Anti-Semitism vs Anti-Israelism

Big news!  The MAGA world has become the noble standard-bearer for the fight against antisemitism.  Hurray, hurray!  Their righteous fury over Palestinian protests and campus efforts to defund America’s support of Israel is a sign of their deep affection for Jewish people and their unyielding support for non-discrimination and tolerance, right?  Yeah, right.

The Trump regime, Christian evangelicals and other MAGA types have become strange bedfellows with the Jewish world and Israel.  Jews might be wise to view this passionate embrace with a bit of skepticism, as fervent Christians have not historically been the best supporters of Jewish people (see the inquisition, the pogroms, the holocaust and a long list of other less-than-affectionate treatments).

 

Christian evangelicals are supportive of Israel primarily because the return of the Jewish people to the holy land is seen as a pre-cursor to the second coming of Jesus and the Armageddon.  Christians are also not big fans of Islam, which may play a role in their newfound Jewish affinity.

 

As for Trump and the political right, their crusading efforts on behalf of Israel’s war in Gaza and their indignation over supposed antisemitic trends in American society are simply a way to demonize the left and provide a means for launching their war against universities.  They couldn’t care less about Jews or tolerance or antisemitism.

 

I understand the deep-seated fear in Jewish people of any hint of antisemitism, and their paranoia about their security, whether here in America, in Europe or in Israel.  The history of antisemitism is long and painful.

 

But here is the thing:  It is not unreasonable to believe that Israel has gone far beyond its right to defend itself in inflicting devastation and horror on Gaza.  There is an element of cry-wolf in Israel’s painting itself as constantly in existential danger.  Israel is the most powerful nation in the middle East and perhaps one of the most powerful in the world.  Its military and intelligence services are incredibly capable and it also has nuclear weapons.  It has more or less wiped out Hezbollah and it has made Iran look weak and impotent in every encounter.

 

Israel has become a bully as regards the Palestinian territories and people.  Its settler-dominated government and increasingly extremist political slant is clearly intent on seizing as much of Gaza as possible and continuing to steal land and settle the West Bank.  It has been building settlements in the West Bank continuously since the 1967 invasion and there are now over 700,000 settlers in this territory that the UN and most nations consider occupied land.

 

Jewish people have associated Israel with Jewish identity from the start.  Jewish people in the United States embrace this association.  Therefore, it is not hard to understand why anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiments are also conflated with anti-Jewish feelings.  If I am criticizing Israel’s actions, am I antisemitic?  If I am calling for an end to military support of Israel until it ends the war in Gaza am I pro-Hamas?  A large number of Israelis and Jews in the United States have voiced similar feelings.

 

It is absurd to categorize the majority of anti-Israel protests as antisemitic.  And it is dangerous to use a pretense of protecting Jews from antisemitism to prosecute or deport protestors on campus or anywhere else.  America is at its strongest when it embraces free speech and the opportunity for competing views to express themselves, even in fairly energetic protests and marches.  The Trump regime has all the characteristics of a nascent police state, and this fake concern about antisemitism is a ruse that must be fought on every level before it assumes even more frightening forms.

If Push Came to Shove

The Trump regime has shown a willingness, a delight even, to cross the boundaries of legality, constitutionality and ethics.  Trump believes that he is empowered to do just about anything he pleases, and this time he has filled the government with lackeys who will carry out his every wish without hesitation.

The only thing that has stood in his way up to now is the judiciary.  Even Trump-appointed judges have shown some level of integrity and opposed his more egregious executive orders.  This has irritated Trump and his minions to no small degree, and they have already indicated that they are willing to bypass or ignore court decisions if they see fit.

 

Thus, the question arises: who can stop Trump if he chooses to go full dictator and ignores court rulings? Given the current obsequious nature of the republican-controlled congress, there is little chance that they will intercede or attempt to rein him in.  The only force left that is capable of stopping him would be the American people.  I believe there will be mass protests if Trump openly defies the courts.

