The Second Coming of God Demands that Americans be Loyal to….
For years, Republicans have recited the mantra that American Jews who vote for the Democratic Party are delusional and self-loathing, essentially the flipside of the argument Democrats always use against blacks who vote Republican — though of course, “In our case it’s true!” This desperate urge of both sides in America’s phony “binary choice” war to corral all people into blocs and collectives, and then to use schoolyard moral intimidation tactics to force them into voting “as people of your sort ought to vote,” is reprehensible and anti-republican (small-R), regardless of which side is engaging in it.
Now, if a tactic or underlying premise is reprehensible and anti-republican, one may safely bet the farm that President Donald Trump will not only exploit it, but escalate it to hitherto implausible levels of depravity, just as, while a private citizen, he always made it his mission to carry ordinary human vice and vanity to unprecedented heights.
And so it is that Donald Trump came out yesterday against Jewish Democrats, spewing on about how their support for a party that “hates Israel” shows their “disloyalty.” Disloyalty? Disloyalty to what? We are talking about American citizens. And the person collectively smearing them as disloyal is the President of the United States. And yet his implied criticism — I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt on this, since the alternative implication is even more absurd — is that American citizens, if they happen to be Jewish, owe their primary fealty to another country. He is criticizing them for not being loyal enough to Israel, which, insofar as they obviously believe America’s interests are better served by Democrats, means that he believes that as Jews they ought to violate America’s interests (as they perceive those) in favor of promoting another country’s interests, since not forsaking America for Israel shows them to be disloyal.
Furthermore, it suggests that as Jews, they are supposed to be single-issue voters, and their single issue must be “supporting Israel,” where supporting Israel equals promoting the goals and strategies of Benjamin Netanyahu.
For my own part, I would agree that no American Jew should vote Democrat, as long as I may add that no American Jew should vote Republican, either — not because they are Jews, but because they are Americans, and I firmly and ardently believe that both “major parties” have long since forfeited all moral claim to be worthy of the votes of any citizens of the United States, even including those second-class citizens who exist for the parties in purely quantitative terms, as they can easily be corralled into conveniently identified collectives, like “the Jews,” “women,” “blacks,” “Hispanics,” and the rest of the catalogue of political condescension.
I did note, however, that I was merely assuming Trump’s “disloyalty” dig was intended to imply that American citizens owe their allegiance to a foreign nation simply because of their religious or ethnic heritage — in other words, that “ethnics” are only secondarily Americans, thus playing nicely into the hands of those who claim Trump has an inherently multi-tiered view of “pure” vs. “conditional” Americans. There is in fact another possibility, more absurd and therefore, Trump being Trump, fairly plausible, which is that he was merely putting the vague smear of disloyalty out there, with “to Israel” as a moral placeholder to be supplanted later with the true and proper beneficiary of the undivided loyalty of all Jews, namely Donald Trump himself.
Absurd, you say? Yes it is, and thus all the more likely, here in the Age of Absurdity.
And so it is that within twenty-four hours of telling all Jews they are being “disloyal” if they vote Democrat — which, in Trump’s tiny universe, can only mean if they don’t vote for him — Mr. President, the Orange One, Himself, tweeted out a friendly description of himself from something called Wayne Allyn Root (acronym WAR, interestingly, which of course in Trump Land is in turn a euphemism for SURRENDER):
“Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…and the Jewish people in Israel love him….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019
….like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God…But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019
…..all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow! @newsmax @foxandfriends @OANN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019
Yes, those are indeed, as Trump says, “very nice words.” The kind of nice words that you just nicely, quietly pretend never happened, and certainly never voluntarily repeat to anyone else, except maybe to the police as grounds for getting a restraining order against the speaker, who gives indications of being a Mark David Chapman-type stalker — unless of course you actually believe that description of yourself, and desperately want to disseminate the description as widely as possible without actually having to express it in your own voice.
“The King of Israel.” “The second coming of God.” (Who knew there even was a “second coming of God,” in any religion?) “The greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America.”
In other words, to paraphrase without Root’s hyperbolic tone, Donald Trump is the greatest man who has ever lived (not just in America), and the greatest leader of Jews in the history of the world. Even Moses made a mistake, now didn’t he? But not God’s Chosen One, The Donald!
God’s Chosen One? Oh, yes, lest we fail to acknowledge it, Trump also said within the past twenty-four hours, this time in his very own golden Voice, that with regard to conducting the trade war with China, “I am the chosen one.” And yes, he even looked up toward Heaven as he said it, as you can see for yourself in the video clip below (if you can stand the bright light emanating from his Orangeness):
I have a little more to say about this, but, frankly, why? Well, okay, just one more comment: