September 23, 2024

I Did Not Want to Say "I Told You So"

Confessions of a self-hating Jewish "Cassandra"

“Ideological thinking ruins all relationship with reality." Hannah Arendt

One of my most favorite movies is The Contender starting Joan Allen, Gary Oldman and Jeff Bridges. The movie was largely a response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but beyond being a clearly feminist statement the movie was one of the first mainstream productions to explicitly expose the hypocrisy on the Right1. One of the defining scenes in the movie has Allen’s Senator Hanson speaking to an incredibly naive Rep. Webster played by Christian Slater where she asks him whether he knows who Isaac Lamm was: “He was the first one to come before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was also the first one to name names, first to cooperate with the government. The dominoes fell from there. Careers crushed, families destroyed. Just imagine, Mr. Webster, if Mr. Lamm had just said, "Fuck you," to the committee.” Although I am a student of history and have a degree in history, I am not very familiar with this particular chapter of the American history. I could not find anything on Isaac Lamb, but I assume that it is supposed to refer to Whittaker Chambers. The actual historical figure is not as important as the premise itself. Someone had to be first.

The very same is true in reverse. Someone has to be first to identify and openly call out the rise and eventual take over by fascism and nazism. For nearly a decade I had friends, acquitenances, strangers on the internet constantly telling me that I am overacting, that I am too online and obsessed, that it’s not all that bad. I remember a very close friend for over two decades visiting us in the Fall of 2016 and passionately arguing that even if Donald Trump is elected, nothing will happen, nothing will change.

The earliest warning that I’ve issued that I could find is from over 7 years ago. In case you may have forgotten, this was right around the Unite the Right rally at Charlottesville, Virginia when President Donald Trump famously stated that “there are fine people on both sides.”

Even if we did not know anything else about Trump and he has not committed multiple felonies before and after that summer, it should have been the end of his political and really any career. There are and there cannot be “fine” people on THAT side.

Over the years I have mellowed out and from a fervent maximalist I’ve become a more reasonable person who is willing and capable of comprise on many a thing, except one. There is and never can be any compromise with fascism and nazism. Millions2 of people have sacrificed their lives in the two wars over this and we should have defeated the evil, yet here we are today, faced with the very same threat.

Last Thursday, in back-to-back speeches Donald Trump said that he would hold Jewish voters responsible if he loses the Nov. 5 election, suggesting that they owe him their support because of his position on Israel and questioning the sanity of Jewish Democrats.

The first of those two speeches was at Fight Antisemitism event, apparently Trump3 thought “antisemitism event” meant “event at which I propagate antisemitism.” Trump setting up a narrative that the Jews stabbed him in the back as the far-right marbles through with Holocaust denial and Nazi apologia seems really bad. Trump: If I don’t win this election.. the Jewish people would have a lot to do with that if that happens. For those who haven't read 'Mein Kampf for Dummies' let me translate "There were very fine people on both sides of the Nuremburg Trials".

I’ve written a lot about the rise of fascism over the past year. However, what transpired over the last week4 or so leaves me no choice but to write about this again. Around the same time as Trump was at his antisemitic best on Thursday, my spouse mentioned to me my oldest and one of my closest friends going back to high school has unfriended and blocked her on Facebook. She wondered aloud what could have been the reason, considering that his spouse did not follow his suite. We could not be sure but more than likely that decision was due to my spouse regularly sharing my essays, including the ones that speak on the topic of fascism and antisemitism and Palestinian genocide. Being a conservative Jewish immigrant from the former Soviet Union, I am sure my former friend objected to one or more of my perspectives on these issues. Being curious, I looked and unsurprisingly he also unfollowed and blocked me. He choose to discard nearly three decades of friendship and shared history over my moral position as an anti-fascist.

For decades I discarded antisemitism as an unimportant issue, mostly because I was never really considering myself as Jewish and for the most part the antisemitism primarily existed on the fringes. I have always been critical of Zionism but would often restrain the temptation to speak out. Last eight years or so made it more challenging to resist that temptation since fascism must always be opposed there should be no argument over this statement).

