Uncategorized
Behind the scenes of Justin Jones’ viral ‘tikkun olam’ encounter with Jewish teens in DC
(JTA) — Sam Rosen and Noah Segal were sitting with their friends on the steps of the Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Monday when they spotted one of America’s most talked-about politicians.
Justin Jones, a Democratic lawmaker in Tennessee whom Republicans kicked out of the state’s legislature in retaliation for a gun-violence protest, was walking by in his signature white suit.
“I remember me and my friend looking at him and being like, ‘Is that him? Is that really one of the Tennessee Three?’” Rosen recalled on Wednesday from his home in Dallas. “To me, he’s kind of the face of upholding democracy right now, so it was very cool to see that.”
Jones waved at their group, this year’s crop of Bronfman Fellows, a prestigious leadership program that aims to empower Jewish teens. That initiated an encounter steeped in Jewish lingo that went viral after a liberal news outlet in Tennessee shared a video on social media.
“Can I shake your hand?” Segal, a high school senior from Ardsley, New York, asked Jones. Several of the other teens introduced themselves, too, and one explained that they were all Jewish teens from across North America.
“This is a Jewish program?” Jones asked after giving a brief pep talk about getting more young people involved in politics, drawing an affirmative response.
“Tikkun olam,” Jones ventured, seemingly testing whether he had correctly named the Hebrew term meaning “repair the world” that has come to signify social justice in progressive circles.
“Yes,” the teens replied in unison, many of their faces lighting up with excitement. “We just talked about that!” Rosen said, with apparent delight. After chatting with the group for a few more minutes, Jones said he had to head off for a White House meeting with President Joe Biden — but he took the time first to pose for a picture with the group.
For many of the people who saw and shared the video, produced and posted Tuesday by the Tennessee Holler news site, the exchange offered an example of cross-cultural solidarity at a time of polarization. The video has been seen well over 2 million times on Twitter and more on other platforms.
“It seems like it resonated because it was a genuine, uplifting moment that showed how impactful it can be to have young leaders showing other young people the way forward — and because it crossed lines. Racial lines. Religious lines. Geographic lines. It shows how essential it is to come together,” Justin Kanew, Tennessee Holler’s founder and editor, told JTA. (The site was the first to report that a Tennessee school board had banned the Holocaust novel “Maus” last year.)
Kanew added: “Also: Justin Jones is the real deal. Sincere, and inspirational. So that helps.”
Jones burst onto the national scene last month when he and another Tennessee lawmaker were ejected from the state legislature after staging a protest over the Republican-led body’s inaction after a school shooting in Nashville. Both men are Black; a third lawmaker who protested is a white woman and she was not ejected. The racial disparity in the lawmakers’ treatment drew widespread criticism, even after local elected officials in Nashville and Memphis reversed the ejections.
The saga has made Jones into a folk hero among progressives, as well as an inspiration to those who want to see young adults — he is 27 – play an active role in shaping the country.
“Thank you for being a role model for the young,” Dan Libenson, the head of a Jewish education philanthropy who teaches in the Bronfman program, tells Jones in the video.
WATCH: “Thank you for being a role model for the young.”
As the #TennesseeThree arrived at the White House a group of Jewish students from across were there on a tour, and they were thrilled to meet @brotherjones_. #TikkunOlam pic.twitter.com/vii89sTsIp
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 25, 2023
Libenson told JTA that it had taken the group a moment to realize that the man in the white suit was in fact Jones, as the group had been sequestered at a Jewish retreat center in Maryland and had not heard about Jones’ visit, or about the backlash from some conservatives against it.
“As you can see from the video, as soon as it registered, we all rushed down to greet him,” Libenson told JTA in an email. “It’s clear that Gen Z has been traumatized by the mass shootings that seem to happen every day, and I think many of the fellows see Justin Jones as a hero for not taking no for an answer with regard to the safety of young people like them.”
Said Segal, “The whole seminar theme was vision and the future, so it was random and funky and cool to see someone who is right there making a change.” About Jones’ invocation of tikkun olam, he said, “I was impressed with him before that and impressed with him after that.”
The Bronfman Fellows program is not partisan, and participants hold a wide range of political views, according to Becky Voorwinde, the group’s CEO. But she noted that applicants for the fellowship must write about a contemporary issue that matters to them, and many choose gun violence. “It cuts across political viewpoints,” she said. “They grew up after Sandy Hook. This is their reality.”
