Anti Trump Protesters Chanting God Hates Trump Anti Trump Make America Hate Again

James S. Robbins

Accused Pittsburgh synagogue killer Robert Bowers is a raving anti-Semitic white nationalist who also despises President Donald Trump. This might sound confusing to people who bought into the tedious "Trump is Hitler" media narrative, but it makes perfect sense.

Bowers faces 29 criminal charges, including 11 for homicide, later a shooting binge at the Tree of Life Congregation on Sat. There is no mystery as to his motive: He left a long record of neo-Nazi-inspired anti-Semitic ranting on social media, and shouted "all Jews must die" when he opened burn down.

Naturally, some critics rushed to blame President Trump for "inspiring" the attack. The left has long charged that Trump is a Nazi sympathizer spouting hateful rhetoric, and that his supporters are fascist enablers. And critics say those Trump voters who support his economic or foreign policies are simply likewise stupid to know they are bigots.

Just actual Nazis disagree. Bowers was explicit in his dislike of the president, maxim he did non vote for him and had never "owned, worn or even touched" a Brand America Great Again hat. Challenging the news media narrative that President Trump praised Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, Bowers agreed with another extremist that the president had "betrayed" right-wing radical protesters by "comparison them with a trigger-happy mob."

When Trump said he was a "nationalist" at a Texas rally concluding week, the left exploded with the usual Hitler-this and dog-whistle-that criticisms. Bowers made clear that from the extremist point of view, the president is not a nationalist simply a "globalist" controlled by a Jewish conspiracy.

Trump isn't anti-Semitic, and it's incorrect to say and so

Linking Trump to anti-Semitism is factually wrong and morally wrong. You never heard it before he ran for office. He has a history of giving generously to Jewish charities, including the Anti-Defamation League, and he received the Jewish National Fund's "Tree of Life" award.

This is a president whose loftier-profile daughter Ivanka is an observant modern Orthodox Jew and whose Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a trusted White House envoy and personal adviser. President Trump likewise has longstanding ties to Israel'due south bourgeois Prime Government minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, unlike three of his Oval Office predecessors, fabricated good on a pledge to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

And while Trump did not garner support from the broad Jewish community in the 2016 election, he was overwhelmingly popular amid more the observant Orthodox segment, whom one customs activist compared to working-class "Rust Chugalug voters."

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Critics resort to the tired "dog whistle" trope to lump President Trump in with white nationalists because they lack bodily testify. But real extremists don't hibernate their biases. You don't need to use a secret decoder ring to understand the blatantly anti-Semitic message when Louis Farrakhan says Jews are "termites" and talks about "Satanic Jews who have infected the whole earth with poison and deceit." White supremacists praised Farrakhan for being "on point" with this message, showing the noxious nexus at which these conflicting racist ideologies concur.

Synagogue shooting shows what evil looks like

Political theorist Hannah Arendt noted in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" that extremist propaganda "is invariably as frank as it is deceitful," and that "would-exist totalitarian regimes normally start their careers by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones." They believe in "the propaganda value of evil deeds," as the tragedy in Pittsburgh and whatsoever other such acts of terrorism illustrate.

Mainstream critics who convert normal policy disagreements into mud-slinging contests over extremism, advise apocalyptic consequences from pursuing whatever form of action they happen to disagree with, or hear hidden menacing messages in routine rhetoric, are making rational discourse in America impossible.

The synagogue shooting shows what real evil looks like. It is not hidden, it is non a subterfuge, information technology tin be found openly expressed in chat rooms and online publications that cater to that wretched mob'due south mentality.

Mainstream Americans — whether leaning left, right or in the center — tin and should denounce these radical views. But to the extent our political contend increasingly mimics the extremist tone of the fanatic fringes, we are the worse for information technology.

James Due south. Robbins, a member of United states of america TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of "Erasing America: Losing Our Future by Destroying Our By," has taught at the National Defense University and the Marine Corps University and served as a special assistant in the part of the secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush-league administration. Follow him on Twitter: @James_Robbins

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/10/29/donald-trump-robert-bowers-racist-anti-semitic-synagogue-shooting-column/1800755002/