{"id":99518,"date":"2016-06-27T23:23:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T07:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=99518"},"modified":"2016-06-29T08:13:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T16:13:10","slug":"pointing-n-sputtering-at-trumps-idea-man-stephen-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=99518","title":{"rendered":"Pointing ‘n’ Sputtering at Trump’s Idea Man, Stephen Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Sailer writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Julia Ioffe in Politico has a long article<\/a> about Donald Trump\u2019s immigration idea man and warm-up act Stephen Miller. She intends to insinuate that the young staffer is some kind of Goebbels \/ Father Coughlin \/ Huey Long enemy…<\/p>\n

One problem is that she has to quote Miller a lot to fill out her space, and he\u2019s awfully reasonable and she can\u2019t think of much except to point \u2018n\u2019 sputter…<\/p>\n

Another problem for Ioffe is that Miller is Jewish…<\/p>\n

What an extremist wacko! Who believes immigration will tend to make America more Democratic-voting, other than all Democratic politicians and strategists?<\/p>\n

Seriously, it\u2019s really not that complicated why a patriotic Jewish kid from Santa Monica like Stephen Miller would support Likud Lite immigration policies for his own country. The Jewish immigration restrictionist intellectuals from Southern California such as David Horowitz, Mickey Kaus, and various low-key friends of Ann Coulter tend to be aware that the kind of immigration policies that are good for Israelis would also be good for Americans.<\/p>\n

A more difficult question is why other American Jewish pundits are so oblivious to this straightforward logic.<\/p>\n

Julia Ioffe has spelled out her own motivation<\/a> \u2014 she takes Miller\u2019s proposed restrictions on Muslim immigrants coming to America as a personal insult because her family arrived in the United States in 1990 as refugees from the post-Berlin Wall Gorbachevian Soviet Union. The Jackson-Vanik act had singled out Jews from the Soviet Union for special immigration preferences:<\/p>\n

So, America has a tradition of immigration policies based on religion\/ethnicity.<\/p>\n

COMMENTS:<\/p>\n

* I wonder if Julia Ioffe and Cathy Young ever hang out, since they are both female Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union. I do think the more recent Jewish immigrants from the former USSR tend to be more socialistic and elitist than the \u201chuddled masses\u201d that came a century ago. The net effect is that they won\u2019t want to restrict immigration (because they benefited from it) but at the same time they don\u2019t think that they will ever have to pay for it, since they are by nature card carrying members of the white elite.<\/p>\n

* The irony is that he looks like a Bolshevik commissar or NKVD operative.<\/p>\n

* Julia Ioffe\u2019s Twitter feed and writing seems to be almost entirely made up of belittling comments about Russian Goys and American Goys. She manages to be a lousy citizen of two countries. Oh well, there\u2019s apparently still a market for this stuff.<\/p>\n

* Funniest thing I ever read from Ioffe was her trying to caricature the Russian position regarding homosexuality and political correctness<\/a>. I was like \u201cwow, when she\u2019s being sarcastic, she actually makes a lot of sense.\u201d Sort of like this article, where a supposed takedown of Miller makes him seem sane, to us at least.<\/p>\n

“As I\u2019ve written earlier, this is indeed how Putin and many Russians see the problem: that homosexuality is a Western import, one that degrades the fabric of (newly) Christian Russia. That, in the West, there is a powerful gay cabal that protects its own and crushes its religious critics. That people are so scared to offend gays and other minorities, that they lie and say it\u2019s normal even though they all know it\u2019s not. That the culture of political correctness, which most Russians believe is not a product of historical striving for tolerance, is nothing but a bullshit machine. That political correctness is not about acceptance, but about being false and lying to yourself about the world around you. And that Russians are just the only ones who see things as they are and who call things by their real names.”<\/p>\n

* Jews are highly intelligent and intensely political, and naturally some of them are going to try to get in front of shifts to more right wing politics so that the right-wing politics are Likud Lite, rather than Alt-Right.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d all be better off though if the Stephen Millers and Julia Ioffes stayed out of politics and stuck to being dentists and homemakers making briskets instead.<\/p>\n

