Trump and the Jews

An old friend and colleague sent me a recent article by David Frum, published in The Atlantic, in which Frum asks, "What if they are not coming for the Jews this time?" Frum acknowledges that "[the] Trump presidency seethes with hostility toward many different minority and subordinated groups. But Jews have been elevated to a special protected category, exempt from the lines of attack deployed against Muslims, non-Norwegian immigrants, women Trump deems unattractive, and so on and on." His title alludes to the famous poem by Martin Niemöller, which castigates the moral failure of passivity in the face of injustice done to others, including (from Niemöller's perspective), the Jews.

Jews have ever since viewed this poem as both a warning and a calling. A warning, because it foretells that whenever the oppression of marginalized groups begins, the malignant bigotry will eventually seek out the Jews (as Frum quotes Chris Rock saying, "That train is never late!"). A calling, because knowing what it means to be on the receiving end of such oppression, Jews have a special responsibility to speak out when it is doled out to others.

The question Frum is effectively asking is, "If the warning is no longer in effect, will the calling hold?" He enumerates evidence to show that Trump has repudiated antisemitism and that his movement accords Jews "insider" status. If this is the case, he wonders, what will Jews do in the face of the moral test the situation poses? If Jews are not in the way of the train this time, will they come to the aid of those who are?

Frum's exercise is (at least in some part) rhetorical, and the challenge he poses philosophically abstract. He is speaking to individual Jews as much to the "Jewish community" writ large, and laying the situation out as a moral conundrum understood in logical terms. As a thought experiment I cannot fault his message. I take his meaning (which is ever implicit rather than explicitly stated in his essay) to be that Jews do, individually and collectively, have a duty imposed by history to stand with those who are being victimized, a duty that will be abrogated if we give our support to Trump's bigotry. In this his formulations are unmistakably persuasive.

But as a matter of political pragmatics, the situation is more complicated than Frum's philosophical abstractions allow. By this I do not mean to begin an apology for Jewish Trump supporters. Trump's support among Jews is equivalent to what has been enjoyed by past Republican presidents. Jews as a group typically skew Democratic, but there has always been a "conservative wing" of the American Jewish community that votes for and donates to the Republican party, representing as many as 30% of American Jews. David Frum himself was, until recently, a member of this group.

Indeed, it is really to his former co-partisans that Frum is speaking. Trump has won the support of conservative Jews through traditional inducements. His tax cuts and deregulation are perennially appealing to fiscal conservatives, and his (largely symbolic but nonetheless ostentatious) acts of support for Israel are radically gratifying to traditional Jewish "defense conservatives". Frum is pleading with conservative Jews that, under Trump, these benefits come at a steep moral cost. To be sure, the appeal to history may be somewhat tendentious. Is it really fair to expect individual Jews to come under a greater moral onus than anyone else to stand with the oppressed, simply because other Jews were oppressed in the past? That kind of argument could be critiqued as "identitarian" and as imposing a double standard.

But Frum is right that the moral hazard is real, and entails practical detriments, even from the perspective of conservative Jews themselves. The issue about which defense Jewish conservatives care most dearly- the security of Israel- hinges on a moral argument that is undermined by Trumpist bigotry. Zionism is founded on the proposition that the world owes the Jews special protection against malignant racism. If conservative Jews, not merely as individuals but as representatives of Jewish religious and civil institutions, lend their support to Trump's politics of white nationalist grievance, how can the special plea at the heart of Zionist messaging fail to lose moral force?

Moreover, the hypothetical posed by Frum's title is almost certainly false. Chris Rock may not be completely right in this case: the train has been delayed. But no Jews; liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican; should be in any doubt, if it gets far enough the Trump train will come for us eventually. Trump's alliance with the Jews at the current moment is (like all of his relationships) one of convenience. He draws legitimacy and support from the friendship of figures like Sheldon Adelson and Benjamin Netanyahu, not only with Jews but with American evangelical Christians, among whom "Christian Zionism" is a powerful movement. Even Trump's most racist supporters, such as the self-avowed "white nationalist" Richard Spencer, profess a kind of twisted "Zionism." For Spencer's ilk, Israel presents a model of a mono-ethnic state, and stands as a convenient repository for Jews pending a final solution. Jews should never confuse gestures of friendship toward Israel with signs of tolerance or "philosemitism." The two are quite distinct.

The kind of legitimacy that Trump garners from his support of Israel and the friendship of prominent Jewish leaders are only useful to him while America's democratic institutions remain effective. As he leads the nation further down the path of white-nationalist oligarchy, association with Jews and Jewish interests will become progressively less useful to Trump and his administration. The culture of antisemitism among Trump's core supporters is very intense, as Frum himself acknowledges. If and when the MAGA community no longer needs to share power with those who  are not of like mind, support of Jews will become a liability for Trump rather than an asset. Anyone who does not believe that Trump will abandon the Jews at that point (even his daughter and her family, who could of course be deported to Israel) has not been paying attention to his behavior up to the present moment.

To my fellow Jews I say this: be warned. The train may be a bit late this time. But it is coming.

An Open Letter to President Donald Trump

Dear President Trump, 


          I was horrified to see you encouraging chants of "Send Her Back" at your rally in Greenville, North Carolina. This kind of nativist rhetoric echoes the vilest dogma of the political past. Whatever rationalizations you might offer for these expressions, there can be no doubt that they are intensely encouraging and exciting to the white nationalists and Neo-Nazis that inhabit the lunatic fringe of our politics.

