Today’s quote comes to us from Jon Lovett, a comedian, podcaster speechwriter, hardline Democrat and, at one time, an aide to Barack Obama.
Lovett, who was born into a Jewish household, has an opinion on how Michigan Jews should react to his party’s senate candidate, abdulrahman mohamed el-sayed, which he stated, yesterday, during a “Pod Save America” podcast.
Here it is, taken from Alexander Hall’s article for Fox News:
“So Donald Trump says there that any Jew would be ashamed to vote for Abdul, and there’s a debate among Jews in Michigan about whether to vote for Abdul. I just want to be very clear, Jews in Michigan have a moral obligation to support Abdul. They should do it to protect themselves from antisemitism and rising hatred in America.”
Did you do a double-take when you read that? I sure did.
So what is Lovett’s rationale? His quote continues:
“And if that sounds confusing to you at all, you should imagine two futures. One in which there is a debate inside the Democratic Party about America’s relationship to Israel, military aid for Israel, and antisemitism on the left, which is real. That is a big and important debate we could have to try to find places of agreement, places of consensus. There can be persuasion and argument and hard feelings, but there can be democracy.”
“On the other, you have this kind of politics on the right where it is about dominance and hatreds and othering of people. It starts with Muslims. He does it for trans people. He does it for immigrants. He does it for Haitians, eating the dogs and the cats. If you think that that doesn’t end with Jews, you are out of your fucking minds.
“A country where this kind of politics is rewarded is a country where Jews are less safe. And anyone who has allowed their own concerns and legitimate concerns about Abdul to cloud that ultimate larger point is missing the big picture here.
“For Jews in America, our safety is based around the idea that there’s a society in which we can have arguments and disagreements, but we respect those differences. Trump does not believe in that. And we need to have a check on Donald Trump in a Democratic Senate. And maybe Abdul is not your cup of tea. Maybe Abdul is is not — is going to be a reliable vote against Israel. Fine, we can handle that. But we cannot handle a continued slide to this hateful authoritarian right. It will be dangerous for us.”
Interesting take.
If I understand Lovett correctly, his “point” (if you want to call it that) is that, since President Trump has criticized the actions of a number of non-Jewish groups (I don’t see hatred there, only criticism based on specific reasons), Jews have to sweat out being next on the list….or, put another way, Jews have to sweat out Trump becoming what el-sayed already is.
Not at all surprisingly, Not everyone agrees with Lovett’s BS.
Here’s a reaction to his comments, from Manhattan Institute Vice President, Jesse Arm:
“Jon Lovett is a bitterly partisan hack who backed a candidate in Maine (graham platner) with a literal Nazi symbol inked on his chest because he had a D next to his name. He’s in no position to lecture Jews about their moral obligations.”
“His argument that Jews should vote for the guy who rationalized a terrorist attack targeting their children in a local synagogue preschool because Republicans might turn on them someday is both immoral and idiotic. The hard left is already in the disgraceful, bigoted place he imagines the right someday going.”
There you go.
I award Jon Lovett Quote Of The Day “honors” for putting out exactly the kind of mindless BS that you would expect from someone hoping enough Jews are so reflexively committed to voting Democrat that what he said will make sense to them – and, sad to say, a good many of his target audience are just that.
I also award Response Of The Day honors to Jesse Arm – also Jewish, it should be noted – for calling out Lovett as he did. With the exception of his implicit suggestion that there aren’t anti-Semitic people on the right already (of course there are), I agree with every word.
