A Dangerous Fake: Trump's Fight Against Antisemitism

It's a Fake

Trump’s fight against antisemitism at American universities is fake. It is also dangerous to all Americans but above all to Jews and to members of other minorities. The fight against antisemitism is fake because Trump’s Republican coalition includes some of our country’s most virulent antisemites. NPR has reported that several Trump officials have ties to antisemitic extremists. Trump’s dependence on antisemitic allies has been clear at least since his refusal to reject the views of the marchers in Charlottesville who chanted “Jews will not replace us.”

Trump can appear to oppose antisemitism only by conflating Jews with Israelis and claiming that opposition to Israel’s policies in Gaza is antisemitism, which it is not necessarily. It is true that anti-Israel speech often shades over into antisemitic speech, and some supporters of the Palestinian cause are undoubtedly antisemitic. It is also true that many Jewish students have been subjected to antisemitic harassment at various universities. Only a few days ago, a Jewish couple were shot to death as they were leaving a Jewish event in Washington, D.C. Life for American Jews has indeed become dangerous. Nevertheless, opposing Israel's policies in Gaza does not necessarily make you an antisemite, but claiming that it does gives Trump an excuse for limiting freedom of speech, for attacking faculty members and for deporting foreign students. (He needs to deport foreign students to maintain the credibility of another of his fakes.)

Trump rails against supporters of the Palestinian cause, but he never rails against the danger of home-grown, American antisemitism. He works to suppress pro-Palestinian speech at Columbia and Harvard, and he deports foreign students who express pro-Palestinian views. He even promotes the firing of Jewish professors or students who support the Palestinian cause. On the other hand, he never proposes suppressing the antisemitic screeds on social media that encouraged a man to kill Jews in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and he uses antisemitic tropes himself in his own speeches. Trump’s fight is really against freedom of speech and of the press. It is aimed at suppressing any expression of opinions that are opposed to his ideas or policies. The defense of Jews is only an excuse.

It's Dangerous

This fake fight against antisemitism is dangerous for Jews because, as The Guardian has reported, many of those targeted by Trump are in fact Jewish students or professors and because, as an opinion piece in POLITICO has said,

We need to be very vigilant about the erosion of the rule of law and our civil liberties … because that is the best defense against antisemitism, not the protection of the strongmen.

Or as Michael Roth says in the NY Times,

Abductions by government agents; unexplained, indefinite detentions; the targeting of allegedly dangerous ideas; lists of those under government scrutiny; official proclamations full of bluster and bile — Jews have been here before, many times, and it does not end well for us. The rule of law and the right to freedom of thought and expression are essential safeguards for everyone, but especially so for members of groups whose ideas or practices don’t always align with the mainstream. As M. Gessen recently wrote in these pages, “A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others.” What our government is doing now is wrong in itself, but beyond that, it poses a bigger threat to Jewish people’s safety than all the campus protests ever could.

Focus on Maintaining and Improving Our Democracy

Trump hopes that we Jews will not notice that his claim for be against antisemitism masks his support for home-grown antisemitism and his suppression of civil liberties, but we should keep our focus on maintaining and improving American democracy. We should not support an authoritarian politician who represents a clear and present danger to American Jews along with other minority groups in our country.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah: Reclaiming Our Progressive Religious Heritage

Religion's Progressive Tradition is Being Lost

In the United States today, religious arguments and commitments are mostly identified with the political right. They are rarely heard on the left. There are "faith-based" organizations that work for social justice or for human rights, but even they rarely invoke their religious heritages to justify their political positions. Anti-religious views have become widespread on the left with the result that the deep roots of religious commitment to social justice in Western Civilization are being lost.

The Fight For Social Justice is Not a Fight For Theocracy

We can reclaim our progressive, religious heritage in support of our fight for social justice, but we must avoid promoting theocracy. Religion in America is a private matter. We are NOT a Christian nation, and we should NOT base our laws on biblical sources. We do NOT believe that the Bible is the word of God. We know that it was written by many people over a very long period of time, and it expresses their beliefs about what they saw as the will of God. The people who wrote the Bible lived in societies that were very different from ours. They accepted practices like slavery that are abhorrent to us.

