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What You Have to Convince Yourself Donald Trump Really Meant When he Referred to “Shylocks”
Ignoring His Antisemitic Slur is Part of the Job Description
If you’re a Donald Trump supporter, you’ve had to look the other way dozens of times at things that would have caused anyone else to lose elections or be run out of office. So when Trump referred to some bankers as “shylocks, formerly considered an anti-semitic slur, excuses must be made to justify your continued support.
“Before Trump, you were losing farms to the banks. Before Trump, we were losing farms like you’d never seen before. You love your children, you don’t feel so well, and you pass away. You leave everything to your children, and they have to pay a big estate tax or a death tax, as we call it. And they couldn’t do it. They go out and borrow money from a bank to prevent foreclosure. That can happen.
No death tax. No estate tax. No going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker, and in some cases, shylocks and bad people.”
Shylock is a Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, who lends money to Antonio but demands in return a pound of Antonio’s flesh should the debt not be repaid. The Nazis used Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, the…
