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"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
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In 2016, before the election, Trump was announcing that it was rigged (unless of course he happened to win --- which if not for Jim Comey he would not have.) As is well-known, before the 2020 election (which he was expecting to lose just as he had expected to lose the 2016 election), he was announcing that it was, or would be, rigged. And we all know what has happened since then, in terms of that election and its outcomes. (And, further, as I have previously stated, Trump knows that he lost in 2020. What he is doing is all for his History's Greatest Con-man Show.) As of now, we all know what happened in these past mid-terms: the Red Wave (or "Tsunami" in some Republican quarters --- a very odd choice of term since a real tsunami is very destructive) just didn't happen. The consensus view on this is that in one state/local election after another the Trump-picked candidates who of course did very well in the Republican primaries didn't do so well when facing a total electorate.
Oddly enough, most of these candidates accepted defeat and went back to their homes in their home states (or, perhaps, in Dr. Oz' case the neighboring state, or perhaps Turkey, where he is a dual citizen and can vote there). But Kari Lake, in Arizona, very proudly did not do any such thing. And insisting that, among other things, because for certain ballots the printing was too light to be read by machine and thus had to be hand-counted, "the election was rigged," as she had been claiming it might be even before election day. She is currently in the process of challenging the election results in court. It is highly unlikely that she will win there, but the "Lake-Post-Election-Process" is well on its way to becoming part of future Republican election programming in many parts of the country. And why would/could that be? Because Republicans from other than the "Trumpist/QAnon/'they're-all-against-us'(read Trump)/'libs'-are-just-bad-bad-bad" wing of the party don't have much to run on.
As is well-known, in the elections themselves most of the Republicans were running on the "Anti's:" anti-Biden (Joe and Hunter), anti-US-assistance-to-Ukraine, anti-inflation, and anti-"socialism/communism" (or some variation of that theme). As is also well-known they had nothing positive to offer other than Rick Scott's famous "11 Point Plan" which included, for example, instituting a five-year review for Social Security/Medicare, which happened to make the proverbial "lead balloon" look good. Senate Minority leader McConnell's plan was "I'll let you know when we get the Senate back." That didn't seem to do too well either. So, what should the Party do?
Well, they might try to put together a package of policy proposals that would be better than Scott's. But that has been and continues to be, difficult for them. Battling inflation? Haven't' seen a plan yet. Securing Medicare's financial future? Haven't seen one of those either. (And as far as Bernie Sander's long-promoted plan to collect Social Security tax on all of one's income, not just up to $139,000 [or so], which would secure Social Security's financial base far into the future, Repubs. certainly aren't interested in that one.)
Dealing with Climate Change? Yes, it is now happening all around us, and, as the UN climate-change institute is now warning us on a repetitive basis, its dangers are becoming ever more ferocious. (Just a quick note, climate change denial is still around in one form or another [like, it's coming but it's really not so bad]. The New York Times' Bret Stephens claims that he has had a "change of heart" on climate change. but in a column revealing that [not so much really] particular change, he still trotted out three of the very few "scientific" climate change deniers left who claim that indeed it's really not-so-bad and private enterprise should take care of it.) As is well-known the Repubs.' "let's just drill and dig some more" (see Hannity, over-and-over again) would just make it worse. (Whatever did happen to "clean coal?")
Dealing with illegal immigration? "Build a wall" is great as a slogan but has little practical effect upon the flow of large numbers of people fleeing pollical-repression/terrible-living-conditions "south of the border." People-smugglers always seem to be able to figure out ways to get around (or over or under) them. That is of course unless what I described in my 1996 book "The 15% Solution " as the "killer fence" (see the book's chap. 15) would be installed. A "killer fence" would be a computer-controlled high-level sensing barrier which would automatically shoot to kill detected warm-blooded animals, including humans, which ventured too close [distance to be determined] to the fence. (Israel reportedly developed such a fence some years ago [and the reference to it seems to no longer available on the web] but has apparently never deployed it.) So, what does a Republican do these days?
Well, first, for as long as Trump remains at the head of the Party, election denial, which he relates over-and-over again, remains at the head of the Republican agenda. And then of course they have their other old reliable: Anti-(you fill in the blank) propaganda which Trump has put at the head of the line ever since he "came down the golden escalator." As I have pointed out on more than one occasion, believe it or not, from its beginnings in the 1850s, racism/xenophobia has been in the genes of the Republican Party. Since Trump came down that elevator, it has been simply been moving up to take pride of place in the Republican political lexicon.