Asked whether the issue was one he thought a lot about, Rosen answered, “How can it not be?”
He went on, “It’s not like it’s one awful shooting a year. It’s every day. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before it’s me. It’s not something that controls my entire life, but it’s always in the back of my mind.”
What the Bronfman Youth Fellows’ group photo with Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones looked like from the vantage point of where they’d been sitting before they spotted the prominent lawmaker. (Courtesy of Becky Voorwinde)
Segal said that he, too, viewed the threat of gun violence, alongside climate change, as one of the widest problems facing young people. In fact, he said, for part of a final project in the fellowship, he’d facilitated a discussion about what it means to fight antisemitism for a generation surrounded by mass shootings.
The Washington trip was a closing activity for the cohort of Bronfman Fellows, who first spent five weeks together last summer before getting together throughout the year virtually and in person. Before running into Jones, the group had been meeting with four Jewish White House staffers; afterward, they broke into small teams to meet with past fellows working in a wide array of jobs in the area.
The day before the viral encounter, the group visited a haredi Orthodox yeshiva in Baltimore. There, too, tikkun olam came up in discussion — but the head of the yeshiva seemed to dismiss it as a meaningful framework for Jewish life compared to the commandments of traditional Jewish law.
Rosen, who belongs to a Reform synagogue in Dallas and is headed to Brandeis University in the fall, pushed back.
“I said, ‘Rabbi, this is an obligation that we all uphold in our community. It’s a core value of Judaism and who I am,’” he recounted. “To me, that’s why it was so cool that Justin Jones said that.”
The entire encounter with Jones, Rosen said, felt authentic and empowering. And that feeling, Kanew said, could be contagious.
“Everything we need to save this country from descending into a dark place was right there in that exchange,” Kanew said. “And the beauty of it is everything that moment represents will inevitably come to fruition if people stay engaged and keep fighting for it. So it’s an incredibly hopeful moment, and hope is what people are looking for right now.”
—
The post Behind the scenes of Justin Jones’ viral ‘tikkun olam’ encounter with Jewish teens in DC appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Netanyahu alleges that Israeli soldiers died because Biden-era arms ’embargo’ meant they ‘didn’t have enough ammunition’
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged in comments on Tuesday that Israeli soldiers died during the war in Gaza because of a Biden-era “embargo” on weaponry.
“We paid a very heavy price in the war,” Netanyahu said during an appearance in Jerusalem. “Part of it is that at a certain point, we simply didn’t have enough ammunition, and people fell, heroes fell. Part of the loss of ammunition was also a result of the embargo.”
The Biden administration held back some heavy arms from Israel in mid-2024 in an effort to pressure Netanyahu not to enter the southern Gaza city of Rafah. It pledged to continue supplying other weapons.
Both Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, who resumed sending the heavy weapons in March 2025, have said the Biden-era restrictions amounted to an “embargo” and have charged that the Biden administration held back more arms than it said.
Biden administration officials immediately decried the comments, saying that Netanyahu was lying and emphasizing Biden’s personal and political support for Israel.
“Netanyahu is both not telling the truth and ungrateful to a president that literally saved Israel at its most vulnerable moment,” Amos Hochstein, whom Biden appointed as a Middle East envoy during the Gaza war, told Axios, in one example. He reiterated the point on X, where he noted that the Biden administration sent $20 billion in military aid to Israel and also participated twice in deflecting Iranian missile attacks.
The comments come at a delicate time for Netanyahu. The retrieval earlier this week of Ran Gvili, the last Israeli hostage in Gaza, adds pressure for him to support a new phase in the Gaza ceasefire which has the potential to become a wedge between him and Trump.
At the same time, the prime minister is facing potential political turmoil at home, with elections required before the end of the year and a budget process getting underway Wednesday that could trigger earlier elections if lawmakers cannot reach a deal over haredi Orthodox army enlistment.
The comments also come as Netanyahu has recently said he wants to “taper” U.S. military aid to zero over the next decade and instead position Israel to fund its own defense. A top Republican lawmaker, Sen. Lindsey Graham, said he thought the shift should come sooner.
The post Netanyahu alleges that Israeli soldiers died because Biden-era arms ’embargo’ meant they ‘didn’t have enough ammunition’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Looking back on my 30 years as a Yiddish translator
איך בין געווען אַ מאָדערנער חסיד אַ בעל־תּשובֿה, וועלכער פֿילט זיך היימיש סײַ צווישן די חסידים, סײַ צווישן די וועלטלעכע ייִדישיסטן.
