I suspect a higher percentage of women who are into Talmud (or sports) are lesbians than of woman as a whole. I suspect a higher percentage of female rabbis are lesbians than of women as a whole.
If somebody violates the norms of Orthodox Judaism, but keeps it quiet, it is one thing. When somebody publishes an op-ed about it, how should the Orthodox community respond? What kind of Orthodox high school employs someone like this?
Female homosexuality is not as serious a sin in Orthodox Judaism as male homosexuality, which is expressly forbidden in the written Torah.
hat is it like to be a Soloveichik?” This question about my well-known rabbinic family name has accompanied me for much of my life. My grandfather was Ahron Soloveichik and my great-uncle was Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The questions about my identity became even more complex when, three years ago, I came out as gay in the Orthodox community — while I was a Talmud teacher at an Orthodox high school.
Growing up in my learned Orthodox family, I viewed life through the lens of Halacha. I loved Judaism and could not imagine what it meant to live life not as an Orthodox Jew.
When, as a teenager, I became aware of my attraction to women, I did not know of anyone in my community who was Orthodox and gay. So I convinced myself that I wasn’t gay. I was afraid, and my fear kept me closeted and cut off from myself for a long time. I was scared of losing my beliefs, my family, my friends and my community.
As an adult, I began to confront the fears around my sexual identity. At the time, I taught Talmud at SAR High School, a modern Orthodox high school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The intertwining of my professional and personal lives added another dimension of fear to my coming-out process: the fear of losing my job.
Slowly, I began coming out to myself and those close to me. The beginning of my coming-out process and the confrontation of my well-founded fears were incredibly painful. I gradually became more comfortable with myself. It became clear to me that to be a healthy person, I could not be closeted and live in fear of people discovering who I was.
I still loved Orthodoxy and deeply wanted to remain part of that community. I spoke to the administration and members of the board at SAR High School. After various conflicting messages and a lack of transparency, I was informed that if I came out as gay while at SAR High School, the school would not support me. If parents asked to have their children removed from my classes, the school would do so, and I would be at risk of losing my position. Such a hostile and unsafe work environment was not tenable for me, and in June 2013 I left my job.
The following year was the most difficult one in my coming-out process. I was devastated, both from my experiences at SAR and from my other coming-out experiences in the Orthodox community. I suffered from depression. I did not know what to do with the broken pieces that had once comprised the framework of my life.
With the support of many true friends, I slowly began to rebuild my life. Today, I believe I am more compassionate because of what I have experienced. Since exploring different ways of living a Jewish life, I no longer identify as Orthodox. I understand the power and beauty of belonging to the Orthodox community and the power and beauty of my life as I have chosen to make it now. Although I do not want to change my current life, I do not wish on anyone else the suffering that I experienced to get to this point.
As someone who has been but is no longer part of the Orthodox community, I now speak for the sake of the LGBT people who grow up in that community and for the sake of the humanity of the entire Orthodox world.
Orthodoxy is an identity that consists of many intertwined components, including an attachment to the Orthodox world and a commitment to its values. It is urgently necessary for all members of this world to contribute to making the Orthodox identity a healthy one for the LGBT people who want to keep it. Otherwise, this community is setting up many queer people who grow up in it for a lot of suffering.
Frankly, teaching LGBT children that the only valuable life is one that is part of the Orthodox community and then communicating to those children that they cannot be a full part of that community is irresponsible and dangerous.
Lack of support around queer issues, whether in schools, synagogues or elsewhere in a Jewish environment, communicates that LGBT people’s suffering and unhappiness do not matter. It communicates to everyone in that environment that it’s okay for a community to decide that some people just don’t matter. The Orthodox world can be better than that, and it must be, both for the sake of its queer members and for the sake of its own humanity. Pesia Soloveichik is a high school rabbinics teacher at the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester. She completed the Graduate Program for Women in Advanced Talmudic Studies at Yeshiva University and earned an M.S. in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
Posted inHomosexuality, Judaism|Comments Off on Coming Out As A Gay Woman Talmud Teacher
Jewish Republicans have never been a constituency Donald Trump could lean on for support. But recent comments made by the New York billionaire and what seems to be his unstoppable race to the Republican nomination, have only made things worse.
Some in the community are sounding alarm bells, calling for action before it is too late to stop Trump’s race to the top, but others in the Jewish Republican camp are cautioning against collectively rejecting Trump.
“If he will be the eventual candidate, you don’t want him to be an enemy,” said Fred Zeidman, a major Jewish Republican donor from Texas who had initially backed Jeb Bush and is now waiting on the sidelines. “The last thing I ever want is to have an enemy in the White House.”
But others believe that Trump’s comments on Israel and his initial refusal to disavow White Supremacist groups pose a real problem for Jewish voters on the Republican side.
“Trump promising he’ll be neutral when it comes to Israel is highly concerning,” said a Jewish Republican activist. “Jewish Republicans,” the activist who asked not to be identified because his organization does not endorse candidates, “are obviously troubled by these comments.”
Several Jewish donors and activists contact by the Forward avoided speaking on record against Trump, even after Republican lawmakers announced they would not vote for Trump if he wins the GOP nomination.
Trump’s ascent has spurred an unusual Jewish political coalition. Pro-Israel Republicans, neo-conservative ideologues, and human rights activists have all been ramping up their criticism of Trump, in public and in private discussions. Some are actively calling for a joint Jewish effort to block Trump from becoming the GOP nominee.
Some, like historian Robert Kagan, who is considered among the fathers of American neoconservatism, have taken bold steps. Kagan, announced in a Washington Post article that Trump’s emergence as the most popular Republican candidate has led him to cross the political line: “For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton,” Kagan wrote. “The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”
Dan Senor, a Jewish Republican columnist and former Bush administration official, wouldn’t go as far as throwing his support behind Clinton, but made a clear pledge not to vote for Trump if he becomes his party’s nominee. “I’m not voting for Donald Trump. I’m not voting for him in the primary and I’m not for him in the general,” Senor told Bloomberg Politics.
Others have taken to an activist campaign in attempt to dissuade conservative voters who care about Israel and support a strong American international stature, from accepting the inevitability of a Trump candidacy. The Emergency Committee for Israel, a pro-Israel organization headed by leading neoconservative William Kristol, released on February 28 a video ad titled “Trump Loves Dictators.” The spot is compiled of clips in which Trump speaks positively of ousted leaders Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Mouammar Kadhafi of Libya, as well as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. “How can Trump make America great when he’s kissing up to anti-American dictators?” the ad concludes. Kristol, in a press release, said: “If you’re pro-Israel, you shouldn’t be pro-Trump. Apologists for dictators aren’t reliable friends of the Jewish state.”
