EAllusion wrote:Huh. Now Trump is claiming that Diane Feinstein is an architect of the "Open Borders Bill" that has full Democratic support. This is a bold lie even by Trump standards. I genuinely can't tell if that's deliberately an anti-semetic dog-whistle on the heels of the Soros nonsense or if it's just ordinary Trump lying. Best case scenario, he's whipping up dangerous xenophobia with Orwellian lies. Worst case scenario, he's whipping up anti-semetic sentiments with propaganda. Ladies and Gentleman, the United States right now.
Where do you see the anti-semetism?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
EAllusion wrote:Huh. Now Trump is claiming that Diane Feinstein is an architect of the "Open Borders Bill" that has full Democratic support. This is a bold lie even by Trump standards. I genuinely can't tell if that's deliberately an anti-semetic dog-whistle on the heels of the Soros nonsense or if it's just ordinary Trump lying. Best case scenario, he's whipping up dangerous xenophobia with Orwellian lies. Worst case scenario, he's whipping up anti-semetic sentiments with propaganda. Ladies and Gentleman, the United States right now.
Where do you see the anti-semetism?
The Soros one is obvious as that's just a standard anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that is a feature of far right parties in Europe and white supremacists in the US. Soros, the shadow Jew poisoning societies with his filthy wealth, is a favorite claim of far right racists all over the world. Unless you know theeir background, it's not clear when people use it if the intend to be sharing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory or if that aspect is lost on them. So you have Trump pushing that one day, then the next day he's inventing the existence of a bill that does not exist that will allow dangerous hordes of immigrants to infest America and attributing it specifically to the leadership of a Jew. It's really hard to know if that's just Trump making up crazy lies randomly as his wont that just coincidentally coincides with a classic anti-Semitic trope or if he appreciates the dog-whistle component to the ever-increasingly bold anti-Semetic movement in the US.
I think Trump knows what he is doing with racist appeals to his white supremacist base to an extent, so I honestly can't tell.
Res Ipsa wrote: Where do you see the anti-semetism?
The Soros one is obvious as that's just a standard anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that is a feature of far right parties in Europe and white supremacists in the US. It's not clear when people use it if the intend to be sharing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory or if that aspect is lost on them. So you have Trump pushing that one day, then the next day he's inventing the existence of a bill that does not exist that will allow dangerous hordes of immigrants to infest America and attributing it specifically to the leadership of a Jew. It's really hard to know if that's just Trump making up crazy lies randomly as his wont that just coincidentally coincide with a classic anti-Semitic trope or if he appreciates the dog-whistle component to the ever-increasingly bold anti-Semetic movement in the US.
Trump has Jewish family members. I don't put credence in this thinking beyond Trump's exploitation of the visceral conservative reaction towards "the Other". I think Trump takes a page from Seneca in considering bigotry "useful".
So did Hitler. I don't think that's an exoneration of willingness to use anti-Semitic tropes. Trump definitely has real-deal anti-Semites in his administration and definitely has them as key supporters that he refuses to rebuke. It's a fun mix over there, eh? Hence why I think it's an open question if he's willing to give them a nod from time to time. Remember when he shared the "Sheriff's star" meme of Hillary Clinton that was a white supremacist, anti-Semetic smear? The benefit of the doubt of course is that he was ignorant of what he was doing, but I don't think you can assume that. Trump's an idiot, but he sometimes knows what he's doing.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who are both more overtly in bed with the hardcore alt-right, definitely are into anti-Semitic tropes and jargon they've picked up from that crowd if you follow them. They've got Jewish family members just the same.
Why not beat the Right wing at their own game? Radically de-fund the federal government, become 50 'states' rights' states again, throw the chips to the wind at the state level, and let the market place of states acting in their own interests demonstrate the 'correctness' of Blue states when they outperform the Red states?
States who are net contributors to the federal government can now keep their money, and states that are net takers will have to figure it out.
Instead of letting the Nazis win, why not let them have Mississippi and California can breeze into the future as a socialist American utopia?
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.