08/14/2016
See previous articles in this series.
Almost exactly a year ago, VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow raised the question of whether America’s Jewish groups would turn on Donald Trump (who after all has Jewish grandchildren and a lifetime of Jewish business associates) with the hysteria they employed against Patrick J. Buchanan. I have been tracking the matter ever since and the answer is now in: yes — clearly triggered by visceral reaction against Trump’s nationalist acceptance speech in Cleveland and outright panic at his subsequent poll lead (July 25-29 according to the Real Clear Politics average). I suspect, however, that we have crossed a watershed and that, regardless of the results of this election, this will not end well for them.
Before the convention, Wall Street Journal Deputy Editorial Page Editor Bret Stephens said with astonishing arrogance: “It’s important that Donald Trump and what he represents — this kind of ethnic quote, ‘conservatism,’ or populism be so decisively rebuked that the Republican Party, the Republican voters will forever learn their lesson…” WSJ‘s Bret Stephens: Trump Must Lose So Badly That the GOP Voters ‘Learn Their Lesson’, by Sam Reisman, Mediaite, May 29 2016.
Just on Friday, Paul Krugman [Email him] writing in The New York Times continued the now-widespread theme: any expression of ethnic identity by America’s whites, no matter how implicit, was “bigoted” and “white nationalist”:
Recently Avik Roy, a leading Republican health-policy expert, had the personal and moral courage to admit what liberals (and political scientists) have been saying for years: “In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”Trump has been hit with a deafening crescendo of hostility from the Main Stream Media, as well as blatantly-orchestrated defections and denunciations from prominent Republicans. [Which Republicans Oppose Donald Trump? A Cheat Sheet, by David A. Graham, The Atlantic, August 11, 2016.]Just to be clear, I’m not saying that top Republicans were or are personally bigoted — but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they were willing to curry favor with bigots in the service of tax cuts for the rich and financial deregulation. Remember, Mitt Romney eagerly accepted a Trump endorsement in 2012, knowing full well that he was welcoming a racist conspiracy theorist into his camp.
All that has happened this year is a move of those white nationalists from part of the supporting cast to a starring role.
Pieces of Silver, August 12, 2016 (links in original)
These tend to come down to moralizing about Trump’s character and temperament. This is not surprising given that the elite consensus favoring mass immigration and multiculturalism is usually justified as a moral imperative — far too many respectable, intelligent white people desperately want to be in sync with the moral pronouncements of NPR and The New York Times editorial page to look out for their own interests. And to make it worse, Trump has not backed down or pivoted from his statements on a moratorium on Muslims, deporting illegals and making immigration policy work for America since winning the nomination.
At this time, there is not one MSM outlet on board with Trump, and the coverage given to manufactured crises about Trump vastly outstrips coverage given to the very real Clinton corruption:
This for a candidate who received more votes than any other Republican candidate in history.
It’s obvious, of course that not all Jews are in the #nevertrump bandwagon. Jews who support Trump — likely a dwindling number — claim to do so for the same reasons many non-Jews do: the domination of US politics by lobbyists and big money, as well as honesty and willingness to be unconventional [To understand American Jews who support Trump, read this, By Uriel Heilman, Jewish Telegraphic Agencey, March 8, 2016] But it is also obvious that, if only because of historical patterns, the vast majority of Jews will not vote for any Republican candidate — let alone Trump.
And, as always, what’s really important in thinking about Jewish issues is to focus on media power and financial donations, as well as tracking what the major Jewish organizations are up to. All three of the major networks mentioned in the above charts are managed by Jews (CBS: Leslie Moonves; NBC: Bob Greenblatt; ABC: Ben Sherwood) and that CBS (Sumner Redstone’s Viacom) and NBC (the Roberts family’s Comcast) are controlled by Jewish corporations. CNN is managed by Jeff Zucker.
Quite simply, Jews have far more power in the media than any other identifiable group. And yes, Jewish identity makes a difference in content (See Culture Of Critique, Preface to the Paperback Edition, xlvi–lvi).
