Semi-Sensei, Day 5: Moving On From Home Stays to Shrines and French Toast

Yesterday started with goodbyes, moved onto sites, then the best tastes, and finally some really bad singing (with an exception or two).  The homestays ended with a ceremony and with many great stories and some terrific newly forged connections.  I was most jealous as the students had great experiences.  Some got to do an onsen, and others got to see the museum/memorial dedicated to the victims of the 3/11 tsunami.  All got much food, a fair amount of sake, and memories of super-sweet Japanese families.  Oh and the two groups sang Canadian songs to share their feelings (this was assigned by the organizers, the groups chose the songs).

A home stay parent can compete with
Stephanie Carvin!

Last interactions between host and hosted

Hosted and hosted, bridges built indeed (Kakehashi=bridges)

I am a big fan of our guides who have had great spirit as
well as being informative.

Better singing at the ceremony than later at the karaoke bar.  U of Ottawa went first and then Carleton.  And by the way, I went from knowing clearly which students went to which school to having no idea--a good thing, I think, as other bridges have been built.  The U of Toronto students who went in a different direction on homestays are less familiar to me (separate bus and some different activities), but I have enjoyed chatting with as many of them as I can.  I can say for sure that Kakehashi folks did a great job on both sides of the Pacific, choosing participants--the hosted and the hosts.

From there, we took a bus to Matsushima, which not only had a spectacular shrine complex (one of the most striking of all that I have seen in my visits to Japan) but a setting by the sea that is terrific.  Started with a good lunch in a great delivery system:

Three layers!

A guide for the shrine with our two guides:
Yuki and Kato

Now this is a zen garden

gate to shrine

A shrine on an island close to land displays
its exhibits every thirty three years.

The area

Rainbow bridge to another island

Map of the Rainbow bridge island

View from the island

Some perspective sauce here.

Then onto Sendai for working on their report to the government and then finally getting the golden ... french toast---best in my experience.

Team Uof O to the left, Team Carleton to the right, and
I am stuck in the middle (after I took the pic)

If I knew how to do it, I would put worshipful music right here.
The best French Toast ever--every time I come to Japan.
Fluffy, sweet goodness.

Three of the thirteen students I dragged here (well, I paid).
My table was suitably impressed.

Nadia was most happy to receive this dish of greatness.

Dinner later involved many, many dishes at an izakaya. 
I have had much fun hanging with these folks.

Even if they make me sing.

Our plans for the next few days are changing--to avoid crowds to reduce the risk of catching corona.  This is unfortunate as many of the cool places in Tokyo happen to be crowded.  I am hoping they get some free time to see some of this stuff. 

Anyhow, this has been a great experience, and these folks have hardly needed a chaperone.  But, yes, I do like being called Sensei. 

Semi-Sensei, Day 4: Home stays and Tome

I had been wondering what I would be doing when the students were doing home stays.  Today, I found out: a bit of police patrol and also some fire alarm.  Huh?  That I was involved in some oversight efforts and served as a semi-quick reaction force if needed.  This morning, our guides (Yuki and Kato) and I went to three homes to see how the three families and three sets of students were doing. I was also available (and remain so) if anyone needs help (which is a bit frustrating since the ski mountains nearby are calling to me).  After the homestays, we had lunch (where we bumped into two sets of students/hosts and saw a third combo) and then walked around Tome, a small town amid the farms, and saw another set of students.  We only missed one set in purposeful and accidental oversight.  So, below are pics and captions explaining what I saw.

Semi-Sensei, Day 3: Sendai and Tome

Most of today was spent exchanging with the students of Tohoku University.  It was a very enjoyable day as the Ottawa/Carleton/Toronto students got to hang out with Tohoku students who are headed to Canada next month. 

First, we got briefed about Tohoku University, and then each group of Canadian students briefed the Japanese students about their schools.  I was most impressed by all of the presentations--their students were sharp, and so were ours.
 

Notice the typo?

Toronto undergrads

Munk

Carleton

 

Our guides and a tea house in the international student centre

Each group was split into seven, so that seven new groups were formed with two Tohoku tour guides and a couple of students from each Canadian university.  I was assigned to hang out with group one.  We got a tour of campus and we peppered our guides with questions and... it snowed.  Sorry, we brought winter with us.

Group 1 rocked mightily

 After the tour and lunch, the seven groups went through five of seven stations, each presenting a different element of Japanese culture:  origami, castles, festivals/dialects, convenience goods, toilets (yep!), tea/flower arranging,  and food.  The guys teaching origami were so good, I was able to make this:
 

Twas a minor miracle, given how bad I am at all artistic endeavors.