Trump’s February 17 refusal, during an interview on MSNBC, to take sides in the Israeli – Palestinian conflict raised eyebrows among many Jewish Republicans. “Let me be sort of a neutral guy,” Trump said, explaining that only this stance could make him acceptable on both sides as an honest broker. The comment, a clear deviation from the automatic siding with Israel which has become the standard among candidates, was viewed by Trump’s rivals as an opportunity to attack the frontrunner. During the February 25 Republican debate, Trump tried to defend his stand, stating he was “totally pro-Israel” and explaining the need to make sure none of the sides see him as biased against them.
But for some Jewish Republicans, Trump’s explanations did little to put to rest their lingering doubts regarding his position on Israel. “He can’t just paper over these comments by saying he’s pro-Israel,” a Jewish Republican activist said a day after the debate. “Donald Trump failed that test last night. He’s words were very troubling.”
Jay Lefkowitz, a Jewish Republican who served on both Bush administrations, called a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in November would be “very depressing.” From the perspective of Israel,Lefkowitz added, “based on Clinton’s record and Trump’s statements, I would have serious concerns about both candidates.”
Posted inAmerica, Jews|Comments Off on “Where did all the closeted Rubio fans come from?”
But this notion that Hispanics are a race tied together by blood who are the hereditary victims of racism by the white race, present and past, raises peculiarly delicate questions for the New York Times. If the sins of non-Hispanics ancestors are on the table for a full airing, what about dynasty that is the largest shareholder in the New York Times itself?
It would be especially interesting to discuss why the six heirs of the New York Times’ financial savior, Carlos Slim, would qualify for affirmative action as Hispanics if they moved to America, considering that they are pure Lebanese Maronite by descent, with a great-grandfather, Pierre Gemayel, who founded the fascist Phalangist paramilitary of Lebanon and a great uncle who was the most notorious rightwing warlord in modern Lebanese history. When Slim’s wife’s uncle was famously assassinated in 1982 during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, setting off the Sabra and Shatila massacres perpetrated by his followers, the NYT obituary featured the great headline: “Bashir Gemayel Lived by the Sword.”
It’s also likely although less certain that Slim’s mother, Linda Helú Atta, was related to another founder of the Phalange, Charles Helou, later President of Lebanon. The Mexican government forced Arab immigrants to Hispanicize the spelling of their last names — e.g., Salim to Slim — so it’s likely that Helu and Helou are the same name, although how close they are genealogically remains uninvestigated.
We do know that Carlos Slim’s maternal grandfather brought a printing press to Mexico with him from the Levant and started an Arabic newspaper in Mexico, so the Helus and Helous sound sociologically quite similar. Indeed, Carlos’s Mexican-born cousin Alfredo Harp Helu is also a billionaire.
If so, the Slim heirs aren’t products of random romantic attraction, but of dynastic marriages among the leading far right Lebanese clans. This helps explain the Slim family’s career choices in Mexico, such as Carlos’ older brother’s Julian’s career with a Mexican government secret police force accused of torturing and disappearing leftists.
All this is a topic that the NYT has shown extremely little interest in reporting during the years in which Slim has been the leading stockholder in the newspaper…
Perhaps Donald Trump should ask the New York Times to renounce Carlos Slim as a monopolist exploiter of poor Mexicans?
Perhaps the New York Times should ask the Slim family to renounce their Fascist relatives?
Comments to Steve Sailer:
* Yeah but Trump is blond. So he’s naturally a Blond Bad Guy.
* Seriously… does the KKK have any power or influence in America?
Questions.
1. Who starved and killed 500,000 Iraqi women and children in the 90s? Clinton and Madeline Albright or the KKK?
2. Who are all the perpetrators of all those rapes and robberies on college campuses? Black athletes or the KKK?
3. Who pulled off a coup in Ukraine that had led to economic implosion and deaths of 1,000? Neoccons like Kagan and Nuland or the KKK?
4. Who bombed the hell out of Gaza and killed scores of women and children? IDF or KKK? And who continues to occupy West Bank and oppress Palestinians? Israel or KKK?
5. Whose idea was to cook up lies to invade and destroy Iraq and turn it into a haven for terrorists? Bush, Cheney, and Neocons or the KKK?
6. Who sells drugs all across America that destroy lives? Black/Hispanic gangs or the KKK?
7. Who makes and sells ugly demented pro-murder and pro-thug Rap music? Jews and blacks in the music industry or the KKK?
8. Who destroys businesses of decent bakeries after pushing the abomination of ‘gay marriage’ on all of us? Wall Street/Hollywood/Harvard or the KKK?
9. Who cooked up lies to destroy Libya and turn into a yet another haven of terrorists? Obama and Zionists or the KKK?
10. Who used Wall Street as a casino and robbed all of us blind? Global financiers or the KKK?
11. Who runs Las Vegas to spread sleaze and steal gazillions from Americans addicted to mindless hedonism and trash culture? The likes of Adelson or the KKK?
12. Who turns white girls into the likes of Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga in our pornifed culture? Pop Culture Industry or the KKK?
13. Who encouraged urban unrest and mayhem in the streets with bogus BLM riots?
George Soros or KKK?
14. Who is encouraging the violation of national borders in both US and EU while native populations are shamed for wanting to defend their own nations? NYT or the KKK?
15. Who are raping all those white women and black women? Black rapists or the KKK?
16. Who rob and loot stores? Blacks or KKK?
17. Who play knockout games and punch out old folks? ‘Youths’ and ‘teens’ or the KKK?
And we can go on and on.
In reality, the KKK has less power than the Girl Scouts.
It’s just a bogeyman kept ‘alive’ for push-button triggerings.
Posted inAmerica|Comments Off on Steve Sailer: Should NYT Renounce Carlos Slim for Exploiting Poor Mexicans? Should Slim Dynasty Renounce Their Fascist Relatives?
* If this were a Tom Wolfe novel, we’d soon find out that Trump’s streetwise private eye had surreptitiously recorded Clinton saying or doing things at Trump National that would cause Hillary problems if exposed.
* Wait a minute. GOP establishment has been telling us Trump has to go because he’s vulgar and crude. And Rubio has been presented as a classy alternative. So, why is he doing the Howard Stern thing?
* The irony of Trump is he is seen as the anti-immigrant candidate but has the hunger, the fire in the belly, of an immigrant.
In METROPOLITAN, the established wasp elites fret a lot, lack confidence, and just await their decline to irrelevance. This is what stuck out about Jeb. He seemed so settled whereas Trump has some of that Davy Crockett adventurer about him.
Trump acts like he got off the boat with Tony Montana.
And a NYer of all people who’s come to represent flyover country?
Something is strange here.
Maybe Trump has one thing in common with Obama.
Though Obama was much favored by rich Libs and Jews, he felt as an outsider. He knew they were using him for his symbolic value.
