The Trumps respond graciously
Julia Ioffe has filed a report with the D.C. police department over the anti-Semitic threats that she received — many from apparent Trump supporters — after writing a penetrating profile of Melania Trump in GQ.
The larger “public narrative” here is almost a year old. Since last June, Donald Trump has run a presidential campaign on bigotry, racism, sexism and frat-house insults. The show has attracted the interest and endorsement — surprise! — of white nationalist groups and figures such as David Duke, a former KKK official. At pretty much the same time, Trump has made a vocation of hammering media coverage of his candidacy, pointing with disdain at offending camera operators at his rally, calling the profession disgusting and dishonest and on and on.
Ioffe did an investigative piece on Melania Trump, and Melania Trump complained about it on Facebook.
Hate site the Daily Stormer responded with a story titled, “Empress Melania Attacked by Filthy Russian Kike Julia Ioffe in GQ!” The attacks against Ioffe then started flowing over social media, email and phone. The Erik Wemple Blog cited some examples of the vileness in this post. Several of the blasts came from people who showed signs that they supported Trump. “The Trumps have a record of kind of whistling their followers into action,” the 33-year-old Ioffe told the Erik Wemple Blog.
That’s putting it politely.
Thanks to Ioffe’s pursuit of a criminal case, we may eventually know more about the folks who threatened her. She has also enlisted the Anti-Defamation League in her quest for justice. “I can confirm that we are working with her, and we are doing some research into the individuals involved, but we do not have much else to say at this point,” said Todd Gutnick, vice president, communications, for the organization.
Ioffe herself says the police have launched their investigation and the harassment continues. She doesn’t want to say anything more. Who can blame her?
However things shake out from here, the episode reflects Trump’s unique way of making America great: A fair and thorough story on a potential first lady turns into grist for hate-driven threats. It’s quaint to think back before American started its re-transformation to greatness, when such a story would prompt merely some blowback from PR flacks and perhaps a strongly worded letter from a lawyer. Keep America crappy.
Having Trump as the apparent Republican candidate is like having Thunderfoot or Milo Yianoppoulos as the apparent Republican candidate.
I read part of the article. (It’s quite long, and my attention wandered before the end) Maybe I didn’t get to the not-so-kind bits, but it seemed nothing more than a rather complimentary, well-written piece about a woman playing her part with astonishing consistence.
And the “playing her part” business is me talking. The article didn’t imply she was a golddigger working out her side of the contract. (I mean what else could be going on? As Twisty Faster put it so well, “She’s got to fuck that orange baboon. Respect.”)
I can’t even imagine what they didn’t like about it. Anyone know?
Rereading, I realize I’m OT. Sorry. I guess the bestiality of too many Drumpf supporters just seems like news about some more garbage rotting in the landfill.
Quixote,
Melania complained on Facebook about the article, which is what riled up her husband’s winged monkey troops. She is apparently upset about the revelation that her father fought against paying child support for her half-brother, because it makes her father look like an asshole.
That’s it? In a multipage article? On the scale of things the media uncovers / invents about current and future First Ladies, well, I guess she’ll be getting an education.
This won’t fly for several reasons.
First of all, Trump’s eldest daughter and closest advisor is a convert to Judaism and she is married to a Jewish fella.
Second Hillary has said some pretty nasty things about Jews in moments of anger.
Third, Hillary has the ringing endorsement of the king of Saudi Arabia, a country in which Jews aren’t even allowed to set foot.
Fourth, the ADL is just an annex of the Democratic Party.
Fifth, this whole episode comes across as contrived and poorly orchestrated, a lame and awkward attempt at guilt by association.
When it started to come clear back in 1980 that Ronald Reagan might become president, we saw similar slanderous tactics come into play.
What won’t fly? What are you talking about?
I think you have a Trumpeter troll looking for some trollhouse cookies.
John is saying that the Jews (ie, the ADL) control the Democratic Party (or are controlled by it), and that’s why Trump having a daughter who converted to Judaism as part of marrying a Jewish man will keep this article from derailing the Trump campaign.
No, seriously, this is what I got out of his post, which just shows how incoherent John really is.
Breath-taking!
An obscure writer comes out with what seems to be an unauthorized biography. The object of the biography has some objections and some unauthorized tweets with a right wing bent are thrown around in defense of those objections, and so the husband of the object of the unauthorized biography should apologize for tweets he never solicited sent by people he’s never met or even knows!?