 

But Trump has already indicated that he would eagerly deploy the armed forces if significant protests occur. Therefore, the most important question we may face in the months ahead is whether the US military will allow itself to be used by Trump to quell protests in a situation where he has clearly violated the constitution and any reasonable interpretation of presidential authority and ethics.

 

The military is expected to be apolitical.  It has both civilian and military leadership, with the President being the commander-in-chief.  But every officer in the military takes an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  In theory, if there is a conflict between the President and the Constitution, their path is clear: to protect and defend the constitution.

 

The military is conservative and masculine by nature.  Does this imply that it will tend to be supportive of the Trump ethos?  If one believes the Hollywood blockbuster version of the military, it would not be difficult to imagine the military falling in line with Trump’s authoritarian dictates.  But as a former military officer and the son, grandson and nephew of Naval Academy graduates, I have a very strong opinion that contradicts this assumption.

 

For US military officers, character, leadership qualities and discipline are the most important personal attributes.  Military officers detest poor character.  They admire honesty, modesty, integrity and ethical behavior.  

 

Trump’s macho version of America may appeal to the common soldier, but his character flaws, his lying, his boasting, his preening, his immorality, his lack of ethics and his arrogance are red flags to military leaders.  They will support him up to a point simply because he is the commander-in-chief, but I firmly believe that they will refuse to comply with orders to take arms against the American people if Trump has violated the constitution.

 

I sense that Trump’s momentum is already beginning to wane and that the consequences of his chaotic first months and his economic missteps will soon manifest themselves and prevent the worst from happening.  But I also am confident that if push comes to shove, the American military will demonstrate its true nature and integrity and oppose the first American tyrant.

Budget Thoughts

The ‘big, beautiful bill’ that Trump is pushing through congress is on its way to the senate, where, unlike the house, there is a tiny bit of spine left in republicans and the possibility that there may be significant changes before it becomes law.  But that is probably a bit of wistful optimism.

What does this bill accomplish?  First, it preserves the tax cuts that a republican-dominated congress pushed through under Trump in 2017.  These tax cuts were passed with the promise that they would stimulate growth and more than compensate for their cost.  The deficit grew from 0.67T in 2017 to 0.98T in 2019, so this was clearly wrong.

 

Republican orthodoxy has always insisted that tax cuts will stimulate economic growth and tax increases will hurt the economy.  The logic behind this is that tax cuts put more money in people’s pockets to spend and also to invest.  But the truth is harder to discern and most economists disagree with this assumption. 

And here is an observation that is anecdotal, but very likely valid:  a large percentage of my generation, the baby boomers, is much wealthier than my parents were.  We have more money, more wealth than we really deserve to have.  We don't need new tax cuts. If you look around at today's opulent homes, the restaurants that are full every night of the week, the travel and shopping catalogs that bulge in our mailboxes and the massive cars that we drive, it is all too clear that a significant part of our society is disproportionately wealthy when compared to the bottom half.

 

If most of the tax cuts go to the wealthy, who already have high net incomes and extensive investment portfolios, then how is that money actually used?  Do the rich buy more and more things and stimulate the economy?  Do they invest in more start-ups?  It seems to me that there is a point of saturation, where additional income and wealth to the top 20% have little positive effect on the economy and merely ratchet up the equity and real estate markets, where the rich store their vast wealth.  

 

What seems more likely to stimulate the economy is putting money into the hands of the bottom 50%, whether through tax breaks, social programs, infrastructure improvements or redistribution scenarios.  That group will definitely spend all of that money.

 

The Trump budget also seeks to somewhat compensate for the tax cuts by slashing various so-called entitlement programs, with Medicaid and SNAP being two of the biggest targets.  These programs have long been vilified by the right.  The impact of these reductions on poverty, health, hunger and basic social safety net issues could be disastrous, but the MAGA world believes that fraud and abuse are rampant in these programs and is rabid to push their cost-cutting agenda as a far as possible while they still have majorities in congress.