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Even though I haven’t considered myself Jewish, I owe it to my ancestors who fled the pogroms, perished in the Holocaust, fought and beat the Nazis. I owe it to my son and all of the children in the world to ensure that they will not have to grow up in the world of fear, fear of their friends and neighbors. As Daniel Miller writes:

And it's what I owe my children. I don't want them growing up in a world where they have to live in fear from their neighbors. Where they are viewed as un-American. Where they can't put up a mezuzah on their home. Or where they feel a need to get a second passport. That's why when I see people not forcefully condemning antisemitism and antisemites for one reason or another, when I see people not being honest about antisemitism for one reason or another, or when I see people play games with antisemitism for one reason or another, I become livid. The American Jewish community is in danger of falling back into history. This country is in danger of becoming the places that our ancestors fled. At this time of great danger to American Jews, we need strength, courage, and honesty from our community. We need to be willing to speak out and speak up no matter the consequences. We need to be the versions of ourselves that our ancestors would be proud of. In this election, what that means is acknowledging that Donald Trump is an antisemite. No matter how much he purports to support Israel, that doesn't give him a pass to fuel antisemitism and blame Jews who disagree with him. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or Independent, we must stop with the word games and just call him what he is. We've seen enough. The Hitler references, the Nazi rhetoric, the anti-semitic tropes and language, the meals with hardcore Jew haters, the refusal to unambiguously condemn white supremacists and in fact, lifting them up... Enough is enough. He is an antisemite.

Let’s leave Zionism and anti-semitism and Palestine and support of Israel for another essay5 so that today we can focus on how despicable it is for anyone who is Jewish, an immigrant or simply non-white and non-christian to be pro-Trump.

Yesterday, I saw former Governor of NJ Chris Christie unequivocally proclaim that the problem with the Republican party is Donald Trump. I had no choice but to point out to the Chubby Bunny© that Trump is a symptom, the problem is that the Republican party is now a party of fascists and Nazis.

Trumpism is a very powerful force that has been emboldening white supremacists and fueling far-right for close to a decade now. Here’s a simple reminder that the Right has two main motivations: 1. the pursuit of power and 2. self-hatred that has never been confronted and grows with every passing day, necessitating a projection of the anger and disgust onto the rest of the world.

The other day I saw a post from a former conservative who seemed befuddled at the fact that while he and his views haven’t changed his side of the proverbial isle moved to the right, far far far right:

There is no debate on that point, though I have and will continue to argue that the left which ostensibly should be the Democratic party has also shifted right but that’s an entirely different topic.

Last week included two other incredibly important events - the revelations about Mark Robinson, Republican candidate for Governor of North Carolina and Donald Trump doubling-down on openly Nazi language. Let’s start with Trump tweeting and speaking the term 'remigration' which is incredibly bad.

I mean from a person who held a series of rallies in Sundown Towns, the concept of “remigration” is quite on point. This is a term with a deep fascist history, and which has always been a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. There is no doubt that Trump himself likely never heard of the term and has no idea what it means, someone close to him introduced the term to him, my money is on Stephen Miller. The term comes from the European far right. It’s about forcefully deporting (at least) people of color from “White” nations. If you don’t think this movement is transnational, violent and fascistic, you aren’t listening to their words.

The idea of white christian ethnonationalism has been on the forefront of the Republican agenda and especially rhetoric for quite a while now. It simply reached the point where it is becoming normalized in the mainstream as we get desensitized by the onslaught of openly vile racist and xenophobic rhetoric that more than simply echoes Nazis.

Thomas Zimmer writes:

The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic. Inciting a pogrom in Ohio is part of that project. Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly. There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom. Three moments from the Republican Convention. One: On the final day, Hulk Hogan promised only Trump could “straighten this country out, for all the real Americans.” That was the key theme in Hogan’s speech – “real America.” He repeated the term seven times. Two: What, to J.D. Vance, is America? “America is not just an idea,” he declared: “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.” America is the “homeland,” and those bound to it by ancestry and blood decide who gets to belong. Three: While Vance reveled in his love for the homeland, he was greeted by delegates waving hundreds of “Mass Deportation Now!” signs. Those were official signs, printed and handed out by the RNC – a message enthusiastically embraced by those on the Convention floor. Those three moments captured the Right’s defining project. The “homeland” Vance talked about, that’s “real America.” Hogan’s “real Americans” are those who belong here because of their ties to the land. And they have a right to purge the “homeland”: Mass Deportation Now. What we saw at the Republican Convention was a party devoted to an ethno-religious understanding of America as a land defined by white Christian patriarchal dominance – the self-presentation of a political movement committed to blood-and-soil nationalism.

