78 years ago the events of a bombing mission over Copenhagen is eerily similar to the conflict in the Middle East.
I recently watched a Danish movie on Netflix, “The Bombardment.” (The film’s original Danish title is, Skyggen i mit øje or “The Shadow in My Eye.”) The film deals with, among other things, Operation Carthage, a bomber raid carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1945 in Copenhagen, Denmark during the last months of WWII.
Perhaps, not so coincidentally, I’m also reading a book called “Hamlet’s Children,” which deals with the runup to Nazi Germany’s occupation of Denmark in 1940 and the trials and tribulations of the citizens of a small Danish town during that occupation.
As I watched “The Bombardment,” I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between the events in Denmark in 1945 and the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza almost 80 years later. Of course, while the origins of the conflicts in these widely separated places are different, many of the actual events are eerily similar.
Similarity One –– The Fog of War
The film opens with a wonderfully happy scene of three young Danish women preparing for their roles as bridesmaids at a friend’s wedding. As the taxi taking them to the wedding drives down a rural road, a warplane appears above and behind them. The plane strafes the taxi killing all inside. We learn later, that attack was perpetrated by the RAF, the pilot believing that the taxi was a Nazi staff car.
As much as some (and I use the word “some,” thinking about Hamas and Putin, in a very direct and pointed way) belligerents in a war might try to target enemy troops while attempting to discriminate between hostiles and innocent civilians, the fog of war is very thick. Mistakes happen. And the results of those mistakes can be tragic. (More on that later)
Similarity Two –– The Effect of War’s Brutality on Children
The attack on the taxi is observed by a Danish teenager, Henry, riding his bike on the same road. As he gets closer to the car, he sees the mutilated bodies of the victims, their beautiful, white bridesmaids’ gowns stained with their own blood. Henry is so traumatized by what he sees that he loses his ability to speak. His parents send him to Copenhagen with the hope of improving his mental health.
In Copenhagen, Henry lives with his aunt and his younger female cousin, Rigmor, to recuperate. At about the same time, Rigmor’s best friend, Eva, while walking on the street with her mother witnesses the execution of a Danish resistance member, Svend, by two Gestapo agents. Although initially shocked and unable to comprehend what she saw, Eva recovers from the trauma. Seeing Eva’s recovery, Rigmor enlists her to help rehabilitate Henry, believing that even though Eva saw somebody die in front of her eyes, she could still speak, so Henry would be able to speak too, if he tried. In this case, Henry and Eva have different reactions to the horror they observed –– Henry’s extreme and long term, Eva’s shock only momentary.
Think about the Henry and Eva (while the events are real, these characters may not be) as you watch the news coming out of Gaza and Israel. Recognize that children on both sides are experiencing immeasurable trauma witnessing the death and destruction around them. Will the psychological effect on these children be short-term like Eva’s, longer term like Henry’s or, even worse, will it never leave them, virtually guaranteeing that their hatred of the other will result in never-ending conflict?
Similarity Three –– Where is God? And Antisemitism
With war and its brutality all-around, Sister Theresa, a young Catholic nun who teaches Henry, Rigmor and Eva at the Institut Jeanne d’Arc, a Roman Catholic school, is in search of God. Theresa questions God’s inaction at a time when the world needs “him” the most. When told by her mother superior that “God is everywhere,” Theresa replies, “But he can’t be with everything that’s happening. Does God really not care at all about us humans?” When the mother superior replies, “God loves us humans,” Theresa challenges her, saying, “Aren’t Jews human then?” Another, older nun overhearing the conversation retorts, “Maybe it’s because the Jews don’t believe Christ is the son of God.” To which Theresa responds, “So they’re punished with death? And the children being bombed in London and Berlin? And the ones who are taken to camps and killed? Aren’t they human? Not having an answer, the mother superior can only say, “We don’t know anything about that. But know that God is both in you and in those who suffer. He can’t ease their suffering but can offer them comfort.” Theresa, unsatisfied, turns and leaves, crying.
In a film whose focus is not about the treatment of Jews in Denmark but the fog of war and the collateral damage that fog can result in, that one line, “Maybe it’s because the Jews don’t believe Christ is the son of God,” stands out. In a film that is not about antisemitism, there is antisemitism. And in the current conflict, one that is all about antisemitism, we know that it’s not just in the Middle East, but has metastasized, energizing anti-Semites throughout the world and, perhaps most disturbingly at elite colleges in the U.S.
To the question where is God, one might add, “whose God” as both Muslims and Jews believe in this thing called God, but different Gods, I guess, and with different points of view. But make no mistake, whichever God it is, and wherever this thing called God holes up, why are they are sitting by idly as their acolytes destroy each other.
Similarity Four –– The Fog of War/Human Shields/Collateral Damage
I began this piece by mentioning Operation Carthage, a bomber raid carried out by the RAF in 1945. What was Operation Carthage?
On 21 March 1945, at the behest of the Danish Resistance Movement, the British RAF initiated a mission to bomb Gestapo’s headquarters in occupied Copenhagen. The Gestapo HQ was in a building called Shellhus (the Shell Building). The British and the Resistance, fully aware that the Gestapo kept resistance movement prisoners on the top floor of the building to act as human shields, decided that the prisoners would be “collateral damage,” sacrificing them for the greater good.
Little did they know what collateral damage Operation Carthage would cause.
The raid destroyed the Gestapo headquarters, severely disrupting Gestapo operations in Denmark, as well as allowing the escape of 18 prisoners. Fifty-five German soldiers, 47 Danish employees of the Gestapo and eight prisoners died in the headquarters building.
The raid was carried out at rooftop level and at that altitude, during the first attack, a RAF bomber hit a lamp post, damaging its wing and ultimately crashing into the Institut Jeanne d’Arc, about a mile from the target, setting it on fire. Several bombers in the second and third wave attacked the school, mistaking the burning school for their target. You remember the Institut Jeanne d’Arc – the school Henry, Rigmor and Eva attended and where Sister Theresa taught? In all, 86 children and 18 adults (10 nuns, 2 firemen, 4 civil teachers and 2 fathers who tried to save their children) died as a result of the raid. In addition, 67 children and 35 adults were wounded.
The fog of war that caused the collateral damage, the use of human shields in Copenhagen in 1945, the trauma inflicted on children, the bit of antisemitism in the film, as tragic it was, is nothing compared to what’s happened already and what will inevitably happen in the next weeks and months in Israel and Gaza.