 

This ‘big, beautiful bill’ has a deficit price tag of $3.8T over the period from 2026-2034 (non-partisan analysis from the congressional budget office), which is ironic, considering the hysteria from the right during the election cycle over the national debt.  But this kind of hypocrisy is not new – Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump all increased the budget deficit after railing against it to win the office.

 

The budget decreases in tax revenue will no doubt decrease the IRS budget further, which will allow the estimated $600B of annual individual tax cheating to continue.  Furthermore, there appears to be no will to force corporations to pay taxes on profits that they earn in the USA but manage to transfer to low-tax havens like Ireland.

 

So, all in all a pretty amazing level of incoherent nonsense in this budget.  But all a budget has to have to make it big and beautiful for the MAGA world is the words ‘tax cuts’ and ‘defense increases’.  A big, beautiful golden dome is the cherry on top.  It should complete our isolationism and protectionism.  But beware, we don’t exist in a vacuum and the way that the rest of the world reacts to our lunacy may yet rain heavily on the MAGA parade.

Obsessed With Revenge

If one has to choose a single defining characteristic of the MAGA world it would have to be their thirst for revenge.  Trump is the avenger-in-chief, but vengeance and retribution are the animating impulses throughout the cult.

But why this mania for revenge?  Why does the MAGA world feel so aggrieved and vengeful?  What are the underlying causes and how did we get to the point where much of Trump’s world revels in the outright mocking cruelty that he, Musk and others employ in pursuing the Project 2025 agenda?

 

The first cause that comes to mind is resentment of the intellectual elites.  The MAGA world is primarily, though certainly not entirely, composed of people with less education.  Education level does not necessarily correlate with intelligence, but there is definitely a predisposition in society to associate the two.  Over time, people with less education may feel demeaned or underestimated, even if not specifically ridiculed by those with more education.  And certainly,  in the partisan battles of the last several decades there has been a tendency of the educated left to speak condescendingly of the less-educated right.

 

The second cause is an angry lashing out at the implication that the right has no compassion or conscience. The right’s positions on social services, extreme income inequality, immigration, incarceration and other ‘issues of conscience’ are often characterized as lacking compassion or empathy.  Being labeled in this way is particularly galling for people who consider themselves to be the moral and religious compass of society.  The secret guilt of rejecting the very fundamental teachings of the Jesus that they claim to follow is transformed into an indignant and angry outrage.

 

The third cause is the ‘woke culture’ obsession and backlash.  Confronted with multiple themes of a changing society – sexual freedom, the decline of religious affiliation, reproductive freedom, immigration, gay marriage, gender concepts and transsexuality, racial reconciliation, new definitions of patriotism and reassessments of US history – the MAGA world has felt overwhelmed and alienated.  Finding themselves labelled as backward or unable to adapt, the reaction has been one of fury and self-righteousness.  Rather than rationally discuss or attempt to find compromises to the woke cultural changes, the goal has become the complete negation of them and a furious attempt to punish any and all who endorsed them.

 

And a fourth cause is the shock and pain of having MAGA disinformation debunked and their glorious leader indicted for multiple different crimes.  The fact that no court in the land has ever legitimized the claims of a stolen 2020 election or that a jury of regular citizens found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation, or that over 1500 people were convicted by juries of their peers of crimes associated with the January 6^th riots have created an insatiable hunger for vengeance.  This is another example of the furiously aggressive reaction that people with guilty consciences have to perceived slights.

 

Seeking revenge is not the act of any leader or movement with integrity.  It is the classic ploy of a tyrant and his henchmen.  Trump has brought the entire MAGA cult down to his level, and whipped up Orwellian doublespeak versions of reality:  that they are the persecuted, that they have lost their freedom of religion and speech, that the USA is being exploited by other countries.  And thus they seek retribution, indulging in a cathartic orgy of cruel and petty acts, with Trump as their mighty sword of vengeance.