America is “a group of people with a shared history,” J.D. Vance declared – but who gets to tell that story? The Right is determined to (re-)entrench the prerogative of a white Christian elite to dictate the national story, past and present – and to purge from the curricula, the libraries, the minds of young people anyone and anything daring to object and deviate. Crucially, the Right’s desire to purge is not confined to the national story. They also dream of cleansing the nation from anyone they believe does not belong. For the homeland to be safe for “real Americans,” the enemy within must be purged too. The central promise of Trump’s election campaign is to conduct an unprecedented mass deportation of tens of millions. Their plans are not confined to undocumented people, they don’t care about legal status. They aim at radically redrawing the boundaries of the body politic. hat is happening in Springfield, Ohio is not merely a distraction from the Right’s plutocratic agenda, it’s not just a campaign tactic. This is the manifestation of the Right’s defining political project. And a preview of what is to come if they get back to power. A party committed to blood-and-soil nationalism. Its leaders are trying to incite a pogrom. And mere weeks before the election, the presidential race is essentially tied.

JD Vance has even admitted that he has been “creating stories” - in other words spreading lies and propaganda. He is bound by facts only the blind loyalty to the dear Fuhrer and the idea that his “fatherland” is under siege, overrun with enemies who “poison the blood.” Nothing else seems to really matter - anyone who doesn’t comply, any group, any town is only ever one Truth Social post, one racist lie pushed by the Dear Leader or his minions, one Facebook rumor picked up by the right-wing propaganda machine away from becoming a target. Zimmer continues:

The constant chaos they will be creating will serve an essential function: Rightwingers condone, incite, provoke a racist fury – and then use that frenzy as justification for mobilizing the federal government to “cleanse” the nation. It’s a pattern that’s led to the worst mass crimes in history: A regime targets certain groups as dangerous “Others” who poison the nation. The propaganda incites a storm of violence. Having created what it now calls an “untenable situation,” the regime declares it must act. o “restore order,” the regime enacts a host of measures against the “Other”: Mass arrests, discriminatory legislation, “orderly” purges in the form of deportations. But the situation will soon be “untenable” again: After more propaganda, more pogroms. As the regime’s legitimacy and claim to power depend as much on the notion of a persisting threat as on demonstrating the ability to act in response, there can never be a stable equilibrium or compromise. The homeland is endlessly under siege constantly being purged.

The nazi-style rhetoric6 about Haitian7 immigrants8 stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio was originated by an actual Nazi group and we know for a fact that JD Vance knew 'Haitians eating your pets' was a lie as his staffer called Springfield City Manager who told the staffer the rumors were false. Vance had already posted about them and kept doing so after his staffer's conversation with Heck. Trump amplified the lies the next night quickly snowballing into telling worse lies about immigrants spreading disease and crime that was a direct callback to Nazi-invented propaganda9. It’s not just about Haitians and Springfield. Never mind that local newspaper, Republican Ohio governor and WSJ, not a liberal publications by any means, all debunked the disgusting xenophobic bullshit. The same anti-Haitian rhetoric10 is now being used in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, etc.11

This is the second time in a week Vance has signaled that a Trump administration would come for legal immigrants. He’s not misspeaking. Immigrants are "animals” and "vermin," who have no place in the future “unified Reich” that will come about only through an actual genocide no different than the Holocaust. Think about it, by most estimates there are 11 million of undocumented immigrants in this country. Trump and Vance repeatedly speak of deporting 15-20 million people12. This is not just those who are undocumented and might be here illegally. this is anyone who is an immigrant, legal or not, anyone who is not white or christian enough. Regardless of whether it is 11 or 20 million13, what is clear is that the country will be swept by new generation of brown shirts and fascist militias, who have been on stand-by ever since Trump called on them four years ago, going door to door to get rid of all undesirables. This is very scary, no one is focusing on this rhetoric enough, but Trump has emphasized and repeated this again and again and he even admitted that it would be bloody.

Noah Berlatsky writes and I agree: “I'm not using the term "genocide" lightly. the targeting of 11 million people for deportation is ethnic cleansing that would require concentration camps and would absolutely lead to mass death. It might or might not include extrajudicial killing (I strongly suspect it would), but you can't have an operation like this—forcible targeted removal—without killing huge numbers of ppl through neglect, disease. and that's absolute best case scenario.”

