. Worst thing I can say is that he made his fortune with brothels in the Yukon gold rush.
Why is that a fun thing? Conscription is evil, period. Avoiding it by moving to another country is an honorable thing to do. Canada recognized that when they allowed US men to come in during the Vietnam war.
I don't know the circumstances of why he did that.
And "the law is the law" - really? Would you tell that a young woman from Texas who is pondering a trip to Colorado for abortion? Would you tell that a young Russian man who doesn't want to support Putin's war (or even just, who doesn't want to die)? Would you tell that a young Israeli who doesn't want to support Gaza? A young man in the 1960s USA who doesn't want to aid and abet Vietnam?
And the grandfather is nothing like the grandson, at least in this respect. His grandson falsifying business records, yeah, that's telling the law to eff off.
The grandfather made a huge personal sacrifice, gave up what could have been a cushy life, and traded it for a rough and short life (he did age 49!) That shows this was not a general disrespect for the law, but an important cause for him.
Also be careful with "runs in the family". As best we can tell, most of the grandfather's children (and grandchildren etc.) turned out fine. The really bad stuff started with only one of his children, Fred. The other son, John, became a noted and respected engineer.
I'm so, so, weary of the "just a joke" defense. People don't joke about things about which they have no opinion. There's no such thing as "just" a joke. The whole point of humor is to convey a message in a very specific way, and the fact that the audience is meant to laugh does not negate the intended message. We need to stop allowing the question of whether or not something was meant as a joke from derailing our concern that the thing was said at all.
Agree. If he says it, he means it. The “it’s a joke” and “it’s just Trump being Trump, it doesn’t mean much” is a pitiful sorry excuse from his enablers, that unfortunately some in MSM have copied. For Trump, it’s all about messaging, marketing, and presentation; pushing the boundaries. Same with his mafioso boss speak. If he says it, no matter the format or presentation, he means it.
Also, I was told as child that there are certain things you don't joke about. Racisms was one of them. There are lines you just don't cross not even when joking. What ever happened to that?
This is a good point. I think, though, that only progressives have ever really respected that. People who don't have respect for other people love to fuck with people and then say things like "lighten up" or "you've got no sense of humor" when they get called on it. It's like they use jokes as some sort of duty-free zone where they are allowed to say whatever they want and nobody is allowed to hold them accountable.
You are absolutely right. Satire and sarcasm might be valid ways of making a point. But, while the person using them may not be liable for the literal meaning of their words, they definitely should be held accountable for the point they are trying to make.
It might have been a joke, but still a racist one, when it was between just Trump and White. When used in his speech it was yet another attempt at dehumanizing immigrants.
Donald Trump has never told a joke, has no humor, and will never realize that the people who laugh are laughing at him. Everything he says is truth, but he knows enough to say It was a joke, to wash over things that he has said. This is the most frightening thing about him to me: he has no sense of humor.
Actually, most Republican men view a woman's hooha as an appliance that exists only for their own convenience, so the acronym works in a sad and infuriatingly ironic way.
I'm glad that in my personal experience I've mostly dealt with men who do not think this way. This statement is too broad IMO. Maybe "many' men in general, not most?
In my experience as a former Republican of 35 years, the only Republicans left are MAGA Republicans. The old-school Republicans left when Trump was nominated in 2016 or before then when they say the handwriting on the wall, like I did.
Actually the MAGAts and even congress members in grand Trump party (GTP) aren’t smart enough to know the difference between hooha and HOOHA……except for Matt gaetz
But, you're right, they're not smart enough. I remember when the "Tea Party" was getting started During Obama's first term. I was watching the news and a bunch of middle aged, white men and women were at a rally yelling; "We're tea baggers!" I never laughed so hard in my life. To this day I call them that.
Also remember that the Tea Party is really the reincarnation of the Minutemen. Those disintegrated when some of their leadership got involved with some sordid crimes, including child molestation, murdering a 9-year-old girl, home invasion robbery and more. But much of the remainin Minutemen leadership just rebranded to Tea Party.