נישט לאַנג צוריק האָב איך געבלעטערט מײַן עלטסטע אָפּגעהיטע העפֿט מיט לידער אויף ייִדיש, אָנגעשריבן אין 1995 – 1996. האָב איך זיך פֿאַרטראַכט, אַז עס באַקומט זיך אַ יוביליי פֿון מײַן ייִדיש־שאַפֿן און אַן אײַנפֿאַל אַ ביסל אָנצושרײַבן וועגן דעם.
עפּעס האָב איך געגראַמט אויף ייִדיש נאָך פֿריִער, אָבער פֿון יענע „אורשאַפֿונגען‟ מײַנע איז נישט געבליבן קיין שפּור. אין יענער אַלטער העפֿט, וואָס האָט דורכגעמאַכט אַ לאַנגן וועג קיין אַמעריקע און מיט יאָרן שפּעטער צוריק קיין רוסלאַנד, געפֿינען זיך אויך דרײַ מײַנע איבערזעצונגען פֿון מײַן באַליבטן רוסישן דיכטער אָסיפּ מאַנדעלשטאַם.
אין 2002 זענען יענע איבערזעצונגען פּובליקירט געוואָרן אינעם אינטערנעץ־זשורנאַל „דער באַוועבטער ייִד‟, נאָר אין גאָר אַנדערע ווערסיעס. די היסטאָרישע העפֿט איז דעמאָלט געווען אין פּעטערבורג, און איך האָב געוווינט אין קווינס. אויף אויסווייניק האָב איך מײַנע טעקסטן נישט געדענקט און ממילא געמוזט זיי איבערשרײַבן. דער נײַערער נוסח האָט זיך באַקומען לאַוו־דווקא בעסער, פּשוט אַנדערש. פֿאַרגלײַכט:
געהיים איז שאָרכען אינעם וואַלד:
אַ פּרי פֿאַלט אַראָפּ אַנטשוויגן
אין אייביק הילכן פֿונעם ניגון,
וואָס וועלדער־שווײַגעניש אַנטהאַלט.
(1995-1996)
אַ טויבער, אַ געהיטער קלאַנג:
אַ פּרי איז אַראָפּגעפֿאַלן
אינמיטן טיף און אייביק שאַלן
אין שטילקייט פֿונעם וואַלד־געזאַנג.
(2002)
אינעם זעלבן יאָר, ווען אָט די שורות זענען דערשינען אינעם „באַוועבטן ייִד‟, האָב איך אָנגעהויבן אַרבעטן ווי אַ נײַעס־איבערזעצער אינעם פֿאָרווערטס. צוערשט האָב איך געאַרבעט צוויי טעג אַ וואָך; ביסלעכווײַז, מיט עטלעכע יאָר שפּעטער, האָב איך אָנגעהויבן אַרבעטן אין דער רעדאַקציע די גאַנצע וואָך. פֿאַרן באַקומען די שטעלע, זײַענדיק אַ יונגער ענטוזיאַסטישער יאַט, האָב איך געפֿירט ייִדיש־לימודים פֿרײַ פֿון אָפּצאָל אויף דער אינטערנעץ און פֿאַרשיידענע דיסקוסיעס אַרום דער ייִדישער שפּראַך. מײַן מיטבאַטייליקטער אין דעם איז געווען אַריה לאָנדאָן ז״ל (1946 – 2017) – דער זשורנאַליסט פֿון די ייִדיש־אוידיציעס אויף דער אינטערנאַציאָנאַלער ישׂראלדיקער ראַדיאָ „קול ישׂראל‟. מיר האָבן אָפֿט אַרומגערעדט מאַנדעלשטאַמס לידער.
ווי אַזוי האָב איך געפֿונען די אַרבעט אינעם פֿאָרווערטס? ערגעץ אין די ייִדישיסטישע אינטערנעץ־פֿאָרומס האָט זיך פֿאַרשפּרייט אַ קלאַנג, אַז דער פֿאָרווערטס זוכט אַ מיטאַרבעטער. האָב איך זיך פֿאַרבונדן מיט דער צײַטונג און זיך געיאַוועט אינעם ביוראָ. באַלד איז צו מיר צוגעקומען אַ סימפּאַטישע רויטהאָטיקע פֿרוי, וועלכע האָט זיך פֿאָרגעשטעלט: „איך בין שׂרה־רחל שעכטער‟. מיט אַזאַ באַשטעטיקנדיקן טאָן האָט זי זיך באַגריסט, אַז איך האָב פֿאַרשטאַנען אַז איך מוז זיך מאַכן, אַז איך ווייס, ווער זי איז!