When will we learn? When we will stop? When will this thing called God finally step in and say “enough?”
Unlike the signal from the Vatican, puffs of white smoke, the signal from Capitol Hill was black smoke, very dark black smoke.
Yesterday, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a backbench Republican who has been in Congress fewer than eight years, was elected as the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America. According to Axios, Johnson is the “least experienced representative to obtain the gavel in 140 years. It’s a stunning rise to power for Johnson, a low-ranking member of the GOP leadership team who was first elected in 2016. He has less experience serving in the House than any person elected speaker since John G. Carlisle in 1883. Since the Civil War, speakers have spent an average of 18 years in the chamber before ascending to the top of the ladder.”
Asked about Johnson’s rise, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), a former GOP presidential nominee who was not so long ago the leader of the Republican party, said, “Apparently experience isn’t necessary for the speaker job…. We’re down to folks who haven’t had leadership or chairmanship roles, which means their administration of the House will be a new experience for them.”
But Johnson’s lack of stature or experience is not really the problem.
As Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her Letters from an American newsletter today,
“[While] Democrats repeatedly offered to work with Republicans to elect a speaker who accepted the results of the 2020 presidential election and who agreed to bring to the floor for an up-or-down vote legislation that was widely popular in both parties. The Republicans rejected those offers. Instead, they have elected a pro-Trump extremist as speaker.”
Let me summarize Professor Richardson’s rationale for her characterization:
Johnson was instrumental in Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Johnson was routinely in touch with Trump, he rallied his colleagues to object to counting the electoral votes from states that Democratic candidate Joe Biden won.
As Trump’s legal challenges to the results failed, Johnson pushed a Texas lawsuit against the four states that had given Biden the win, calling for the invalidation of millions of his fellow Americans’ ballots, and echoed lies about Venezuelan interference with ballots.
Johnson has also embraced the far right’s culture wars.
He is a self-described evangelical Christian who is staunchly anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-union, and anti-immigration.
He has close ties to the Israeli right wing, and he opposes further aid to Ukraine, saying such money would be better spent at home.
But he has also called for extensive cuts to domestic spending programs.
Professor Richardson continued with comments on what the ascension of Johnson says about the Republican party:
“When a reporter asked Johnson about his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the colleagues surrounding him booed and told the reporter to ‘shut up.’* On the floor of the House, every single Republican voted for Johnson.
*The specific “colleague” who yelled “shut up,” was Virginia Foxx (R-NC), a self-styled “Proven Fighter for North Carolina’s Conservative Values” and “Card carrying member of the Anti-Civility Alliance of Particularly Rude and Unrefined Republicans (ACAPRUR).
Rep Virginia Foxx, far right, in the picture and in real life.
“And so, the House Republicans have caved to the MAGA extremists. Representative Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said that for the Republicans, the search for a speaker hadn’t been about looking for someone interested in ‘growing the middle class, helping our communities, keeping the cost of healthcare lower, and making life for everyday Americans better.’ Instead, Aguilar said, ‘this has been about one thing…who can appease Donald Trump. House Republicans have put their names behind someone who has been called the most important architect of the [2020] electoral college objections.’ A Republican yelled back: ‘Damn right!’
“The Republicans appear to be planning to go before the voters in 2024 with a presidential candidate who is deeply enmeshed in trials over allegedly criminal behavior, whose hastily appointed Supreme Court justices overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion, and who tried to steal the 2020 election. Alongside him, they have now elevated a fervently anti-abortion House speaker who backed the former president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Having said all this, I urge you to review the new speaker’s qualifications and positions outlined above and ponder one thing Dr. Richardson did not include in her newsletter:
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is now SECOND IN LINE TO THE PRESIDENCY!
What does the vote of up to 90% of the Republican conference say about the GOP? Read his resume and you decide.
*Please note, particularly for newer readers of Around the Block, “News with a Twist” means that while most of this post is true and factual, there are some elements that are meant to be satirical. I think you’ll be able to identify those elements.But please bear in mind, even the satirical elements are based in fact!
As of this writing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has lost his third vote to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. And, in a secret vote of House Republicans subsequent to the third floor vote, was officially rejected as their candidate to be speaker. It takes 217 votes to win the speakership. In the three votes, Jordan obtained 200 votes in round one, 199 votes in round 2 and 194 votes in round 3.
Incredibly, Democratic minority leader Hakim Jeffries tallied 212, 212 and 210 votes in the three rounds respectively, actually coming closer to becoming speaker than Jordan.
The question of the day is not why 20-25 Republican representatives did not cast their votes for Jordan – but why as many as 200 did?
Perhaps to help answer that question, in an exclusive, Around the Block has obtained the resume and accompanying cover letter Jim Jordan submitted to his Republican colleagues in his quest for the job.
Here’s Jim Jordan’s cover letter:
And here’s his resume:
Does Jordan’s resume and cover letter help explain to you why 90% of the GOP conference voted for him to be speaker? It does to me. It clearly reaffirms what I wrote about in my post of September 30 As the GOP “Clown Show” rolls on, are you as “shocked” as Captain Renault?: The GOP has reached such depths that the only way to characterize their behavior is by calling the party and their leaders a “clown show.”
I write a monthly column for my community’s magazine, The Breezes. Each month the editor asks contributors, both the writers and the photographers, to adhere to a theme.
While the themes can be frivolous or “corny,” I usually come up with a creative solution.
Then, came the November issue.
The theme for November, because the month focuses on being grateful and giving thanks, was “LIFE IS GOOD.”
Needless to say, “LIFE IS GOOD” presented a dilemma for me. As I told our editor, “Life is good? In this world? At this time? Boy, I’ll have to be super creative. I guess that’s what sets us apart — your glass is half full, mine is half empty! LOL.”
I struggled. And then, an epiphany. Could I get beyond the storm cloud hovering over my head and look for a silver lining. Wait, silver lining? Could optimistic songs in troubled times be the answer?
With that background, I thought I’d share an excerpt from the piece that will appear in the November Breezes. Particularly, at this time, I felt the story needs to be seen by a broader audience.
The Power of Music to Lift the Spirits
“Look for a Silver Lining,” by Jerome Kern and B. G. De Sylvia, was written in 1919 for the musical, “Zip, Goes a Million.” Here is a portion of the lyrics:
Think of the state of the world in 1919. The “war to end all wars” had just ended in November 1918. It was a war in which the total number of military and civilian casualties were roughly 40 million, with an estimated 15 to 22 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel. Incredibly, with U.S. participation limited to less than two years, American military deaths were over 116,000 with an additional 200,000 wounded!
