Appearing on CNN’s New Day today, CNN political commentator Ana Navarro, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, said that getting Donald Trump to address anti-Semitism was like “squeezing blood from a stone.”
And she explained exactly why that is: “he appealed to some of those people in his base and he doesn’t want to mess with that…he wants to keep that support.”
Watch courtesy of CNN:
.@ananavarro: Getting President Trump to condemn anti-Semitism was like "squeezing blood from a stone" https://t.co/1k4xGEsu8V
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— New Day (@NewDay) February 22, 2017
“There’s so much to be said for presidential leadership. We’re not going to get it from him on this issue. He hasn’t been full-throated. I also think his attacks on the media are feeding into these anti-Semitic feelings. He appealed to some of those people in his base and he doesn’t want to mess with that. He doesn’t want to mess with that from anti-Semites that did support him. He wants to keep that support…we all remember people at his rallies shouting ‘Jew SA! Jew SA!’ and looking at the media, and I think one thing has to do with the other. I think there is a correlation between his attacks on the media and a lot of this anti-Semitic feeling.
“But what I would say to America is we gotta do it ourselves. We’ve got to be vigilant against anti-Semitism, against hate crimes, against any community ourselves. When we see something we must fight it, we must denounce it, we must condemn it, we must report it. Forget President Trump, forget relying on him. He’s not going to fix this, he’s not going to be full-throated about it, it’s up to us folks. And I think each one of us has got the power to be a soldier against this war against hate.”
Navarro is right. Donald Trump will not lead the fight against anti-Semitism and for the very reason she gave: he does not want to lose his base. As the Muslim-led effort to restore a vandalized Jewish cemetery near St. Louis demonstrated, this is a fight we, the American people, must wage on our own, and in sad contrast to the Obama administration, against our very president.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