Prometheus Bound and Eve Condemned

It seems that our ancient ancestors had a variety of views of how human beings sought or acquired a thirst for knowledge.  There is a wealth of different mythologies that give us insight into our religious and intellectual heritage.  If one takes the time to study several of them, it becomes clear that our struggle to answer basic questions about our existence is universal, and that any claim to be the absolute truth is dubious.

In Greek mythology, the story of Prometheus explores the creation of humankind and the gift of fire, the arts, science and other knowledge.  Prometheus was a titan whose love for humankind inspired him to oppose Zeus and secretly provide fire to the newly created humans and then teach them language and the love of the arts, literature and science.  Zeus punished him by having him bound in chains on a mountaintop.  Each day an eagle would attack him and eat his liver, which would heal overnight so as to allow the horrible act to be repeated endlessly.

 

Prometheus was celebrated as a heroic figure.  The quest for knowledge and the love of all of the arts and sciences was paramount in Greek culture.  The search for meaning and understanding produced a myriad of philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, dramatists, poets, architects, orators and other luminaries that are still recognized today as the richest lode of human advancement.

 

The bible gives a very different take on human striving for knowledge.  After creating Adam and Eve, God provides an idyllic garden for the new humans, but forbids them to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Eve persuades Adam to eat the fruit after being tempted by a serpent and this is perceived as the original sin of humankind.  

 

There is no heroic Prometheus in this version, and if the message to quit seeking knowledge wasn’t strong enough, it is repeated in Genesis 6 with the story of the tower of Babel.  Humans began building a tower as a means to achieve new knowledge and capabilities, and God was not amused.  He scattered them across the earth and made them all speak different languages so as to limit their ability to make progress together.

 

Is it any wonder that religions based on the bible have had such a difficult time reconciling the spiritual and the rational?  No wonder a big part of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish world doesn’t accept evolution and is so suspicious of scientific inquiry and research.

 

And what to think of poor Eve, whose curiosity and persuasive arts led to her being cursed with the most dangerous and painful childbirth in nature and branded with the reputation of being treacherous and conniving for most of history.  No heroic treatment for her like Prometheus.

 

But lest we think the Greeks were paragons of gender equality, be aware that the story of Prometheus is often related with the appearance of Pandora, the first woman, whose box of ills and plagues is given by Zeus in retaliation for Prometheus’s gift.  And, of course, Pandora, weak, beautiful, treacherous and deceitful woman that she is, cannot contain her curiosity and opens the box, releasing all the plagues that humankind must endure.

 

Yes, it seems that no matter which mythology you endorse, women get condemned and slandered.  Almost makes you suspect that these mythologies were all composed by men!

Trump’s Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study performed under Professor Zimbardo at Stanford University in 1971.  It was designed to study antisocial behavior and involved the observation of how volunteer guards reacted when given authority over volunteer prisoners.  The experiment was terminated early because of the increasing brutality of some of the ‘guards’.

Trump is conducting a similar project, imbuing various cabinet members and their newly hired underlings with the imprimatur of executive authority and instructing them to perform various aggressively undemocratic actions.  The results are horrifyingly similar to the Stanford experiment, but no one yet has had the power or temerity to stop this project.

 

Marco Rubio (or little Marco, as Trump once demeaned him), flush with his new authority as Secretary of State, has revoked visas and permits for hundreds of students who protested against the Israeli conduct of the war in Gaza, in direct violation of their basic right to free speech.  He accuses them of antisemitism, though many Jewish students were hand-in-hand with these students in demonstrations and protests.  

 

The same is true for Kristi Noem, whose cruelly zealous prosecution of undocumented immigrants while taking every opportunity to burnish her image in photo ops, is a perfect example of how power can provoke sadistic and anti-social behavior.

