Working off this conservative ad against the stimulus, Ezra Klein writes the following:
Ever watched a parent explain math to a child? “Imagine Johnny has three power rangers, but you only have one power ranger…” That’s sort of the tactic “The American Issues Project” is taking in its attempt to attack the stimulus. Except instead of power ranger, sub in the Baby Jesus himself. “Suppose you spent $1 million every single day starting from the day Jesus was born — and kept spending through today,” says the announcer over a diorama picture of the three wise men and a camel. “A million dollars a day for more than 2,000 years. You would still have spent less money than Congress just did.” Call it Jesus-nomics.
But I’m still confused. Can you please phrase your answer in the form of anti-semitism? Seconds after the Son’s unexpected cameo (think he’s SAG-registered?) the ad plays a final clip of Chuck “Jew” Schumer scheming to take your money nasally explaining the bill while gesticulating wildly.
I’m genuinely curious what folks think of Klein’s allegation here. Ezra Klein, from my readings of him (and I think Klein is one of the best young progressive bloggers out there), would I suspect be sympathetic to the idea that “anti-Semitic” is an overused charge vis-a-vis Israel. Yet, I think one could make a solid case that Klein’s allegation here is flimsier than much of the charges that certain branches of anti-israel rhetoric are, in one way or another, anti-Semitic.
I think, to the extent that this ad, shall we say, sets my anti-Semitism antennae buzzing, it’s because of the juxtaposition. Any time you couch political argumentation in terms like “from the day Jesus was born”, there is an implicit alienation of Jewish (and other non-Christian) members of the polity flowing from the assumption that all Americans find that date meaningful. The resonance it is supposed to bring out amongst the viewers is profoundly Christian, giving the entire ad a Christian overtone. So when viewing the ad, I’m already primed to view myself as alien, making it more likely that I’ll interpret the Schumer clip with reference to his and my Jewishness.
I find the above argument compelling enough for me to find Klein’s charge “reasonable”, which isn’t to say that I think it is “true” in some transcendental sense. I just think that Klein is responding to something “real”, non-trivial and non-paranoid, and that makes it worth taking into account alone.
I don’t think it’s reasonable for the simple reason that until you printed it in this posting I had no idea that Sen. Schumer was Jewish.
I don’t think it’s reasonable for the simple reason that until you printed it in this posting I had no idea that Sen. Schumer was Jewish.
Dog whistles only get picked up by people tuned to that frequency. A lot of people also didn’t get that when Bush referenced Dred Scott in the 2004 presidential debates, as an example of a mistaken Supreme Court decision, he was actually referring to Roe v. Wade.* You have to know a fair amount about pro-life rhetoric to get that one, but that’s the point: catch the ear of the people whom you want to hear this, and be ignored by those whom you don’t.
* Goddamn, these people are ignorant: “Like Dred Scott, Roe has the potential to be overturned, given the right circumstances and the right make-up of the Supreme Court,” says the Republican National Coalition for Life.
Dred Scott was never overturned by the Supreme Court. It was good law right up until some combination of the Emancipation Proclamation (an executive order) and the passage of the 13th Amendment (Congress plus consent of the state legislatures).
In this case, I’d disagree with Ezra. The only real connection here is that they criticized a prominent Jewish man. I don’t think criticizing a prominent politician who is (to my eyes and ears, if not Ron’s) recognizably Jewish is enough to bring up the question of antisemitism.
Also realize that this comes in the wake of J.D. Hayworth, an Arizona Republican, blaming Chuck Schumer and George Soros for sabotaging our economy through ‘currency manipulation’.
Since they’re both Jewish, and the, “Jews sabotage the economy by controlling all the money,” slur is a well-worn one, I don’t think recognizing the antisemitism at play here is unreasonable.
—Myca
I agree with you about Hayworth’s comments. But Hayworth didn’t just criticize a single Jewish public figure — he brought up the stereotype of powerful Jews colluding to control the financial system. (Also, there’s a longtime use of Soros as a antisemitic “jewish global banking conspiracy” sort of thing).
I’m just cautious about saying, in effect, that it’s antisemitic to criticize a Jewish Senator for a somewhat incendiary statement about economic policy that he stated on the floor of the Senate.
First of all, because we should be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. There’s an obvious case to be made here that if a different (non-Jewish) senator had said the exact same words, s/he would have been used in this commercial in the exact same way.
Second of all, because I don’t want a situation in which people feel like we’re saying that it’s suspicious to criticize public figures who are Jewish for their public statements.
[Edited to delete point 3, which was really just a restatement of point 2.]
