Posted on 07/03/2016 4:10:13 PM PDT by Kaslin
I passed on this yesterday because I agreed with what Lewandowski says here, more or less. It’s not a matter of political correctness or incorrectness, it’s a matter of “dog whistle” accusations being unfalsifiable. How do you prove that Trump, or whoever posted that image from his account, saw something anti-semitic in the shape of the star and tweeted it out hoping that others would see it too? As a matter of strategy, how would it benefit him to do something like that? White supremacists, presumably the target audience for the “dog whistle,” have been vocal about supporting him, but their votes are locked up. It’s swing voters whom Trump needs now. A news cycle devoted to whether his campaign has a problem with Jews is, shall we say, unhelpful in that regard.
Besides, does this sound like a guy who’s eager to Jew-bait?
[O]n Thursday, he immediately rebuked man at a campaign rally who said criticized “Zionist Israel.”
Trump told the man: “Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States and we are going to protect them 100% — 100%. It’s our true friend over there.”
Within an hour of a backlash erupting on social media yesterday, he had replaced the Star of David shape in the Hillary image with a circle, further evidence that any similarity was unintended. If we’re going to fire a missile as powerful as an accusation of anti-semitism, maybe let’s base it on something more concrete than a generic shape in Photoshop.
Something like … this, maybe:
Mic discovered Sunday that Donald Trump’s Twitter account wasn’t the first place the meme appeared. The image was previously featured on /pol/ — an Internet message board for the alt-right, a digital movement of neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and white supremacists newly emboldened by the success of Trump’s rhetoric — as early as June 22, over a week before Trump’s team tweeted it…
The watermark on the lower-left corner of the image leads to a Twitter account that regularly tweets violent, racist memes commenting on the state of geopolitical politics…
It is currently unclear as to whether Trump’s team found this image from @FishBoneHead1’s Twitter account, from /pol/ or from another digital repository for racist, xenophobic and violent imagery. When Trump’s team sources memes, images and other forms of media from Twitter, the team has a longstanding pattern of attributing the account from which they found it. Among the many benefits of this practice of attribution is that it creates a desirable distance between the presidential candidate and the images he tweets.
Where did Team Trump get the image? If they found it on an alt-right message board, this isn’t an innocent mistake. And even though playing footsie with white supremacists isn’t in his long-term political interests, that hasn’t stopped him from doing it before. Playing dumb on who David Duke is when Jake Tapper invited him to reject Duke’s support a few months back is a classic example. That’s presumably why his alt-right fan base forgives him for his sporadic pro-Israel rhetoric: They probably don’t think he means it. It’s just something he says because he has to say it to keep the media off his back. Once he’s safely elected, then we’ll see the “real” Trump. In fact, some white supremacists are celebrating yesterday’s image because it links Hillary to a “Jew star.” Evidently they don’t think it’s an innocent mistake either.
The most plausible theory of what happened here, I think, is Yair Rosenberg’s, who wrote this back in February about Trump’s obliviousness towards anti-semitic tropes:
Some might see Trump’s strange likening of Jewish groups to the KKK as an attempt to dog whistle to his bigoted supporters. But more likely, he was simply flailing in a largely nonsensical stream-of-consciousness to avoid answering the question. The problem, in this instance, was not that Trump was trying to express bigotry, but that he did not even recognize that what he was saying could be construed as such. This combination of actual animus and obliviousness is what makes Trump’s rhetoric–and its wall-to-wall coverage by a ratings-hungry news media–so dangerous.
Play with fire and you’ll get burned, even if only accidentally. Whether intentionally or not, Trump’s built a devoted following within the online hangouts of white supremacists. He’s surely aware of it and he hasn’t gone out of his way to discourage it. His denunciations of their support have been largely perfunctory. It may be that one of his racist fans tweeted that image at his account fully intending the symbolism in the shape of the star, then Trump’s Twitter guy saw it and reproduced it without picking up on the symbolism himself. (The reason the image was reproduced rather than simply retweeted may have been because Trump’s guy wanted to add something to the image. In Trump’s version, there was a screencap of some Fox News poll data appended beneath the Hillary/star graphic.) It reminds me of this kerfuffle from back in November, when Trump stupidly retweeted something from a fan claiming that 81 percent of homicides involving white victims are perpetrated by blacks. In reality, 82 percent of homicides with white victims are perpetrated by whites. It was propaganda designed to reinforce the stereotype that blacks are predators. But whoever was running Trump’s Twitter account that day was too stupid not to see that the numbers were obviously bogus and too lazy not to take three minutes to check them by googling. He got suckered by racist propaganda. I’ll bet the same thing happened here. And it’ll happen again.
Corey Lewandowski: Donald Trump's Star of Davis is a 'simple' sheriff's star
Somebody should have caught it. At this stage of the game every outgoing communication needs to be looked over with an eye to how the leftists might be able to twist it to their purposes. It should come right after the fact checking.
I said something similar last night and found out the hard way that everything Trump does is awesome and I need to get with the program. However, Team Trump updated their graphic so they apparently recognized it as a misstep. And I hasten to add I’m a Trump contributor and on his side.
I agree. But it was six-pointed and you know what the opposition will do with that. Shout anti-Semitism! It is a reflex action. They can’t help it. But shout they will! A completely avoidable uproar with a little editing.
Agreed. A lot of campaigning is about denying your opponent a stick to hit you with.
“Bad judgment.”
I’ve been very critical of Trump a few times, but this is insane to make an issue out of this. I think you two need to create your own support group to help you figure out where the real world is.
Good Luck
waiting for someone in the media to demand that Hillary Clinton denounce Max Blumenthal, who yesterday on Twitter said HORRIBLE things about the late Elie Weisel oh yeah almost forgot Democrats can say horrible things about Jews and no one says a word
“demand that Hillary Clinton denounce Max Blumenthal,”
I heard about that. His brother Sid was Clinton’s private CIA in Libya.
The Blumenthals are known to be VERY anti Semitic..in fact once Sydney Blumenthal referred to someone as an “F’n Jew Bastard” imagine if Donald Trump had someone associated with him who had wrote the disgusting kinds of things that Max did last night, the reaction from the media would be condemnation, but since Blumenthal is a Democrat, not a peep
“Trump’s son-in-law is Jewish.”
Yup, and his beloved daughter converted to Judaism. This whole thing is a bunch of phoney, liberal, pc crap!
“The Blumenthals are known to be VERY anti Semitic..”
For the life of me, I can’t understand how the jewish voters support the Democratic Party...shamefull
It’s a sheriff’s badge because Hillary is an OUTLAW!
American Jews vote overwhelmingly Democrat because they support abortion..Its sad but its true..ask them if they could give a rats behind about Israel and they would all say NO..ask them if they would care if Israel were wiped off the map tomorrow if they would care and they would say NO..priority #1 for them are social issues, like abortion. My Mom’s friends, 4 women all in their 60s, all Jewish, all vote Democrat..why, because they all support abortion..yeah I know, what abortion is a 60+ year old having but yeah thats all they care about
I’m not sure your confidence is justified.
Look what was done to Dan Quayle by the media over a misspelling that was not a misspelling.
If the MSM decide to run with this, they’ll spend a billion dollars worth of airtime.
Exactly. That’s my Tag Line’s point........
I think the proper response to the ad is:
“You spot it, you got it.”
Awesome answer!
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