So, in the last election, particularly in terms of xenophobia, it has been pushed to the fore. But open anti-Black racism has taken something of a hit, especially since certain high-profile Blacks, like Ye and Herschel Walker, are becoming prominent in Republican politics. Thus, it would appear that homophobia and its various variants (e.g., anti-trans and its varieties) are being moved more into a place of policy-prominence in Republican-controlled states. In fact, the use of various hate-forms in addition to anti-Black racism is coming to the fore. Indeed, to repeat, Republican policy beyond Trump has been on its way to becoming the policy of "Anti-(you-fill-in-the-blank)." Until, that is, just now, it has hit the Jews, in a big way: see the Ye/Fuentes/Trump get-together at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump has been associating with the well-known anti-Semite Ye for quite some time and few prominent Republicans have said boo to a goose about it. (Just as they never criticized anti-Muslim rants in 2016.) But here comes some kid named Nick Fuentes. (Fuentes is a 24-year-old who has come out of nowhere to be a leader of organized anti-Semitism [and Holocaust Denial to boot] in the United States. He also travels abroad; on whose dime one wonders. It has yet to be revealed who backed this kid financially at the beginning and who [singular or plural] are still doing so. Thus, the Republican Party has, especially since the distaste-for-them-relative-to-what-their-expectations-for-the-last-elections-were, moved ever-closer to running on just two platform-elements: "the elections will-be/were stolen from us," and "Anti-you fill in the space]." You can also take a look at what the Republican Congressional committees will be doing in the next session. Little to do with policy and dealing with national problems. (Even if they wanted to do that, they have no solutions anyway. Much about "going after" President Biden and his Administration on any issue they can dream up, including, of course, "Hunter Biden's lap-top." I will be dealing with that subject in an upcoming column --- likely next week.)
But, and it is a big BUT. As this theme has been developing smoothly for them, they have run into a big problem. Anti-black racism was just fine. Xenophobia was just fine. Homophobia-and-related-phobias is becoming just fine, and may be on its way to replacing anti-Black racism as the Party's leading "Anti-." Anti-Semitism has in the past reared its ugly head here and there (Trump's "money-men" while addressing a wealthy Jewish/Republican audience in 2016); Taylor-Green's "Jewish space-laser;" "George Soros" for the classic "metropolitan-Jew." And so on and so forth, with the classic ant-Semitic tropes.
But then comes the infamous "Mar-a-Lago" meeting and its Ye-Fuentes-Trump aftermath.
As of this writing (just about a week later) Trump won't denounce either Ye or Fuentes for their anti-Semitism and of course claims to have not known who Fuentes is. (Now there's security for an ex-President, isn't there? Trump doesn't know who Fuentes is, Ye brings him along, and Trump's security just lets the guy sit down at his table. Hmmm.) It took both McCarthy and McConnell a week to denounce anti-Semitism-in-the-Republican-Party, but they will not criticize Trump. (A few Republicans like Mitt Romney have [and all credit to him] but they are few and far between and on the margins of this party.) Trump actually openly admits that he can't criticize Fuentes because his (Trump's) base likes the kid. That tells us all that needs to be told about Trump's base (and of course we already knew it).
But what does that tell us about the Republicans? A) They are still very much the Trump-publicans. B) That is not going to change anytime soon (regardless of whether or not Trump is tried and convicted of one or more of the crimes/civil violations of which he is being charged). C) The Republican leadership outside of Trump has a BIG problem. D) Finally, Republican Jews have an even bigger problem. There is indeed a significant group of Republican/Trump-supporting Jews, both as contributors and as actors-of-various-kinds, who have stayed in the Trump-game even with his various anti-Semitic slips-of-the-tongue. I have previously compared the Trump-Jews with the German "Jews for Hitler."
As I said in that earlier column about the (formal name) "Association of German National Jews:"
" 'Jews for Hitler?' You must be kidding. That's a question that I have come across on a number of occasions as I have studied the history of Nazi Germany over a period of many years. And yes, indeed, there were Jews for Hitler. There were not too many of them. And certainly many Jews who were living in Germany when Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg on Jan. 30, 1933 and then was given dictatorial powers via the 'Enabling Ac" by the German Reichstag on March 23, 1933 were from those moments on afraid for their employment, their property, and civil rights they may have had under the predecessor Weimar Republic and eventually their lives. But 'Jews for Hitler' there were, and organized too, primarily in an organization called 'The Association of German National Jews.' " [See the earlier column for more information on them, and their eventual demise.]
We are (I hope) far from a military dictatorship in this country. But "Jews for Trump," unless he changes his tune on the matter (and truly, has he ever changed his mind on anything [other than women]?), do have a lot to think about.
Whatever they decide, however, it does appear that in the future Republicans will be running on election denial and the Hate-of-the-Week (although they will have to be careful when it comes to "their" Jews) and not much else --- because what else do they have?
(Article changed on Dec 01, 2022 at 8:06 PM EST)