* Masha Gessen and Max Boot are another two members of that ex-Soviet dream team. Having them in positions where they influence American-Russian relations would be like having militantly pro-IRA Irish-Americans, who immigrated from Northern Ireland as kids, now in charge of US-British relations.<\/p>\n

* I know a lot of Russian Jews. All of them hate communism and most are not overly fond of leftists or NAMS. If they had gone to Israel they most would have joined Avigdor Lieberman\u2019s party which is to the right of Likud. I guess some of their children could have been brainwashed in school though. They are quite a contrast to the grandchildren of 1900 emigres.
\nI think it is interesting that there are some southern CA Jewish intellectuals who are not fans of increasing migration. You could include Dennis Prager and even Dr Drew (who usually agrees with Adam Carolla). I guess having real world experience of what mass immigration is like makes a difference.
\nWhen I was a kid, I knew a lot of Jews and Swedes who lived on the south side of Chicago and were forced to flee their neighborhoods like Steve\u2019s father in law. They were the only Jews\/Scandinavians I knew who were Nixon supporters.<\/p>\n

* Yeah, the Goebbels allusion was fairly well crafted, as political hit pieces go. The theme fell apart when she couldn\u2019t find anything in his past with which to Richwine him. He comes across as a bright, mainstream conservative with the balls to make the case against mass immigration.<\/p>\n

But I guess that\u2019s the point of the article; you\u2019re not allowed to have the megaphone. To paraphrase Sailer, \u201cthe first rule of the white club is to never question mass immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n

* Stephen Miller is like a straight Milo Yiannopolis with more political ambition and an extra 10 IQ points. Ann was right to be happy to have him on the Trump Train. Now Trump just has to read his stuff.<\/p>\n

* A much better historical comparison could be made: Miller is like Samuel Gompers, the Jewish American labor leader who fought hard for immigration restriction in the 1920s. But this would be too much to expect from professional victim, Julia Ioffe.<\/p>\n

* In my moments of naive absent-mindedness, I wonder why our newspapers\u2019 op-ed pages depend on a mere three or four Russian emigres\u2014with seemingly permanent column-inch franchises\u2014to explain to us what is happening over there in Russia.<\/p>\n

After all, it is 2016, there is no Iron Curtain, and there are many highly qualified Russian political scientists and observers over there, a mere email away, who can write well in English and explain matters and their point of view with depth and nuance.<\/p>\n

Trump should sharpen his sword and go after our entrenched globalist\/hegemonic foreign policy elite that controls the extent and terms of all public debate. Hillary is one of them and it will work well as a tactic.<\/p>\n

* I think if you look at American Jews as being like the GOP circa 2004, it makes sense. The problems are coming from the established elite, or JewE. Most rank-and-file Jews are blue-pilled folks who tend to follow the elite out of inertia or a sense of camaraderie, and then there are some red-pilled Jews who are realizing that their tribe is being led in a bad direction.<\/p>\n

* American political discourse basically consists of Jews arguing with other Jews, but now with the new twist of anti-Semitic Alt-Right NEETs harassing them on social media outlets like Twitter that they can\u2019t control.<\/p>\n

* There is no plan or conspiracy. Just as there is no plan or conspiracy for blacks to play in the NBA.<\/p>\n

* I\u2019ll admit that I\u2019ve been critical of Jews, to the point where Steve has held certain comments of mine for a few hours. I\u2019m not trying to be nasty, it\u2019s just that it\u2019s freakin\u2019 exasperating living in a constant who\/whom battle with a certain talented, intelligent, often quite admirable people who sometimes brazenly work against the interests of whites (gentiles). But I also realize that of course, many Jews are true American patriots, fair minded, and defenders of freedom. So if Stephen Miller is on the up-and-up, I want him on my side.<\/p>\n

Consider Julia Ioffe. Attractive, intelligent, well spoken. Nothing off-putting about her demeanor. In many ways, an ideal human being. And yet ungrateful that the US fast-tracked her group specifically to immigrate from Russia. And now she\u2019s working against us here. As Trump would say, \u201cSad!\u201d<\/p>\n