All that is true, but you didn't talk about this bit:
“did you see the other day, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they closed it”
There was absolutely no bridge to those comments. They were smack in the middle of the "machine to wash .... dishes" and his "beautiful hair." There's no clue about what "it" is, no antecedent. Yes, his comments about water and "drip, drip, drip" are dumb, but suddenly switching to whatever "opening it" was about is proof of his damaged brain.
I thought that maybe it was just me who couldn’t find the “through line” to his comments or that some of the context of the clip was missing. Stupid me! Why would I think *I* had a problem when Trump’s cognitive decline is so obvious?!
You're not stupid. We see and hear what we expect to hear. Often Dumpy has *some* through line that you can follow, no matter how inane. But this one is apropos of nothing. I listened to it on Jeff Tiedrich's "Everybody Is Entitled to My Opinion" earlier this morning, and then saw it written out. I think the bigger problem is that too often, when they can't follow what Dumpy's saying, they assume that they're the one missing something like you did, so it gets skipped over in transcripts and commentary.
To me...the most problematical line is his "machine to wash dishes"...classic Alzheimer loss of reference to certain words. His decline is getting steeper and, apparently, more and more slippery.
Maybe the dishwasher. But, pretty sure he doesn't know he owns a dishwasher or know where it is at Maloderous A Lego. Maybe someone once told him about a dishwasher....
President Biden might not have time but in response to questions about his age, I would like to see him talk about his highly competent cabinet members who are doing the job for the American people and compare them to the horrors in the former guy's incompetent, revolving cabinet members and those he plans to bring back - like Stephen Miller who took babies from their mothers and cruelly locked them in harsh cages.
The 'something somethings' include mass incarceration and de-staffing the federal government, so yeah, will be fun when [fill in the blank crisis] occurs.
Do we have stats on these far left Extreme Democrats? I'd like to recruit some. Because in my very Democratic State I'm thinking there are about 37 of them and they all meet at a Waffle house in Lowell MA for breakfast on every second Monday, and the youngest of them is 45, and they are all excited about that because she can stand and hold a political sign on a street corner on election day for 12 hours.
Tex Avery of Warner Bros cartoons fame claimed Of Mice and Men was the funniest book he ever read (or so I learned on the internet today [so it must be true]).
I don’t want to get expectations too high, because then a drugged Trump will make it through two complete sentences and the Peter Bakers of the world will carry him off the stage on their shoulders. But I do think it’s not going to be pretty. Onstage physical threats against the moderators are not out of the question.
I will say, as I have before, we SHOULD make more fun of Trump’s appearance. I’d never mock someone for what God gave them, or if they want to play with identity or gender, but Trump leaves the house looking like that and he thinks he’s a 20th-century American tough guy. That’s an inability to perceive objective reality that should be talked about much more frequently.
It's a thing with these dictator (or narcissist?) types. Look at Hitler with that weird little mustache. Or the guy in Argentina. There are others that I can't think of right now.
They all have their 'look' nailed. But the reason any of them got far was because the rest of the world gave them a pass on their early forays. Sound familiar?
That mustache was simply fashionable at the time. Apparently, it originated in the US. Charlie Chaplin wore a similar one.
We perceive this style negatively because of Hitler, not the other way round. So much so that when I shave, I make a point of always shaving that area first so I wouldn't even accidentally have hair there.
So, which racist hellscape is it? Will migrants be deported en masse or made to fight one another for sport? The "we support Trump, but we're not racist" crowd needs to take a long, hard, look at its values.
Separately, I'm glad the Biden-Harris HQ rapid response team is all over the vile and unhinged rhetoric Trump is spewing. They shouldn't give him an in inch of latitude, nor should we.
I doubt he was "joking" about the migrant fighter league. It's dystopian type of idea that would come put of him, and Stephen Miller. I have to wonder how many of that slim group in the Liacouras Center were paid, and if they were prevented from walking out. We've seen so many people walk out at his outdoor rallies when he goes into these rants. At the Liacouras Center they can block the doors
"...and that he does utter the occasional gaffe like someone who is 81 might be expected to." I just wanted to comment that I don't think you have to be 81, or "old," to utter gaffes. I think gaffes are equal opportunity utterances that anyone can make, myself included!
