The Trump administration helped broker the agreement between Israel and UAE. There may be some who were unhappy with the agreement because it forced Israel to put on hold its annexation of land in the “West Bank.” However, most supporters of Israel are happy with the deal. At a minimum, it splits the Arab countries, helps Israel economically, and should make it easy for other Arab countries to make deals with Israel.
Unfortunately, the good Trump was overshadowed by the bad Trump. One of the arguments by Black Lives Matter and other progressives is that the president is racist. This past week he did his best to prove them right.
Right after Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate, some individuals claimed that Senator Harris was ineligible to be vice-president since her parents, both immigrants, were not citizens when she was born. Trump mentioned it on more than one occasion, stating that the person who made this claim is a good lawyer. He refused to repudiate it.
This is not the first time this has happened. For years, Trump claimed that President Obama was not American-born and thus ineligible to be president. After many years, Trump admitted that Obama was born in Hawaii. Both Harris and Obama have one thing in common: They are both black. Trump has never made a similar allegation involving a white candidate.
Also, Trump has made other comments which clearly have racial overtones. For example, he tweeted, “The ‘suburban housewife’ will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low-income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!” This reminds me of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s blockbusting, when unscrupulous real estate agents and speculators would scare whites to sell them their homes at low prices and then resell to blacks at higher prices. Just in case you didn’t get Trump’s racial message, he mentioned Cory Booker, a black senator, who used to be mayor of Newark.
Trump also tweeted that Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won a Republican primary for a seat in the House of Representative from Georgia, is a “rising star, strong on everything and is a real winner.” Ms. Greene has repeatedly made racist and anti-Semitic remarks. The anti-Semitic comments include: “George Soros is the piece of [expletive] that turned in — he’s a Jew — he turned in his own people over to the Nazis.” “The Nazi himself trying to continue what was not finished.” Greene also posed for photos with former neo-Nazi leader Chester Doles, who described her as a “friend” on his social media account.
Then there is Trump and his flunky at the USPS attempting to make it impossible for each state, if they want, to have mail in voting. This is an article by itself. One snippet is Trump’s admitting that he was not agreeing to additional funding for the post office because it would make it impossible to have universal mail-in voting since the post office is not equipped to handle it. The irony is that this blatant attempt to suppress voting will probably backfire, since it increases people’s motivation to vote. The cuts at the post office by Trump’s new postmaster general has slowed delivery of mail, which includes checks for seniors and medications for veterans and others. People are not going to be happy, and Trump will pay the price.
Although these stories received the most attention this past week, utmost in most people’s mind is COVID-19 and the President’s mishandling of the pandemic. This week he made a comment that, if uttered by Joe Biden, the Trumpians would have screamed that it shows that Biden is over the hill and has lost it. At a COVID press conference, Trump commented about a prior pandemic that he thought was as bad as COVID-19. He said: “The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people. Probably ended the second World War, all the soldiers were sick.” The problem is that World War Two ended in 1945. Moreover, the 1918 pandemic started in 1918 and ended in 1920.
For some Jewish Trumpians, nothing else matters except his conduct toward Israel. I could understand this approach if you were living in Israel. But you are American citizens living in America and must also decide what is best for America. You have to consider the whole package: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Warren S. Hecht is a local attorney. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
