The Jewish tradition warns strongly against baseless hatred (sinat chinam) and its dire consequences. Now we are watching it destroy a once great nation.
This didn’t happen all at once, of course. When Donald Trump came into the White House there was determination from the get-go to take him down. Rumors – instigated by the left, and most particularly by those working for Barack Obama at a grassroots level across the country — were spread about him that did him great damage: stories that were not true regarding collusion with Russia, his alleged but non-existent racism and much more. The President didn’t help matters because his style was sometimes coarse. It made it easier for people to say, “See, see what he’s like.”
But his sometimes coarse demeanor was not sufficient to generate this hatred. That came from somewhere else. I bumped up against it from time to time, and I was able to see how irrational, how hysterical it was. On occasion it left me breathless, shaking because of its over-the-top virulence.
Those professing this hatred never recognized the good things – and there were so many!! – that Donald Trump did for the country. And they certainly never acknowledged how much he loves America.
As I look back on the last four years and more, I am convinced that whatever else it was, this hatred was generated by a fury because Trump, the outsider who stood for conservative values, had succeeded in achieving the presidency, thereby undercutting the radical progressive agenda of his predecessor.
He had to be destroyed.
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Amongst those who have worked of late to defeat him is a group, formerly out of the Republican Party, that operates under the banner of “The Lincoln Project.” They were not out simply to defeat Donald Trump, they were after “Trumpism.” (There is your clue to their agenda, right there.) Their attacks were vicious and mendacious. This is what they put out in a press release on January 6:
“This shameful culmination of four years of lies, propaganda, dog whistles, gaslighting, and conspiracy theories at the hands of a dangerous, unstable president has now put our Constitutional system of government at risk. While our democracy has been under attack since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, today’s domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol highlights just how much Trump and his enablers have entirely abandoned the principles of the Constitution and the Republic.
“This is no longer simply about Donald Trump’s charade. It is an armed, violent, and planned insurrection against the United States of America. It is a moment where the tenets of Trumpism replaced the tenets of American democracy with the inevitable, violent results.”
Of course, the people associated with The Lincoln Project never condemned the violence of this past summer, which challenged American heritage – for the president was not remotely connected to it. Condemnation is only merited if it can be used to weaken Donald Trump.
Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson was after a great deal more than Donald Trump when he said:
“Make no mistake, this is sedition and insurrection. People have long asked why the Lincoln Project has targeted Trump’s Republican allies, and today they have their answer. Those Republicans who have endorsed and encouraged Trump’s lawless coup attempt in the House and Senate deserve to be prosecuted, not seated in the halls of government.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/533005-lincoln-project-adds-to-impeachment-calls
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How overblown and ludicrous this is. What happened on January 6 rightly merits severe condemnation but it was not a planned insurrection so much as a spate of violence. A planned insurrection would have required a great deal more force than what showed up at the Capitol that day. I will note here, in passing, as I noted in greater detail in a recent posting, that the violence began while the president was 45 minutes away addressing his followers, whom he admonished to proceed peacefully. The president might be charged with faulty judgment in not anticipating that he would be used by radicals. But “sedition”? These guys are out for blood.
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Donald Trump is out of the White House, and, tragically, Joe Biden is in. One might think this would suffice for those who hate Trump. But it does not. They are out to crush him utterly, and ensure that he cannot make a come-back. Thus, Congress is proceeding with a farce they are calling an “impeachment.” Under normal circumstances, an impeachment, issued by the House, resembles an indictment. The trial is then held by the Senate.
An article of impeachment (for “incitement of insurrection”) against President Trump was signed in the House on January 13, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) – who should hang his head in shame but is too far gone to know it – has announced the trial will begin on February 9.
There is, however, a huge problem. Indictments are intended to apply only to persons holding office; if the Senate votes guilty on the charge of the indictment, then he or she must leave office. But Donald Trump holds no office at present. He is a private citizen, and private citizens are tried in a court of law if accused of wrong-doing, not tried by the Senate.