The issues that have particularly triggered the broad Jewish community have had specific Jewish overtones — the alleged delay in disavowing the support of David Duke, the ridiculous claim of a “Roman salute” at a rally in Florida, Trump’s use of the “America First” slogan (reminiscent of the pre-World War II movement that explicitly noted Jewish influence in promoting a war with Hitler), and the “Star of David” incident in which a picture of Hillary appeared with a 6-sided star over a mass of cash with the caption “Most Corrupt Politician Ever.”
I have to admit that when I saw this (which was before all the fuss), I knew it was going to be trouble. I figured that the imagery would be way over the head of most people but would definitely provoke outrage among Jews. And indeed, a Washington Post article claimed it was decisive for many Jews:
The concern expressed by many Jews is that Trump, who earlier this year was slow to condemn former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and has on several occasions retweeted messages from white supremacists, is bringing into the mainstream a sentiment that has largely been relegated to the dark underworld of the Internet.The image was quickly removed and replaced with a circle. But Trump, as is his style, did not apologize or back down, arguing that the image was generic (seen also in a poster for Walt Disney’s Frozen and resembling a sheriff’s badge).Trump’s vigorous defense of anti-Semitic image a ‘turning point’ for many Jews, By Jose A. DelReal and Julie Zauzmer, Washington Post, July 8, 2016
Not being as confrontational as Trump, I would have advised him to simply apologize and move on, given that this is really a no-win situation for Trump and because the financial corruption implied by the image goes far beyond any Jewish angle.
(Nevertheless, there is no question that Clinton’s key financial contributors are wealthy Jewish Democrats and hedge fund operators, including Jews like Seth Klarman who donated to Romney in 2012; other members of the Republican Jewish Coalition are not contributing to Trump, although some, most prominently, Sheldon Adelson have promised to do so.)
But no matter. Such attempts at exoneration by the Trump campaign are framed by activists as nothing more than implausibly deniable dog whistles to his “white supremacist” base.
A New York Times article linked the star symbolism to a pattern in which Trump is supposedly appealing to white identity politics. It quoted ADL leader Jonathan Greenblatt:
“I think what we really find troubling is the mainstreaming of these really offensive ideas,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks hate groups. “It’s allowed some of the worst ideas into the public conversation in ways we haven’t seen anything like in recent memory.”In fact, I agree that Trump’s candidacy is an implicitly White revolt motivated by fears about what being a white minority in a majority black and brown America would mean for the future for their families and our institutions — entirely reasonable concerns. But the point here is that the organized Jewish community is consciously determined that this issue be kept out of public debate.For Whites Sensing Decline, Donald Trump Unleashes Words of Resistance By Nicholas Confessore, NYT, July 13, 2016
The ADL is unusual among Jewish organizations in directly condemning Trump, likely because of IRS rules on political involvement by non-profits. But a long list of Jewish organizations have skirted the taxation issue by criticizing particular Trump pronouncements, especially his comments on Muslims and other issues related to immigration and multiculturalism. For example,
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism has … taken tangible steps to address bigotry and xenophobia raised by the Trump campaign. The organization, said director Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, launched a community-wide effort to welcome refugees and reach out to immigrant communities.Again, the main problem the Jewish community has with Trump is that he has challenged the elite consensus on immigration and multiculturalism.[Why Is the Anti-Defamation League Calling Out Donald Trump by Name?, by Nathan Guttman, Forward, May 20, 2016]
Another interesting angle is that one might think that Jews who fund “Islamophobic” organizations, such as the abovementioned Seth Klarman, or are known as “Islamophobic” critics of the Muslim community, like Daniel Pipes, are not supporting Trump. This may seem surprising because one of Trump’s signature proposals has been a moratorium on Muslim immigration, while Hillary wants to ramp up the number of refugees and other immigrants from Muslim countries. Pipes is particularly interesting given his status as a pro-Israel activist (Klarman is also a major contributor to pro-Israel groups). Why would these “Islamophobes” not support the candidate who will actually do something about Muslim immigration?