That’s what I mean by ‘doesn’t fly’
It’s a bit like saying that if you once ate in a restaurant at the same time that a couple of neo-nazis, whom you’ve never met and don’t know, were doing likewise ten tables over, you should apologize for having neo-nazis ‘connections’.
That Ms Ioffe is now the object of threats has nothing to do with Trump.
Jesus, you have people in the SJW ‘community’ and the BLM movement, adults in their 20s and 30s, who create and post rap songs that openly call for the death of Trump AND his family.
Were one to do a little sleuth work, I betcha at least a few of ’em could be tied back to Clinton… in at least some tenuous manner. Now Hillary neither endorses nor solicits such murderous statements, and she most certainly never would, but if some of these ‘artists’ turn out to be registered Democrats and Hillary supporters, would you be calling on her to address these incitements to murder?
Of course you wouldn’t because it would be most unfair, even slanderous, towards Ms Clinton, wouldn’t it?
*I think you have a Trumpeter troll looking for some trollhouse cookies*.
I’m Canadian, cannot vote and don’t like cookies.
“Were one to do a little sleuth work, I betcha at least a few of ’em could be tied back to Clinton… in at least some tenuous manner.”
There’s that first rule of misogyny, that women are responsible for what men do. Let’s all play seven degrees of separation. Troll harder d00d, at this point you are not troll but merely a caricature of a troll.
John, Trump has encouraged his followers to beat up protestors, and has even said he will pay their legal bills. He has made outrageous statements against almost every group, though women and Muslims seem to be the target of most of his bile. He is behaving in a juvenile bully manner, and encouraging his followers to do the same.
When the Bernie supporters targeted women online for abuse and hatred, he stood up and denounced the behavior. He never encouraged it, he did not call for it, but he took responsibility enough to tell his supporters to stop doing that on his behalf. (They haven’t). In short, he distanced himself from the nastiness, made it plain they were not speaking for him and he didn’t like or endorse that sort of behavior.
Trump has been riding a wave of misogyny, racism, and hatred of the other, and does not even say stay to his supporters. He encourages them, even if he himself is not telling them to do it or engaging in the behavior itself.
Clinton has been called out on her remarks – Sanders brought it up in a debate, and she had to deal with what she said. She attempted to clarify her remarks, though a lot of people weren’t satisfied with the rather evasive manner in which she addressed it. So she isn’t getting totally off the hook.
In short, you have put forward a simplistic dismissal of what is actually a very complex problem. What is the responsibility of one individual for others they inspire but do not control? That is a discussion we have been having in the States for some time, at least since Gabby Gifford. This may be a strange conversation for Canadians; I don’t know, as I am not an insider in Canadian politics, and therefore have no sense of the nuances of your political conversations.
John may be the one person who actually believes Trump when he says “I love the [blacks/Hispanics/Jews/women/gays]! And they love me!”
Print journalists aren’t exactly household names in the US these days, but Ioffe is certainly not “obscure” in the world of journalism. And Melania participated in the “unauthorized” article, which has been noted by most as a positive portrayal.
Trump’s campaign has galvanized the nation’s Far Right. Neo-nazis and other fascist slime do not normally support mainstream political candidates. That they are loudly supporting Trump is not an arbitrary act of Fate, nor something that happens to every GOP candidate. “Guilt by association” isn’t always a fallacy. When Stormfront likes what you have to say, that means something.
John – I’m not a fan of Clinton’s, but she doesn’t encourage violence and she doesn’t talk sexist and racist shit. Trump does both. Bullies see Trump as one of them; Clinton not so much. That’s the difference.
@John
Actually, John, Trump is supported by the “alt Right” in this country–the neo Nazis, the white supremacists, the “Dark Enlightenment” fascists. He knows it, and has consistently refused to criticize them.
In this case, he was confronted with this behavior by his fans by Wolf Blitzer, and refused to condemn it.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/05/06/heres-what-happens-when-trump-refuses-denounce-his-racist-neo-nazi-supporters/210275
Trump’s campaign has galvanized the nation’s Far Right. Neo-nazis and other fascist slime do not normally support mainstream political candidates. That they are loudly supporting Trump is not an arbitrary act of Fate, nor something that happens to every GOP candidate. “Guilt by association” isn’t always a fallacy. When Stormfront likes what you have to say, that means something.