Likewise, Trump was used by rich NY Jews in the way that Gatsby is used in the novel by those richer and smarter than he. He has the frontman image that the others don’t have.
If Trump had been surrounded by Wasps, maybe he would have felt differently. But having been surrounded by Jews who used his name and face, maybe he felt sort of ‘used’ like Obama.
And so, he gets a kick out of connecting with people ‘left behind’.
Or maybe it’s all just shtick.
In business, he always felt beholden to others. He was with others richer and smarter than him. But speaking to crowds, he really feels like boss and top dog.
* Hillary also thought she had the 2008 nomination locked up, and that Obama, the one-term do-nothing Senator, wasn’t anything to worry about. Whoops.
Hillary also thought she had a button that said “reset” in Russian that she gave to Putin, and that she would be a good Secretary of State and work with him. Whoops. The word actually meant “overcharge” in Russian, and Putin spent the last 8 years taking advantage of her and America’s gaffes.
Hillary also thought Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be a threat at all. Whoops. Bernie’s showing in Iowa and New Hampshire scared the crap outta her and the dems.
Let’s face it: Hillary is extremely bad at campaigning, diplomacy, and judging the danger of situations. Bill, ever a more man of the people, is way more right.
Now the way Trump beats her is simple: don’t harp on the nitpickiness of her millions of scandals, just assume the sale about her being a crook, and then hit her with a metaphorical Kill Shot insult. He’s already alluded to her seeming tired, which might work. I’m sure he’s got 3-4 major insults lined up.
* I also found an article by a physician, John McDougall, M.D., claiming that Bill Clinton’s “madness” is “a consequence of heart-bypass surgery brain damage”. With a sympathy that I don’t share, given all the horrible things the toxic Clintons have wrought, Dr. McDougall writes:
One of the savviest politicians of our generation, known for his wit, charm, and calm under extreme pressure, Bill Clinton appears out of character in the speeches and interviews televised since his bypass surgery September 6, 2004 and his mental deterioration may be accelerating….
One of the best-kept secrets in medicine is the brain damage caused during bypass surgery . . . these well-recognized side effects have been reported in medical journals since 1969.1
Brain damage during bypass surgery is so common that hospital personnel refer to it as “pump head.” The primary cause is emboli produced during surgery from clamping the aorta and from the “heart-lung machine.” This machine pumps blood to keep the patient alive while the heart is stopped during the operation. Unfortunately, this pump also introduces toxic gases, fat globules, and bits of plastic debris into the bloodstream of the patient under anesthesia. Once they are in the bloodstream, these particles migrate to the brain where they can clog capillaries and prevent adequate amounts of blood and oxygen from flowing to the brain. Essentially, all patients experience brain emboli during surgery and for many the damage is permanent.
In 2001, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 5-years after bypass surgery 42% of patients showed decline in mental function of approximately 20 percent or more.2 A study published this year (2008) in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery using MRI testing just after bypass surgery found brain damage in 51% of patients.3 Three years after their time on the bypass pump, significant permanent reduction in mental capacity was identified in 31% of patients. I am not talking major stroke here; but these patients can’t remember names or numbers as they once did…
* Trump needs to raise the bid. He must have known that his “David Duke” moment was going to happen which is why I find his unprepared response puzzling . My two cents is that on a national TV news station, openly and un-equivalently disavow David Duke and the Klan / Nazis. Then, at his next 20,000 all white stadium event, he needs to quickly disavow one more time prepare his supporters for the fact that they will be smeared the same way and that the election will only be about race and sex baiting. His opponents, including the press, will be caught in a trap of their own making. Clearly, this is the moment if ever, to turn this around. Even if the Democrats win the Presidential election, their relationship with white-Americans will be so scarred that the divide will never heal. It would take a certain measure of balls to pull this off but there isn’t a better man to do it.
* I saw photos of Bill Clinton at Chelsea’s wedding and he didn’t look like he’d live out the year. He’s still around. He does not look good, however. I wonder what neurological problems Hillary might have. I mentioned a fall at 3:00 a.m to a person with a medical background without specifying the person involved, and her instant reaction was “stroke.” Granted it was an uninformed diagnosis but the fact that she said it without hesitation meant something to me. It would also partially explain the long rehabiitation period–more than a concussion was involved. I have also read that Hillary drinks rather heavily. A repeat of Woodrow Wilson’s second term is possible if she’s elected: imagine a neurologically-damaged Hillary Clinton Presidency being managed by a troika of Bill Clinton, Huma Abedin and Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky.
* One of the things that strikes me about the criticism of Trump, from both the right and the left, is that there seems to be no consistent line on exactly what his supposedly horrendous candidacy represents.
For one critic, it’s that he’s an authoritarian. For another, it’s that he’s a full on liberal. For another, it’s that he is a foaming right wing nut. For another, it’s that he’s a racist. For another, it’s that he’s vulgarian. But for all of these critics, he’s a monster who will destroy all we hold sacred.
Now at least some of the claims can’t easily be reconciled. He may be a liberal demon to some conservatives, and he may be a crazy wingnut to some liberals, but he can’t really be both. One would think that at the very least if he truly represented something horrible, there would be broad consensus as to what in particular is so very bad and dangerous about him.
But I’m not seeing anything like a consistent picture. His monstrosity seems to assume very different shapes for different people.
Now that’s a ringing endorsement when that mega-crook starts spewing FUD like a broken sewer main.
Still it shows that the anti-Trump list just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
So far we have:
CNN
FoxNews
MSNBC
WSJ
WaPo
LAT
NYT
The GOP
Dozens of top GOP congressmen
The Democratic party
Chambers of Commerce
Club for Growth
Silicon Valley billionaires
Hedge fund billionaires
Koch brothers
Adelson
The entire staff at the National Review
The Weekly Standard
Hollywood
The level of fear and loathing from the establishment is reaching levels that are beyond our comprehension.
* All it will take is for Trump to go to the funeral of a slain officer or a white child who was killed by a ghetto rat and it will be like kicking an ant hill. Maybe the left should stop playing with this race thing while they can still claim to be ahead.
* I got the feeling Obama and the Democrats are realizing that there is a problem with not showing enough respect to police and armed forces: I feel like there was sooo much attention given to the medal award for the Seal Team 6 officer (a man from rust-belt Ohio) yesterday.
* I didn’t read the Larry Summers article because one brazen lie that jumped out at me was enough. Referring to Trump’s initial refusal to “disavow” David Duke’s endorsement of him, Summers says Trump “has already flirted with the Ku Klux Klan”.
Posted inAmerica|Comments Off on Steve Sailer: Bill Clinton to Relentlessly Denounce Trump (Between Nines at Trump National Golf Club – Westchester)
* Jeff Sessions and Kris Kobach are huge endorsements especially if you are single issue voter, and that issue is immigration. If you are such a voter and have been leaning to Cruz, or anyone else for that matter, these two endorsements should seal the deal for Trump.