 

JD Vance, the attack dog for Trump, abandoned any semblance of integrity when he left the Never Trump Camp and courted Trump at Mar-a-Lago, desperate for the next step in his political ascendancy.  Now he spews out ever more mean-spirited diatribes against any country or person or principle that stands in the way of the MAGA cult.

 

Hegseth, the veritable poster child of toxic masculinity, is rampaging through the military in a petty, vindictive manner, hoping to win the award for most slavishly devoted to master Trump.  After all, his time as a Fox host worshipping Trump got him the job. 

 

Trump, who needs no motivation to lash out in vengeful, sadistic acts, is using every tool at his disposal to attack, belittle, disenfranchise, persecute, threaten and extort anyone standing in his way.

 

The type of people who have signed on for the MAGA ride and imbibed the Trump kool aid are in free fall.  Like the Zimbardo guards, they are empowered well beyond normal social boundaries.  They are the type of people who embrace power trips and rationalize cruelty.  

 

When I went to Naval Officer’s Candidate School in Newport, RI after college, I experienced a mini version of the Stanford experiment.  Older officer candidates were given authority to make life very difficult for new ones in the quest to break down individuality and create a team unity and military discipline.  They responded to this responsibility in different ways.  About two thirds of them did the required work with integrity, finding no joy in the process but carrying it out in a competent manner.  But one third of them succumbed to the temptation to give their inner demons full voice.  They became sadistic taskmasters and reveled in the fear and unpleasantness they inflicted on their charges.  It shocked me how quickly these people lost their humanity, then pretended it was all part of the game once it was over.

 

The Trump team is an all-star cast of people with this predisposition for antisocial behavior.  They are not so unlike the Himmlers, the Goebbels and the Heydrichs of a previous experiment of empowering people’s darker selves.  The only question is whether there are enough remaining people of conscience in our three branches of government to rein in this experiment before it permanently damages our country.

When Everything is an Emergency

Tariffs on Canada and Mexico because of the so-called fentanyl emergency.  Tariffs on the rest of the world because of the national emergency described as the poor ‘international economic position of the United States and the need to protect American workers’.  Mass deportations based on the 1789 wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.  Arrests and deportations of students who protested Israeli actions in Gaza with essentially no justification at all other than a vague and unconvincing order to fight antisemitism.  The firing of large numbers of federal employees with almost no analysis or justification or congressional oversight.

Trump has declared multiple emergency situations and has claimed emergency executive power in an avalanche of executive decisions that have sidelined congress and centralized the direction of almost all government activity in the oval office.  Trump has become a dictator.  This is not a representative democracy and we are perilously close to becoming an authoritarian state.

 

Congress is unwilling and/or unable to rein him in, because republicans live in fear of having Trump or Musk single them out as unfaithful to the MAGA cause and losing their next election.  The tiny republican majorities in the house and senate ensure that the outrage from the democratic side remains impotent. The legitimacy of these sweeping executive actions will be tested in the courts, but Trump has already extorted law firms and threatened judges with impeachment to game the system.  

 

Trump’s apologists would argue that he must perform these executive actions because they are urgent and congress has been unable to move quickly or decisively.  But the reason congress has been stymied for many years is that the country is deeply divided.  Overriding congress to take aggressive actions at a time when the country is struggling to find a balance in opinion and direction threatens our democracy and the rule of law.  The consequences may be disastrous.

 

Trump’s arrogance and narcissism are well known.  His reliance on his business instinct, forged in the cauldron of his street-brawling real estate and construction deals, is for the most part unguided by respected experts.  His MAGA advisors are not highly regarded and they were clearly chosen primarily for their loyalty and sycophancy. 

 

Trump may be successful in ‘evening the playing field’ with some trading partners, because the USA is the most powerful economic nation on earth.  But the long-term consequences of a chaotic and mean-spirited USA will certainly be the loss of trust and respect in the world community, and may be the end of our exalted economic position as nations adjust their alliances and trading relationships to a new world order.