Guilt by association is a tactic used by the unscrupulous to slander the opposition.
And if you think the millions of people attending Trump rallies and the millions and millions more who intend to vote for him are all Far Right, neo-nazis, fascist slime, then you are truly disconnected.
And the more the MSM attempts to paint Trump as a raging Neo-Nazis, the more those millions and millions of quite ordinary people become galvanized.
When the powers-that-be, the rancid old oligarchs, wheeled out a reheated Clinton and a warmed over Bush (such contempt) as THE choices for 2016, the American public flipped them the bird and yelled out one big collective “Fuck You”.
So let it be a race between Trump and Sanders!
Trump does both. Bullies see Trump as one of them
And so what you call that SJW thug who attempted to rush Trump’s podium in order to pummel him?
An errant ballerina?
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Trump on May 4 and asked if he would denounce the anti-Semitic death threats against Ioffe. Trump refused to condemn the threats, saying he was unaware of them
I will repeat what I said in an earlier comment:
An obscure writer comes out with what seems to be an unauthorized biography. The object of the biography has some objections and some unauthorized tweets with a right wing bent are thrown around in defense of those objections, and so the husband of the object of the unauthorized biography should apologize for tweets he never solicited sent by people he’s never met or even knows!?
There’s a saying in french ” Souvent ceux qui s’excuse s’accuse”
John: He wasn’t asked to apologize for them. He was asked to denounce them as wrong. This is not a difficult thing. All he had to say is, “You know, I didn’t know about those. If that’s happening, it’s disgusting, these are awful people and I want nothing to do with them. They should knock that off.” Unfortunately, your Great Leader is actually a gutless, spineless coward who routinely ducks and runs and tries to never, ever annoy even the most vile of his frothing fanboys, lest they turn on him.
I’ll just ignore you repeating your “obscure” line, just like you ignore that it’s been rebutted. Likewise the “unauthorized”. You are aware that Madam Drumpf actually consented to give an interview to the writer, yes? That’s about as far as you can get from “unauthorized”–unless, of course, you mean, “I didn’t mean they could write anything about me that I didn’t agree with,” in which case, you should really stop talking about Clinton until you get authorization from her campaign to speak about her.
You know, if you aren’t just a hypocrite.
@John
1. It wasn’t an “unauthorized biography.”
2. As Freemage pointed out, he wasn’t asked to apologize.
3. –He doesn’t just not apologize for them.
He retweets them.
Often.
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/01/donald-trump-mostly-retweets-white-supremacists.html
@Lady M.
The article you link to doesn’t really clarify matters; it’s more speculation than anything else. Everyone on twitter is interconnected is some way. People generally don’t investigate the background of people they retweet. In the third last paragraph of that article even the author admits he has great difficulty distinguishing between cause and effect, so what’s it worth?
I’d also point out that people opposing the current levels of immigration, which are insane and unsustainable, aren’t necessarily racist. If being against the current immigration policies, as most Americans are, is bigoted then most Americans are bigots.
John: You’re still being amazingly disingenuous. The first line in that linked article pointed out that he retweeted an account called “whitegenocideTM”. Is it really that difficult, for Trump or yourself, to see blatant white supremacy?
And citing a majority of Americans being opposed to current immigration policy is playing a poll-number shell-game. You don’t get to claim that everyone dissatisfied with the status quo automatically agrees with your solution, or is even on the same side.
For instance, Gallup also says that 65% of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement of Trump’s “Ship ’em all back to Mexico” rhetoric.
(I’ve seen similar tactics used in discussing Obamacare. One poll showed about 40% thinking it ‘went too far’, while the remainder were either happy with it or think it came up short, split pretty evenly between those two groups. However, conservative opponents tried to claim that 65% of Americans were dissatisfied with Obamacare–true, but also misleading, since more than a third of that group wanted something more like Medicare for everyone–not exactly the conservative position.)
Trump’s son granted an interview to a white supremacist. A famous white supremacist. Who was also granted press credentials by the Trump campaign.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2016/03/03/trumps-son-gives-interview-to-white-supremacist-radio-show/
The “interview” may have been a set-up by Edwards, but they still granted him press credentials.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/donald-trump-jr-explains-that-white-supremacist-radio-interview-was-an-accident/