To compound the horror of the period, as WWI was ending the great Influenza Epidemic, the misnamed “Spanish Flu” of 1918-1920, wreaked havoc on a weary world. Within two years nearly a third of the global population, or an estimated 500 million people, had been infected in four successive waves. Estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million and possibly as high as 100 million.
Could there have been a better –”worse” – time, for the song, “Wait for a Silver Lining,” than 1919?
But 1919 was a long time ago. More recently another, “Life is Good” song debuted during troubled times.
“What a Wonderful World” was written in 1967 and released as a Louis Armstrong single in 1968. Think back to that time as you look at some of the lyrics.
Do you remember 1967? The Vietnam War was escalating, anti-war riots were sweeping colleges, and inner-cities were burning. But 1968 could have been worse – both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated; the war and inner-city riots continued to escalate. Despite the chaos, Louis Armstrong saw trees of green and red roses; he could only think to himself–what a wonderful world!”
Was life good in 1918 and 1919? No! Or in 1967 and 1968? Certainly not. Is it good now? You decide. But because there were songs like “Look for a Silver Lining” and “What a Wonderful World,” people had something positive to cling to. Perhaps, in these fraught times, as we suffered through another pandemic and where political upheaval could threaten the world order, there’s an opportunity for another “Silver Lining/Wonderful World” song to, at the very least, turn my half-empty glass into one that’s half-full.
Since the attack and my October 5 story, I’ve been obsessed, wondering, is there any music, any song, any anthem that can salve the wounds of this affront to civilization? I could only come up with one:
Criticizes Netanyahu, calls Hezbollah“very smart.” Biden says, “We’re with Israel. Let’s make no mistake. “
Predictably, former President Donald Trump on Wednesday placed blame on President Joe Biden and his administration for Hamas’ deadly assault on Israel and insisted that such an attack would never have happened if he were still in the White House.
Astonishingly, it took Trump until Wednesday, five days after the initial terrorist attacks by Hamas, to make his ridiculous claims that have no basis in reality.
From the Miami Herald:
Speaking to supporters at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Trump’s remarks played out as more of a checklist of his own record in the Middle East and denunciation of Biden than an affirmation of solidarity with the United States’ closest ally in the region. He boasted about his administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — and at the low cost of just a few hundred thousand dollars — and repeated his baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud and malfeasance, arguing that if it hadn’t been “rigged,” Israel would never have been attacked.
“If the election wasn’t rigged, there would be nobody even thinking about going into Israel,” Trump said. “The election was rigged. Very sadly rigged. But we’ll swamp them the next time and it’ll be bigger than anybody has ever seen.” Under his leadership, “we had peace,” Trump said. “And I fought for Israel like no president in history, but then Crooked Joe Biden came along and tossed Israel to the blood-thirsty Jihadists.”
Trump also seized on the fighting in Israel to stoke concerns that the U.S. southern border is vulnerable to being infiltrated by terrorists and bragged that, during his tenure in the White House, he had imposed a travel ban to keep people from certain countries — mainly in the Middle East and north Africa — out of the U.S.
But wait, there’s more! The New York Post* reported:
*Yes surprise – I’m quoting The New York Post. I guess it’s because I’m old enough to remember the Post of the ’50’s, the liberal tabloid owned by Dorothy Schiff and edited by James Wechsler, with the best sports section of any NYC paper!
Donald Trump on Wednesday called Hezbollah “very smart” hours after the Lebanese-based terror group fired missiles at Israeli troops.
Trump blamed Israeli and U.S. government officials for Wednesday’s attack from the Iranian-backed terror group, which came days after Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip stormed the Israeli border, killing hundreds of civilians, including women, children and the elderly.
The former president accused the Biden administration and Israeli officials of publicly pointing out the vulnerabilities of the Jewish state, speculating that those comments incited a subsequent Hezbollah attack.
“Two nights ago, I read all of Biden’s security people, can you imagine, national defense people, and they said, ‘Gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack from the north, because that’s the most vulnerable spot,’ ” Trump told the crowd. “I said, ‘Wait a minute.’ You know, Hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart.”
And even more.
In a clip of an interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that was set to air Thursday, Trump criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Netanyahu hadn’t been prepared for Saturday’s incursion by Hamas.
“We have to protect Israel,” Trump said. “There’s no choice. And why do we have to do it? [Netanyahu] has been hurt very badly because of what’s happened here. He was not prepared. He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared.”
Compare Trump’s rant with President Joe Biden’s emotional and heartfelt statement on the terrorist attack on Israel. Some excerpts:
(Click below for the entire transcript of Biden’s remarks)
This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people. So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.
I just got off the phone with — the third call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I told him if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming. We also discussed how democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law.
My team has been in near constant communication with our Israeli partners and partners all across the region and the world from the moment this crisis began. We’re surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome. We’re going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.
For 75 years, Israel has stood as the ultimate guarantor of security of Jewish people around the world so that the atrocities of the past could never happen again. And let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel’s back. We will make sure the Jewish and democratic State of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow, as we always have. It’s as simple as that.
We’re with Israel. Let’s make no mistake.
The difference between President Biden’s approach to this crisis and Trump’s is breathtaking. It’s beyond belief. Trump’s remarks were so heinous they moved former Republican Congresswoman, Liz Cheney to post this:
Let’s make no mistake, Ms. Cheney’s question needs to repeated. It needs to asked to every person who is supporting Donald Trump – over and over again!
ARE REPUBLICANS REALLY GOING TO NOMINATE THIS DANGEROUS MAN TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?
A Horrific, Savage, Barbaric, Massacre– that’s what it is!
I haven’t commented on the horrific Hamas attack on Israel. While media reporting keeps referring to the situation with headlines like “War in Israel,” make no mistake, this is not a war. This is a terrorist attack, pure and simple. Hamas has savagely slaughtered many hundreds if not thousands, of innocent Israelis and American Jews – men, women, teenagers, children and infants, Holocaust survivors. That’s not war, that’s barbarianism, and it should be labeled and condemned as such…condemned by anyone no matter their political, ideological or religious affiliations.
Was Israel caught by surprise? Obviously. Are there reasons for their intelligence and military failures? Time and history will be the judge of that.