I agree. Why do so many people in this society think there's something wrong with older people? In many cultures they're considered wise and worthy of emulation. I've really had it with ageism.
Good Lord, can't anyone remember the goldmine of gaffes that was George HW Bush??? GHW would easily and often get lost in the middle of a run-on sentence with no verbs and have to hack his way out. As for his legendary gaffes (besides the priceless tape of GHW barfing into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa), you must consult the many columns of Ms. Molly Ivins who used to feature them once in a while.
Fox must be losing a lot of audience share when they televise his rantathons. They are losing to MSNBC in the ratings and they can see in real time that when Trump starts to wander off into his delusional fantasy world that the switchoff accelerates.
This is exactly what the CNN moderators should do but won't. CNN is promoting this debate as something normal, when it clearly isn't. One of the participants is an unhinged fascist.
I’m glad you brought up his Hunger Games-esque idea of an immigrant fight league, because while I saw articles about it in The Daily Beast and I think HuffPost, when I mentioned it in a comment in another Substack last night, a number of people didn’t know what I was referring to. I don’t care if he was joking; as you said, it’s not remotely funny given his racism in general and his attempts to demonize immigrants in particular. He ignores the fact that his draft-dodging grandfather was an immigrant.
He doesn't joke. He test markets messages. If he gets a big laugh, it stays in his stand-up act. Simple as that.
You're right. He, after the fact, says he was joking or kidding, but that's only if someone gives him a hard time. Everything he says is messaging, period.
That's a great way to describe it.
Sheila, nailed it
Has anyone pointed out to CFT that his grandfather, mother, two of his wives & present in-laws were/are immigrants?
Yes, but they were white, so in Trump world those immigrants are allowed.
In fact, as White people they are not really immigrants, because this country belongs to White people, is Trump's world view.
but they were "legal"....and not Hispanic!
He ignores the fact that his wife and his in-laws are immigrants. Should his father-in-law enter the ring to fight, or perhaps his wife should be in there with jello! According to Jeff Tiedrich, who also talked about this in his Substack today, Nazi's used to pit Jews against each other to fight to the death in the camps for their entertainment. https://substack.com/home/post/p-145941188?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I have been saying that "immigrants" in the right wing world is today's replacement for "Jews" in Nazi Germany. All of people's problems are being attributed to them and getting rid of them should make the problems go away. Trump is such a NAZI! Also, my mom used to say, "Behind every joke there is a hint of truth!" This is Trump telling us all what he wants to do, and as president, like a big tantruming child he plans to do what he wants to do just as Adolf Hitler did.
And his "joke" regarding people at his scorching rally, "I don't care about you, I just want your vote." Oh, so, funny.
He's ok with white immigrants from European countries though.
I see your point about immigrants being today's replacement for "Jews" in the 1930s, and there are certainly some parallels. But I'm not really happy about the analogy because it minimizes antisemitism as "just another form of xenophobia". Immigrants tend to be a short-term target of opportunity (who even remembers signs like "Irish need not apply"?) Or even the 1980s Vietnamese, who back then have been as vilified as todays southern border crossers)?
Jews have been targeted for centuries, and not just in one country. That puts Antisemitism in a very different category.
Of course, in this specific context, for a wannabe-dictator, either group will serve their purposes well.