We also recognize that religious institutions have always been divided over questions of social justice. On one hand, religious people have been at the forefront of movements like the antislavery movement. On the other hand, religious authorities have generally taken conservative, political positions. This division appears clearly in the contrast between two bits of English verse. The first expresses the view of religious institutions by claiming that social inequity has been ordained by God.

The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate,

God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate.

The second expresses an opposing view.,

When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?

In spite of the conservatism of religious institutions, religious progressives have found strong support for their views in their religious traditions. They have argued their positions in ways that ultimately could not be refuted because of their deep roots in a shared religious tradition. We can reclaim that tradition.

The American Religious Tradition is Central in the Struggle For Social Justice

The centrality of our religious tradition in the drive for social justice in American society has one of its most moving expressions in the words of the Civil War song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I suggest that before reading the rest of this blog, you follow this link. Read the words of the song and think about what they mean. Most of us today do not believe as the song's author believed, and we would not write as she did in 1861, but there is no missing her sense that her cause flowed directly from her religious tradition.

A more recent example may be found in the sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. Here is one example.

Christians are always to begin with a bias in favor of a movement which protests against unfair treatment of the poor, but surely Christianity itself is such a protest. The Communist Manifesto might express a concern for the poor and the oppressed, but it expresses no greater concern than the manifesto of Jesus, which opens with the words, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, recovering the sight of the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Another example may be found in the liberation theology of Latin American Catholics in the late twentieth century. Liberation Theology has played a major role in the development of contemporary, liberal Catholicism.

We Must Reclaim the Progressive Religious Position

We progressives in the United States need to reclaim the heritage of religious support for social justice because by doing so, we can show that our cause has very deep roots in our culture. We need to remember the words of the prophet Isaiah, Chapter 58,

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear.

Capitalism, The Bible and a Wealth Tax

 The Bible in American Politics

Today, many Americans take what they claim are biblical positions on important, political questions. Some claim to be Christian Nationalists (which is a little like claiming to be a atheistic pope), while others take allegedly biblical positions on specific issues like abortion or sexual identity. So, it may be worthwhile to ask what the biblical tradition has to say about one of the key elements of our society, which is the capitalist organization of our economy or as some prefer to call it, the “free enterprise” system.

A Central Idea in American Capitalism

One of the central ideas of American capitalism is that the owners of a productive resource are entitled to all of the profits from the productive use of the resource. The owner of a farm is entitled to sell or consume all of whatever the farm produces, and the owner of a factory is entitled to the profit from the sale of the factory’s products without restriction.  As we see it, an owner’s right to the products of a resource that he/she owns is absolute, and ownership does not impose any social responsibility. A farmer or factory owner may choose to help needy members of his/her community, but he/she is not required to do so.

The Biblical Approach

The Bible rejects the idea that ownership of a resource imposes no social responsibility. The Bible says clearly that owners are required to share the products of the resources they own with those who are not owners. Ownership resides ultimately with the community, and the community has an interest in the welfare of all of its members. So, The Bible says in Leviticus Chapter 19:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.

Sharing the products of your land is not voluntary. It is required as a condition of ownership. The Bible is not hostile to profit. The owner of a resource is allowed to profit from it, but his/her right to profit is not absolute. It comes with a responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the whole community.  

Humane Capitalism and Democracy

Capitalism as a system for allocating resources and motivating productive activity is compatible with either the current American view or the biblical view, but the biblical view is more humane and in addition, promotes social stability. Capitalism left to itself appears to lead to an ever-increasing concentration of wealth in a small, wealthy upper class. Capitalism does not necessarily lead to the immiseration of the working class as Karl Marx predicted because capitalism drives technological improvements that increase the total wealth of a society. However, capitalism does appear to drive increasing concentration of wealth in a small upper class. 