Is there any justification for this attack? Certainly not the one pro-Palestinian commentators are arguing: the attack is because of the intolerable conditions Israel imposed on Gaza and its citizens, those same citizens who after Israeli settlers were removed from Gaza in 2005-6, voted to have the Hamas terrorists lead their government.
Should we be surprised by the reactions in Arab neighborhoods around the world – the cheering, the dancing on the streets, the celebrations of the brutality? We should, but tragically, we’re not.
But no more from me right now. Perhaps in a few days, but not now. The best way to continue this post should not be with my words but with the words of Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of Anti-Defamation League and Bari Weiss, founder and editor of the Internet-based media company, The Free Press, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today.
You shouldn’t be…these clowns have been rehearshing since Trump came down that escalator in 2015.
Over the last week or so Republican party stalwarts “writ large”* have reached the such depths that the only way to characterize the behavior is by calling the party and their leaders a “clown show.”
*(So many pompous TV pundits are using the term “writ large” these days, I thought I’d try to match their pomposity and give it a shot.)
The fact that this GOP clown show has infected and permeated virtually the entire party, from the very top, to the presidential hopefuls, to both congressional leaders and backbenchers, to the voters that support these circus clowns, makes one wonder: Are you supporters watching? Are you listening? Are you reading? If yes to any of these questions, who are you and what are you thinking? If no, shame on you for not opening you eyes and your ears to anything but Fox and it’s ilk. (By the way, even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal editorial board is dumping on Trump…not that I believe most Trump supporters read the WSJ.)
So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, for your entertainment (dis)pleasure allow me to present:
THE GOP CLOWN SHOW
Act One – The Presumptive Nominee
This has been quite a week for the indicted, fraudulent, sex offending, grifter of an ex-president who, despite all the accusations and the evidence, still leads his closest rivals in the race for 2024 GOP nomination by over 40 percentage points.
Scene One: Trump’s retribution plan:Becoming America’s firstdictator (from Salon)
In her new book, “Enough,” former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson shares how during the Jan. 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol by his followers, Trump was heard chanting “hang” as Mike Pence was fleeing for his life. Cassidy’s account is but one more example of many showing how the disgraced and mentally unwell ex-president likely has what psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank suggests is an erotic relationship to violence.
Confirming Hutchinson’s warnings, in a Sunday post on his Truth Social disinformation platform, Trump again threatened to end freedom of the press and the First Amendment if he returns to power:
They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its “Country Threatening Treason.” Their endless coverage of the now fully debunked SCAM known as Russia, Russia, Russia, and much else, is one big Campaign Contribution to the Radical Left Democrat Party. I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!
At a rally in Iowa last Wednesday, Trump told his followers that he is going to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, which is a little-used law that gives the president unilateral power to deport and detain non-citizens who are older than 14 years old. The Alien Enemies Act was last used by President Roosevelt during World War 2 to put Japanese Americans in concentration camps.* Trump has also promised to reinstate a ban on travel to America from Muslim countries as well as his regime’s evil “family separation” policy – and presumably the concentration camp system that accompanied it. Trump is threatening to use the Alien Enemies Act against “drug dealers” and “suspected gang members”. Trump should not be believed: given his past behavior and announced plans to become a dictator he will likely use that law to target his personal and political enemies.
*In what many believe was one of the most disgraceful acts against citizens in American history.
Here is what Trump said in a Friday post on his Truth Social disinformation propaganda website about retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley:
Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week.
This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!” he continued. “This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!
Scene Two: White Supremacy Meets Trump’s Version of Political Science (from Salon)
In a largely incoherent interview with conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt, Trump reiterated the white supremacist conspiracy theory lie that the “Democrats” and “the left” are “importing” black and brown people from “Third World countries” in an attempt to replace “real Americans”, i.e. White “Christians”:
These are corrupt people. These are fascists. These are Marxists. These are communists*. These are sick people that are destroying our country. We have millions of people coming in. I’m in New York right now, and I just rode through the streets. I’ve never seen anything like it. New York, I’ve never seen it looking like this. And you have thousands and thousands of people in plain sight that come from foreign countries that most people never even heard of. It’s not just countries adjoining us. It’s foreign countries that many people have never even heard of. They’re coming from all over Africa. They’re coming from areas of the world that nobody can believe, and how far it is away for them to get there. These cartels are making a fortune, and they’re destroying our country, and we’re doing nothing about it. And we have a president that’s incompetent and corrupt.
*Is it possible that these Trump enemies are some Frankenstein monster mashup of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini? Can one person simultaneously be a fascist, a Marxist and a communist? Did I sleep through Poly Sci 101? Or don’t they teach that at The Wharton School?
Act Two: The Second GOP Debate
Scene One: ASorrySpectacle (from The Nation)
What better place to view the GOP Clown Show in action than the second debate. As The Nation reported:
After two hours of screaming, two hours of puerility, two hours of talking over each other and coming up with one canned line after the other, the seven GOP candidates on the debate stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., were asked a game-show question by co-moderator Dana Perino. Take a piece of paper, Perino instructed them, and write down which of the seven of you that you think should be voted off this island after the debate. The Fox News audience, primed to regard all of politics as an entertainment spectacle, and having been subjected to a two-hour food fight, whooped their approval.
The best way to sum up the show and the clowns? How about this subhead from The Nation’s coverage: When Ron DeSantis is trying to keepthings dignified, you know the show hasgone off the rails.
Act Three: The GOP Congressional Clown Show…er…Conference
Scene One: The Speaker
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen admonishing Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate, “I watched Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi was one the greatest Speakers in history, Kevin, you’re no Nancy Pelosi.”
Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker whose only goal in life was to become Speaker, required 15 votes to get his wish, finally achieving his goal after acquiescing to the demands of the right-wing MAGA extremists in his caucus. Since then, McCarthy has presided over a House that has no policy agenda, has opened an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden with no evidence, and, as you read this, just avoided a government shutdown by passing, with the Senate, a roughly 45-day continuing resolution with disaster relief funds, an extension of a federal flood insurance program and FAA reauthorization — but, critically, no Ukraine aid, He’s let the extremists take over the House. I guess he missed this poll:
Scene Two: The Impeachment Inquiry
Led by one of the dullest knives in the GOP drawer, James Comey of Kentucky, this inquiry is only about the current Republican mantra, revenge and retribution. Comer began the first hearing by stating that the panel had obtained a “mountain of evidence” showing (Biden’s) corruption. But, the three Republican witnesses who testified on Thursday all conceded they did not have firsthand knowledge of any criminal activity by Biden. Two of those witnesses, Jonathan Turley, a conservative law professor, and Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant, acknowledged that the information put forward so far by the committee did not amount to corruption. But the third witness’s testimony was possibly the most “clown-like:”
Former Assistant Attorney General Eileen O’Connor said with a straight face that she had omitted the word “Hunter” from a commentary she’d written titled “You’d Go to Prison for What Biden Did” to save time.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) didn’t let her get away with it.