Here I am using "Immigrant" as it has evolved as a code word for non-Whites. I have not meant to treat anti-Semitism lightly, but I place it together with racism since often the two go hand-in-hand. Non-Whites have been targets for centuries as well since Christian Europeans "discovered" Africa and America and Asia. If you read Prof. Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, she discusses that there was a convening of global White Supremacists in the Northwest United States at the end of the 1980s, after the Oklahoma City bombing, where she says that plans were made, which I see coming to fruition. The idea was to no longer fight against the government, but to infiltrate it. They would tone down their virulently racist language and use the term immigrant instead. In fact, they would become rabidly anti-immigrant as code for anti Black and Brown people. Since these people imagined themselves to be Christian, and anyone who was not just like them was bad, this would include anti-semitism. They also saw women's role as being that to provide sex gratification to men, make babies and keep the homefront in order. Women who want roles beyond that there is no use for.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674286078
The book they follow is The Turner Diaries, which is a plan to make this an entirely "White" Planet with a big, violent race war and wiping everyone else out. That includes White people who are not Christian (as they see Christianity), Hetero, and willing to get with their program. https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/turner-diaries
One of the outcomes of this thinking is these paramilitary organizations who will just as easily go after someone Black as someone Jewish. Unfortunately, she also reports that being a White Supremacist Nation, the courts have often protected these violent White Supremacists. European countries have had racism as long as they have ventured to Africa and elsewhere in the world. Many White Europeans are immigrants to the USA, that is not what anti-immigrant status is a code word against. It is people who do not have "White" skin. I think it is important to recognize that Trump is using the term "immigrants" very much like Hitler used the term "Jews." We should be looking at the idea that you lay the blame of the nations problems at the feet of any group and promise to solve it by putting people in camps and getting rid of them. Once they are in camps, just like in prisons, there are not a lot of people who are looking at how they are being treated and what happens to them. You imagine Asians to be assimilated, but my nephew's girlfriend who is Korean-American was telling us at New Year's Eve how she had to quit her music teaching job because her principal was a White Supremacist, and she could not bear the way he treated her. He wrote a thesis for his EdD where he talked about how White males are disadvantaged in todays school systems. Asian high school students whom I chaperoned on a trip have told me about the hostility they receive, being called monkeys and things like that by some of the "White" students. I don't think Asians feel as assimilated as you seem to feel they are. That is outside looking in. Financial success does not assimilated make, but one may have some of the trappings of this. So while many non-White people may have found success in the US, there is still the constant facing of discrimination. Another book I recommend, which I am reading now is Strongmen: How they Rise, How They Succeed, Why they Fall by Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat who has the Substack Lucid. I have the UK addition which has a different title than the US edition. https://profilebooks.com/work/strongmen/
She is including Trump in a book that has Mussolini and Hitler, but it was written during his first term as president. Let us hope, seeing where he is heading, that he does not have a second term, because it won't be good for anyone. I wish for people to recognize that.
In these days of appalling atrocities committed on Palestine by Israel, as enabled by the U. S., I'm afraid antisemitism has lost much of its legitimacy. Those with the compassion and conscience to criticize this obvious genocide are immediately smeared as antisemites.
I was actually thinking the same thing as I wrote it. I am horrified by the atrocities the Israeli leadership (not "the Jews" or even "Israel") are committing in Gaza, and have been committing for decades in both Gaza and the West Bank.
But to be clear: actual antisemitism is very real. Far too frequently, Jews are targeted for their religion or ethnicity or religion. So are Palestinians and other groups, of course, but the fact that this persists for centuries does make Jews special.
One of my constant gripes is that, even before Gaza, people like Netanyahu, and unfortunately many accomplices in the US and elsewhere, conflate legitimate criticism of Israel. That cheapens the very real issue of Antisemitism.
I believe that the answer isn't to discard the concept of antisemitism, but rather we, non-Jews and Jews alike, need to reclaim it and limit it to the serious matters it is.
As an aside, the term itself is also unfortunate, because the historic term Semites includes Palestinians as well as Jewish Israelis (and a few other groups).
I agree with you. I resent anyone who blindly accepts what the Israeli leadership is doing. And I particularly admire those Jews who oppose(d) Zionism, including Albert Einstein, some orthodox sects, and quite a few other people. The stranglehold that AIPAC and Israel have over the US government is astounding and must end. The genocide in Gaza, though, is just the most recent of the many evil gifts to the weapons manufacturers through our efforts to control and exploit the world. Death for dollars and dominance.
Zionism is a complex topic. At this point, Israel has been there for 70 years, and that can't, and shouldn't, be undone. Trying to undo it would mean yet more violence, this time against totally innocent Jewish people living in that area. So the feelings from Albert Einstein's era are really not relevant any more today.