Dog whistles only get picked up by people tuned to that frequency.
O.K. That’s legitimate. But now tell me, on what basis do you think that this was that specifically targeted? The single reference to Christ? Do you consider then that a single reference to Christ means that this is only tuned to conservative Christians? The majority of people in this country are Christian. I’ve seen numerous references on this blog to the concept that assumptions of default Christianity and Christian culture is widespread in America. That ad would equally speak to the members of my parish, all Episcopalians.
It’s a clever point. People grasp the concept of a million dollars. Then consider that you want to say “If you spend a million dollars every [easily graspable time period], you won’t spend it all if you start as far back as [event].” What would you pick for a commonly known event that’s so long ago that it boggles the mind? The birth of Christ will serve that role better than anything else, certainly in America.
Sometimes people straining to hear something on a particular frequency start hearing things that aren’t there.
Lifted from comments at Ezra’s:
In seriousness, I’m not sure how I would have seen it without the suggestion from Ezra, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to interpret it as a dog whistle. The Jesus stuff puts me a little more in dog whistle territory because of some experiences I’ve had recently related to evangelical Christians and their perceptions about “New York Jews.”** I think there may be a dog that hears at just this frequency.
Kind of reminds me of something that happened when I was in college. A congressional candidate came to talk to one of my classes, and she handed out her literature, most of which included a very unflattering photo of her opponent, who both looked very Jewish and had a very obviously Jewish name. Every Jewish student in the class (including me) felt the literature was antisemitic, and none of the non-Jewish students did. The non-Jewish students’ take was that that was what the guy looks like and people always use unflattering pictures of their opponents. The Jewish students felt that yes, that was true, but not everyone uses their opponent’s picture in such prominent ways in their literature.
*Did Eric Cantor really say this? Googling Eric Cantor, Chuck Schumer and antisemitism took me to some very nasty corners of the Internet, but I couldn’t find the quote.
**Lest anyone think I’m wildly inconsistent, I’ve changed my mind about the witch poster from York. I think I was just in a very particular frame of mind when I saw it that caused me to interpret in a very particular way. Now I’m back to seeing antisemitism everywhere. ;)
Oh yeah, totally. My point was much more that:
1) There has been a prominent and clearly anti-Semitic attack on Chuck Schumer, in which he was accused of destroying the economy.
2) So when Chuck Schumer is attacked for a very similar thing in a very similar context, it must be viewed in the context provided by the earlier attack.
Right, absolutely! But also a different (non-Jewish) senator wouldn’t be faced with the same context, so it wouldn’t be an issue.
I mean, comparing George Bush to a monkey isn’t racist either, you know?
—Myca
No, but criticizing Obama on the stimulus package doesn’t become racist — not even if the criticism is issued the day after a very prominent racist cartoon about the stimulus was published. Given Obama’s prominence, any critique of racism that leads to the conclusion “we shouldn’t be criticizing him on the economy at all, because of context” is extremely problematic, and should imo be rejected.
There are longstanding steretypes — such as the Jewish money conspiracy, and depicting Blacks as apes — which are disgusting and should be avoided, because of that context.
But this isn’t one of those cases. In effect, you’re saying that if a Jewish politician is criticized in an antisemitic fashion, then afterward everyone else should take a hiatus from criticizing that politician’s economic policy statements.
ETA: I just somehow see this as being, in some way, harmful to Jews. I don’t think it’s good for Jews if we’re saying that antisemites so set the agenda that following an antisemitic statement about a Jewish Senator, then ordinary partisan criticisms of the same Senator are now out of bounds. That sets up Jewish politicians are somehow lesser than other politicians, in a way.
I’ve often wondered how Chuck Schumer became such a conservative bogeyman in the first place (compared to any number of a plethora of liberal northeastern senators). Part of me thinks its because he calls to mind the “New York coastal elite” which conservatives know elicits a reaction out of their base. Accented, cosmopolitan, better-and-richer-than-you. But I think that’s tied up in views of Jews, who are also seen as accented, cosmopolitan, rich, and infected by a superiority complex. As the old saying goes, in politics, if you say “San Francisco” (“San Francisco values”) you mean gay, and if you say “New York” (“New York money”, “New York sense of humor”), you mean Jew.
I think the negative associations to New York flowed out of anti-Semitism but have since broken free (in that people who respond to this ad would conceptualize their response as anti-NY, rather than anti-Jew). But the relationship is still present, and it has a disproportionate impact on the Jews upon who the hostility is historically based.
