Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev Says Electing Trump Will Prove America Has ‘Gone Off the Rails’

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:30 pm

The rest of the world is as terrified of a Trump presidency as most Americans. Writing in an op-ed appearing in Israel’s oldest paper Haaretz, Israeli journalist Chemi Shalev says that the moment Trump is elected, “America will stop being great.”

It is impossible to disagree with his conclusion that,

“America is the still the strongest and most admired country in the world, but electing Trump would prove it’s gone off the rails.”

Shalev explains, in a much-needed corrective to Trump propaganda,

America is a great country. Far from perfect, but great nonetheless, Other than Donald Trump and millions of Americans who have been bamboozled by the GOP into thinking otherwise, everyone knows America is great. The Chinese know it. The Russians know it. The Europeans know it. The Muslims know it. Even Israelis know it. ISIS certainly knows that America is great, which is why it’s hell bent on taking it down.

True, as Shalev points out, “as everyone has seen in recent months, it has an astonishing amount of nuts, kooks, neo-Nazis and plain old idiots.” Trump and his deplorables would make it equally impossible to dispute that claim.

We have our problems but our culture, as he points out, dominates the world. America, and American brands, are everywhere. And then there is the little matter that “Trump says the world doesn’t take the U.S. seriously, but he’s full of hokum.”

On the other hand, “But one thing is certain: The world takes a very dim view of Donald Trump. He arouses disbelief, ridicule and deep apprehension.”

It is Trump, rather than Obama, who will destroy America’s image and cause other countries to not take us seriously:

Trump has already inflicted untold damage on America’s image abroad. Politicians, pundits and the public at large cannot comprehend how the party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and even Ronald Reagan could anoint such an unsympathetic, loudmouthed, ignorant, race-baiting rabble rouser as its candidate.

Many Americans share this view, and it is no wonder Trump hates so-called “international conspiracies” which, as has been pointed out here and elsewhere, are anti-Semitic in tone, as was Trump’s last ad campaign.

Chalev points out that “It will be hard to reconcile the election of a Trump and the concept of America as great,” and he is right. Trump cannot make America great. A message of hate, fear and exclusion cannot make America great. It can only diminish it.

And Chalev is surely right when he tells us, “America was great, is great and will stay great, and might perhaps get even greater, but not if it elects a great pretender like Donald Trump.”

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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