Unfortunately, the actions of a few people in the top echelon of Israeli government (and in other countries, including the US) are fanning the hatred to the point where a peaceful solution seems less and less possible. You are right that all this predates the current Gaza situation. 9/11 was largely motivated by the lopsided US support for Israel.
The people I blame most for this whole mess are actually the British (again, leadership, not population) up to the 1950s or so, who disregarded the Palestinians and just handed over the land as if it was unpopulated.
In my former place of work, the person recently hired at the top was systematically getting rid of Black people who were outspoken (can we say NDAs), my Jewish friends escaped that systematic removal but there is a lot of pressure on LGBTQ+ colleagues and trumped up reasons to get rid of them as well. My closest friend is a Jewish Lesbian and she is faced with censorship and discrimination that she choses to accept to support her children through college. Once they are done, she is out of there. The Christian right wing is taking over.
IS the story out in much of the media? I have given up watching any news outlets and only follow a few sub stacks for info. I feel those of us following Jay and others may be in a little info bubble - many people I know are not seeing any of this. Then they go with the “joke” aspect when I bring anything up.
The NYT had a piece
MSNBC has been showing clips of it and others.
🤯😤🤬
Yeah, but his grandfather wasn’t brown.
His migrant "gladiators" notion is more akin to "Squid Games", and he's in negotiations now with Fox Sports and Amazon Prime for PPV rights.
Seriously now (sorry) it isn’t easy to round up 11 million people. There will be lots of ‘mistakes’ when the roundups begin and no one will be safe. And there will be no one to go and appeal to to correct the mistake if you’re taken in.
No back to funny Donald comments.
I hope Biden ends the debate like this:
Donald if you see Melania, give her my regards.
“Mistakes” … sort of like DeathSantis and his election police force. Accuracy is not the goal.
Mistakes are already happening. I recall a case of a young US citizen accidentally getting deported to the Dominican Republic a few years ago. To make matters worse, he was disabled and couldn't articulate himself. Pretty horrific situation.
I think Trump should get in the ring—with a lion. Let’s see how tough he is and what a great fighter he is.
And his own mother, as well. And Ivana and Melania and Melania's parents.
His mother was also an immigrant. But white and Anglo-Saxon.
I think someone told him about the book Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
Given his recent obsession with a Russian MMA fighter and that he talked this idea over with someone he knows from the UFC, it wouldn’t surprise me. Of course, I’m sure they only told him about the book because we all know he doesn’t read anything but a teleprompter, let alone a book written by a non-white person no matter how highly respected that book is.
Given that his wives claim he has had Hitler's writings by his bedside, I think that we are looking at Nazi sport all over again.
So was his mother.
Bread and Circuses without the bread.
His Grandpa was not JUST an immigrant - he was an ILLEGAL immigrant.
Interesting, can you elaborate? As an aside, Arnold Schwarzenegger also was an illegal immigrant. Which is not all that surprising. Historically, that was always considered a minor issue, and after a few years, it would be forgiven through a mechanism similar to a statute of limitations. That mechanism kept being renewed for most of the 20th century, but today is still stuck in the 1970s.
I was on this yesterday - can't remember my source, but I'll find it for you tomorrow. The really fun thing about it is it had to do with him AVOIDING MILITARY SERVICE IN GERMANY!
After reading up a bit more: there's a lot of misleading information here. For one, he wasn't even a citizen of Germany, but a citizen of Bavaria (which at the time was kinda in and kinda out with Germany, much as the UK and the EU were for a long time). He also legally immigrated to the US, and probably didn't even deliberately avoid military service.
The claim about "illegal immigration" took me by surprise because it didn't make sense. At the time, Europeans could immigrate to the US just by showing up at Ellis Island. If you weren't sick, you were in. Immigration back then was as easy (if you were white) as coming as a tourist is today (for Chinese, that's another story - the Chinese Exclusion Act was just passed). And sure enough, Frederick immigrated just like millions of others.
And he probably didn't even deliberately avoid military service in Bavaria, so that whole discussion turned out to be a red herring. All that happened was that he was very young when he immigrated (he was 16). That was, of course, quite typical back then. "Young man, go west" and all that. It's the age when you are looking what to do with your life.
