He knows his real audience. '4-hour Camp of the Saints ASMR, don't forget to like and subscribe.' https://t.co/Ydta7b7fDM
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) September 24, 2019
Hayes Brown, at Buzzfeed, on a speech “Filled With Dog Whistles And Unbridled Nationalism”:
… President Donald Trump… in his third appearance at the annual opening of the UN General Assembly was more forceful than ever in declaring the importance of not just nationalism, but a devotion to country and history, in a speech that repeated tropes used by the white nationalist and anti-Semitic portions of his base.
“Like my beloved country, each nation represented in this hall has a cherished history, culture, and heritage that is worth defending and celebrating and which gives us our singular potential and strength,” Trump said. “The free world must embrace its national foundations. It must not attempt to erase them or replace them.”
“The future does not belong to globalists,” he continued, “the future belongs to patriots.”
And in an extended section about the dangers that unchecked immigration represents, he provided “a message for those open-border activists, who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of social justice. These policies are not just. Your policies are cruel and evil.”
“When you undermine border security, you are undermining human rights and dignity,” he said. “Many of the countries here today are coping with the challenges of uncontrolled migration. Each of you has the absolute right to protect your borders. And so, of course, does our country.”
While the words may have been wrapped up in the patina of an international address, the rhetoric at its core has gained a certain familiarity in recent years. Members of the so-called alt-right and white supremacists in the dark corners of the internet have targeted Jewish public figures as “globalists” with increasing volume since the run-up to the 2016 election…
While he did cover some of the more traditional issues that the US tends to bring up at the UN — he spoke about trade, upholding the rights of women and LGBTQ people, and North Korea’s nuclear program during his time at the podium — Trump shifted back into his emphasis on nationalism toward the end of his speech, leaning into the criteria of just who gets to be a citizen and who does not.
“The true good of a nation can only be pursued but those who love it, by citizens who are rooted in its history, who nourished by its culture, committed to its values, attached to its people, and know that its future is theirs to build or theirs to lose,” Trump said…
"Globalism exerted a religious pull…"
Dogwhistle to air-raid siren.— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 24, 2019
Righteous fisking by Mr. Pierce:
Let me sum up the speech delivered by El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago in New York Tuesday morning, for those of you who dozed off as quickly as Wilbur Ross did. The president* explained to, you know, the United Nations that it’s pretty much every country for itself, as far as he’s concerned. The audience was an oil painting throughout. The text was lugubrious, dispirited, distasteful, and altogether Stephen Miller. He pretty plainly was seeing the speech for the first time as he was delivering it. The address was the rhetorical equivalent of a tranquilizer dart.
(WAKE UP, WILBUR!)
Much of it also made no sense…
Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders causing them to ignore their own national interests. Those days are over.
A “religious pull.” And what religion do these international economic puppet-masters follow, I wonder? He went on to accuse immigration activists of being in league with “vicious coyotes.” He sleepily accused Iran of all manner of international perfidy and gave China a few whacks. In what may have been an attempt to wake his audience up through sheer incoherence, he somnambulated his way through some anti-abortion rhetoric. It was at that point that I began to envy Wilbur Ross…
* ASMR