US History/The Clown Show

out of scope/context of rest of this book, not looking very instructional "de-evolution of discourse" In a podcast appearance, the former president Obama said that what used to be "good manners" now "seems to be shameless." Obama was asked by YouTube podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen about the "de-evolution of discourse" coming from Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and others in their administration, including a racist video Trump posted online that depicted the former president and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes. Bet you did nazi that coming, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared,” Netanyahu wrote on Musk’s own social media account, X, Thursday morning. He avoided addressing Musk’s gesture directly but went on to call the tech mogul “a great friend of Israel.” Netanyahu pointed to Musk’s visiting Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and advocating for what he said was “Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state.” “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations! Some people will Goebbels anything down! Stop Gőring your enemies! His pronouns would’ve been He/Himmler! Bet you did nazi that coming,” Musk posted Thursday, adding laughing-face emojis. His post earned reprobation from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, a group that took criticism days earlier for declaring that Musk’s hand gesture was not a Nazi symbol. “We’ve said it hundreds of times before and we will say it again: the Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it,” Greenblatt wrote on X. Addressing Musk, he added, “The Holocaust is not a joke.” Greenblatt’s own account had remained silent earlier in the week after Musk’s hand gesture; he’d also refrained from commenting on Musk during a panel on antisemitism earlier Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. An ADL spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about why Thursday’s post was denounced when the gesture wasn’t. Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, denounced Musk’s jokes in stronger terms. “Wordplay about Nazis isn’t funny. It isn’t clever. And it’s dangerous,” Deutch wrote on X. Addressing Musk, he added, “However you feel about the accusations being made against you, this is absolutely the wrong response. Nazi-themed ‘jokes’ are offensive and harmful. Don’t belittle the seriousness of the Holocaust; you give cover to those who seek to do the same.” Hope Presidents