In case you're still not clear, Trump will invade your city with troops, he will create giant concentration camps and there will be blood:

You know that it’s not just Trump and Vance. Tom Cotton's defense of Trump preemptively blaming the Jews for his election loss is that he's been saying stuff like this for a long time, so what's the big deal?

What’s worse is that those who ostensibly should be on the forefront of fighting back, like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, for example, are happily normalizing the anti-semitic pro-nazi rhetoric. Here’s a revealing statement from Jonathan Greenblatt14 in which Trump's blatant antisemitism is critiqued primarily because it might embolden anti-Zionists. What a useless organization. What a pathetic man. “Threats on both sides!!!” He is practically quoting Trump’s “fine people on both sides.”

The American Jewish Committee in their statement promotes the same whataboutanism and bothsideism and clearly has no issues with Jews who would vote for Trump: “Divisive rhetoric like this has no place in politics, especially at a time of rising threats of political violence and two assassination attempts on the former president. Both candidates should work to earn the support of our community based on policy. But let’s not make this election and its outcome about the Jews.” Kinda late for that, don’t they think?

Again, it’s not just Trump, Vance and and a handful of fringe voices. Sarah Longwell writes: “Scott says the rise of antisemitism is entirely on the left. But Candace Owens, “black nazi” Mark Robinson, Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, who dines with white supremacists and hangs with Laura Loomer, Charlottesville, Kanye, are all evidence to the contrary.” The abhorrent nazi-level15 rhetoric16 is seemingly everywhere now17, from South Carolina’s Freedom from Ideological Coercion bill that would ban stating truths like: Nazis were racist and anti-Semitic or that the vast majority of slaveholders were white, and US law treated Black people as permanent property nationwide (Dredd Scott), to Tishomingo, Oklahoma canceling their homecoming football game after students display racial slur in viral image,

to the Republican candidate for Senate in Ohio recently campaigned with a state representative who called for the Holocaust to be taught “from the perspective of a German soldier,” to Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend encouraging Trump supporters to racially profile people of color at voting locations and press them for proof they're eligible, which is nothing more than voter intimidation, to an interracial family in Lehi, Utah, receiving this flyer on their door this week,

to Moms for Liberty, among many things quoting Hitler, to Laura Loomer18 releasing a 5 part documentary series called THE GREAT REPLACEMENT (The Great Replacement theory is a white nationalist antisemitic far-right conspiracy theory espoused by French author Renaud Camus, who also happens to be the original author of the term “remigration”), to antisemitic mailers in NY04 district that spew the old school antisemitic propaganda, for example the mailer by the campaign of Antony D’Esposito “Laura Gillen’s campaign is bankrolled by the Soros family, which has spent millions of dollars funding anti-Israel organizations”

to random genocidal posts on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

to Nazi banners and flags at marches and at Trump and Vance rallies:

And then we have the self-proclaimed “black Nazi” Mark Robinson (yes, there is such a thing). For the great African-American novelist Richard Wright, the figure of the black Nazi epitomized racial absurdity. But a new generation of far-right black figures is bent on enacting this absurdity. Great essay by Mark Thompson of Johns Hopkins.

It not just that Robinson called himself a Nazi, in the past he stated that Black Americans were ‘at their highest’ under Jim Crow,” he wrote that “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,” in a 2020 speech Robinson celebrated black slaves who kept their “rags” clean and patiently took whippings from their overseers; “They made sure those rags were as clean as could be. And they stood up and stiffened up their backs,” Robinson also praised Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf: “Mein Kampf is a good read. It’s very informative and not at all what I thought it would be. It’s a real eye opener.”

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Don’t forget that Trump once called Mark Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids,” while JD Vance, refused to condemn Robinson, not once: “My comment on Mark Robinson is that Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote on the Inflation Explosion Act and because of that a lot of Americans can't afford groceries” but twice, "I don't not believe him" (lol). It's been only a couple weeks since Tucker Carlson19 aired the Nazi apologetics of a Holocaust denier, saying he "may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States." Over the weekend, Tucker released a new JD Vance interview. Vance will campaign with Tucker in PA. Mind you, while Senator from Ohio does not seem to have any issues or moral qualms over Mark Robinson, his own staff resigned in mass over the weekend. Mind you, defiant Mark Robinson REJECTED offers from supporters to track down the origin of the posts and is suing CNN for derailing his campaign: “We are going after them for what they’ve done.”

