Antisemitism, or the Bully’s Path
MAGAs hurled antisemitic epithets at the judge who authorized the search
Bullies are not born, but made
They learn their path like any trade
Start small — kittens — then graduate,
And, unless redirected, they escalate
To smaller people, weaker, friendless
Whoever they may deem defenseless —
Then as each cruel new lashing yields
Some warped sense of impunity
They expand brutality to other fields
Defecate upon their own community.
Vandalistic masks or shadowed shields
Their orchestrated anonymity
Compounds into pox profits, and opportunity
To amass power by inflicting pain
To command attention, and to attain
Puerile pleasures of elder/toddler’s disdain.
- Tom Tordillo © 2022
On Friday, August 12, 2022, a Florida synagogue cancelled Shabbat services after receiving a deluge of threats. One member of the synagogue was a judge who had just authorized a search warrant on Mar-a-Largo.
Bullies. Pretending to defend Donald Trump, who probably is capable of defending himself just fine, they seized the opportunity to threaten and attack, assuming others would protect them from any accountability.
This has happened many times in America, and in Florida.
Dan Rather notes several other ‘coded’ antisemitic attacks by various MAGA-affiliates:
The conspiracy theory that Trump is being thwarted by a global cabal of “elites”…represents coded language (and by “coded,” I mean as subtle as a marching band through a library) that is pushing a dangerous line of attack.
Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner, “Antisemitism Once More,” Steady, August 15, 2022
Dangerous? Maybe.
Antisemitism, racism, sexism, and most other ‘isms’ continuously adapt and mutate their “codes.” But the purpose ultimately is to facilitate bullying behaviors, signaling whom to attack, and also signaling which bullies are at the top of the pecking order among a pack.
Packs of bullies, after all, need to know which targets to attack and when. For example, if Florida passes a law that criminalizes wrongful seizure of government documents, that can result in both of the following incidents:
- Rebekah Jones, a data scientist, raided by Florida law enforcement for ‘downloading confidential documents’ onto her personal devices.
- Donald Trump, a former president, who was raided this month for possessing top secret documents in his closets.
DeSantis defended the Rebekah Jones raid at the time, denying it was a ‘raid’ at all, and asserting it was simply execution of a valid search warrant. Exactly as it was for Donald Trump.
What legal standard can be applied to Jones that cannot also be applied to Trump? And if no legal standard distinguishes those alleged crimes, then ‘law enforcement’ is not enforcing any laws, but simply attacking ‘enemies.’
When I bother to think about him at all, I imagine Ron DeSantis as a child, growing up near Disney World, angry at that ‘happy universe’ that was so often just outside his reach. Contemptuous of Disney, then disgusted with it.
Perhaps someone saw him beat a kitten, and redirected him to beating up baseballs instead. Probably kept him out of jail. At law school, he learned all sorts of new ways to beat up people.
He certainly grew up to join big league of bullies.