דעם אמת געזאָגט, האָב איך קיין השׂגה נישט געהאַט. אין יענע יאָרן, צו וועלכע עס געהערט מײַן אַלטע לידער־העפֿט, האָב איך געטראָפֿן אַ קופּע נומערן פֿונעם פֿאָרווערטס אין דער פּעטערבורגער שיל, איבערגעלייענט אַ פּאָר צי אפֿשר אַ טוץ צײַטונגען. קיין שׂרה־רחל שעכטער האָב איך דאָרט נישט באַמערקט. פּונקט דעמאָלט, ווען איך האָב זיך געלאָזט קיין אַמעריקע, כּדי זיך אָנצושליסן אין אַ וויליאַמסבורגער ישיבֿה, האָט שׂרה־רחל באַקומען איר שטעלע אין דער צײַטונג.
רעדן האָב איך אין אַמעריקע גערעדט די ערשטע יאָרן רק אויף ייִדיש און כּמעט קיין ענגליש נישט געקענט, נאָר אינעם סאַטמאַרער וויליאַמסבורג האָב איך קיין פֿאָרווערטס אַוודאי בכלל נישט געזען.
אינעם ביוראָ האָט מיר יענע, נאָך אומבאַקאַנטע פֿרוי אײַנגעהענטיקט אַ שטיקל פּאַפּיר און געבעטן איבערצוזעצן אַ נײַעסל פֿון ענגליש אויף ייִדיש. האָב איך עס געטאָן, גלײַך באַקומען די שטעלע און זיך באַלד גוט באַקענט מיט דער רעדאַקציע: באָריס סאַנדלער, איציק גאָטעסמאַן, באָריס בודיאַנסקי און אַנדערע. אין גיכן האָב איך זיך אויך באַקענט מיט כּמעט אַלע באַוווּסטע ניו־יאָרקער ייִדישיסטן, און געוואָרן אַ יוצא־דופֿנדיקער פּאַרשוין: אַ מאָדערנער חסיד אַ בעל־תּשובֿה, וועלכער פֿילט זיך היימיש סײַ צווישן די חסידים, סײַ צווישן די וועלטלעכע ייִדישיסטן.
אַגבֿ, יענע איבערזעצונגען פֿון מאַנדעלשטאַמען האָב איך אַמאָל אויך פֿאָרגעלייענט אויף „קול ישׂראל‟. צו דער דאָזיקער ראַדיאָ־אוידיציע האָט דער פֿאָרווערטס האָט געהאַט אַן אומדיקערט צופֿעליק שײַכות. אַריה לאָנדאָן האָט מיר פּשוט אָנגעקלונגען אין דער רעדאַקציע און רעקאָרדירט דעם שמועס.
אינעם ביוראָ האָב איך נישט זעלטן געשמועסט וועגן מאַנדעלשטאַמען מיטן ייִדישן פּאָעט שלום בערגער וועלכער האָט דעמאָלט געפֿירט די וועבזײַט פֿון דער צײַטונג; שפּעטער האָב איך איבערגענומען אָט די מלאָכה.
אין מײַן היים־ביבליאָטעק שטייען נישט ווייניק ביכער, וואָס איך האָב זינט דעמאָלט רעדאַקטירט, איבערגעזעצט צי טיילווײַז אָנגעשריבן. דרײַסיק יאָר איז אַ לאַנגער וועג – אַ גאַנצע תּקופֿה, נאָר צו מאַנדעלשטאַמען קער איך זיך אום כּסדר. דעם פֿאַרגאַנגענעם דעצעמבער, בין איך אויפֿגעטראָטן אינעם פּעטערבורגער ייִדישן קהילה־צענטער מיט מײַנע נײַע איבערזעצונגען פֿונעם דאָזיקן פּאָעט אין פֿאַרגלײַך מיט מײַנע צען ייִדישע איבערזעצונגען פֿון רײַנער־מאַריאַ רילקעס לידער. מסתּמא צום ערשטן מאָל זענען רילקעס לידער איבערגעזעצט געוואָרן אויף ייִדיש; דער ליטעראַטור־פֿאָרשער וואַלערי דימשיץ האָט מיר געזאָגט, אַז קיין פֿריִערע ייִדישע איבערזעצונג פֿונעם דאָזיקן דיכטער אויף ייִדיש האָט ער נישט געזען.