Rep. Stephen Lynch: You had mentioned in your oral testimony that you had written a commentary entitled, “You’d Go to Prison for What Biden Did.” That was, “You’d Go to Prison for What *Hunter* Biden Did,” isn’t that right?
Eileen O’Connor: That’s exactly right. I was cutting down words to stay within my five minutes.
Lynch: Yeah, that’s an important word, though, that you left out though, right.
O’Connor: It is, I regretted it immediately.
Lynch: I’d like to enter into the record unanimous consent. The article, Miss O’Connor, is, “You’d Go to Prison for What Biden Did.” I think that’s an important word. Yeah, it is. Thanks.
O’Connor: I did not delete it intentionally, only in the service of time.
(Fade out with music)
Scene Three: The Crazy Backbencher (from The Daily Beast)
U.S. House censures Arizona’s Paul Gosar, boots him from committees
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) used his weekly email newsletter—hosted on a .gov domain that is funded by American taxpayers—on Sunday to launch a thinly veiled, homophobic attack on Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, shockingly suggesting Milley should be put to death.
The diatribe came in a section commenting on former Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund’s testimony to the House Committee on Administration last week, in which Sund discussed the Capitol riot. Sund called the events of Jan. 6 “an intelligence failure” and said he wished several agencies and individuals—from the Pentagon to then-President Donald Trump—had reacted more swiftly to provide back-up for local law enforcement.
But in Gosar’s recantation of the day’s events, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remained the villain of the riots, though it was Milley—“the homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist Chairman of the military joint chiefs”—who delayed the deployment of the National Guard, Gosar claimed.
“Of course, we now know that the deviant Milley was coordinating with Nancy Pelosi to hurt President Trump, and treasonously working behind Trump’s back,” Gosar wrote in a screed far-removed from the truth. “In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.”
Gosar also accused Milley of being a “traitor” who coordinated with the Chinese military and actively worked against Trump. The attacks echo what Trump himself seemed to wish upon Milley, writing in a Truth Social post on Friday that “in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
To both Trump’s and Gosar’s accusations of Milley’s traitorous actions, Milley made two calls to a Chinese general both before and after the 2020 election to defuse tensions between the two nations after China received intelligence that Trump would attack the country. He later told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the calls, which Trump has previously labeled treasonous, were an effort to “deconflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the world’s most deadliest weapons.”
By the way, Gosar is not only a wing-nut Congressman, he’s also a dentist. I guess listening to his rant is akin to going to him for a root canal!
Finale: It Can’t Happen Here
Scene One: Trump’s Plans for a SecondTerm Are So Bad That TheyAlmost Make the First OneLook Good (from Vanity Fair)
Career civil servants are out, die-hard loyalists are in
Shortly before the 2020 election, Trump signed an executiveorder known as Schedule F, allowing his administration togut employment protections for thousands of career federalemployees whose jobs—which range from making sure theair is clean to ensuring food and drugs are safe—are notsupposed to be subject to the whims of whomever is in theWhite House at the time. Stripped of such protections, themove would have given Trump the power to fire whoever hewanted, and replace them with individuals whose chief qualifications were unflagging loyalty.
No restraints on Trump’s impulses
In his first term,Trump initially surrounded himself with aides who sought totemper his impulses: White House Chief of Staff John F.Kelly, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis—even,occasionally, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. Those moderating influences are gone. If he winsthis time, he’ll bring a team of loyal aides who have beenplanning their return to power for months, and who intend tostart by purging bureaucrats who stand in their way.
Another war on immigrants
Trump has vowed to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American History.” He’s said he’ll expand his travel ban, which barred people from sevenmajority-Muslim countries from entering the US; send thousands of troops to the US-Mexico border; and sign an executive order “on Day One” to end birthright citizenship forthe children of undocumented immigrants.
Speaking of the economy:
In August, Trump announced that should he win a secondterm, he’ll “automatically” slap a 10 percent tariff on virtuallyall foreign goods coming into the country—an that ideaeconomists on both sides of the aisle criticized.
“You know we’re not supposed to do that”
“I will send in the National Guard until law and order isrestored. You know we’re not supposed to do that,” is a realthing Trump said at CPAC in March, while speaking aboutcrime in cities, adding, “Frankly, the federal governmentshould take over control and management of Washington,DC. I wouldn’t even call the mayor.”
Trump has said that he will pardon a “large portion” of thepeople convicted of federal crimes following theirparticipation in the January 6, 2021, attack on the USCapitol, and that many will receive an “apology.”
Trump claims he’ll cut federalfunding for schools that teach critical race theory or what hecalls “transgender insanity.” He’s also said he’ll bring backhis “1776 Commission,” which was notably devoid of anyactual professional historians, to promote a “patriotic”curriculum. And, naturally, he wants parents to be able to fire principals.
I could go on, but you get the drift.*
*For a complete copy of the VF story about Trump’s dystopian America, click below.
The circus world has traditionally been home to three types of clowns: the comedic “White Face” clown; the somewhat down and out “Hobo” or “Tramp” clown; and the “Auguste,” a mixture of Whiteface and Tramp. The GOP Clown Show is devoid or any of those, but instead has taken on the face of a clown type popularized in the late 20th century in film and on TV: the “Scary” Clown. The “Joker” from the “Batman” franchise comes to mind.
Anyone who concludes, after reading the story of Donald Trump, the former Commander in Chief and General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Trump should be reelected is casting a vote for the end of democracy and the world as we know it!
“What’s more important, and what this message brings to the forefront of American Jewish political discourse, is the question I’ve been asking for years: How can any Jew support Trump and the GOP monetarily and in the voting booth?”
“How can any American support Trump and the GOP monetarily and in the voting booth?”
As you can imagine, Goldberg’s story was not an epiphanous moment for me; I’ve constantly questioned how anyone of any religion, faith or creed, could support a man I characterized in my last story “…as a morally deviant individual currently facing 91 criminal indictments; a sexual predator and a rapist; [and a man who in] his history in business, learned at the feet of his antisemitic father, discriminated against both Jews and Blacks.
Yes, Goldberg’s story reinforced my fears of a second Trump presidency. But his revelations were so horrific that I truly believe allowing Trump back in the oval office will represent a clear and present danger to the country and the world.
Some excerpts:
Regarding the history of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
“For more than 200 years, the assumption in this country was that we would have a stable person as president,” one of Milley’s mentors, the retired three-star general James Dubik, told me. That this assumption did not hold true during the Trump administration presenting a “unique challenge” for Milley, Dubik said.
Twenty men have served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs since the position was created after World War II. Until Milley, none had been forced to confront the possibility that a president would try to foment or provoke a coup in order to illegally remain in office.
Regarding Trump’s far right advisors
[Milley has] been condemned by elements of the far right. Kash Patel, whom Trump installed in a senior Pentagon role in the final days of his administration, refers to Milley as “the Kraken of the swamp.” Trump himself has accused Milley of treason. Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump White House official, has said that Milley deserves to be placed in “shackles and leg irons.”
Regarding why Trump picked Milley
Some of those who served in Trump’s administration say[Trump] appointed Milley chairman because he was drawn to Milley’s warrior reputation, tank-like build, and four-star eyebrows. Senator Angus King of Maine: “He picked him as chief because he looks like what Trump thinks a general should look like.” But Trump misjudged him, King said. “He thought he would be loyal to him and not to the Constitution.”
Regarding the Lafayette Square incident
The week after (the Lafayette Square/George Floyd protests incident), in a commencement address to the National Defense University, [Milley] apologized to the armed forces and the country. “I should not have been there,” he said. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” His apology earned him the permanent enmity of Trump, who told him that apologies are a sign of weakness.
Milley realized too late that Trump, who continued across the street to pose for a now-infamous photo while standing in front of a vandalized church, was manipulating him into a visual endorsement of his martial approach to the demonstrations. Though Milley left the entourage before it reached the church, the damage was significant. “We’re getting the fuck out of here,” Milley said to his security chief. “I’m fucking done with this shit.” [former Secretary of Defense] Esper would later say that he and Milley had been duped.
According to Esper, Trump desperately wanted a violent response to the protesters, asking, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” When I raised this with Milley, he explained, somewhat obliquely, how he would manage the president’s eruptions.
“It was a rhetorical question,” Milley explained. “ ‘Can’t you just shoot them in the legs?’ ”
The chasm dividing Milley and Trump on matters of personal honor became obvious after Lafayette Square. In a statement, referring to Milley’s apology, Trump said of the chairman, “I saw at that moment he had no courage or skill.”
Regarding the nuclear arsenal and Kim Jong Un
At the top of the list of worries for these officials was the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. Early in Trump’s term, when Milley was serving as chief of staff of the Army, Trump entered a cycle of rhetorical warfare with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. At certain points, Trump raised the possibility of attacking North Korea with nuclear weapons, according to the New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt’s book, Donald Trump v. The United States. Kelly, Dunford, and others tried to convince Trump that his rhetoric—publicly mocking Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” for instance—could trigger nuclear war. “If you keep pushing this clown, he could do something with nuclear weapons,” Kelly told him, explaining that Kim, though a dictator, could be pressured by his own military elites to attack American interests in response to Trump’s provocations. When that argument failed to work, Kelly spelled out for the president that a nuclear exchange could cost the lives of millions of Koreans and Japanese, as well as those of Americans throughout the Pacific. Guam, Kelly told him, falls within range of North Korean missiles. “
Guam isn’t America,” Trump responded.
I described to Milley a specific worry I’d had, illustrated most vividly by one of the more irrational public statements Trump made as president. On January 2, 2018, Trump tweeted: “North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
During conversations with Milley and others about the nuclear challenge, a story from the 1970s came frequently to my mind. The story concerns an Air Force officer named Harold Hering, who was dismissed from service for asking a question about a crucial flaw in America’s nuclear command-and- control system—a flaw that had no technical solution. Hering was a Vietnam veteran who, in 1973, was training to become a Minuteman crew member. One day in class, he asked, “How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?” The Air Force concluded that launch officers did not need to know the answer to this question, and they discharged him. Hering appealed his discharge, and responded to the Air Force’s assertion as follows: “I have to say I feel I do have a need to know, because I am a human being.”The U.S. military possesses procedures and manuals for every possible challenge. Except Hering’s.
Regarding January 6
Shortly after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, [Nancy] Pelosi, who was then the speaker of the House, called Milley to ask if the nation’s nuclear weapons were secure. “He’s crazy,” she said of Trump. “You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time. So don’t say you don’t know what his state of mind is.” According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, who recounted this conversation in their book, Peril, Milley replied, “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.” He then said, according to the authors, “I want you to know this in your heart of hearts, I can guarantee you 110 percent that the military, use of military power, whether it’s nuclear or a strike in a foreign country of any kind, we’re not going to do anything illegal or crazy.”
Regarding Trump’s view of the military and it’s heroes and villians
At his welcome ceremony as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Milley gained an early, and disturbing, insight into Trump’s attitude toward soldiers. Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing “God Bless America.” Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. To Milley, and to four-star generals across the Army, Avila and his wife, Claudia, represented the heroism, sacrifice, and dignity of wounded soldiers. It had rained that day, and the ground was soft; at one point Avila’s wheelchair threatened to topple over. Milley’s wife, Hollyanne, ran to help Avila, as did Vice President Mike Pence. After Avila’s performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.” Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley.
Soon after becoming chairman, Milley found himself in a disconcerting situation: trying, and failing, to teach President Trump the difference between appropriate battlefield aggressiveness on the one hand, and war crimes on the other. In November 2019, Trump decided to intervene in three different cases that had been working their way through the military justice system. In the most infamous case, the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher had been found guilty of posing with the corpse of an Islamic State prisoner. Though Gallagher was found not guilty of murder, witnesses testified that he’d stabbed the prisoner in the neck with a hunting knife. (Gallagher’s nickname was “Blade.”) In an extraordinary move, Trump reversed the Navy’s decision to demote him in rank. Trump also pardoned a junior Army officer, Clint Lorance, convicted of second-degree murder for ordering soldiers to shoot three unarmed Afghans, two of whom died. In the third case, a Green Beret named Mathew Golsteyn was accused of killing an unarmed Afghan he suspected was a bomb maker for the Taliban and then covering up the killing. At a rally in Florida that month, Trump boasted, “I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state.”
Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didn’t understand why he was being punished.
“Because he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner,” Milley said. “The guy was going to die anyway,” Trump said.
Milley answered, “Mr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We can’t do that kind of thing. It’s a war crime.” Trump answered that he didn’t understand “the big deal.” He went on, “You guys”— meaning combat soldiers—“are all just killers. What’s the difference?”
Regarding Trump’s possible return to the oval office
If Trump is reelected president, there will be no Espers or Milleys in his administration. Nor will there be any officials of the stature and independence of John Kelly, H. R. McMaster, or James Mattis. Trump and his allies have already threatened officials they see as disloyal with imprisonment, and there is little reason to imagine that he would not attempt to carry out his threats.
Milley has told friends that he expects that if Trump returns to the White House, the newly elected president will come after him. “He’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list,” he has said. But he’s also told friends that he does not believe the country will reelect Trump.
“HE DOES NOT BELIEVE THE COUNTRY WILL REELECT TRUMP!
Let’s hope General Milley is right. But the only why he can be right is, after reading this, erstwhile Trump supporters think hard about this question:
“How can any American support Trump and the GOP monetarily and in the voting booth?”
“Wake Up Sheep(!!!)*. What Natzi(sic)**/Anti Semite(sic) ***ever did this for the Jewish people or Israel?
*(!!!) mine; **Natzi is Nazi, I guess; ***No, not Anti Semite. The accepted spellings are, Antisemite or Anti-semite
The 10 days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are commonly known as the Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim) or the Days of Repentance. This is a time for serious introspection, a time to consider the mistakes of the previous year and repent before Yom Kippur. It is the holiest period of the Jewish year.
The website Judaism 101 explains the Days of Awe this way:
“One of the ongoing themes of the Days of Awe is the concept that G-d has “books” that he writes our names in, writing down who will live and who will die, who will have a good life and who will have a bad life, for the next year. These books are written in on Rosh Hashanah, but our actions during the Days of Awe can alter G-d’s decree. The actions that change the decree are “teshuvah, tefilah and tzedakah,” repentance, prayer, good deeds (usually, charity). These “books” are sealed on Yom Kippur. This concept of writing in books is the source of the common greeting during this time is “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.” Among the customs of this time, it is common to seek reconciliation with people you may have wronged during the course of the year. The Talmud maintains that Yom Kippur atones only for shortcomings between man and G‑d. To atone for wrongs against another person, you must first seek reconciliation with that person, righting the wrongs you committed against them if possible.”
This year, the Days of Awe took an unexpected turn, courtesy of Donald Trump. As reported by Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic:
“Like most politicians, former President Donald Trump marked the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, by passing along holiday greetings to American Jews. Unlike most politicians, Trump used the opportunity to threaten them.
“On Sunday evening, just as Rosh Hashanah was coming to a close, Trump posted a meme on his social-media platform, Truth Social, excoriating ‘liberal Jews’ who had ‘voted to destroy America. (Note: Majorities of American Jews have voted for Democrats since before World War II.) ‘Let’s hope you learned from your mistake,’ the caption continued, ‘and make better choices going forward!’”
Rosenberg continued:
“Trump’s Rosh Hashanah broadside was far from the first time that he had shared objectionable sentiments about Jewish people. But it was particularly ugly in the way it deliberately singled out a specific constituency during that constituency’s holiest season.”
The outrage over Trump’s statement was quick and pointed, as this response from the organization “Jewish Dems” articulates:
“Jewish Dems strongly condemn the antisemitic threat Donald Trump issued on Rosh Hashanah, claiming liberal Jews voted to ‘destroy America & Israel’ and ominously warning the vast majority of American Jews ‘let’s hope you learned from your mistake.’ At a time of rising antisemitism in the United States, this hatred and bigotry must not be normalized, including by the party Trump leads.
“On one of the holiest days for the Jewish people, Donald Trump – once again – denigrated and threatened American Jews. His actions must be condemned, including by Republican Party leaders, all 2024 GOP presidential candidates, and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which will feature Trump at its upcoming convention. It is long past time for Republicans to denounce Trump’s antisemitic rhetoric, tropes, and repeated threats against Jews. If they cannot, the only conclusions we can draw are that they agree with him and think they will not pay a price for refusing to confront blatant antisemitism from within their own party.
“Trump has repeatedly and specifically targeted Jewish Democrats and liberal Jews – who make up the vast majority of Jewish voters – with his repeated claims of ‘disloyalty.’ Trump’s antisemitic rhetoric endangers the safety of all Jewish Americans and his antisemitism speaks for itself, as does the silence of the Republican Party.”
As of this writing, I could not find any, not one, response to Trump’s heinous message by an elected GOP official. But frankly, that’s not surprising given the party’s current makeup.
What’s more important, and what this message brings to the forefront of American Jewish political discourse, is the question I’ve been asking for years:
How can any Jew support Trump and the GOP monetarily and in the voting booth?
Is the support purely financial, evidenced by anticipated tax cuts? Is it the promise of cutbacks in the social security safety net, redistributing money away from the needy and back into the pockets of those not in need? If the latter, please refer back to one of the three actions Jews should adhere to during the Days of Awe, tzedakah (good deeds/charity – and I don’t mean “charity” only for the tax deductions).
Is it unencumbered support of the government of Israel no matter that government’s actions? Given the current governmental crises in Israel, how’s that working out?
Or is it, in your conservatism, a bit of lingering racism learned from your parents and grandparents exemplified, at least in my experience, from the weekend dinners at my paternal grandparents house in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, “So, who’s going to be the first neighbor to sell to a “S*******e.”
*(For obvious reasons I didn’t spell out the Yiddish epithet for a Black person)
Let me be clear. Donald Trump is a morally deviant individual currently facing 91 criminal indictments. (Unfortunately, if he’s ever brought to trial, it will probably end up in a hung jury – there’s no way, in my mind at least, that despite all the evidence, a jury can be seated without one “Trumper” voting for acquittal) He is a sexual predator and a rapist. Despite the conversion of his daughter to Judaism, his history in business, learned at the feet of his antisemitic father, discriminated against both Jews and Blacks.
