{"id":112415,"date":"2017-01-31T14:56:58","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T22:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=112415"},"modified":"2023-08-27T04:15:03","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T12:15:03","slug":"white-supremacist-cheers-trumps-de-judification-of-holocaust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=112415","title":{"rendered":"White Supremacist Cheers Trump\u2019s \u2018De-Judification\u2019 of Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Forward writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Richard Spencer, the leading ideologue of the \u201calt-right,\u201d Donald Trump\u2019s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that failed to mention Jews or anti-Semitism was an important, perhaps revolutionary, step.<\/p>\n

Spencer dubbed it the \u201cde-Judification\u201d of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Jewish activists, Spencer wrote in a short post for his new website Altright.com, have long insisted on making the Holocaust \u201call about their meta-narrative of suffering\u201d and a way to \u201cundergird their peculiar position in American society.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Holocaust, in Spencer\u2019s eyes, has become a sort of moral bludgeon \u2014 used against white nationalists like himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t limit immigration, because Hitler. We can\u2019t can\u2019t be proud of ourselves as a Europeans, because Holocaust. White people can be Christian, but not too Christian, because Auschwitz,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Spencer went on: \u201cEffectively, any policy, idea, or belief that is markedly right-wing and traditional \u2014 that evokes identity, power, hierarchy, and dominance \u2014 must be regulated by the possibility that it could potentially lead back to the German F\u00fchrer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer, a onetime Duke University PhD student, popularized the term \u201calt-right,\u201d a broad label that defines a new generation of white nationalists.<\/p>\n

While other influential members of the movement, like Andrew Anglin, clearly identify with Nazis (Anglin\u2019s Daily Stormer website is named after the Nazi propaganda sheet Der St\u00fcrmer), Spencer says he is not a Nazi and denies the label that is often attributed to him, preferring the term \u201cidentitarian,\u201d a reference to a far right political movement that has roots in France.<\/p>\n

Spencer dismissed Jewish responses to Trump\u2019s statement as \u201ckvetching,\u201d using a Yiddish term for complaining.<\/p>\n

In speaking about Hitler and the Holocaust, Spencer has also elided Jewish suffering, telling the Daily Caller that \u201cterrible things were done to many different people during that terrible war.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also does not outright condemn Hitler, calling him a \u201chistorical figure.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s done things that I think are despicable,\u201d Spencer told the Daily Caller, but did not go into details. \u201cI\u2019m not going to play this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Spencer\u2019s eyes, the \u201cde-Judefication\u201d of the Holocaust is a quintessentially \u201cTrumpian\u201d statement. Spencer championed Trump through the presidential campaign \u2014 and though he has been critical of the president at times, seems to have come around to Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is a white nationalist, so to speak, he is alt-right whether he likes it or not,\u201d Spencer in a recent interview on \u201cThe David Pakman Show.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree with this Richard Spencer essay<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This week, the activist Jewish community in the United States forcefully reminded the world that, no matter how much we might moralize the Holocaust, no matter how much we might glean from it lessons about man\u2019s fallen state or dehumanization in the modern world, the Holocaust is all about the Jews<\/em>. It is all about their meta-narrative of suffering, and it shall undergird their peculiar position in American society, and theirs alone.<\/p>\n

In 2005, the UN deemed<\/a> January 27 to be International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the occasion has annually elicited soulful statements by sitting presidents. President Trump\u2019s press release<\/a> was as seemingly banal as any other:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest. As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the kvetching came quickly. . .<\/p>\n

\n

1\/2 @WhiteHouse<\/a> statement on #HolocaustMemorialDay<\/a>, misses that it was six million Jews who perished, not just ‘innocent people’ pic.twitter.com\/OXiFqcPi4V<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) January 27, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n