וואָס שייך דעם פֿאָרווערטס, זענען בײַ מיר פֿונעם ייִנגערן דור מיטאַרבעטער פֿאַרבליבן באַזונדערס וואַרעמע זכרונות פֿון צוויי מיידלעך, דעמאָלט גאַנץ יונגע: אַנע (חנה) קוקאַ פֿון בערלין און ליודמילאַ שאָלאָכאָוואַ פֿון קיִעוו. נישט לאַנג האָבן זיי אָפּגעאַרבעט אינעם פֿאָרווערטס, נאָר מיט זיי האָט מען אַלעמאָל געקאָנט שמועסן אויף כּלערליי טשיקאַווע טעמעס (אַרײַנגערעכנט פּאָעזיע!) און זיך גוט אָנלאַכן. משה־יודאַ דײַטש, אַ סאַטמאַרער חסיד, וועלכער האָט דעמאָלט מיט אונדז געאַרבעט ווי אַ מיטדיזײַנער, איז געווען שטאַרק אומצופֿרידן דערמיט. סטײַטש, איך שרײַב טיפֿע אַרטיקלען וועגן חסידות און קבלה, און פּראַווע קלות־ראָש מיט אַ דײַטשקע און אַן אוקראַיִנקע! סאַראַ חוצפּה!
אויך זייער טשיקאַווע איז מיר געווען צו פֿירן די רובריק, דער עיקר, וועגן וויסנשאַפֿטלעכע ידיעות און נײַעס, וואָס האָט טאַקע געהייסן „טשיקאַוועס אַרום דער וועלט‟. כ׳האָף, אַז מע וועט דיגיטאַליזירן יענע נומערן און איך וועל קענען יענע אַרטיקעלעך אַליין איבערצולייענען.
להיפּוך צו אומאָנגענעמע קאָרפּאָראַטיווע צי סתּם העסלעכע אַרבעט־סבֿיבֿות, איז די פֿאָרווערטס־רעדאַקציע געבליבן אין מײַן זכּרון אַ פֿרײַנדלעכע חבֿרה, כּמעט אַ משפּחה, וווּ מע האָט געקאָנט שעפּן פֿון די מיטאַרבעטער און ביוראָ־באַזוכער אַ סך ידיעות וועגן די סאָוועטישע ייִדישע שרײַבער, דעם בונד, די אַמאָליקע ייִדישיסטישע אָרגאַניזאַציעס, און נאָך, און נאָך. און וואָס שייך מאַנדעלשטאַמען, וועל איך אים, אַוודאי, ווײַטער איבערזעצן.
The post Looking back on my 30 years as a Yiddish translator appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Should we be comparing ICE agents to Hitler’s ‘Brownshirts?’
In February of 1933, less than a month after Hitler became chancellor, Hermann Göring ordered the creation of a new 50,000-man “auxiliary police” force to combat what he called “organizations hostile to the state.” He built it by deputizing the Nazi Party’s most violent formation — the storm troopers, or Brownshirts — effectively turning a partisan militia into a state security arm.
Using similar framing, Donald Trump has declared that America’s greatest threat is “the enemy from within,” and he has found his own instrument to root them out: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with its partner agency, Customs and Border Protection.
In his second term, Trump has borrowed so many pages from the authoritarian playbook that it’s difficult to keep count. He has moved to purge civil servants who are not loyal to him, ban books, target political opponents, muzzle the press, rewrite history, and use extortion against institutions — universities, law firms, nonprofits — that he believes stand in his way.
Add to the list Trump’s transformation of ICE and CBP into something resembling an American version of the Brownshirts. The pattern is visible nationwide, but nowhere more starkly than in Minneapolis, where ICE operations have already produced a body count: two defenders of immigrants’ rights shot dead on the street.
Last fall, speaking to America’s top military brass, Trump warned that he might have to deploy the armed forces to Democratic-led cities to eliminate the so-called “enemy” by which he meant Americans protesting his immigration crackdown. That battle has already begun. It is not the military carrying it out, but federal immigration officers acting as soldiers, persecuting and attacking Americans who dare to stand against Trump’s authoritarian project.