Bavaria had a law that made *e*migration illegal for boys; and that law was indeed motivated by conscription. But that has of course no bearing on US immigration law. And, given that he was still several years from conscription age, likely also had no bearing on the motivation on Frederick Trump.
Bottom line: his son Fred and his grandson Donald turned out to be rotten apples, but I don't see any thing improper to judge the grandfather by. Worst thing I can say is that he made his fortune with brothels in the Yukon gold rush.
Why is that a fun thing? Conscription is evil, period. Avoiding it by moving to another country is an honorable thing to do. Canada recognized that when they allowed US men to come in during the Vietnam war.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Whatever - the law is the law - just pointing out how both avoiding military service and telling the law to eff off runs in the family.
I don't know the circumstances of why he did that.
And "the law is the law" - really? Would you tell that a young woman from Texas who is pondering a trip to Colorado for abortion? Would you tell that a young Russian man who doesn't want to support Putin's war (or even just, who doesn't want to die)? Would you tell that a young Israeli who doesn't want to support Gaza? A young man in the 1960s USA who doesn't want to aid and abet Vietnam?
And the grandfather is nothing like the grandson, at least in this respect. His grandson falsifying business records, yeah, that's telling the law to eff off.
The grandfather made a huge personal sacrifice, gave up what could have been a cushy life, and traded it for a rough and short life (he did age 49!) That shows this was not a general disrespect for the law, but an important cause for him.
Also be careful with "runs in the family". As best we can tell, most of the grandfather's children (and grandchildren etc.) turned out fine. The really bad stuff started with only one of his children, Fred. The other son, John, became a noted and respected engineer.
Not so sure about the ‘illegal’ part. However, he’s lied about family history.
https://www.history.com/news/donald-trump-father-mother-ancestry
I'm so, so, weary of the "just a joke" defense. People don't joke about things about which they have no opinion. There's no such thing as "just" a joke. The whole point of humor is to convey a message in a very specific way, and the fact that the audience is meant to laugh does not negate the intended message. We need to stop allowing the question of whether or not something was meant as a joke from derailing our concern that the thing was said at all.
Thank you! This is spot on.
Agree. If he says it, he means it. The “it’s a joke” and “it’s just Trump being Trump, it doesn’t mean much” is a pitiful sorry excuse from his enablers, that unfortunately some in MSM have copied. For Trump, it’s all about messaging, marketing, and presentation; pushing the boundaries. Same with his mafioso boss speak. If he says it, no matter the format or presentation, he means it.
Also, I was told as child that there are certain things you don't joke about. Racisms was one of them. There are lines you just don't cross not even when joking. What ever happened to that?
This is a good point. I think, though, that only progressives have ever really respected that. People who don't have respect for other people love to fuck with people and then say things like "lighten up" or "you've got no sense of humor" when they get called on it. It's like they use jokes as some sort of duty-free zone where they are allowed to say whatever they want and nobody is allowed to hold them accountable.
Called kidding on the square
You are absolutely right. Satire and sarcasm might be valid ways of making a point. But, while the person using them may not be liable for the literal meaning of their words, they definitely should be held accountable for the point they are trying to make.
It might have been a joke, but still a racist one, when it was between just Trump and White. When used in his speech it was yet another attempt at dehumanizing immigrants.
Exactly!
Donald Trump has never told a joke, has no humor, and will never realize that the people who laugh are laughing at him. Everything he says is truth, but he knows enough to say It was a joke, to wash over things that he has said. This is the most frightening thing about him to me: he has no sense of humor.
In my experience if someone is talking about their "HOOHA," they're not talking about their appliances.
Actually, most Republican men view a woman's hooha as an appliance that exists only for their own convenience, so the acronym works in a sad and infuriatingly ironic way.
I'm glad that in my personal experience I've mostly dealt with men who do not think this way. This statement is too broad IMO. Maybe "many' men in general, not most?
Um, she said most Rebublican men. Does this change your reply? In my experience, most Democratic men to not think this way.
