Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Jews and Trump

President Trump has attacked Fed Chair Jay Powell for being crazy, in an attempt to place the blame on Powell for the recent stock market declines.  I like Powell because he is the first non-Jewish chair of the Fed in about 50 years, except for one year in the 1970s under William Miller.  I think the Jewish chairmen have used their position to financially benefit their Jewish brethren at the expense of non-Jews.  I don't think they have done anything illegal, but when there are several approaches to dealing with problems, they have usually chosen the one that will benefit other Jews.  This has been apparent for the last 10 years, when interest rates have been held close to zero, benefitting investors who take bigger gambles, typically Jews, rather than people who just want to invest conservatively for the long term.  Before the 2008 crash, conservative investors could buy bonds or just put money in savings accounts for the interest they paid; after the crash bonds paid nothing, and for any return investors had to buy riskier assets.  One result of this Jewish approach has been to radically increase income and wealth inequality, benefitting the wealthy, including Jews disproportionately, and penalizing the middle class, mostly non-Jewish whites.  By increasing interest rates, Powell is taking away the Jews' punchbowl.

Rather than hearing complaints from Jews in the financial industry, such as Goldman Sachs, we are hearing criticism from President Trump. How do we account for that?  One answer is that Jewishness has nothing to do with the matter; it's just about money! Another possibility is that the Jews don't have to speak out because Trump is speaking for them. 

I'm not sure what kind of relationship Trump has with Jews in general, or if he even sees it as a different relationship from his relations with other types of people, white Christians, Hispanics, etc.  New York is a Jewish city, particularly Manhattan, where Trump has lived and worked most of his life.  Roy Cohn, Jewish lawyer for Senator Joe McCarthy, was one of his mentors.  I think New York real estate is a particularly Jewish profession, but Trump has succeeded at it while being a white Protestant.  He has worked so closely with Jews that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is Jewish and his daughter Ivanka has converted to Judaism.  Yet establishment Jews have broken with him on many of his key issues.  Gary Cohn, who was supposed to represent the best of Jewish financial thought, has left his administration.  Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is still there. Trump is a strong supporter of Israel, breaking with the rest of the world and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. 

On the other hand, his opposition to unlimited immigration and support for Southerners' defense of their heritage have put him at odds with many liberal Jews.  Most recently, his nomination of and support for Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court justice put him at odds with most of the Jews in the Senate, particularly Diane Feinstein, who led a Democratic Jewish attack casting filthy accusations against Kavanaugh in an attempt to block his approval.  This vile confrontation was basically a religious one, with Jews opposing Kavanaugh because as a Catholic Christian he opposes abortion, while Jews support access to abortion. 

I was pleased when Trump named a non-Jew, Jay Powell, to be chairman of the Fed, breaking with tradition.  But now Trump is criticizing Powell for trying to raise interest rates to a normal level.  Trump is now siding with the Jewish speculators against his own Fed chairman.  Which is the real Trump?  The one who named Powell, or the one who attacked him?  I don't know, but I want Powell to stay.


It looks like the conservative Jews who were so prevalent in previous Republican administrations -- William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, for example -- are either opposed to Trump or missing in action.  I'm sure that Trump has some Jewish friends and colleagues from his years of living and working in New York, but they are not too visible right now, except for his former lawyer Michael Cohen, and Trump would probably prefer that he had remained invisible.