To be sure, the Brownshirts and America’s immigration enforcement agencies have origins and histories that are completely dissimilar. ICE and CBP were created within a democratic system, staffed by career civil servants, and bound — at least in principle — by constitutional limits and judicial oversight. They were never conceived as a party militia, never designed to enforce ideological conformity, and never meant to serve as the armed wing of a political movement.
The Brownshirts, on the other hand, were explicitly created as a paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party — a street fighting militia whose purpose was to intimidate opponents, terrorize minorities, silence dissent, and make democratic life impossible through orchestrated violence. Hitler and the Brownshirts were linked from the beginning. When Hitler launched his failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich on Nov. 8, 1923, he was supported by hundreds of armed storm troopers, who terrorized the city.
Starting with just 800 members in Munich, the SA expanded rapidly during the Great Depression and after Hitler’s rise to power — totaling nearly 3 million in early 1934. Their presence on the streets — marching, beating, threatening, killing — helped convince millions of Germans that the Weimar Republic was collapsing and that only the Nazis could restore order. Once Hitler took power, the SA’s role only intensified; they ran makeshift detention and torture centers, carried out mass arrests, and terrorized Jews, leftists, and anyone deemed “un-German,” all while enjoying political protection from the new regime.
Nine decades later, videos of violence on American streets posted each day on social media evoke the terror and intimidation carried out by the Brownshirts.
In Hitler’s Germany, storm troopers assaulted Jews, trade unionists, socialists, Communists, and others deemed by the Nazi leader to be enemies of the state. In Trump’s America, federal immigration agents have imprisoned innocent foreigners and attacked American citizens who have mobilized to defend immigrants’ constitutional rights.
The tipping point was the Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse who stepped in to help a protester confronted by federal immigration agents. Multiple bystander videos captured federal officers wrestling Pretti to the pavement, striking him, then firing several shots at him at close range. Federal authorities later claimed Pretti had approached them with a gun, but the videos — clear, close, and filmed from multiple angles — showed that assertion to be false.
Just a few days earlier, allegations arose that ICE had used a 5-year-old Minneapolis-area boy as bait to lure his Ecuador-born father out of the family home. Both the boy and the father were taken into detention.
As immigration officers have carried out Trump’s massive immigration crackdown, there have been many confrontations between federal officials and protesters, and with public officials who have gone to immigration courts to make sure immigrants’ rights aren’t violated. But Trump turned Minneapolis into something resembling a battle zone by unleashing a surge of federal immigration agents whose tactics blurred the line between policing and political repression.
Efforts to blame Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good — shot dead in her car by an ICE agent in Minneapolis 17 days before Pretti was gunned down — for their own deaths have backfired spectacularly. Statements made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, were part of an effort to provide cover for the federal agents on the scene — as was the administration’s decision to shut out state and local law enforcement from any investigation. Covering up for the misdeeds of security forces was a hallmark of the Nazi state.
The outrage over what’s been happening in Minneapolis is so great that even some Republicans have said that ICE and CBP have gone too far. The Republican candidate for Minnesota governor, Chris Madel, pulled out of the race, calling ICE’s Operation Metro Surge “an unmitigated disaster” and denouncing the GOP’s “retribution on the citizens of our state.” Other Republicans have voiced similar dismay.
Trump is scrambling to contain the political damage. He has removed Gregory Bovino as commander of Operation Metro Surge and distanced himself from the derogatory and untrue statements made by Miller and Noem.
Trump told Fox News on Tuesday that he plans to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minneapolis, while at the same time asserting that the surge of immigration officers has been a success. Gov. Tim Walz said that in a phone conversation with Trump on Monday, the president “agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.”
But who really knows what Trump will do next? Whatever it is, Trump being Trump, you can count on it being self-serving.
Authoritarian leaders often rein in their own enforcers when public backlash threatens their power. Hitler did it in 1934, when the Brownshirts’ zeal for mayhem and murder began to alienate the public and undermine his control. With the intense backlash over the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Trump now faces a similar moment — a choice between escalating the violence or curbing it to preserve his political standing.
But remember this: The end of the Brownshirts’ street violence did not mean the end of the Hitler regime. In fact, it was just the beginning.
The post Should we be comparing ICE agents to Hitler’s ‘Brownshirts?’ appeared first on The Forward.