The economist Charles Picketty has proposed that the increasing concentration of wealth  may be expressed as a function of the relationship between the rate of growth of the economy and the rate of return to capital investment. As long as the rate of return to capital investment is greater than the rate of growth of the economy, capital's share of the national income will continue to increase, and the distribution of wealth will become ever more inequitable. This is an inherent feature of the capitalist system, and its consequences can be avoided only through deliberate societal intervention. He suggests a small wealth tax as a useful way to prevent the increasing concentration of wealth.

Such a wealth tax may be seen as a modern form of The Bible's commandment to leave some of the harvest for the poor. It recognizes that the ownership of wealth (or as we say "capital") comes with a responsibility to share it equitably and that a society has an interest in promoting social justice.  A capitalist system cannot demand that wealth be shared equally among all members of a society. However, a capitalist system can and should demand that the amount of inequality be limited.

We can see today some of the political results of our society's failure to limit the growth of inequality in the distribution of wealth. Working class people see that the system is rigged against them and that neither party addresses their concerns effectively. We have become so deeply divided politically that our government is almost incapable of democratic action, and that has led to the emergence of authoritarian presidents who try to bypass Congress and to govern through executive orders. This appears to validate Martin Wolf's contention that capitalism is compatible with democracy only if the capitalism delivers a decent level of living for most people If we really want to preserve our democracy, we should pay attention to the biblical view that the owners of wealth have a responsibility to share it.

It is Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

 The Grifter in Chief is in a Bind

The Grifter in Chief’s (GC) shredding of the Constitution in his drive to fake the deportation of millions of immigrants is going to get worse before it gets better. The GC is a man who cannot bear to see himself as a loser or to admit that he is wrong. It has always been obvious that he could not deport practically the entire agricultural work force along with a large share of the construction workers without generating enormous opposition including opposition in red states. Now, his tariff program may also be at risk because people are beginning to realize that the tariffs are hurting them. Although it has been reported that most truck drivers voted for Trump, they are realizing that their industry will be disproportionately hurt by tariffs, and their job security may be at risk. Support for the GF is dwindling.

The GC Diverts Attention

With both his signature programs at risk, the GC will work to keep public attention focused on his fight with the courts over the extent of his authority to deport people. He will insist on his power to deport and imprison people at will, and as he loses that fight, he will work to build the myth that if only the courts had not overstepped their authority, he would have been able to do all that he promised. He and his supporters will do everything they can to limit the freedom of the press, as we can see in the latest move by Pam Bondi.

This approach is the similar to the approach he used in his response to the assault on the Capital on January 6, 2021.  He and his supporters propagated the myth that the election had been stolen and that the people who attacked were patriots who were only trying to prevent the certification of a fraudulent election. That strategy worked very well for him. So, I predict that he will use it again.

He will commit more egregious breaches of The Bill of Rights, and many lawsuits will be filed against those breaches. The Supreme Court will have no choice but to declare the breaches unconstitutional, and he will declare the attacks on him to be a witch hunt. He will throw doubt on the the question of whether people really have or deserve constitutionally protected rights. The news media will be full of that controversy and will lack space to cover the harm that his tariff policies are causing to ordinary Americans.

"Not My Fault"

In addition, his struggle will form the basis of a political strategy based on the idea that the harm was not really caused by his policies. It was caused by the resistance to them. If only he had been allowed to do what he wanted to do, everything would have turned out well. His diehard supporters will enthusiastically support Trump's story which fits well with the attitude described by David French and Damon Winter in their photo essay  in the New York Times. 

[Trump's] supporters see virtually every significant American institution opposed to his rise. The mainstream media, the universities, Hollywood: They’re all united in opposition to Trump.

As a consequence, supporting Trump is an act of defiance in and of itself. This is one reason you see Trump supporters wearing clothing that says things like “Lions, not sheep.” Trump is a lion, and his supporters are lions for standing beside him.

He Will Lose in the End

The GC's breaches of the Constitution will appear to some of his supporters as courageous acts aimed at saving our country, and they will continue to support him. However, not all members of his party will see things that way. Already, his support is dwindling, and members of Congress are finding the courage to oppose him. He may well fail even to pass his proposed budget. In the end he will lose, but not immediately. It is going to get worse before it gets better.