Thus, there is considerable doubt as to whether a “guilty” verdict would mean a damn thing.oHH
Professor of Law Emeritus Alan Dershowitz has written that he believes the Senate should dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a trial, precisely for this reason: because Trump is a private citizen. Many legal authorities agree with him.
Very recently, I cited Dershowitz on the constitutional legality of the impeachment proceedings:
“…the House violated six independent points of the Constitution when impeaching President Donald Trump.
“They violated the free speech provision. They violated the impeachment criteria. They violated the bill of attainder. They violated due process, on and on and on.
“How can you impeach a president for a speech that is constitutionally protected?” (Emphasis added)
Dershowitz is of the opinion that this process is more destructive to the stability of the US than the riot in the Capitol, which was quickly put down.
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So let’s get this straight: certain idiots in Congress are willing to proceed with a process that undermines the Constitution, which stands at the very heart of the American republic, in order to destroy President Donald Trump. This is where hatred leads. And “The Lincoln Project” has the unmitigated gall to accuse Trump of undermining the republic.
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There is still a question, in any event, as to whether the Senate would vote guilty, as this requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senate — which would mean 17 Republicans voting with the Democrats.
“…it’s going to be tough to get even a handful,” said Sen. Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican…”
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/22/politics/senate-republicans-trump-impeachment-case/index.html
Meanwhile, Trump has hired SC attorney Butch Bowers, a First Amendment specialist who often represents public officials in ethics cases, to defend him.
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With regard to “The Lincoln Project,” there is one other matter of concern that must be addressed: The last thing we need here in Israel are people who foment hatred the way the individuals of this group do. We’ve had enough divisiveness and enough ugliness as it is.
Gideon Sa’ar (The New Hope), however, has hired four members of this project to help him in his campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu. In my opinion this disqualifies him as a desirable candidate for prime minister. He has exposed his crass ambition and his ruthlessness.
Before making their decisions, voters need to know what Sa’ar is doing. Those wishing to vote for the right wing have other options: Netanyahu’s Likud, Yamina with Naftali Bennett, or a religious nationalist bloc that is now forming with Bezalel Smotrich (more about this soon).
In any event, Netanyahu’s numbers are going up in the polls, and one political analyst I spoke with believes that this group knows nothing about Israeli society and so will fail here. If Sa’ar is true to his pledge not to sit in a coalition in which Netanyahu is a minister, then he will be out in the cold.
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As to President Trump: Whatever the efforts of Democrats to take him down forever, he has no intention of going quietly into the political sunset. Quite the contrary: He says the best is yet to come, that he will have news shortly.
If America is to be saved – and at this point no one is certain that it can be – Donald Trump will need to lead the way, supported by the 70 plus million Americans who voted for him and continue to back him.
Reports are that he is considering starting a new party, to be called the Patriot Party. There is considerable enthusiasm about this in certain quarters and it is not difficult to understand Trump’s disgust with the Republican Party.
“Does it go along to get along, or does it actually stand for something?” asks Ted Noel in Townhall:
“Lindsay Graham did excellent work in getting Trump’s judges approved. But when he promised investigations into key Democrat malfeasance, it turned into hot air. Mitch McConnell also did yeoman work on the judges but got the vapors when anything might compromise his wife’s business interests in China or his bosom buddy Chuck Schumer’s ambitions. Neither one had any principles they thought were worth upholding…”
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There is, however, potentially a great danger in doing this as it would split the right wing and almost guarantee Democratic victories by default.
If I were advising President Trump, I would urge him in a different direction. My opinion, and it is hardly mine alone, is that he must continue as head of the Republican Party, acting vigorously and embracing positive values. Quality people must be brought in and work must be done starting at grassroots.
Obama and certain leftist elements, starting at the grassroots level, co-opted the Democratic Party – which is very, very far from what it once was. Trump needs to act similarly, beginning with a nation-wide cadre of committed individuals devoted to traditional American values.