          We have seen how this plays out before. On May 7, 2018 Jeff Sessions gave a speech announcing a "zero tolerance" policy at the border. Following that were family separations, tweets about "infestation" and MS-13, troops at the border...a steady series of escalations and incitements, driving white nationalists into a rising crescendo of manic excitement. On October 27, 2018 Robert Bowers walked into Tree of Life synagogue and killed 11 people, citing Jews' support for Latin@ migrants as his motive.

           When you came to console the congregants at Tree of Life you pleaded innocent of any intent to stoke hatred and violence. I cannot open a window into your heart, and thus I would concede that you must be given the benefit of the doubt on that score. But with your recent racist campaign of provocations and agitation, you are stirring the same passions and leading us down the path to the same end. You cannot claim ignorance of the consequences of your actions a second time.

           If you lead us to the point that tragedy strikes again, there can be no doubt that you share in the guilt. You may travel to the point where the needle you have set spinning comes to rest and play the mourner, but nothing will be able to dispel the stench of rank hypocrisy. No one can be consoled by that kind of "sympathy". As an American and a Jew I plead with you, stop! For the sake of your daughter, her husband, and their children, stop!

           This is a moral imperative that transcends politics. You are not simply stirring the tensions between "right" and "left," you are slashing at the very communal fabric that makes us human beings. If you do not desist, there will be mortal consequences, and you will not be able to reject any responsibility.


                                         Sincerely,


                                          Andrew Meyer

America Must Grow Up (Or Else...)

Donald Trump's greatest legacy may be having generated need for more words in the English lexicon than any other president. His recent comments (online and in real time) to the effect that Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib "should go back to the places that they come from" begs the use of epithets that do not quite yet exist. Trump's presidency had long ago become a "disgrace", but that word does not quite capture the toxicity and moral malignancy he embodies right now.

It is not just the president himself who has produced this profane miasma, but the cowardice, ignorance, or complicity of his supporters. The fact that anyone seriously entertains a debate about whether Trump's comments are racist is phantasmagorical. We have shown ourselves to be a nation of children, unworthy of the legacy of freedom and prosperity painstakingly built by our forebears.

It is long past time to grow up. Indeed, if we do not, the infantile hurricane of malice and nihilistic bigotry that centers on the West Wing will sweep away the foundations of the Republic. We have talked like children, thought like children, and reasoned like children. But we must put aside childish things, or be left with nothing at all.

Children persistently protest that their intentions exonerate them. "I didn't mean it!" Adults understand that meaning well does not absolve one of responsibility. Yet we continue to bicker about whether Trump's words are racist or not on some speculation about how he "really feels" in his heart.

Let me ask this of his defenders- WHO CARES? As a candidate (and still occasionally as POTUS) Trump routinely complained about the state of American government, culture, and society. He accused the former president of having spied on him without a shred of evidence. He impugned the competence, probity, and intelligence of lawmakers, judges, military leaders. None of that made him (in his own estimation, and that of his supporters) other than patriotic and loyal. But the criticisms of duly elected representatives who happen to be women of color makes them traitors and ingrates. What other conclusion can one draw except that white men possess rights and privileges in this nation that others do not? That is white supremacism in a nutshell.

The idea that Trump's supposed ignorance or the warm fuzzy feelings he might harbor for any individual or group is in any way relevant to ANYONE is ridiculous. It does not matter how many African-American friends Trump has or how many people of color serve in his cabinet. He has used the "bully pulpit" as a bullhorn for racism. He has broadcast that the leader of the free world deems people of color less American than whites, that they deserve fewer privileges, freedoms, and protections than whites. People in positions of responsibility and power (or those who want more responsibility and power, like the "alt-right" marchers in Charlottesville) have heard his message, and it will reverberate to the detriment of millions in ways big and small. You could only give a fig for what Trump feels or thinks "in his heart" if you are not in the path of this freight train.

 After more than two-hundred and forty years, our society seems yet incapable, in aggregate, of appreciating the ingenious logic and inherent fragility of the system in which we live such free and prosperous lives. Our Constitution distributes power through a complex of institutions and offices held in mutual tension with one-another, so as to prevent the tyranny of any one individual or group. But in order for this system to continue to function, the people inhabiting it must adhere to the rules that govern it, and that requires them to minimally respect the rights and dignity of one-another.

The situation might be compared to a game, the kind that helps children learn basic life lessons. As long as everyone respects the rules and treats one-another fairly, the game can continue to everyone's enjoyment. Though one or more players might temporarily gain an advantage by ignoring the rules or mistreating opponents, this will eventually cause the game to end, depriving everyone.

Comments like the ones Trump has been braying attracted less censure a century ago because people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals were systematically barred from the "game" of politics. Long struggle and great sacrifice redressed that injustice. Now the game has expanded, and Trump's call to "Make America Great Again" is basically an exhortation to bring back that earlier exclusionary time- to narrow the game so that people of color, Muslims, women, and LGBTQ citizens need not be given the respect and deference of full participants.

But what Trump and his supporters do not realize is that this is not a call to change the game, but to end it. "Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it." If the right of full participation can be taken away from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Ilhan Omar, or Rashida Tlaib, or Ayanna Pressley on the basis of race or origin, it can (and will, in the long run) be taken away from anyone else on equally arbitrary criteria. Once that levee has been breached, the flood will never be contained.

Among many other things, Trump is a perpetual child, and his leadership has infantilized us as a society. He is incapable of or refuses to learn the lesson at the heart of the game set in motion by our Founders.  Like the petulant whiner who, dissatisfied with the rigors of play, threatens to take his equipment and go home, he shows his contempt not only for our history and principles, but for us personally as individuals and a community. For the sake of ourselves and posterity, we had better grow up and recognize his bigotry for what it is.