* Trump’s methodology is to stake out extreme positions early, then negotiate a compromise toward the middle. I’m sure he will apply this basic methodology, which he has obviously used his entire life as a businessman, to the presidency. So I would expect him to be a very centrist President. I think he’ll build a wall, figure out a way to get Mexico to contribute to some of it, and then he’ll negotiate a set of compromise policies regarding deportation and amnesty. He obviously won’t implement his entire immigration policy platform but it will be a hell of a lot better than anything Clinton or Rubio would do.
While he does not seem to hold a set of ideological principles, I agree that he shares a basic loyalty to America. He views the American people as an in-group and sees that they are being ripped off. As a billionare businessman he thinks he can get them a better deal. In these dark times, I view this attitude as a far superior qualification for being President then an existing politician with a set of policy proposals. Why vote for a politician who you agree with on most of the “issues” when many of those issues aren’t even relevant to the role of the presidency, and in any event, we know they will never deliver on the issues that do matter?
I do share some fear of Trump as President due to his uninhibited nature, but I actually think his incentives are mostly aligned with the good of the American public and thus that he will (mostly) not abuse power. All Presidents do to some degree. But Trump has a brand and a $4 billion net worth to maintain. He is 70 years old and (if he is elected) this will be his final act. With his legacy on the line, and his fortune already made, he has no incentive to sell out and pursue policies that make him look like a traitor. He has already made his fortune and has no reason to betray the people by currying favor with special interests while in office. Also, Trump is not an ideologue. I worry about concentrated power in the hands of an ideologue more than in the hands of a pragmatist.
By contrast, Rubio’s entire life trajectory hinges on the events of the next few months. He is being bankrolled by billionaires and the GOP establishment. If he wins, he becomes President for 4-8 years, followed by a lifetime of book sales and speaking fees. His net worth will be much greater. If he loses he’ll just go back to having personal debt problems. His incentives are terrible – he has every reason to sell out and act in the interests of the establishment and not the American public. Note that Rubio is not returning to the Senate – it is all or nothing for him at this point.
* News media are 24/7 over Trump kicking out Black Lives Matter hecklers at a rally, a Secret Service Agent tackling some SJW photographer who cursed the Agent out; and David Duke.
* It is as if the spell cast by the civil rights movement is wearing off. The right is confident and the left is becoming afraid. The encouraging thing is not just that the Donald is refusing to wilt and fighting back and leading but that his followers are not responding to the race baiting either. Win, lose, or draw, the left will have used up what little guilt / shame they have remaining and that nothing they say for the next 50 years will be taken seriously.
Desperation.
* Asking Mexico to pay for the wall seems like a win-win gambit. If Mexico refuses to pay any part of the cost, that’s an acknowledgement that it wants an open border and unenforceable US immigration laws. It would make it easier for Trump to justify a harder line on illegal immigration.
* I think the Trump plan is actually to tax remittances sent to Mexico to pay for the wall.
He doesn’t actually think the president of Mexico is going to write him a check.
* Never mistake fluency and eloquence in speech for intelligence or capacity for leadership (Exhibit A: Obama). I believe Trump has the potential to be a great President. He is the anti-Obama and projects decisiveness and power and an optimism about the country.
* I really think it’s long past time to abandon the ridiculous notions that Trump is pulling some kind of publicity stunt, or that he’s a stalking horse in some Clinton plot, or that he’s going to cave on what he says he will do.
The fact of the matter is that Trump is a new kind of leader, and we are new kind of people now. Nihil esse rem publicam, appelationem modo sine corpore ac specie. The Republic is gone now; the Age of the Caesars has begun.
Those who cannot understand this will never learn how to speak Trump. They belong inwardly to the old order, the one that is passing away. But those who do understand this also understand Trump implicitly; the things he says and does are no mystery to them, and the connection he has with them will never be broken.
American, a nation born in rebellion and regicide, is coming to know, however dimly and confusedly at first, just what it means to have a king again. The ideologues of the old republic (read: the Cuckservative Establishment) will balk and throw fits, but their old shibboleths are nothing but barren and threadbare formulae now, shortly to be entombed forever in books that nobody reads. It is the living image of the warrior king which now speaks to men’s hearts, which now calls forth loyalty, courage, and valor.
Trump did not accomplish this all on his own. Trump is America; Trump is us. He knows it himself, and this is what gives him his unshakable confidence. The spirit that animates all of us also flows through Trump. He is like Antaeus the giant, who could never be defeated as long as his body touched the earth. Deep down inside, all of us who belong to the future are desirous of this change. We want Trump to be exactly what he is—the destroyer of the establishment.
But it is much bigger than one man. It is…The Birth of a Nation.
* Trump is no Gomer Pyle. He outwitted the entire brain trust of the Republican Establishment.
* Republican Congressman Tom Marino of Scranton endorses DJT and says “Mr. Trump is right about the desperate need to address illegal immigration and fight to keep our country safe” and that Trump is “able to attract new voters from across the spectrum and that is exactly what our party and country needs.”
* How can we test the authenticity of Trump’s positions? One way is to see if there is ideological coherence when we compare stated position against advisers. We see this coherence on immigration. Now we see it in foreign affairs with respect to Russia and Iraq:
Donald Trump is receiving foreign policy advice from a former U.S. military intelligence chief who wants the United States to work more closely with Russia to resolve global security issues, according to three sources. . . .
Flynn was also quoted this month as telling German magazine Der Spiegel that the Iraq war launched in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush was a mistake that gave rise to Islamic State.
Trump has often strongly condemned the Iraq invasion.
A former U.S. intelligence official who worked with Flynn said the retired general believes in a more aggressive approach to U.S. interests around the world.
“He’s a sharp guy, he understands foreign policy and national security and really understands intelligence,” said the official. “His positions and opinions are not always in line with popular thinking.”
Trump doesn’t seem to be as much of a seat of the pants guy as it appears because as we learn more about his advisers we see people with well thought out positions which are running counter to current policy thinking and so these positions are marginalized, you know, just like National Review marginalizes contrary opinions by purging people who don’t stick close to the neocon line.
* Did you see Kris Kobach win over a Manhattan audience to his immigration position on Intelligence Squared?
He is the smartest, most eloquent, best mannered Republican politician in the country.
He is the ideal “good-cop” partner for “bad-cop” Trump.
“Bad-cop” Chris Christie would be a disaster.
If Vice-Presidential nominee Kris Kobach can’t convince SWPL America to elect Donald Trump, no one can.
Anyone other than Kobach would be eaten alive by Hillary’s likely VP choice, Rhodes Scholar Corey Booker.