Let’s not forget that the leader of the American Nazi party enthusiastically supported trump's campaign in 2016. All of this, of course juxtaposed against the 83rd anniversary of Nazi Germany mandate for Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing, aiming to isolate and humiliate them, marking the escalation of anti-Semitism and culminating in the Final Solution.

Mark Robinson is an un-ironic Dave Chappelle skit come to life:

While Tim Walz managed to call out the open fascism the other day, entirely too many have been silent or worse transparently normalizing, legitimizing and making a common cause with the man who dined with not one not two20 but three neo-nazis and called people like me "animals" and "vermin" that's "poisoning the blood of the country," the same country that he promised to make a new "unified Reich."

It would be quite dandy if journalist, regardless of who they might be sleeping with at the moment, had just a bit of integrity and well spine and ask Trump about his decades-long admiration for Adolf Hitler. Is that too much to ask? Of course, besides the desperate need to sensationalize everything and make it exciting and get clicks, one other main reason for why this won’t happen is because the journalists, along with everyone else, have been bullied by the right and center right that such questions would be inappropriate because any comparisons to the Nazis is wrong, if not bullied with outright threats of violence. Why focus on Trump saying “Hitler did some good things” if it’s old news? Of course this is a rhetorical question.

I’ve already mentioned the abject failure of the Fourth Estate21 to live up to their own standards and being responsible for the quagmire we are in now. “After Trump started using explicit Nazi rhetoric when he said immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country, he was asked if he’s ever read Mein Kampf. He said he hadn’t. Why do we believe him? I’d also point out that his admiration for Hitler is even more important and RELEVANT in light of his campaign strategy to demonize and dehumanize immigrants, including Haitians. In light of the fact that he wants to herd millions of immigrants into camps. History exists as a reason. To warn us.”

Again, this is not a new development, Trump’s rhetoric has been compared to straight-up Nazi for a while now, we have seen them march across our towns and cities entirely too times in the recent time.

Miriam Adelson, who hosted the “Fight Antisemitism” event at which Trump preemptively blamed Jews for his loss, says Jews have a 'sacred duty' to vote for Trump.
When Trump loses, he will blame the Jews. And people like Miriam Adelson will say that they didn't hear him, that he was joking, that he was misunderstood while people like me will be swept away into concentration camps. This is a threat to Jews and really anyone: vote for me or else. Let that sink in. This is not normal. Don't let anyone tell you these things are OK.

Gil Duran recently wrote, “Interesting to see right-wingers being shocked by the literal pro-Nazism on their side. Have they not been paying attention? Or are they just upset that some people insist on saying the quiet part loud?”

I can already hear it again: ““You’re exaggerating the danger to our democracy…” you should be able to tolerate diverse perspectives and opinions. To which I can only say that there is no tolerance much less inclusion for fascists and Nazis. Nor should there be any. If you are making an utterly immoral choice to vote for a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who led a coup against the US and regularly uses Nazi rhetoric, well, guess what that make you? Yes, a Nazi.

It was always an uncompromising duty for in my mind to seek justice, to defend the innocent and support those in dire need of help - we don’t have a choice but to fight either to victory or the bitter end. If you have to wonder how come, the answer is easy, I was indoctrinated into being an anti-fascist in high school and college. It happened when I was taught history, the basics of government, and critical thinking. Really sinister stuff. I may disagree with Yair Rosenberg on many things, but he is absolutely right about “Trump. Tucker. Elon. Nick Fuentes. Kanye. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Candace Owens. I wrote about the antisemitic revolution that has been unfolding on the American right since 2015—and why it continues to gain ground by the day.”

If you are choosing the other side, regardless of reasons and in this case the other side is anything but voting for Kamala Harris, I have nothing to tell you, I have nothing for you but disdain and pity, especially if you are a non-white and/or an immigrant and/or non-cismale.

I think fascism is bad and people who are not fascists should probably say so before the fascists shoot them. God forbid people resist fascism too vigorously… by doing things like saying, "fascists are bad."