No. Maybe most MAGA Republicans.
In my experience as a former Republican of 35 years, the only Republicans left are MAGA Republicans. The old-school Republicans left when Trump was nominated in 2016 or before then when they say the handwriting on the wall, like I did.
*saw the handwriting*
😹😹😹
Actually the MAGAts and even congress members in grand Trump party (GTP) aren’t smart enough to know the difference between hooha and HOOHA……except for Matt gaetz
Ewwwww... Matt Gaetz...🤮
But, you're right, they're not smart enough. I remember when the "Tea Party" was getting started During Obama's first term. I was watching the news and a bunch of middle aged, white men and women were at a rally yelling; "We're tea baggers!" I never laughed so hard in my life. To this day I call them that.
Also remember that the Tea Party is really the reincarnation of the Minutemen. Those disintegrated when some of their leadership got involved with some sordid crimes, including child molestation, murdering a 9-year-old girl, home invasion robbery and more. But much of the remainin Minutemen leadership just rebranded to Tea Party.
LOL! 👏👏👏👏👏
At the debates I would ask T what are three good things about Project 2025 and ask B what are three bad things about it.
Excellent!
Agree.
All that is true, but you didn't talk about this bit:
“did you see the other day, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they closed it”
There was absolutely no bridge to those comments. They were smack in the middle of the "machine to wash .... dishes" and his "beautiful hair." There's no clue about what "it" is, no antecedent. Yes, his comments about water and "drip, drip, drip" are dumb, but suddenly switching to whatever "opening it" was about is proof of his damaged brain.
I thought that maybe it was just me who couldn’t find the “through line” to his comments or that some of the context of the clip was missing. Stupid me! Why would I think *I* had a problem when Trump’s cognitive decline is so obvious?!
You're not stupid. We see and hear what we expect to hear. Often Dumpy has *some* through line that you can follow, no matter how inane. But this one is apropos of nothing. I listened to it on Jeff Tiedrich's "Everybody Is Entitled to My Opinion" earlier this morning, and then saw it written out. I think the bigger problem is that too often, when they can't follow what Dumpy's saying, they assume that they're the one missing something like you did, so it gets skipped over in transcripts and commentary.
Alla this sorta word salad worked for Robin Williams...except with funnier added.
Think we should start calling him Dumpty instead.
Right? Me too!
To me...the most problematical line is his "machine to wash dishes"...classic Alzheimer loss of reference to certain words. His decline is getting steeper and, apparently, more and more slippery.
Maybe the dishwasher. But, pretty sure he doesn't know he owns a dishwasher or know where it is at Maloderous A Lego. Maybe someone once told him about a dishwasher....
"HOOHA Act" should mean HAND OFF OUR HOOHAs!!!
When I saw that, I immediately thought, The GOP can keep its hands off MY hoo-ha!!!
Right?? LOL!
Same!
President Biden might not have time but in response to questions about his age, I would like to see him talk about his highly competent cabinet members who are doing the job for the American people and compare them to the horrors in the former guy's incompetent, revolving cabinet members and those he plans to bring back - like Stephen Miller who took babies from their mothers and cruelly locked them in harsh cages.
The other thing Biden shouldn't be afraid to discuss is a "WHAT IF" scenario. If one of us goes, who do you want minding the store? My people? Or his?
That won’t help. “They” want “his”. Because “far left extreme Democrats” something, something.
I don't worry about trying to recruit the maniacs. It's the edge voters I'm interested in.
The 'something somethings' include mass incarceration and de-staffing the federal government, so yeah, will be fun when [fill in the blank crisis] occurs.
Do we have stats on these far left Extreme Democrats? I'd like to recruit some. Because in my very Democratic State I'm thinking there are about 37 of them and they all meet at a Waffle house in Lowell MA for breakfast on every second Monday, and the youngest of them is 45, and they are all excited about that because she can stand and hold a political sign on a street corner on election day for 12 hours.
Now you're talking.
"I wanna tell you about electric boats and sharks..."
"Tell me about the rabbits, Lennie, I wanna hear about the rabbits!"