As NJ governor, Chris Christie never dared tangle with Newark mayor Corey Booker. He scheduled the 2013 Senate race for a different day than the gubernatorial race, because he was afraid of Booker’s coattails.
* There are no links between Kobach and myself, but there are links between Trump and Kobach. Trump employs ex-Sessions staffer Stephen Miller, Sessions and Kansas Senator Pat Roberts are both among the 7 Senators with career A+ rating from NumbersUSA, and Roberts and Kobach are both big fish in the little pond of Kansas Republican politics.
Interestingly, after a recent meeting with Senator Roberts Trump discussed the attributes he’d like to see in a running mate. Trump wants someone who would make a good President if, God forbid, Trump dies, and he also wants someone who can help push legislation through the Senate.
Unlike many running mates suggested for symbolic reasons, Kobach obviously has the talents and maturity necessary to be a successful president, and he is young enough to continue Trump’s legacy in the Presidential election of 2024. His experience drafting state level immigration bills such as Arizona’s SB-1070 would be invaluable on the Senate floor.
Furthermore, as one of your other commenters mentioned, Kobach has a plan to use the Patriot Act to force Mexico to pay for the border wall.
It would obviously be a mistake to draft Sessions or Cruz for VP – that would constitute demotion for either of those Senators. They are too valuable in their current roles – we can’t afford to lose a single vote in the Senate. Also, we need to bring an additional leader into the Senate to reinforce the patriots, rather than just reshuffling the existing leaders.
Trump’s greatest strength is his ability to bring Democrats, Independents and (especially) non-voters into the Republican fold. His greatest weakness could be his weak hold on the core Republican constituency, White evangelicals. Remember Iowa. No Republican Presidential candidate can afford to have apathetic support from White evangelicals. As a churchgoing family man from the heartland with a long history of social conservative activism, Kobach is ideally suited to fire up the Iowa base while the boss reaches out to Fishtown.
Both Kobach’s appearance on Intelligence Squared and Unz’s latter appearance on the same program are archived at VDARE. If memory serves, the audience found Kobach’s direct advocacy for immigration enforcement more persuasive than Unz’s oblique minimum wage based strategy.
* This is to Trump’s benefit. Trump himself can insure outreach to independents and Democrats but he has to be able to calm the Shrieking Sallies in the Republican fold and a solid guy like Kobach would do it. Secondly, with Trump being a New Yorker with New York values, a Baptist, who home schools his kids checks off another mark. Then we get the educational pedigree for all the nose in the air elitists. Then there is the issue of character – the guy is fighting a principled fight, he’s regularly getting called racist by liberals, he’s not bought by the open borders crowd, so that has to be a good calling card for those worried about Trump’s vacillations on issues.
* There is a long history of interaction between black separatists and white separatists. Most of it is surprisingly amicable.
The great photojournalist Eve Arnold (most famous for her portfolio of Marilyn Monroe and her associates-she was on the set of The Misfits and as I recall introduced fellow photographer Inge Morath to Arthur Miller, whom he married and fathered two children with) covered a Black Muslim group in the later 1960s. Being Jewish, she endured a certain confrontation from the leadership, but they were respectful about it: her biggest problem was the women, who assumed she was a white huntress after their men and would burn her with cigarettes when she wasn’t looking.
The best image from the project is one of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell
flanked by his lieutenants, Matt Koehl and the other guy (I forget his name-it wasn’t Pierce, nor the guy that shot him, Patsalos/Patler) sitting front row and surrounded by perhaps a thousand Black Muslims. They look pretty comfortable.
Posted inImmigration|Comments Off on Kris Kobach – ‘Legal Eagle Of Immigration Restriction’ — Endorses Donald Trump
Is the Simon Wiesenthal Center making bank off the rise of Donald Trump? Are donations pouring in to the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center?
America’s media elites are hysterical about Donald Trump but are they able to fundraise off this hysteria?
If Jewish organizations such as the ADL and the SPLC go all in to stop Donald Trump and then fail, what does that mean for Jewish power? Many Jewish organizations such as AIPAC went all in to stop America’s deal with Iran and they lost. Was the hysteria all fake? Just a fundraising tool?
Posted inADL, America|Comments Off on Are Jewish organizations like the ADL and the SWC able to fundraise off the Donald Trump threat?
The distinction between being a pig and being politically incorrect is a real one. But Trump and his supporters have obliterated the distinction — and that’s in large part thanks to the pendulum swinging wildly against political correctness.
Anger at anti-Americanism
Even the revolt against political correctness wouldn’t be enough to put Trump in position to break apart the Republican Party, however. Republicans have railed against political correctness for years — Trump isn’t anything new in that, although he’s certainly more vulgar and blunt than others. No, what truly separates Trump from the rest of the Republican crowd is that he’s a European-style nationalist.
Republicans are American exceptionalists. We believe that America is a unique place in human history, founded upon a unique philosophy of government and liberty. That’s why we’re special and why we have succeeded. In his own way, Trump believes in American exceptionalism much like Barack Obama does — as a term to describe parochial patriotism. Obama infamously remarked in 2009, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Obama meant that dismissively — American exceptionalism is just something we do because we’re American, not because we’re actually special. But Trump means it proudly. His nationalism is a reaction to Obama’s anti-nationalism. It says: “Barack Obama may think America isn’t worthy of special protection because we’re not special. Well, we’re America, damn it, even if we don’t know what makes us special.” According to Trump, we ought to operate off of the assumption that Americans deserve better lives not because they live out better principles or represent a better system, but because they’re here.
This sort of nationalism resembles far more the right-wing parties of Europe than the historical Republican Party. The Republican Party has stood for embrace of anyone who will embrace American values; extreme European right-wing parties tend to embrace people out of ethnic allegiance rather than ideological allegiance. Trump uncomfortably straddles that divide. His talk about limiting immigration has little to do with embrace of American values and much more to do with “protecting” Americans from foreigners — even highly educated foreigners willing to work in the United States without taking benefits from the tax system. It’s one thing to object to an influx of people who disagree with basic constitutional values. But Trump doesn’t care about basic constitutional values. He simply opposes people coming in who aren’t us. There’s a reason so many of his supporters occupy the #altright portion of the Internet, which traffics in anti-Semitism and racism.
The rise of ‘The Great Man’
Trump poisons the brew of justified anger at the establishment, justified anger at the political correctness and justified anger at anti-Americanism from the left. People feel victimized by a government that centralizes all power in the back corridors of D.C., a media dedicated to upholding nonsensical sloganeering as opposed to honest discussion, and a president who sees America as a global bully and an international pariah in need of re-education. Trump has channeled that sense of victimization into support.
But there’s one more spice he adds to that toxic concoction: worship of “The Great Man.”