* Soviet Jews from the post-1980s exodus are probably among the most politically conservative Jews in America, virulently pro-Israel, and often hold very negative feelings towards African-Americans. They tend to be from provincial (and often Ukrainian) cities like Zhitomir or Odessa. Ioffe and Masha Gessen are both from Moscow and I believe their families moved in elite artistic\/creative circles back in the USSR. Once elite, always elite.<\/p>\n

* Interesting how the former Republican staffer says he doesn\u2019t know what this anger is about, and this magazine thinks that\u2019s something they should print.<\/p>\n

I mean, aren\u2019t our rulers supposed to know who we are, what we want, and what we are angry about? You\u2019d expect them to put their staff to work finding out as much as they can about this anger, at least to figure out how to manipulate this anger in some direction away from them. That should be job one for someone interested in staying in power. But they don\u2019t know, they admit they don\u2019t know, and neither the staffer, the writer nor Politico seem to think there\u2019s anything wrong with that.<\/p>\n

* My guess is that Ioffe is smart enough to find crimestop a little painful: she\u2019s aware that the Sailer\/Miller view of how the world works makes more sense than the conventional wisdom, but she also has her career to consider.<\/p>\n

Ioffe reminds me of a conversation I had with a Russian immigrant 15 years ago who was very relieved when I told him American journalists were hypocrites:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.vdare.com\/articles\/a-conversation-with-a-russian-immigrant<\/p>\n

\u201cHypocrite I understand. I grow up in Soviet Union. Lying to save your job, that\u2019s life. No, I was very worried smart people in America weren\u2019t hypocrites. You know, this country is supposed to be land of free, home of brave. I was scared that smart Americans weren\u2019t hypocrites, but instead were hallucinating. I am very happy to hear they\u2019re just hypocrites. Hypocrisy much less scary than mass hallucination.\u201d<\/p>\n

* I always wondered about the position of ethnic Jews in the Soviet Union. They seemed to go from many of the early leaders to supposedly discriminated against refuseniks and emigrants, and then became prominent as oligarchs after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I read that Khruschev made comments that there were too many \u201cAbrahamoviches\u201d in positions of power so there must have been a reaction against them by the majority Slavs at some point.<\/p>\n

* Sales 101: Find an underserved market and sell to it. The nationalist right has been limited to white goy spokesmen. With Miller they have a chance to see Jewish powers of persuasion and rhetoric and are impressed.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon (preference for the superior race) screwed local black businessmen. Drove \u2018em crazy. When Jim Crow was eliminated, black folks stopped patronizing local black businesses and started patronizing white businesses because white folks\u2019 stuff was better in some indefinable way. Maybe it was partly the thrill of having white folks wait on black folks, instead of the other way \u2019round. Maybe it was the sheer novelty. Elizabeth Wright discussed this post-WWII phenomenon at length and how it was the death knell for black bankers, lawyers, accountants, stores, and other businesses.<\/p>\n

Young Jews see an underserved sales\/rhetoric\/policy market and make the leap. Miller now, but before him Ben Shapiro, and before him, bunches of young Jews who saw the huge career opportunities in neo-connery.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s be honest: they are good. By the time Miller was in college he had a few dozen radio and TV appearances (likewise Shapiro). As Jews, they have the intelligence, the gift of gab, the rhetorical chops, the drive and the ambition to become the leaders of the nationalist right. Think of them as pioneers. Much to gain, little to lose.<\/p>\n

Further, Miller\u2019s presence (and the presence of other Jews) in Trump\u2019s inner circle will go far in allaying Jewish fears. With plenty of Jewish advisors around the Prince, it is far less likely he will go do something stupid (from a Jewish perspective). More Jewish money into Trump\u2019s campaign coffers.<\/p>\n

