War in the Democratic Party, Republicans on Hind Legs, Some Jews are Tired of Being Used

This was my School Scope submission this week. It was turned down as not being about schools. Methinks it is the politics not that it isn't about schools.

I wrote it on Tuesday, before Mueller Time.

War in the Democratic Party, Republicans on Hind Legs, Some Jews are Tired of Being Used

By Norm Scott

“It’s an almost incalculable insult for Trump and his enablers to act as if he’s helping the Jews when he adopts the language of the pogrom.” Michelle Goldberg, NYT.

Before we get to that, let’s talk Dem and Rep Parties. Many of us on the sidelines of the Party wars have pretty much come to the conclusion that Trump will win again and the repercussions will be heavy for the Party and of course for the country. We can pretty much give up the fight against climate change and figure out ways to hunker down for the next century. Water taxis on 5^th Avenue, anyone? As for the future of Rockaway, fagetaboutit. Sorry to be such a bummer. Maybe Elon Musk has it right: Look to Mars where there is little chance for oceans rising unless you read the best science fiction from Kim Stanley Robinson, “Mars Trilogy.”

After Trump, the Republicans and the right wing media are finished count the democratic institutions left standing. Why should this country be different than all the others moving to the right? (See HBO chiller, Years and Years). Remember how Giuliani, another despot, tried to use 9/11 as an excuse to remain mayor for an illegal third term and was laughed at? Times have changed. Let’s be more like Trump’s hero Putin. Pass the presidency on to the first woman president, Ivanka, in 2024 – unless Trump wants a third term. Create an emergency and suspend the constitution. And watch strict constitutionalist Republicans get up on their hind legs and beg for more. Remember how they fought Obama on everything over the deficit? Pathetic.

For some insight into the internal mechanisms of the factionalism in the Dem Party see the left-leaning Nation which delves into the battle between Pelosi and the Squad.

https://www.thenation.com/article/house-democrats-twitter-pramila-jayapal.

Another article in the liberal New Yorker by investigative reporter Jane Meyer took the Dems to task for Al Franken’s forced resignation from the Senate over a #metoo incident that on further examination seemed to have elements of a right wing hit job but many Dems jumped on the issue in order to be politically correct. Is there such a thing as due process? Franken wanted a Senate committee on ethics to examine the facts but that idea was not supported by the Dems. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who led the charge has suffered a lot of blow back which has helped make her irrelevant in her presidential bid. Chuck Shumer, unsurprisingly, was one of the biggest betrayers. I’m so proud of our backstabbing NY senators. If you want some deep insight, long but worthwhile: https: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken.  

So there is more than a bit of disgust among Democrats in their own party.  Republicans don’t have to worry because even if video emerged of Trump engaging in certain acts with Jeffrey Epstein teens they would be fine with it. A video did emerge of the two of them smirking and joking over some models at a party at Mar-A-Lago. Remember, Trump barely knows him. What a joke most Republicans and Evangelicals are.

And how about them Jews who support Trump? If they are not chilled by “send her back” they need some history lessons. There are a couple of interesting articles about anti-semites on the right calling out the left as being anti-semitic. Like you can’t be critical of the right wing Israeli government. #freespeech1stamendment.

A friend, a Jew who was active in the Dem Party and until recently hadn’t been very conscious about his Jewishness for 50 years, wrote on FB: “after a fleet of Republicans and the president himself have utilized Jews as human shields for racist rhetoric, the Jews are tired, tired, tired of being used as defenses against naked racism, tired of being used to justify conditions at detention camps.” He was referring to an article in GQ by Talia Levin: When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield: In recent weeks, some Republicans have raised the specter of anti-Semitism as a convenient distraction from detention camps and racist tropes. And the Jews are tired of it. https://www.gq.com/story/anti-semitism-political-shield.

Michelle Goldberg in the NYT struck a similar theme, pointing to neo-Nazis like Simon Gorka daring to call people anti-semitic: Defenders of a Racist President Use Jews as Human Shields

https://www.nytimes.com/.../opinion/trump-ilhan-omar.html. She opens with: “Sebastian Gorka, a onetime adviser to Donald Trump, wore a medal from the Vitezi Rend, a Hungarian group historically aligned with Nazism, to one of Trump’s inaugural balls. Gorka was reportedly a member of the group, whose founder, the Hungarian autocrat Miklos Horthy, once said, ‘For all my life, I have been an anti-Semite’.”

On a lighter note, there was a joke going around that Trump’s “send her back” was referring to his wives. I’m looking forward to being sent back when they come for me because my mom came from Bellarus. I hear they have fine ocean beaches there despite being a land-locked country and a wonderful dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, for Trump to admire who’s been in office for 25 years.

Norm’s still blogs at ednotesonline.com, when he’s not busy packing.

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