Republicans have typically been wary of The Great Man. Democrats have not. Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1906, “The president is at liberty both in law and conscience to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit.” Franklin D. Roosevelt came as close to dictatorship in America as anyone in history. Barack Obama obviously sees little limit to executive authority; he chafes at constitutional restrictions on his power. The presidency, according to Democrats, is a position of elected dictatorship — at least when Democrats run the show.
Conservatives have always believed in the constitutional checks and balances. Republicans have not; there were Republicans who cheered the Bush administration’s abuses of executive power, for example. But as the proxy for the conservative movement, the GOP at least paid lip service to the idea that power resided in the people, then local government, then the states, and last and weakest, the federal government. Republicans supposedly stood for the proposition that the government was the greatest obstacle to freedom.
Trump overthrows all of that. Thanks to Obama’s usurpation of power, many Americans are ready for a Reverse Obama — someone who will use the power of the presidency to “win” for them, as opposed to using a powerful presidency to weaken the country. And that’s what Trump pledges to do. He pledges to singlehandedly make deals — great deals! He promises to make America great again, not through the application of constitutional liberties, but through the power of his persona. He’ll be strong, his supporters believe. When he expresses sympathy for Vladimir Putin and says at least Saddam Hussein killed terrorists and admires the strength of the Chinese government in quashing protest at Tiananmen Square (in a 1990 interview with Playboy), his supporters thrill. Because Trump is a strong leader. He’s no wimp. Give him control, and watch him roll!
Like Obama, Trump has built a cult following on worship of power. Big government has prepared Americans for tyrannical central government for a century. Republicans resisted that call.
Trump does not.
Is this the end of the Republican Party?
If Trump is nominated, there will be a split in the national GOP. There will be those who hold their noses and vote for him, but who see him as a horrible historical aberration; there will be those who stay home altogether. There may be a third party conservative who decides to provide an alternative to the evils of Trumpism. The Republican Party will remain a major force at the local and state levels regardless; national elections do not reshape parties at these lower levels immediately.
* Paul Ryan announced today (or yesterday) that a Republican candidate must always renounce “bigotry”, no ifs and whens.
* I’m waiting for a GOP’er with balls to declare BLM a hate group.
* I’m waiting for Black Lives Matters to declare Trump supporters a hate group. In the pages of National Review.
* Super Tuesday, like most of the primary season, has largely turned on the issue of immigration. So far, only one major candidate has sounded constant and consistent on true reform (e.g. one that includes building a wall; securing the borders; a moratorium on Muslim immigration; etc).
Yesterday’s NYT’s article concerning the Gang of 8, Rubio, and how the donorist classes actively pursued FOX news/conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh, Levin, etc. to help promote or “sell” immigration/amnesty to conservative rank and file grass roots members is quite informative. That the powers that be felt the need to manipulate the entire issue and frame the debate into a “the yokels out on the hinterland have to be cowed into accepting what’s right for them”
I hope that Mr. Peter Brimelow of VDARE, a true honest patriot on the issue of immigration for well over twenty years will read this: Sir, as you’ve written yourself before in past articles regarding the recalcitrance of some Conservatives not to support patriotic reform, well, now we know why. As you yourself made mention that when you talked to Rush about the issue of immigration, he basically couldn’t be bothered. He couldn’t be bothered to lend his voice and take a public stand vs. a policy (amnesty) that would have dire far reaching consequences for decades to come.
Today we know why: Rush was AWOL and basically sold out the rank and file US voters who care deeply about the issue of immigration and the consequences that are coming. Rather than support a candidate who has made the immigration issue the centerpiece of his campaign, he chose to support Marco Rubio, handpicked by the Gang of 8 to publicly sell the ordinary GOP voters on the issue. When it came time to put principle above personal pride, Rush couldn’t be bothered and went AWOL on the immigration. I hope, sir, that you will make mention of this in a future article on VDARE.com; Rush isn’t on the right side of immigration and now we know why.
As Steve likes to say, “If you can’t trust Senator Schumer to save the GOP, who can you trust?” Well, guess we can’t trust so-called Conservative leaders who nothing more than shills for the donors and open borders lobbyists. It is sad but not entirely surprising that many of them now are backing away from their own words while still refusing to endorse the one candidate who has consistently sided with patriotic immigration reformers such as Peter Brimelow over at VDARE.com (among others).
* I would love to see Trump campaign here in CA and put it in play though and freak out the Democrats. He could pull it off. The thing the bribery class and elites compose only small segment of our population and the only reason the state is Blue is because of the police, prison and state workers unions. Numerically they’re small. Since Trump isn’t running on a union bashing platform he’d probably get a lot of their votes as well.
And yeah it’s also Blue because the CA GOP ran nothing but amnesty proponents which killed off voter interest, they also made sure their bench of candidates remained pathetic.
* As I remember the deceitful attempts to get the Gang of Eight bill through the House, this happened about the same time that Rush’s old contract was running out. He was supposedly negotiating a new one but I think he secretly had the plan all along to launch his EIB network and get a piece of the pie from everybody on the lineup.
I used to listen to him in the morning on my way to work on a house I bought and on the way home listen to Hannity. I do not recall him ever making much noise about amnesty or the attempts by Sessions to detail all the hidden stink that was in the bill. I remember one of Sessions speeches on the Senate floor when he said “If an American were to do this he would be in prison!”.
Rush never seemed to say much about it. My guess was that Rush was getting part of the advertising revenue from the EIB network and Zuckerberg’s deceitful PAC was advertising heavily on it. They did the standard trick of giving you half the story (are you for strong border control…) and never mention who they are or what they really stand for. Then they tell you to go to their web site or call their 800 number where you would be added to the list of people who support Zuckerberg’s position, thinking you have voiced your disapproval of amnesty but actually have been counted as a supporter of the Gang of Eight. This of course would be leaked out by the House to the media, all the support the bill has, and rammed through in the middle of the night based on the phony numbers.
* The only thing I remember about Rubio this week was his interest in Trump’s penis. #trump
* Overall Trump’s been doing roughly as expected, at worst only slightly underperforming. The best news for him is that while the race is clearly Trump vs. anti-Trump, all of the anti-Trumps are doing well in some places and poorly in others. Kasich is only relevant in New England, but all other anti-Trumps are flopping. Cruz won Texas and Oklahoma but is a nonentity in Virginia, and Rubio looks like he could fall short of 20% and get shut out in some places. This outcome will likely not be good enough for Trump to wrap things up, but it’s still good enough to show that no other candidate can outright beat him, and that could be enough for party regulars who may not like Trump but want to avoid a brokered convention to get on board.
* Donald Trump, speaking extemporaneously at his press conference, sounds incredibly lucid and presidential. He even used the word ‘bucolic,’ correctly I might add. He’s a very smart and perspicacious man.
