It was so close to the message that Republicans say they want from Donald Trump: a tweet describing Hillary Clinton as “crooked” and the “most corrupt candidate ever,” on the morning that the likely Democratic presidential nominee met with the FBI.
But the image that Trump chose to illustrate his point, which portrayed a red Star of David shape slapped onto a bed of $100 bills, had origins in the online white-supremacist movement. For at least the fifth time, Trump’s Twitter account had shared a meme from the racist “alt-right” and offered no explanation why.
“We’ve been alarmed that Mr. Trump hasn’t spoken out vociferously against these anti-Semites and racists and misogynists who continue to support him,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “It’s been outrageous to see him retweeting and now sourcing material from the website and other online resources from this crowd.”
The offending image first appeared in a June 15 tweet by @FishBoneHead1, an account with fewer than 1,000 followers and a penchant for memes that mock Muslims, black Democrats and “cucks” — an alt-right term derived from the word “cuckold,” for people they deem insufficiently conservative. According to Anthony Smith, a reporter for the news site Mic, it was shared June 22 on a racist section of the 8Chan Web forum.
Why doesn’t Trump have advisors who tell him not to do these things? Is he just stupid or doesn’t he care? I grow weary of his supporters making up excuses for him. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior. Regardless of what people think about Hillary, even her enemies, she isn’t gauche.
Why on earth would he chose such a symbol? The gaff was corrected but not before the image was swept up by enough people to cause Trump embarrassment. (I HOPE he was embarrassed)
I don’t think Trump is anti-Semitic personally, but it’s impossible for him not to be aware of where his base is. He’s just playing to his base, white supremacists that are drawn to Trump by his racist hate speech. “Build a wall” and “Mexicans are rapists” This was just another dog whistle for his all-white, I mean alt-right, base.
Trump himself is a man-child, who thinks everyone can be divided into winners and losers. Winners are people he thinks have accomplished something. The irony is that Trump probably knows many successful Jewish businespeople that are ‘winners’ to him and almost certainly considers most of his supporters to be ‘losers’.
I can’t wait until after the election when Trump blames his supporters because nothing is ever the fault of The Donald and the alt-right will claim they lost because he wasn’t conservative enough. The old ‘missing 5 million conservative voters’ dream.
What an excellent post!!!
Trump is a truly disgusting wretch. He could hitting her hard over the email thing but instead he does this.
I agree with the observation that Trump is very unlikely to be an anti-Semite. His family history and his business dealings would indicate otherwise. The problem with this particular campaign gimmick is that it is yet another illustration that there are some people around Trump (even within his very “lean” organization) who are tuned in to White Supremacist sites and themes, and that they are making decisions to go with that line of garbage because they figure there is a lode of votes in that particular cavern. Trump himself seems to go out of his way to tickle the fancy of that element, although it is much more a racist, as opposed to anti-Semitic, trigger that he seems to want to pull. Hence the evasions and circumlocutions when they get called out on these things.
Of course, any one instance of this type of pandering is disqualifying for any public office in America, let alone the Presidency, let alone multiple instances of yanking on the bell pull of prejudice and ignorance. Only Trump, only the present-day GOP could give us a situation where no one other than the candidate and his immediate family will be able to vote for him in a race where the opposing candidate is a demonstrated dissembler who puts personal convenience and secretiveness over guarding the confidences of the Nation.