A Right-Wing Zionist Digests Trump's Anti-Semite Dinner Party

[Celerity]

Can the former President be the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House” while also legitimatizing “Jew-haters”?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-right-wing-zionist-digests-trumps-anti-semite-dinner-party



Three weeks ago, the Zionist Organization of America gave what it called its highest honor to former President Donald Trump. According to Morton Klein, who runs the Z.O.A., the award commemorated Trump as the “best friend Israel ever had in the White House.” Last week, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had dinner with Ye—formerly known as Kanye West—and the white supremacist Nick Fuentes, setting off the biggest firestorm over Trump’s bigotry since his response to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville (which Fuentes attended).

After Trump’s dinner with Fuentes, Klein told the Times, “I have become very frightened for my people.” He added, “Donald Trump is not an antisemite. He loves Israel. He loves Jews. But he mainstreams, he legitimizes Jew-hatred and Jew-haters. And this scares me.” A child of Holocaust survivors who was born at a displaced-persons camp in Germany, Klein became an economist before eventually transitioning into pro-Israel activism. He took over the Z.O.A., which was founded in 1897 and is the oldest Zionist organization in America, in 1993. Since then, he has hewed to a hard-right line, opposing a Palestinian state and frequently supporting right-wing politicians in America who favor right-wing policies in Israel.

I recently spoke by phone with Klein. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed his confusion over Trump’s dinner, why Trump has got close to bigots in recent weeks, and Klein’s questions about Barack Obama’s birthplace.

Can you just walk me through the past few weeks, and the medal you awarded to Trump, and why it’s important?

Yes. The Z.O.A.’s highest award, rarely given, is the Theodor Herzl Gold Medallion. We’ve only given it to Lord Balfour—

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[Johnny2X2X]

1. Trump only chasing supporters off, he never adds new ones

I have friends who say to me every time some new Trump outrage occurs or is revealed, "It won't matter to his core supporters, they don't care what he does or says." And while that's mostly true, since 2016, all Donald Trump has done was shed supporters, he's not gaining them anywhere. And the ones he sheds are not coming back.

So Trump started with 46% of the voters. And then he started putting kids in cages at the border and he was down to 45.5%, then he trashed our military intelligence in favor of Putin and he was down to 45.0%. And dozens and dozens of things in between. And then 2020 happens, where he had to paint Biden as totally unacceptable to even be seen as the lesser of 2 evils, and he lost by almost 5 points.

Now since then, he lost a lot of people with the insurrection. Lost some more with the classified documents theft. And on and on. What supporters has he added? Who is he swaying with white supremacist dinners? He already had 100% of white supremacists on his side. He bleeds support, little by little, drop by drop. But the tooth paste never goes back into the tube. Which brings us to 2022. Biden is unpopular, inflation is at 40 year highs, the mid terms should be an absolute slam dunk rout for the party out of power. But Trump stuck his nose in it and pushed a bunch of totally wacked out weirdos as candidates. They all failed miserably in almost all of the competitive races. 2022 was a disaster for the GOP, sure, they took the House, but this was their chance with the ball in a football game, they needed to run up the score because 2024 will be a Biden year.

Losing ground in the Senate, losing governors and having 4 state houses/senates flip from red to blue is an absolute disaster for Republicans. Barely flipping the House is unimaginable considering history and the conditions in the country. And Trump and Trumpism is the reason why for the GOP. Trump is a slowly sinking ship, and the GOP doesn't know how to board the life rafts. Trump is going to bring the whole party to the bottom of the ocean, and that's exactly what they deserve.