* Trump’s Policy (the only one you care about, anyway) is actually long-term thinking at its finest. It’s the Globalists who don’t give a damn what happens to western civilization, or the people who should inherit it. “Anti-racist” whites are morons too stupid to think about the future in any substantive way. If they weren’t, they’d know they are making a losing bet (as things are going now: if anti-whites are right, we gain nothing, if they’re wrong we lose everything; if “racists” are right we lose everything, if they’re wrong we lose nothing).
* Trump during his press conference compared Rubio to a version of a no-talent Don Rickles. Trump has a talent for labeling events or opponents in a way which is very descriptive.
I like how Trump brings up the point about whether Clinton “will be allowed to run” due to her crimes and how people who committed lesser crimes than hers are serving long prison sentences. This stands out because no one else is talking about it, so his statements pack more of a punch.
* So Trump just gave a press conference rather than a victory speech and it was great. In my lifetime no one has sounded that presidential besides Pat Buchanan in 92. Trump is more Buchanan than Pat Buchanan. Could that be true?
* As he’s been saying, “I can act Presidentially.” Yes, he can. It was a press conference in FlA, not a rally celebrating his Super Tuesday totals. There was a line of American flags behind him…and Chris Christie, standing as VPs usually do.
He took many questions. Yes, this was the beginning of his, “I can talk policy and I can unify the party (with REAL people I represent) and I can now begin running for real against Hillary.”
The Nation of Islam is perhaps the most powerful movement of black nationalism in America.
It tends to make Jews upset when you inform them that blacks don’t like them.
It’s hard to think of two peoples more different — Jews and blacks. They have little to do with each other in real life.
The interests of blacks, Jews, latinos, Muslims and whites are often different. For instance, whites around the Western world want lower taxes, less government regulation, less welfare, strong law enforcement, no affirmative action, and freedom of association. Blacks and latinos want high taxes on high earners and more government welfare and relaxed law enforcement. Muslims around the world want the destruction of the Jewish state and the destruction of Jewish dominance of the media, academia, politics and business in the West. Jews want to live. Jews want the Jewish state to survive. Jews don’t want high marginal tax rates. Jews don’t like affirmative action.
There are times when one group can advance its interests and all groups benefit. I’m thinking of scientific advances. So many of them have been accomplished by Jews but non-Jews have massively benefited. Not all scientific advances are an unalloyed blessing, but medical advances are certainly of wide benefit. When Jews get rich and create jobs for non-Jews and increase wealth in a country, that’s another example where one group (Jews) advances more than other groups but all groups are benefited in some ways. Of course, with money comes power. Would you rather be well-off but lack sovereignty in your historic homeland?
There is a long history of interaction between black separatists and white separatists. Most of it is surprisingly amicable.
The great photojournalist Eve Arnold (most famous for her portfolio of Marilyn Monroe and her associates-she was on the set of The Misfits and as I recall introduced fellow photographer Inge Morath to Arthur Miller, whom he married and fathered two children with) covered a Black Muslim group in the later 1960s. Being Jewish, she endured a certain confrontation from the leadership, but they were respectful about it: her biggest problem was the women, who assumed she was a white huntress after their men and would burn her with cigarettes when she wasn’t looking.
The best image from the project is one of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell
flanked by his lieutenants, Matt Koehl and the other guy (I forget his name-it wasn’t Pierce, nor the guy that shot him, Patsalos/Patler) sitting front row and surrounded by perhaps a thousand Black Muslims. They look pretty comfortable.
* All the KKK/David Duke hail mary haranguing of Trump by the MSM actually worked in his favor. Whites heard “another one of us under siege”.
* Election results show Donald Trump on course to preside over final and ignominious destruction of degenerate American empire.
* Physiognomy alert: Paul Ryan’s face bespeaks a weak, dissolute, zero integrity man inside. The cuck visage.
* All these cucks bitching about the election of Trump meaning the end of the Republican Party… they say it like it’s a bad thing!
* Never take women’s stated opinions on men’s attractiveness seriously. (Brain-vagina disconnect).
* For a few brief weeks, the leftoid media will squeeze Paul Ryan’s biceps and suck Rubio’s foam-flecked pecker like they’re Obama 2.0. Then, once their anti-Trump usefulness is done, they’ll toss them back to the GOPe and rediscover Rubio’s “immaturity” & Ryan’s “extremism”.
* Authoritarianism is the proper response to traitorous elites and oligarchs who have captured levers of power.
* Trump’s message – essentially nationalist populism – resonates w voters, & his Game – self-salesmanship – raises the value of his message.
* Trump is both a Persuader and a Messenger. The two are not mutually exclusive.
* Abraham Lincoln was a white nationalist.
* Trump is the greatest present reaffirmation of American Democracy.
* Asian griping over off-color jokes that usually “skewer” positive traits always comes off insincere.
* Pundits who insist that Trump is a #NaziKKKWhoWantsToKill6MillionJews are dangerous demagogues who are preying on our worst fears.
* Best way to understand Trump phenomenon? Middle class revolt against high-low con job, where elites buy voters with welfare promises.
I like this tweet: “Conservatism vs Liberalism is now Nationalism vs Globalism. Nationalism can do what Conservatism never could. It can win.”
Politico: Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan praised Republican front-runner Donald Trump for refusing donations from Jewish groups.
Trump “is the only member who has stood in front of the Jewish community and said ‘I don’t want your money,’” Farrakhan said in a sermon he delivered this week. “Any time a man can say to those who control the politics of America, ‘I don’t want your money,’ that means you can’t control me. And they can’t afford to give up control of the presidents of the United States.”
Despite his commendation for the billionaire businessman, Farrakhan did not endorse him. “Not that I’m for Mr. Trump,” he added, “but I like what I’m looking at.”
Farrakhan also called Jews the “Synagogue of Satan,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-Semitic statements.
In December, Trump appeared before a crowd of leading Jewish Republicans and told them, “You’re not going to support me even though I’ll be the best guy for Israel.”
“I’m a negotiator like you folks,” he also said. “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals? … Probably more than any room I’ve ever spoken.”
Another way of saying this is that many elite Jews were wrong. Jews dominate the American media. About half of the leading pundits are Jewish. Elite Jews help set the Overton Window in America. And these Jews had no clue about the rise of Donald Trump. No clue. And that scares many Jewish elites.
Jews tend to have a distaste for populism and gentile nationalisms because almost by definition, such movements exclude Jews.
While there is no reason to believe that Donald Trump will be hostile to Jews, I wonder if his rise presages the decline of Jewish power in America?
I haven’t done a scientific study, but impression is that Jewish pundits and Jews in the MSM in general were about the last group to grasp the power of the Donald Trump phenomenon, and this says a great deal about them and how they see the world, and how out of touch they are with the concerns of non-Jewish Americans, particularly non-Jewish white Americans.