* Jews like Shapiro & Miller are as easily dismissed by the larger Jewish community as black conservatives are by the larger black community. Jews like Blacks thrive on nurturing a perpetual sense of victimhood & Jews love to be on the \u201cright side of history\u201d. Being progressive and undermining traditional ethnic states is very important to them. I can\u2019t say I blame most Jews in being weary about an emerging nationalism, globally.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that America has never been like Europe in regards to Jewry so in this case their behavior is borderline paranoia & duplicitous. To me it\u2019s very much in Jewish interests that America retains & even strengthens its Anglo identity but most Jews won\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n

* If the goal is to save Western Civilization then it is important to focus on the principles involved, not on who is saying them. If S. Miller helps in this regard then he should be complimented. What people ought to do is focus on the prize\u2013the presidency\u2013 because you can be assured that the Left is extremely focused on that. If the right will not concentrate to the same degree we are likely to lose everything. Civilization itself.<\/p>\n

* Does Julia Ioffe have anyone overseeing her ignorant hack diatribes? The Nazi theme is SO tired.<\/p>\n

Anyone who\u2019s somewhat versed in WWII history knows Goebbels was a real piece of work, with quite a backstory, and doesn\u2019t reflect Miller\u2019s life, or ambitions, worth noting.<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s glare doesn\u2019t make Miller any more like Goebbels than Julia Ioffe being an hysterical cunt makes her the new Eva Braun.<\/p>\n

* Theory is that Stalin was shocked when Israel\u2019s first Ambassador, Golda Meir, arrived in Moscow and went to synagogue, where she was surrounded by 50,000 ecstatic Russian Jews chanting her name in the streets. Loyalty to any non-Soviet entity (never mind an ethnic group) was not considered A Good Thing.<\/p>\n

* Stalin\u2019s realization might be part of the answer but it can\u2019t be the whole story. After all, anti-Semitism only got worse after Stalin died. I think the real answer is that once the initial, internationalist fervor of Communism wore off, Russians reverted to their historical norms of behavior, one of which was anti-Semitism. Add in the fact that Communism tends to bring out the worst tendencies in people, rather than appealing to their \u201cbetter angels\u201d as Lincoln said. You can see (although anti-Semitism doesn\u2019t seem to have made a big comeback) that post- Communist Russia is even more Russian acting now.<\/p>\n

You can see the same thing in China \u2013 Communism is just a thin veneer on top of 5,000 years of Chinese history so as time goes on Chinese communist governments act less communist and more Chinese. People really do revert to type.<\/p>\n

* Where is the acknowledgment of the outsized Jewish role in Bolshevik philosophy, politics, and execution? Jewish groups were among the few spared by the initial decade of terror when Orthodox Christians, Kulaks, and intellectuals and aristocrats of all (other) stripes were targeted. Of all times, some certainly warranted, why focus on anti-Semitism in Communist Russia? If anything, Russian Jewish groups should do some soul searching on their role in the second largest mass murder (Mao being first) of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

* Steve seems to kinda like her, but I\u2019ve always found Ioffe to be pretty detestable. She\u2019s too blinded by narcissism and prejudice to be a reliable commentator. Being a narcissist, she\u2019s written more than one article citing herself as a great example of how beneficial immigration is for the United States, but she actually illustrates one of the pitfalls. Immigrants come to a new country for many reasons, but commonly one of them is because they have serious grievances against their old one, and those grievances don\u2019t necessarily die in their new environment. In fact, this fresh new country of theirs can seem like a great weapon to settle some old scores back in the Old Country.<\/p>\n

Our cuckoo foreign policy towards Cuba is the clearest example of this phenomenon, but Ioffe has been working hard to make her tortured family history with Russia one of the defining events of the Russo-American relationship. Probably 80% of her journalistic oeuvre is devoted to trying to ratchet up tensions between Russia and the United States, with the ultimate goal the destruction of Vladimir Putin and the social groups he represents. Why some white kids in Dubuque (the weapon to be used against Slavic Russia, even though she clearly doesn\u2019t like those WASPs either) should care about these faraway ethnic squabbles is a problem Ioffe is too self-absorbed to contemplate.<\/p>\n