As David Remnick of The New Yorker wrote last year:
“‘People in this country that are Jewish no longer love Israel,’ Trump told Barak Ravid, a veteran Israeli journalist, at Mar-a-Lago last April. ‘I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country. It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress and today I think it’s the exact opposite, and I think Obama and Biden did that. And yet, in the election, they still get a lot of votes from Jewish people, which tells you that the Jewish people—and I’ve said this for a long time—the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel. . . . When you look at the New York Times, the New York Times hates Israel, hates them, and they’re Jewish people that run the New York Times—I mean the Sulzberger family.’
“Trump’s gestures of contempt for Latinos and Black Americans are so numerous that they have tended to eclipse his other prejudices. But he has not failed to shower his occasional attentions on Jews. In the 2016 campaign, Trump ran an ad attacking a ‘global power structure’ showing images of three Jews: the financier George Soros, the then chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen, and the investment banker Lloyd Blankfein. One of Trump’s tweets aimed at Hillary Clinton (‘Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!’) deployed images of the six-pointed Star of David and stacks of currency. Trump rebuffed the criticism; his social-media director said the star was that of a “’sheriff’s badge.’”
גענוג איז גענוג (Enough is enough)! I think I’ve made my point.
Jewish supporters of both Trump and the GOP elected officials who champion him, I hope you take what I’ve written to heart. During these Days of Awe, as you reflect on the past year, as you look ahead to the coming year – an election year – as you act on teshuvah, tefilah and tzedakah, think hard about this man you’ve supported. And as you’re thinking, reflect on what he really thinks of you.
Ignatius began his column reminding readers that in 2019, when Biden launched his campaign, he was the right man at the right time:
“Joe Biden launched his candidacy for president in 2019 with the words ‘we are in the battle for the soul of this nation.’ He was right. And though it wasn’t obvious at first to many Democrats, he was the best person to wage that fight. He was a genial but also shrewd campaigner for the restoration of what legislators call ‘regular order.’”
He went on to summarize some of Biden’s notable accomplishments:
“Since then, Biden has had a remarkable string of wins. He defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election; he led a Democratic rebuff of Trump’s acolytes in the 2022 midterms; his Justice Department has systematically prosecuted the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that Trump championed and, now, through special counsel Jack Smith, the department is bringing Trump himself to justice.
“What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech. With an unexpectedly steady hand, he passed some of the most important domestic legislation in recent decades. In foreign policy, he managed the delicate balance of helping Ukraine fight Russia without getting America itself into a war. In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.”
But despite the wins, despite the admiration, Ignatius followed up with this:
“But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”
“Biden would carry two big liabilities into a 2024 campaign. He would be 82 when he began a second term. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, 77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years. Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.
“Because of their concerns about Biden’s age, voters would sensibly focus on his presumptive running mate, Harris. She is less popular than Biden, with a 39.5 percent approval rating, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight. Harris has many laudable qualities, but the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.”
Unfortunately, despite his good intentions, Ignatius ended his column basically undermining his argument that Biden should not run again with a dose of reality:
“Time is running out. In a month or so, this decision will be cast in stone. It will be too late for other Democrats, including Harris, to test themselves in primaries and see whether they have the stuff of presidential leadership. Right now, there’s no clear alternative to Biden — no screamingly obvious replacement waiting in the wings. That might be the decider for Biden, that there’s seemingly nobody else. But maybe he will trust in democracy to discover new leadership, “’in the arena.’”
Sorry David, time isn’t “running out;” time has run out! In a presidential election cycle that seems to begin earlier and earlier, and with no immediately recognizable Democratic hopeful who will be able to mount a winnable challenge to Trump, the train has left the station. In an otherwise laudable column, Ignatius left out the obvious: an alternative! Frankly, all the best “usual suspects,” including governors like Whitmer (Michigan), Pritzker (Illinois), Polis (Colorado), Newsom (California) and others either have serious baggage (Newsom) or don’t have the name recognition and/or the apparatus (fund raising and staffing) to begin mounting a campaign this late in the game. Remember, the GOP had their first debate last month!
But here’s the thing that gnaws at me while we Democrats are wringing our hands. Not many people remember what was going on and what was said in December 2019 as the Democratic field was beginning to shape up. But I do.
In December 2019, multiple media outlets ran stories about Joe Biden’s intentions if he won in 2020. This quote from Eric Lutz of Vanity Fair sums it up:
“Sources familiar with his (Biden’s) thinking told Politico he may seek to allay such concerns (his age) by indicating he’d only serve one term, allowing a new generation of Democratic leaders to rise once he’s attended to the business of ousting Trump. By positioning himself, explicitly or implicitly, as a temporary caretaker of the White House who can clean up the mess the last guy made and get out, he may be able to win over some who are unexcited or uncertain about a Biden presidency. ‘This makes Biden a good transition figure,’ one prominent Biden adviser told the outlet. ‘I’d love to have an election this year for the next generation of leaders, but if I have to wait four years [in order to] get rid of Trump, I’m willing to do it.’”
One of the key reasons I supported Biden’s candidacy for the nomination then was what was in those stories; that he’d win, fix the mess Trump created and then turn things over to a new generation of Democrats. But that doesn’t appear to be happening. Biden won but apparently forgot what he and his advisors were saying. And, unfortunately, he probably picked the wrong person as VP…the natural successor to a one-term presidency. Recognizing all that, it’s simply too late to change course.
What to do then? Hit Trump as hard as we can by comparing the criticisms of Biden and compare those criticisms to Trump, point by point:
Age: Trump is only three years younger than Biden. No one talks about that.
Physical fitness for the job: Trump is obese, with horrible eating habits and no exercise regimen. (Sorry, golfers). Based on his last physical Biden’s doctor reported, “The president remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
Mental acuity: While Biden looks a little lost at times, ocasional loss of his train of thought does not seem to have hampered his effectiveness on the job. Trump is generally incoherent in his speeches and social media posts sounding, more often than not, to be demented and deranged.
Character: Yes, Biden probably should have reined Hunter in on some things, but he’s basically a good man. Trump, on the other hand is a serial liar who has been indicted on 91 felony counts, is a known sexual predator and rapist and will seek revenge and retribution on all his alleged enemies while simultaneously destroying democracy and the world order in the meantime.
Dems – let’s stop lallygagging and get tough! This is an election that cannot be lost.
Around the Block 