FOCUS: Steve Weissman | A F***ing Jew Thanks Ann Coulter
Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
Weissman writes: "In her characteristic grab for the spotlight, Ann Coulter appeared to out her man Trump as a closet anti-Semite."
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Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
Weissman writes: "In her characteristic grab for the spotlight, Ann Coulter appeared to out her man Trump as a closet anti-Semite."
READ MORE
ive Ann Coulter the credit she deserves. As one of Donald Trump’s guiding lights, the right-wing columnist, best-selling author, and longstanding Christian nationalist gave his presidential campaign some much-needed honesty with her tweet chastising Republican candidates for catering to Jews. “How many f***ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?” In her characteristic grab for the spotlight, she appeared to out her man Trump as a closet anti-Semite.
I wouldn’t think so except for Trump’s complete lack of response. From all I can find, he has so far said nothing to distance himself from Coulter or to repudiate her noxious snark.
Throughout his campaign, the blowhard billionaire has serially offended women, as the otherwise factually challenged Carly Fiorina deftly pointed out. He has shown an eagerness to insult Mexicans and other Latinos, threatening to expel their children born in the United States and purposely making opposition to immigrants his biggest “selling point.”
His stance toward black people appears more nuanced. He claims to have “a great relationship with African Americans” and even risked offending police over the treatment of Sandra Bland, the motorist found dead in her jail cell in Texas. Talking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Trump told of seeing the video clip of the cop pulling Bland out of her car. “He just looked very aggressive,” said Trump. “I didn’t like his demeanor. I thought it was terrible to be honest with you. And I’m a huge fan of the police. I think the police have to be given back power but this guy was overly aggressive, terribly aggressive.”
On the other side of the ledger, Huffington Post reported that the Justice Department forced Trump’s real estate company to accept a consent decree on charges it had discriminated against blacks trying to rent apartments in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Three years later, the Justice Department charged that he continued to discriminate against blacks and Puerto Ricans, while New York City’s human rights commission regularly monitored his rental practice. It was, said Trump, a “form of horrible harassment.”
The website Gawker adds to this a documented list of Trump’s racist comments. A former employee at Trump’s Castle in Atlantic City told The New Yorker that when Donald and his then-wife Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor. “It was the eighties,” said Kip Brown. “I was a teenager, but I remember it: they put us all in the back.”
In an account that Trump described as “probably true,” the former president of his Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino wrote that the Donald once said of a black accountant at the casino, “Laziness is a trait in blacks.” He then offered an intriguing aside: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
In his quirky campaign, Trump has not hesitated to insult Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain, neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer, who “constantly pressed the crazy war in Iraq,” hedge fund managers “getting away with murder,” and corporate CEOs taking rising pay. He breaks with both Wall Street and the Republican establishment in opposing free trade deals. He downplays or ignores many Tea Party concerns. He repudiated the endorsement of David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, one of many white nationalists who have raced to support him. And, most recently, he appeared to go along with a questioner inRochester, New Hampshire, who insulted Muslims and Obama and raised fears of a coming war on Christians.
“We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims,” said the man in a white T-shirt. “You know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American.”
Trump himself had raised similar questions four years ago about Obama, his birth certificate, where he was born, whether he was a Muslim, and whether he loved America.
“We need this question,” chuckled Trump. “This is the first question.”
“We have training camps growing where they want to kill us,” said the man. “That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”
“You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening,” Trump replied. “We're going to be looking at that and many other things."
Had Trump heard the first part of the questioner’s statement? “All he heard was a question about training camps, which he said we have to look into,” said Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager. “The media want to make this an issue about Obama, but it’s about him waging a war on Christianity.”
Whatever Trump did or did not hear, he was feeding red meat to his nativist, white racist, and Christian nationalist supporters. Trump even followed up, using Twitter to play to the same fears and fantasies. “Christians need support in our country (and around the world), their religious liberty is at stake! Obama has been horrible, I will be great.”
What a bewildering mix. On some economic issues, Trump sounds far to the left of Hillary. On stirring up his hate-filled supporters, he sounds even more dangerous than many of Europe’s neo-fascists. And, as for Ann Coulter’s “f***ing Jews,” whether or not we wear yarmulkes, count money, or support Israel, he seems to have gone out of his way not to offend us.
“Danken Got!” But why his silence?
Take your choice. Trump does business in New York and New Jersey, where being an avowed anti-Semite could make it difficult to get special building permits, casino licenses, and governmental favors. Had he come out politically bashing Jews the way so many of his supporters do, even our moribund media would have crucified him.
Now he has a new problem. As Evan Osnos pointed out in The New Yorker, many of his nativist, xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic base initially assumed that Trump was “a Jew-lover.” But once they heard his hate-mongering against immigrants, they quickly saw him as someone who could tap into sentiments that he or they could turn against any group of scapegoats. Repudiating Ann Coulter’s comment about “f***ing Jews” could lose him their support.
Distancing himself from Coulter herself could also cost him dearly. Not only did she perfect the “No Apologies” conservatism he practices, she also leads the effort to redefine American conservatism as primarily anti-immigrant. She is, in effect, the chief wrangler of Trump’s nest of vipers. “The new litmus test for real conservatives is immigration,” she announced on Sean Hannity’s show in July. Not pro-life. Not pro-gun. Not pro-Israel. Not pro-Reagan. Not even anti-tax. She is pushing conservatives to accept the primacy of anti-immigration, including hatred against those who have come legally or were born in the USA.
Poor f***ing Trump? If he has to decide between his billion-dollar business interests and the chance to ride into the White House on the back of an anti-immigrant, implicitly anti-Semitic, and potentially fascist political movement, which would he choose? Which way would you bet?
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, "Big Money and the Corporate State: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently Break Their Hold."
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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