After the false allegations of anti-Semitism against leading members of the Labour party, like Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah and Jackie Walker, comes the real thing on the other side of the Pond. This time, it’s brought to you through the miracle of computer software. A few days ago, the I newspaper carried a very brief story that Google Chrome had taken off an app that was being used to track Jews on-line. This is discussed in this clip from The Young Turks, with the hosts Cenk Uygur, Bill Mankiewicz, Jimmy Dore and John Iadarola. The app was being used by a group of Conservative Trump fans styling themselves the Alt Right. There are about 2,400 of them. The device had a database of Jewish surnames, and was being used to flag up if someone had one of these monickers. The example they give is ‘Fleishman’. If someone had that surname, then the Fleishman would appear in double or triple brackets to indicate they were Jewish, thus (((Fleishman))). The members of the group posted comments about its use, saying that ‘a pattern is emerging’. To their credit, Google removed the app.
Uygur and the others try to be fair to Trump and say that he’s not responsible for their actions, and may not have been aware of what they were doing. But they make the point that he is broadly responsible for what they have done in that he has opened up the racist closet with his attacks on Muslims and Mexicans. When Trump launched his offensive against Muslims, it was rightly condemned by the ADL – the Anti-Defamation League. This is the major US body that protects Jews against anti-Semitic smears and attacks. They did so not just because it was right to condemn all forms of racism and discrimination, but also because once it became permissible to discriminate against one group, that licence would soon spread to attacks on Jews. And it has. Trump has attracted racists and White supremacists to his campaign. He’s tried to distance himself from them, but not very hard, merely stating that he doesn’t know anything about them or their support.
The Turks also have a good, well deserved laugh at the stupidity of these anti-Semites and conspiracy theorist. Bill Mankiewicz, who’s Jewish, jokes that if his people really were out to enslave the world, then why are they talking about it? If they had, there’d be no question about it. The Turks also make the wider point about the contradictions in all these daft conspiracy theories. If White gentiles are the master race, then why aren’t they in charge of everything, instead of the Jews? And also, if they’re so superior, why are their jobs being taken by supposedly racially inferior Mexicans?
Of course these accusations and conspiracies don’t make sense. Their contradictions have been pointed out hundreds of times in books and articles on the Nazis and the international Fascist right. The Turks also point out that it’s very clear when you go on White supremacist websites like Stormfront that most of the Nazi right aren’t as bright as they think they are either. That’s also true. If you look at some of the posts from the various British Nazi organisations Hope Not Hate have reproduced on their website, you’ll find that most of them are badly spelt, with an extremely poor vocabulary, most of which seems to consist of obscenity and curses. A left-wing friend of mine, who very definitely isn’t racist, also told me he once read a copy of Spearhead, the NF rag he found in the gutter outside his house after a football match, and couldn’t believe just how stupid and moronic it was. But the reality is that Trump, by advocating racist policies, has made genuine racism and Nazism just that little more acceptable in America. Here’s the video:
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