If you want Ioffe in a nutshell, her fabulously titled \u201cThe Russians Think I\u2019m a Russophobe? They\u2019re Right: A Response to Myself<\/a>\u201d is maybe the key text because it contains so much subtext. Despite considering herself a lucky acquisition for us in other venues, Ioffe concedes here that she doesn\u2019t know or care a great deal about America. It\u2019s all Russia in her world. The last couple paragraphs in particular are more self-revealing than she consciously intended.<\/p>\n

* Julia knows very little about American history, Jewish or otherwise, because she has almost no interest in it. It\u2019s Russia that fires her mind.<\/p>\n

* For me the most telling Julia Ioffe quote was from her farewell piece to Moscow<\/a>, written after she went to TNR and relocated back to America<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t miss living in a city where virtually everyone is white and wearing an Orthodox Christian cross, where the only places of worship you see are the onion domes of Orthodox churches, and where the Church and the state are in such close cooperation. The medieval beauty of the architecture wears thin when there\u2019s nothing to contrast it to, and when you know of the abuses happening under its aegis. A monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just try for a second, to envision the reaction if a western journalist wrote the following about Bangkok:<\/p>\n

Look, pagodas are nice and all, but seriously, this city would be so much better if there weren\u2019t so many Buddhists here. Also, why is everyone brownish-yellow?<\/p>\n

Also, Ioffe gets the architectural history of her hometown wrong. There are perhaps three truly medieval buildings remaining within Moscow, with the vast majority of Moscow\u2019s religious buildings dating from later periods. Unlike Ioffe, I wasn\u2019t born in Russia, have never been there, and certainly don\u2019t have a degree in Russian studies from Princeton, yet somehow I\u2019m aware of this fact.<\/p>\n

* His brother Peter [Hitchens] claimed that they were only 1\/32nd Jewish but I\u2019m not sure I believe him either. In any case Judaism is matrilineal so you could (theoretically) be 1\/32 Jewish but still Jewish.<\/p>\n

Once the societal advantage flips, some people will go from hiding a considerable minority background to emphasizing a minimal (or sometimes non-existent) one. It may be that Peter and Christopher had different ideas about whether it was more advantageous to be seen as Jewish or not Jewish in British or American society. It\u2019s also a glass half-empty\/half-full thing \u2013 Peter the devout Christian prefers to see himself as mostly Christian and Chris the atheist sees himself as partly Jewish.<\/p>\n

Supposedly Hitchen\u2019s mother hid her Jewish background in order to insure that her kids grew up as perfect English upper class gentlemen. It\u2019s possible I suppose but I\u2019m always skeptical about these stories. Madeline Albright claimed that until she became Secretary of State she had no idea that she was Jewish despite the fact that 3 of her 4 grandparents died in the Holocaust. Didn\u2019t she notice that grandma and grandpa weren\u2019t around anymore after the war was over? Even if you could pull the wool over the eyes of a child, didn\u2019t she put 2 and 2 together as an adult?<\/p>\n

* I think people who discover and\/or deploy a Jewish ancestor later in life are doing it primarily to shield themselves from criticism, as in Hitchens\u2019 case.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that Jewish teachings suggest a sort of essential Jewishness if matrilineal descent is there, and cultural Judaism will always claim you (or part of you) if you have a Jewish ancestor and are successful.<\/p>\n

On the other hand I have known many people who were part Jewish and they tended to downplay it, not for \u201cdisability\u201d reasons but simply because people tend to make assumptions about you that are not accurate, namely, that you must be Jewish. (Which in turn makes you the go to expert on anything having to do with Jews or Israel in the news.) This can be especially tricky for people from Jewish families who converted, or who converted when they grew up.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, I don\u2019t believe Madeleine Albright and I don\u2019t believe the Hitchens brothers either. But I also don\u2019t really care. I think people have a perfect right to declare themselves English, Christian, Jewish, American, whatever. I\u2019m less sure that people have the right to declare themselves seven year old six foot five chinese women, but that\u2019s another thread.<\/p>\n