America isn’t just a country whose primary purpose is to be user-friendly for Jews. America, like Israel and Japan and France, has its own mores and values and visions. It is not the purpose of America to serve Jews or Israel or blacks or Muslims or latinos. America was created by white Protestants.
I can’t help noticing that the people with the most contempt for Trump and his followers in the following article are Jews — David Remnick, Nate Silver, Jonathan Bernstein. I’ve also heard Jewish pundits such as Dennis Prager and Bill Kristol pour on the contempt for Trump for months now. It seems like the most visceral hatred for Trump among both Republican and Democrat elites comes from Jews. Perhaps Jews are more sensitive to and afraid of seismic shifts like this one because Jews often see themselves as a tiny and defenseless people, and history’s perpetual victim of the goy’s rage and stupidity.
David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, told his readers last summer that Donald Trump was running for president to promote his own brand and that the “whole con might end well before the first snows in Sioux City and Manchester.”
That was quite measured compared to James Fallows, the national correspondent of more than three decades for The Atlantic, who wrote confidently — and with his own bold for emphasis — “Donald Trump will not be the 45th president of the United States. Nor the 46th, nor any other number you might name. The chance of his winning the nomination and election is exactly zero.”
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Those two mandarins weren’t alone in dismissing Trump’s chances. Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza wrote in July that “Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.” And numbers guru Nate Silver told readers as recently as November to “stop freaking out” about Trump’s poll numbers.
Now all these journalists, and more, are coming to grips with their mistaken assessments. And some, too, are freaking out.
In an interview this week, Remnick sounded both shocked and sad about Trump’s success, saying it was “beyond belief” and reflects an “ugliness” that appeals to “every worst instinct” in America.
“The fact that so many of us, all of us, were wrong in predicting anywhere near the extent of his success so far, may be partly due to the fact we didn’t want to believe those currents could be appealed to so well and so deeply and successfully,” Remnick said.
Indeed, the knowing skepticism about Trump’s chances that Remnick expressed last summer was quite common throughout the journalism industry, from the most serious magazine journalists, writing with the voice of history, to most street-savvy, ear-to-the-ground bloggers: Trump had a polling ceiling; the Republican establishment would coalesce to bring him down; he didn’t have a sufficient ground game; one giant gaffe would inevitably bring him down; and on and on.
But barring an unprecedented convention floor fight, all signs point to the unimaginable. Trump most likely will be the Republican nominee for president.
Some columnists are still holding out the belief that Trump won’t actually win the nomination — while acknowledging that their sweeping dismissals of the possibility were off the mark. And yet, others say we’re witnessing a sea change moment in this nation’s politics.
Now, months later, Fallows acknowledges he shouldn’t have been so categorical, but warned in an email that Trump is an idiosyncratic phenomenon.
“[E]veryone (including me) has had to learn that one or another line-crossings and rule-breakings that would have stopped any previous candidates allow Trump to keep rolling on through,” he wrote. “I think an underappreciated factor here is the combination of Trump’s distinctive skill, and a changed nature of this cycle’s primary. Trump’s distinctive skill is not so much as a business executive, where his record is mixed, but as a TV performer. There’s a particular set of skills that go with reality-TV competitions, and Trump is great at them!”
There’s as much risk of “over-learning” the lessons of Trump, Fallows said, as ignoring them.
“I think it’s possible to observe what’s happening, as it happens. But this year’s circumstances — for the party, and for this man — are so unusual, in fact unprecedented, that I’m cautious about drawing up any new rules. We see how the Trump era goes, and then, we’ll see whether the landscape has been changed for the long term,” he wrote.
“The Fix” blogger Cillizza was one of the first to acknowledge that he was wrong to say “never.” Just a month after writing that “Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016,” he changed his tune, learning to never say “never” in politics.
“I had NEVER EVER seen a reversal in how people perceive a candidate who is as well known as Trump — much less a reversal in such a short period of time. I based my conclusion that Trump would never be a relevant player in the Republican primary fight on the ideas that once people 1) know you and 2) don’t like you, you can’t change those twin realities much,” he wrote. “That was 100 percent true. Until Donald Trump proved it (and me) wrong.”
Silver, founder of the FiveThirtyEight site, told an audience at the 92nd Street Y in New York in September that he didn’t think “Trump is very likely to win the nomination, in part because he’s not really a Republican,” and last month Silver put Trump’s chances of winning the nomination at only about 50 percent.
Now, though, a new reality seems to be setting in.
“‘With the exception of the 2016 election,’ will be a common phrase in Ph.D. dissertations in 2044,” Silver joked on Twitter last week.
“This time, we really might be in the midst of [a political realignment]. It’s almost impossible to reconcile this year’s Republican nomination contest with anyone’s notion of politics as usual,” Silver wrote this week. (Silver did not respond to requests for comment.)
Fox News’ Chris Wallace was more contrite, saying in an interview that Trump’s success proves “no one knows anything” and that analysts should stick to analyzing, not predictions.
“This has really been a huge case of humble pie to everyone in my business, myself included,” Wallace said. “Lord knows I didn’t think Trump was going to run. When he did run, I thought he had destroyed his candidacy half a dozen times. So I think one of the things you learn is that you don’t know as much as you think you know. That anyone who would be foolish enough to think that they’re an opinion maker or opinion shaper, really, this has been a case lesson in the American people will make their own decision for themselves, and that’s healthy.”
Bloomberg View’s Jonathan Bernstein isn’t so ready to admit that he was mistaken about Trump’s chances. He has held for months that Trump does not have a serious chance of being the nominee. On Monday, he wrote it’s still “quite likely he won’t be” the nominee because many Republicans will band together to stop him even if he has a big lead after Super Tuesday.
“So in 2016, many but not all of the normal incentives pushing parties to unify won’t apply if Trump is nominated. This leaves top Republicans with a difficult choice — and strong reasons to pull out the stops to defeat Trump before he grabs the nomination,” Bernstein wrote. (Bernstein didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
There’s still time for everyone, or no one, to be proven wrong. But whether Trump actually clinches the nomination, Trump’s candidacy will likely forever change how future candidates are covered.
Remnick pointed to the Philip Roth anthology, “Reading Myself and Others,” which raised the idea that in the United States, it can sometimes become impossible to write fiction “when the craziness of American reality so outstrips the imagination of even the most freewheeling novelist.”
“We’re in one of those moments,” Remnick said. “It’s enough to say, obviously considering where we are, everyone was wrong. And this gives Trump great joy, I’m sure.”
Posted inAmerica, Donald Trump|Comments Off on The media’s Trump reckoning: ‘Everyone was wrong’
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