Steinbeck, right?
"Of Mice and Men".
I was embarrassed when I didn't understand the reference to "Arsenic and Old Lace" last week.
Tex Avery of Warner Bros cartoons fame claimed Of Mice and Men was the funniest book he ever read (or so I learned on the internet today [so it must be true]).
It was source material for more than one cartoon!
Exactly.
I don’t want to get expectations too high, because then a drugged Trump will make it through two complete sentences and the Peter Bakers of the world will carry him off the stage on their shoulders. But I do think it’s not going to be pretty. Onstage physical threats against the moderators are not out of the question.
I will say, as I have before, we SHOULD make more fun of Trump’s appearance. I’d never mock someone for what God gave them, or if they want to play with identity or gender, but Trump leaves the house looking like that and he thinks he’s a 20th-century American tough guy. That’s an inability to perceive objective reality that should be talked about much more frequently.
It's a thing with these dictator (or narcissist?) types. Look at Hitler with that weird little mustache. Or the guy in Argentina. There are others that I can't think of right now.
They all have their 'look' nailed. But the reason any of them got far was because the rest of the world gave them a pass on their early forays. Sound familiar?
That mustache was simply fashionable at the time. Apparently, it originated in the US. Charlie Chaplin wore a similar one.
We perceive this style negatively because of Hitler, not the other way round. So much so that when I shave, I make a point of always shaving that area first so I wouldn't even accidentally have hair there.
Kim Jong-Un comes to mind. And Putin is a little man with a terrible case of little-man syndrome.
So, which racist hellscape is it? Will migrants be deported en masse or made to fight one another for sport? The "we support Trump, but we're not racist" crowd needs to take a long, hard, look at its values.
Separately, I'm glad the Biden-Harris HQ rapid response team is all over the vile and unhinged rhetoric Trump is spewing. They shouldn't give him an in inch of latitude, nor should we.
Are these people and many journalists still saying they aren’t racist?
Bumfights are so last century. That's probly why QueensMan remembers them.
I doubt he was "joking" about the migrant fighter league. It's dystopian type of idea that would come put of him, and Stephen Miller. I have to wonder how many of that slim group in the Liacouras Center were paid, and if they were prevented from walking out. We've seen so many people walk out at his outdoor rallies when he goes into these rants. At the Liacouras Center they can block the doors
He was “joking” about it the way a jerk husband “jokes” about having a three-way with the single woman next door.
Haha, unless you're into that, I mean...
But that’s crazy … (sideways glance) right?
Seriously, that is not what we are talking about. There's another thread for that. "Find Your Sexy Neighbor.com"
"...and that he does utter the occasional gaffe like someone who is 81 might be expected to." I just wanted to comment that I don't think you have to be 81, or "old," to utter gaffes. I think gaffes are equal opportunity utterances that anyone can make, myself included!
I agree. Why do so many people in this society think there's something wrong with older people? In many cultures they're considered wise and worthy of emulation. I've really had it with ageism.
My opinion is they have opposite issues, Biden's mind works faster than his mouth, tffg's mouth works faster than his mind.
Trump has a mind?
Marbles Are Gone Argh, many people are saying 😎
Good Lord, can't anyone remember the goldmine of gaffes that was George HW Bush??? GHW would easily and often get lost in the middle of a run-on sentence with no verbs and have to hack his way out. As for his legendary gaffes (besides the priceless tape of GHW barfing into the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa), you must consult the many columns of Ms. Molly Ivins who used to feature them once in a while.
Loved her.
Fox must be losing a lot of audience share when they televise his rantathons. They are losing to MSNBC in the ratings and they can see in real time that when Trump starts to wander off into his delusional fantasy world that the switchoff accelerates.
This is exactly what the CNN moderators should do but won't. CNN is promoting this debate as something normal, when it clearly isn't. One of the participants is an unhinged fascist.
Bravo! Too ironic that Fox cut away at.
the “ climax” of Trumps ramblings.
I love it that even Fox News realizes he’s batshit crazy.
Illuminating maybe, humiliating, almost certainly.