Sunday, August 25, 2024

Take The Blue Pill

I'm reprising this because the question of how the press treats political figures is evergreen. And this is a good place to start.
Former President Donald Trump promoted a social media account that wrote that “the election must be too big to rig” above an image of a flag with the words “Trump or Communism.”

The account Trump promoted is filled with extremist content, including claims that “Jews have been capitalizing on niggers for thousands of years”; “Adolf Hitler was right”; and the Holocaust was “the Holohoax. 6 Million never happened.”

The account also wrote: “I'm a proud White Nationalist” and “Make Anti-Semitism Great Again.” 

Trump’s behavior isn’t an aberration: Media Matters also recently reported that Trump has frequently promoted a Truth Social account that's shared material calling for Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Tim Walz, and others to be killed. 
It is still more palatable in American politics and public discourse to condemn someone for anti-semitism than to condemn them for racism (although both are the same category, one just more specific than the other).  No, the NYT doesn't come down like the hammer of God on anyone who speaks ill of Jews, but the condemnation is swifter and clearer and more acceptable in political punditry than simple racism aimed at non-white people is.  Speaking ill of Israel on behalf of Palestinians is inherently suspect and must cleanse itself of any connections to anti-semitism.  Speaking ill of non-white people is only suspect when it is clearly white supremacist, and even then more condemnable when it comes from Southerners (George Wallace, Strom Thurmond) than from people born in the boroughs of NYC.  To this good day Trump speaks of 'black jobs,' obviously meaning menial labor only blacks are fit for, or should have, and no one in political punditry circles points out the obvious and ugly racism of the statement.  If Trump were to imply all Jews are money-grubbers and covetous horders of coin (as he has, to be honest), he would be condemned from the highest hilltops the NYT editoral board can command.  One is as offensive as the other, but only one is more surely condemned, than the other.  Because Jews are, after all, white?  

Both racism based on skin color and anti-semitism are vile; but why the difference in reaction?  Why is it safer to declare one (anti-semitism) than the other (racism)?

And by the way:
Another truth we dare not name, lest we give away the game that one party isn't really Tweedledee to the other's Tweedledum?  We must, after all, have a horse race, or the republic falls, and the edifice of the Establishment cracks and possibly crashes to the ground.  We must have carefully balanced opposition, or the jig is up.  Clinton didn't attribute this accomplishment gap to the policies of AOC and Bernie Sanders.  This is Bill Clinton we're talking about, the guy who's "Sister Souljah" moment was to reassure whites he wasn't wholly siding with blacks who wanted some measure of justice still, some payment on that promissory note Dr. King spoke of on the day he said he "had a dream."*  Everybody ignores that part of his speech, don't they?  And yet, the data is undeniable:  Democrats are better for the US economy than Republicans.  But we have to pretend that just ain't so, and we do it even without the nefarious activities of Big Brother convincing us we have always been at war with Eurasia.  We have always been at war with reality; and we like it that way just fine.  As do the media barons, because it sells newspapers or glues eyeballs to screens; or maybe just because nobody wants to be "woke."  Not if it means waking up to the Matrix as it really is.

In the end, we're all the guy who wishes he'd chosen the blue pill when he had the chance.  Ignorance really is bliss, you know.


*I just saw a tweet a few days ago, trying to list the most uplifting and significant speeches about America, starting with Washington's Farewell Address, including Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural, and including (on the way to Harris's convention speech, IIRC), King's "I Have a Dream" speech.  No pausing there to note that "promissory note" that is still due and payable.  It certainly wouldn't have fit in with Harris' speech, or Reagan's two speeches included in the canon.  Gotta slice that baloney, ya know.
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