Actually, it should not be surprising that Pipes is anti-Trump given that he favors a “house-broken Islam” in Western countries. What neocons like Pipes want is continued immigration of Muslims and the creation of Muslim communities that do not threaten the status quo on Israel. They are quite content with the demographic decline of White populations, whether in Europe or the US.
Indeed, Pipes just quit the GOP over this issue, complaining about Trump’s “pro-fascistic tendencies”:
The United States, the world’s oldest democratic republic, faces an internal danger unlike any in the past 1½ centuries, one with the potential to degrade domestic life and reduce the country’s standing in the world. Nothing is as important as resisting and defeating Donald J. Trump and the neo-fascist virus he wishes to bring to the White House.Needless to say, this is especially bizarre given that Trump’s proposals unmistakably parallel the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
Jewish publications like the Tablet continue hyperbolic denunciations of Trump. Thus an article by Eric D. Weitz drew an explicit analogy between the rise of Hitler and the possibility of a Trump presidency, arguing that mainstream conservatives were crucial to Hitler’s ultimate success as well as Trump’s. As is typical of such writing, there is no attempt to appreciate the very real interests that Trump voters have in supporting their candidate — interests that should be obvious to Jews supporting the moral imperative of Israel as a Jewish state, a Tablet staple:
Today’s Republicans and similarly-minded figures in Europe are like the conservatives who put Adolf Hitler in power: delusional about their influence, playing dangerously with the structures of our democracy. Few Republicans in the United States are willing to follow Sen. [Lindsay] Graham on the “exit ramp,” as he termed it, from the Trump highway. And much of the reason lies in the fact that Trump’s political language is only more blatant than what many Republicans have been saying for decades.Other recent articles explicitly assert the importance of Jewish identity in opposing Trump: e.g., Jews have a special responsibility this US election to fight back against Donald Trump, by Matthew Rozsa, Quartz, July 09, 2016That is the lesson from the right-wing populist upsurge in Weimar Germany, which culminated in the Nazi assumption of power. The political language of fear and hostility directed at “foreign” elements (never mind the fact that many and even most of those so-called foreigners had been residents and citizens for generations) enables moderate and radical conservatives to come together. The moderates make the radicals salonfähig, acceptable in polite society. That is the real and pressing danger of the current moment.
Weimar Germany and Donald Trump, July 18, 2016
And a writer at the Forward, Rabbi Michael Rothbaum, linked Trump to Rep. Steve King (R-IA) who responded to a jeer on MSNBC that “soon there won’t be enough white people to elect Republicans to national office” by saying the unsayable:
I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?And then he doubled down by linking the contributions of whites to Christianity. Horrors!
Of course, this argument actually has respectable academic support e.g. Oxford University professor Sir Larry Siedentop’s Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism.But Rothman looks at Christianity exclusively from a narrow Jewish perspective, seeing only persecution of Jews, and dragging in Trump:
Let’s recognize that Donald Trump, by openly demonizing Mexicans, Muslims and many other groups, has emboldened people like King to directly engage in racism. And then let’s realize that King’s racist comments on MSNBC serve to reinforce one of the truly important lessons of this election cycle: If nothing else, the rise of Trump has proven that white supremacy almost always lives next-door to Christian hegemony — and that one form of bigotry will always bolster another.(In fact, of course, King supported Ted Cruz in the GOP primaries and like other orthodox conservatives has been noticeably slow to endorse Trump. But maybe Trump’s rhetoric has been a breath of fresh air — for example, college students stood up to a hyper-feminist demonstration at a Milo Yiannopoulos lecture by chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump!”).For every racist meme that Trump tweets about African-American criminals, there’s an anti-Semitic meme that Trump culls from a white supremacist forum. For every unctuous remark Trump makes about “my African-American,” there’s another one labeling a room full of Jews “negotiators.”
Why Jews Need To Band Together With ‘Subgroups’ That Steve King Attacked, Forward, July 19, 2016. Links in original.
The lesson for Rabbi Rothman: Jews should form alliances with all the other groups:
All of us “subgroups” who stand outside of “Western civilization” are in danger. If we’re going to stand against this rising tide of hate, we’ve got to stand together. So let’s keep building bridges. Surely that’s something even we lowly “subgroups” can contribute.But building bridges with various subgroups in American society has been the Jewish strategy for decades, beginning at least by the early twentieth century — making alliances with blacks (the NAACP) and any other group whose interests could be construed as opposing the traditional power structure of America. See my essay Jews, Blacks, And Race, from Samuel Francis’s Race And The American Prospect, 2006.
Since World War II and especially since the sea change in immigration policy of 1965, the big shift has been away from attempts to make alliances with the white working class in favor of making alliances with non-White ethnic groups as well as with sexual non-conformists.
The white working class has responded by becoming by far the most enthusiastic Trump supporters.
While Jewish identity has often been in the forefront of Trump denunciations, the #NeverTrump neoconservatives are a special case. Obviously concerned that a Trump administration might fail to provide foreign policy jobs for the usual pro-Israel and anti-Russia suspects, the neocon assault on Trump is typically carried on with assertions of US patriotism, their Jewish identity submerged under thick layers of professed allegiance to American interests. Jewish #NeverTrump neocons with access to the elite media, notably Jennifer Rubin Max Boot, Bill Kristol and the aforementioned Bret Stephens, all of whom were featured in Part 4 of this series, have continued their onslaught against Trump, often with complaints about Trump’s supposed racism and fascist tendencies.
Recently Stephens complained that Trump was appealing to the “privileges of a white ethnic bloc.” He has also attacked Sean Hannity who is perhaps the most prominent MSM figure who is firmly in the Trump camp, complaining that Trump was departing from “genuine Reaganites: pro-trade, pro-immigration, pro-NATO, pro-entitlement reform.” [Sean Hannity’s Veneration of Ignorance, WSJ, Aug. 8, 2016]
Who would have thought that socially and demographically transformative immigration was a conservative value?
The exchange shows that any MSM figure who dares to show wholehearted support for Trump should expect nothing but wall-to-wall hostility from the neocon wing of the GOP.
But of course, neocons are not really conservatives and would be more than happy with a Democrat party committed to Leftist domestic policies (particularly massive non-white immigration) and a staunchly pro-Israel, anti-Russia foreign policy (which is near and dear to Hillary Clinton’s donor base as described above). They will most likely end up going back to the Democrats whence they came.
The Stephens-Hannity exchange also raises the real possibility that if Trump loses in November, neocons and other #neverTrump Republicans will be blamed. And given the role of Jewish neocons in the GOP and its mouthpieces like The Weekly Standard and National Review, to say nothing of the Jewish organizations’ reckless commitment to mass immigration and multiculturalism at the expense of the historic American nation, it is hard to see how the issue of Jewish power can be kept out of public debate.
But the good news: the pre-Trump GOP which was dependent on a neocon media and foreign policy establishment and with a big business, pro-Israel donor base, is dead — and, in my view, it can’t be resuscitated.
That GOP got completely out of touch with the interests of its white middle and working class voters. These voters will not go back to the pro-immigration globalism of the Republican elites. But without this base, the GOP cannot win.
Conservatism Inc. is finished. Its operatives who dream of reclaiming the Republican Party after a Trump disaster will inherit a corpse.
Kevin MacDonald is emeritus professor of psychology at California State University–Long Beach. His research has focused on developing evolutionary perspectives in developmental psychology, personality theory, Western culture, and ethnic relations (group evolutionary strategies). He edits and is a frequent contributor to The Occidental Observer and The Occidental Quarterly. For his website, click here.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.