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I have found one Trump advisor who has a different take on what he intends to do going forward: Jason Miller says Trump intends to focus on (very critical) election integrity.
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Hope for the future should not be abandoned, but right now we have to take a hard and painful look at the present. How long will it take before Americans who voted for Joe Biden cry, “What have we done??”
Please, please, read this through and share very broadly.
Only those who were eager to embrace Biden as the counter to Trump could have swallowed the saccharine words he delivered at his inauguration. Chris Wallace, for example, cooed that it was the best inauguration speech he had ever heard.
But how very cheap these words were: For me, his cry that “My whole soul is in bringing America together” had a very high gag quotient. Titular head of the Democratic Party, he has given no indication of attempting to reign in the witch hunt against Trump and genuinely reach out to enfold into his new administration the furious millions who continue to support Trump. The nation stands divided.
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For the inauguration, tens of thousands of National Guard troops were brought into Washington to protect the Capitol against the anticipated radical rioters, none of whom appeared. A scandal ensued when thousands of these troops were sent to rest in an unheated parking garage that had exactly one toilet.
Governors from three states have called their National Guard troops home because of the shabby treatment they received: Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. Fumed DeSantis, these troops were not there as the servants of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But wait, then there was the vile and outrageous comment Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) made just prior to the incident: He noted that the National Guard is “predominantly conservative.” Estimating that roughly 75% of those guardsmen who were in Washington hadn’t voted for Biden, he said they were thus “in the large class of folks that might want to do something.”
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What we are seeing from the Biden administration so far:
[] Within hours after he had been sworn in, Biden signed an executive order stopping construction on the US-Mexico wall, for which Trump has fought so hard. Biden touted this as a humanitarian move, showing compassion to people outside the US, who would now be welcomed in.
This is a perfect example of the difference between the political philosophy of Trump and that of Biden. Trump believed that as the president of the US, he had an obligation to protect the American people. Biden on the other hand, while making this grandiose gesture of “compassion” in the spirit of radical progressivism, has acted in a way that increases risks to the American people. Not only will mafia types and drug dealers find it easier to get in again, there will be masses of people who are carrying corona.
[] A second executive order reverses the ban on travel from terrorist hotspots, including Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia, in addition to North Korea, Chad and Venezuela. The ban was put into place in 2017 against governments who could not provide proper documentation, vetting or identification information for citizens traveling to the United States.” In other words, while Trump acted to protect Americans here as well, Biden says, in essence, the hell with that, let them come because I have a big heart. It matters not to him that he puts the security of Americans at risk.
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[] One of Biden’s key campaign issues was his allegation that Trump had handled the corona pandemic poorly and that he could do better. Now he has announced that there was “nothing” his administration could do to “change the trajectory of the pandemic over the next several months.”
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There is so very much more I would like to mention, but I am constrained by the length of this posting. Stay tuned: There will more coming. In closing, I offer this, which I find terrifying:
An executive order Biden has signed opens the door to “launch[ing] a whole-of-government initiative to advance racial equity.”
Equity is not the same as equality. I see Kamala behind this, and I saw it coming. This, my friends, is the beginning of socialism.
“Equity means equality of outcome, a concept tied to the critical theories that slice up society into identity groups based on race, gender, sexual proclivities, and others, while positing which groups are oppressed and which are the oppressors, similarly to how Marxism labels people as oppressors or the oppressed based on class…
“While the order notes fair treatment of all, its specifics indicate some people will be more equal than others, based on whether their demographics fit the administration’s profile of ‘historically underserved and marginalized.’”
President Trump, by contrast, “banned federal agencies, contractors, subcontractors, and grantees from instructing their employees to follow the tenets of the critical theories”
Christopher Rufo, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty, calls critical race theory a “grave threat to the American way of life” that “traffics in the pernicious concepts of race essentialism, race stereotyping, and race-based segregation—all under a false pursuit of ‘social justice.’”
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© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
