Last week, a journalist I admire asked me a question: Why won’t I call Steve Bannon an anti-Semite? He had seen me on television debating two GOP-leaning Jewish commentators who were eager to defend Trump’s chief strategist from the charge. Why hadn’t I leveled it? …
Through his public statements and presidential appointments, Donald Trump is remaking Republican foreign policy in two fundamental ways. The first concerns Russia. Previous GOP leaders like Mitt Romney and John McCain described Moscow as an adversary. Trump describes it as a partner. The second concerns Islam. Previous GOP leaders—most notably George W. Bush—insisted that the U.S. had no beef with Islam, or with the vast ...
Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap. The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set ...
With every passing year, the American Jewish establishment poses a greater threat to free speech in the United States. The reason is simple. With every passing year, Israeli control of the West Bank grows more permanent. And so, with every passing year, more American progressives question Zionism. …
To understand what American Jewish politics will look like in the age of Donald Trump, look closely at what happened at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel on the evening of Sunday, November 20. Inside the hotel, the Zionist Organization of America held its annual gala. Never heard of the ZOA? You’re not alone. For decades, it has been overshadowed by its larger and more moderate ...
Last week, Donald Trump advisor Stephen Moore, who has built his career advocating tax cuts for the rich and the privatization of America’s welfare state, said something startling to congressional Republicans. He said Republicans are no longer the party of Ronald Reagan. “Just as Reagan converted the GOP into a conservative party,” Moore reportedly declared, “Trump has converted the GOP into a populist working-class party.” ...
I don’t know if Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s chief strategist, is anti-Semitic. I can’t see inside his soul. What I do know is this: Citing his support for Israel doesn’t exonerate him of the charge. You can believe that Jews are a malevolent force in the United States and still love the Jewish state. It’s easy. …
Americans talk about democracy like it’s sacred. In public discourse, the more democratic American government is, the better. The people are supposed to rule. But that’s not the premise that underlies America’s political system. Most of the men who founded the United States feared unfettered majority rule. James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 that systems of government based upon “pure democracy … have ever been ...
Future historians will puzzle over this question: When Donald Trump ran the most bigoted presidential campaign in modern American history, why did America’s most powerful Jewish organizations remain silent? When even Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced Donald Trump’s attacks on Mexican-American Judge Gonzalo Curiel as racist, why did The Conference of Presidents of Major American Organizations say nothing? Why didn’t it issue a single ...
“I saw quite a change,” said CBS’s Lesley Stahl after interviewing Donald Trump for 60 Minutes on Sunday. “He was much more subdued, much more serious.” Really? Consider Trump’s comments on abortion. “Are you looking to appoint a Justice who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade?” Stahl asked. Trump’s response: “I’m pro-life, the judges will be pro-life.” …