Now that the hysterical spectacle piece around Douwe Bob seems to be completed for the time being, with an arrest (the hooligan leader of the Amsterdam Defense Force) and half a spit (the hooligan party leader of the liberals in The Hague), we may be able to take a less important one in Tump-country here.
There we meet Pete Hegseeth, the fresh and cheerful Defense Minister who, at the feet of his godly leader, the big Golden Bitcoin, is kneading the American army into a battle order Rambo’s. This Pete has a spokesperson, the fresh and cheerful Kingsley Wilson, a real Trumpista with the accompanying wavy long hair and cool teeth. She liked to tweet for her appointment: before mass deportations, against translations (should not have firearms and must be ‘not visible’ in a ‘healthy society’) and ‘Ausländer Raus! ”a diplomatic support statement to the AfD.
So far nothing wrong. All modal opinions in Trumps fresh and cheerful Washington. Nevertheless, Kingsley recently came under discredited by her tweets and was asked for her resignation by unpatriotic congress members – of course, because Pete is right behind her.
What had Kingsley – who calls himself “unashamedly right” – wrong now? It was discovered that shortly before her arrived she also tweeted about Leo Frank, a man who had a 13-year-old girl in Georgia in 1913 “raped and killed.” That old business, at the time a national sensation, was rediscovered online and a cause célèbre For American neo -Nazis.
Leo Frank was Jewish.
The facts in short. Frank, director of a pencil factory in Atlanta, was sentenced to death for the murder of his young employee Mary Phagan, especially on the basis of a statement from the black porter of the factory. Because afterwards strong doubts arose to the crown witness – who was suspected that he himself was the murderer – Georgia’s governor converted the punishment into a lifelong.
The notables of Atlanta did not accept that. Solved by the local press, a crowd of Frank dragged out of prison and hung him up. Completely according to the rules of the duo that was in the south the service: Jim Crow (racial laws) and Judge Lynch (self -direction).
Frank’s horrible fate had major consequences. The case led to the establishment of the Jewish Anti Defamation League, which fights against anti -Semitism. But it also breathed new life into the Ku Klux Klan. Grandchildren of the white pointed hats scanded the slogan in Charlottesville (Virginia) in 2017 ‘Jews Will Not Replace USAnd now use the Frank case as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.
Anyone who is ancient newspapers from Atlanta will meet a poisonous smoke of racism and hatred Jews. How deep the latter was the fact that – unheard of in those regions – the word of a black witness was believed above that of a white suspect. But yes, Frank was Jewish.
Frank also had defenders in the press, but they took it against the sole against “rich Jews” why, how is it, sneered The Jeffersonianthat “all Caucasian varieties have” prejudices “about Jews?” And, classic: “Rich Jews buy and sell us – and laugh at us behind our back.” No wonder that a contemporary in Vienna, a certain Hitler, looked attentively at the American South.
Well, this is the case that Kingsley Wilson, spokesperson for the American Minister of Defense, liked to tweet – to Lynch again.
You can worry about Douwe Bob and his instant engagement on a children’s stage, or fix it on Gaza protests and give a new twist to the prayer mill of public fuss, but real hatred often resides under the skin-to the fresh, fruity corridors of the pentagon.
Sjoerd de Jong is editor of NRC. He writes a column every other week at this place.