In an application for a loan from Deutsche Bank to buy an NFL team Donald Trump listed among his assets his “brand value,” putting it at $4 billion. That was 2013 when he was known as a publicity-seeking real estate mogul; today his brand is the politics of hate.
He may be the foremost practitioner of that dark art since his idol Richard Nixon, though to be fair, thanks to his own skills and to social media, he has soared far beyond that other disgraced former president.
Trump is an equal opportunity hater. The latest target of his anger is the most popular artist in the world today, Taylor Swift. As soon as she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the convicted felon posted on social media, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”
It brings to mind a line in Swift’s hit song, Shake It Off: “And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.”
Swift signed her endorsement “childless cat lady,” a swipe at a misogynistic remark by Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance. He used the term to denigrate Harris and dismissed Swift’s endorsement, saying people aren’t going to be “influenced by a billionaire celebrity” who is “fundamentally disconnected” from the problems most Americans face. Sounds like someone closer to him.
And he wonders why Harris leads Trump, an adjudicated sexual offender, by 13 points among women, who outnumber men and vote at a higher rate. Maybe he’s afraid Swifties will register and vote in large numbers, as she urged them.
Misogyny is a trademark of the Trump-Vance ticket. Racism is another. Vance takes credit for one of his running mate’s more incendiary lies during the debate. “They’re eating the pets” in Springfield, Ohio, Trump bellowed, referring to debunked stories that Haitian immigrants in the city are stealing and eating cats, dogs, ducks and geese.
When challenged Trump protested “I’ve seen people on television” say that, but he couldn’t cite hard evidence. That’s because there is none. Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine called the story “a piece of garbage that was simply not true.”
So what?
So what, said the MAGA duo. Vance called the Haitians “illegal migrants,” although they came legally and to work, Springfield’s mayor said. Trump warned that as president, he’s going to launch his massive roundup and deportation of migrants starting with the Haitians in Springfield and send them “back to Venezuela.”
He wants to ship millions of migrants back to what he has called “shit hole countries,” namely Haiti, El Salvador and African states, all of which just happen to be Black. Like Harris. He said he prefers immigrants from Norway or other White, Christian European countries like the ones his grandparents, mother and two wives came from.
Republicans keep pounding the pet eating story even though Vance admits it’s a lie, because it demonizes immigrants and spreads fear.
It is axiomatic that all politicians lie, but to be fair, this is one category where Trump may be justified using his familiar boast claiming to be the greatest in history. The Washington Post’s fact checkers have compiled a database of 30,573 “false or misleading claims” in Trump’s first term.
Vance admitted to CNN’s Dana Bash that he had no proof about the pet-eating story but said that was irrelevant. “If I have to create stories” to get the media’s attention “then that’s what I’m going to do.”
In other words, he thinks immigration and the fear of what Trump falsely called the dregs out of foreign jails and mental institutions coming to their neighborhoods is the GOP’s strongest issue against Harris. The objective is to keep scaring voters.
It’s a noxious brew of hate, fear, racism and xenophobia. And so what if the mayor of Springfield said his city was being “torn apart” by the lies – and two schools, two hospitals and city hall were forced to lock down or close because of bomb threats and other dangers? It was “nothing that I have said,” Vance claimed. Blame it on those sinister foreigners.
VANCE’S LIES about the Haitians, and his dismissal of school shootings becoming “a fact of life” and of “childless cat ladies” (Kamala and Taylor, he’s talking about you) are giving some Republicans buyer’s remorse, but Trump dismisses that, saying vice presidential candidates “don’t have any impact.” Hopefully, Vance may do for Trump what Sarah Palin did for John McCain.
In addition to rounding up possibly millions of migrants, Trump wants to close the borders and resurrect his first term Muslim ban but this time “bigger” and “much stronger than before.” And topping his list of undesirables are Gazans.
That may not help his appeal to Muslim and Arab American voters disaffected by the Biden administration’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza. A Super PAC supporting Trump and with reported ties to a former and present top Trump adviser has been running antisemitic ads in Michigan telling pro-Palestinian voters that Harris “stands with Israel and the Jewish people” and her husband Doug Emhoff would be “the first Jewish presidential spouse ever.”
IF THAT is too subtle, the Future Coalition PAC’s half-dozen or so ads are crammed with antisemitic dog whistles like images of Emhoff wearing a yarmulke, lighting Hanukkah candles and standing before an Israeli flag.
This ad campaign may be less about drawing votes to Trump than taking them away from Harris, even if it means directing them to a third-party candidate like Dr. Jill Stein or Cornell West, two strident critics of Biden’s Israel policies. Stein played kingmaker in 2016 when she took enough votes away from Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to throw the election to Trump.
The PAC’s ad campaign’s theme is the exact opposite of Trump’s message to Jews. He said it loud and clear several times just at the debate and again elsewhere: “She hates Israel. If she’s president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now.
“She dislikes Jewish people and Israel even more than Biden did,” he told a WABC radio interviewer. Trump, who has a long history of trafficking in antisemitism and associating with Holocaust deniers and White supremacists, has frequently said Jews who vote for Harris or the Democratic Party “hate Israel,” hate “their religion,” and should “have their head examined.”
Trump’s attacks are unlikely to win him many Jewish votes. Polls show Jews are likely to vote their usual 3:1 Democratic, as noted in an earlier article, because of deep differences with Republicans on so many issues.
Ironically, Trump’s hate-filled screed could help Harris win back Muslim and Arab voters in critical swing states where their can make a difference in very close elections, not just in Michigan but also Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.
Many who were undecided in the Democratic primaries or threatened to withhold their usual support for the party may feel reassured by Trump’s attacks and believe Harris is serious about her promise to “rebuild Gaza, where the Palestinians have security, self-determination and the dignity they so rightly deserve.”
The common thread running through Trump’s rants is a desire to fire up rage in his base against migrants, minorities, feminists and his opponents. And if you’re imagining Jews will be immune, you are seriously deluded. Remember Vance’s chilling comment to American Conservative in an interview three years ago: “I think our people hate the right people.”
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.