The Republicans and conservative bloggers appear to be really pushing this quote because Schumer says that “people don’t care*.” And by ending the quote there, it makes him look really arrogant and out of touch. I have not done an exhaustive reading of every conservative blog that has featured this quote, but the several that I skimmed did not strike me as remotely antisemitic. This ad doesn’t scream “ANTISEMITISM!!!” at me, but I think it may include a subtle dog whistle.
I hear what you’re saying here:
But the issue isn’t that partisan criticism is being leveled at a Democratic Senator who happens to be Jewish, who also has been the subject of antisemitic criticism. And it isn’t that antisemites “so set the agenda.” To most people, the ad is going to come across as either a clever response to those tax-and-spend Democrats or stupid partisan hackery, but nothing more. And that’s a legitimate reading of the ad. But that it’s Schumer who gave the quote is like a little bonus point for the people who don’t like Schumer for the wrong reasons, and I think the framing of the ad enhances that effect.
That white woman at the end of the Harold Ford ad had some legitimate purpose as well (Something about Vegas showgirls? I don’t recall.) Lots of people – most people, perhaps – wouldn’t be triggered at all by the juxtaposition her race and his race, but some people would be. And that doesn’t mean you can’t criticize a black politician for whatever it was that he was being criticized for.
I don’t think I can say definitively “Yes, it’s antisemitic,” but I think you can see a dog whistle here without being paranoid.
*Here’s the full quote:
I’m actually skeptical that this really was intended as an anti-Semitic dog whistle. I just wanted to make clear that the fact that one member of the audience not getting it doesn’t mean it wasn’t intended. Hence the Dred Scott example and a bunch of liberal bloggers who don’t take an interest in pro-lifers’ arguments (having already dismissed them as loons) scratching their heads going “huh”?
As for the idea that it was a good idea to invoke Jesus, though: we’re all on y’all’s [Christians’] calendar. You can say “over two thousand years” and we’ll all get that we’re talking about a long time ago, a real long time ago, yea even before the death of 2Pac.
If anything, I couldn’t swear to be certain that everyone in America necessarily knows that the Western calendar dates by the birth of Christ. My mother has a religious calendar to track Hindu holidays that has its own dating system, and she’s not really had a lot of formal education about Christianity, the Gregorian calendar, etc. If I asked her why we’re in the year 2009, she possibly wouldn’t be able to tell me. Admittedly, she’s not very politically active, but she’s a citizen, registered voter, taxpayer and business manager, so it’s probably good for her to know what’s up with these bailouts and stimulus laws. If you really want to reach the widest audience, just use the terms we all know like “2000 years.”
But now tell me, on what basis do you think that this was that specifically targeted? The single reference to Christ? Do you consider then that a single reference to Christ means that this is only tuned to conservative Christians?
Nope, I think it were tuned to someone, it would be the kind of Christians who know Chuck Schumer is a New York Jew and have a negative association for that.
I think I’d be surprised if the producers of the ad didn’t realize AT ALL that the anti-Semitic interpretation was possible. We’re talking about people whose jobs it is to create specific media images that resonate with parts of the public. Just like I’d say that everyone involved in the making and publishing of the chimp-shooting cartoon was either knowingly culpable or completely incompetent, so would it begger belief to say that this connection wouldn’t cross an expert’s mind.
Besides, it’s certainly in their best interest, in this case, to resonate with the “evil moneygrubbing jew” parts of the public. If it’s not intentional, it’s an amazing coinkydink.
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The Republicans and conservative bloggers appear to be really pushing this quote because Schumer says that “people don’t care*.”
The threads and comments on Free Republic have hammered on the “people don’t care” theme to a) show him and by extension the Democratic leadership as thinking people are dumb/sheep/fools and b) call people to protest and action. OTOH, there’s been not one mention of his religion nor any anti-semitic imagry that I”ve noted.
Errr, just to be perfectly clear (it should be obvious from context, but getting misinterpreted on this would be bad, and it’s frankly a poorly-written sentence), when I said
that was NOT meant to say “the members of the public that are ‘evil moneygrubbing jews'”, but rather “the members of the public that THINK about ‘evil moneygrubbing jews'”.
Again, I think my meaning was clear originally, but with the actual subject of the sentence not fully stated… yeah.
Right. Which is why I said:
That is, there’s no problem criticizing something Schumer said, even something he said about money. The only potential problem is how this particular ad frames that criticism. (Is it or is it not designed to bring to mind certain stereotypes?)
If anything, I couldn’t swear to be certain that everyone in America necessarily knows that the Western calendar dates by the birth of Christ.
True, but I’d say that the percentage of people in the U.S. who don’t know that would be insignificant.