My fave was the personal convenience table, as we learned about some cool pens, smarter ringed binders, and more.  These two students were terrific at presenting all these smart things that should exist in North America.  However, my enthusiasm wanted when they demonstrated a paper stapler--that essentially rips the paper and folds it back to staple a few pages.  Better than the way students do it by hand but inferior to other fastening technologies.

The toilet table was a bit hit.  This graph shows the expansion of spray seats (bidet-ish devices built into the toilet seats) in Japan, now at 80% or so.










We then had a closing ceremony where I had to speechify as the, um, sensei.  After that, we had an hour drive to Tome, a rural town where the kids would be staying in the homes of Japanese families. Nervous at first, the smiles grew quickly as the students met their hosts.  







For me and the guides, we went off to a nearby hotel.  We grabbed dinner which included this really cool carafe of sake.  Yum.















And yeah, I couldn't resist taking a pic of sunset.

 Another great today in Japan.  Great food, many insights were exchanged, and, some tasty sake. 

Semi-Sensei, day 2: Tokyo Drifting to Sendai

Japan's program should be envied

Day 2 of our trip involved a bit of running around the eastern end of Tokyo to see some sites before our bullet train to Sendai.  We stay here one night, and then we go to Tome City, where the students will do home stays, and I will do a hotel stay.

Semi-Sensei, Day 1

I am in Japan for the week with 12 Carleton students and 12 U of Ottawa students (and another 20 U of Toronto students for whom I am not responsible) as part of the Kakehashi program.  It is run by the Asia Pacific Foundation and the government of Japan.  They run many, many groups coming from Canada and the US (and maybe elsewhere).  The idea is to give Canadian students (our group is mostly grad students) a chance to experience Japan including a couple of nights staying at the homes of Japanese families.  It also involves briefings, presentations by Japanese universities, and tours of various places. 

We arrived last night--here's the before picture:

Landed, waiting for bags, students and
prof ready to get going.

Our first day begins in a few hours (yeah, I got up way early) with an orientation briefing and then a keynote speech by a professor from Yokohama National U: Dr. Kenji Hasegawa.  We get lunch and to see the Imperial Palace Plaza before taking the bullet train to Sendai.  After one night there and an exchange program with Tohoku University, the students meet their host families and spend two nights there.   I will be hanging out on call at the hotel and wandering around Sendai.  On Thusday, we see Matsushima and a temple complex.  On Friday, we return to Tokyo for some time to develop a report and present it, and then Saturday we see some gardens, the Olympic Museum, and the Honda Welcome plaza.  The last day involves a trip to the Edo Tokyo museum, the State Guest House, and Akasaka Palace before heading home.

Why did I sign up and what is my role as chaperone? Well, first, the students are supposed to call me Sensei, so that pretty much explains the first question.  Ok, that was a pleasant surprise last night on the ride from the airport to the hotel.  While I will not have a heap of free time, any time to explore Japan and re-visit some cool places in Tokyo on someone else's budget is so very tempting.  I have, not quite as problematically as Bert Cooper in Mad Men, developed a Japan addiction.  In my own trips, I never had tour guides, so I hope to learn more as I visit places I have seen, and I get to go to a city and a part of Japan I have not experienced before--Sendai. A lot of that area got torn up by the tsunami of 3/11, so seeing the recovery will also be most informative.  

My role mostly is to be a resource for the group leaders (one from each Ottawa school) and the students.  I was responsible for making sure all students got on the various planes and that none were ill.  One of the surprising things was that the group leader instructions include recording the temperatures each student takes each day.  Seemed silly when we first got the instructions, less so now with corona virus.  I think the idea is (a) a sick person can infect the entire group; and (b) we don't want to infest the host families.  So, one fever puts a student into a hotel room for as long as they are hot, missing out on the rest of the program.  

In the short time I have been here, I got to see a friend from my previous trips, ate some great dumplings, and had some horse sashimi (raw horse meat), a first for me.  I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked, but I am already having a great time.  While we will not have that much independent time, last night and the two nights at the end of the week in Toyko give us a chance to explore a bit.  Since I have seen most of the major neighborhoods, I don't know where I will go later this week, but maybe I will tag along and see Tokyo through the eyes of the students.

I got to have a great welcome dinner with
my favorite Japan Self-Defense Force
Colonel!

While it may have been a more efficient use of my time to stay home during our winter break and get work done (I have a paper I need to write for a late April trip), I am very happy with the choice to be less efficient.  

More reports from Steve Sensei later this week!

As always, Japan does everything with style--building near
our hotel in Tokyo.

I Was Dumb

Last night, I got called out a couple of times for my response to a Nikki Haley tweet:

Always fascinated that one of your go to criticisms is to bring into question someone's intelligence.

— D. Michael Day (@DMike_Day) February 13, 2020

I should have been sharper on this--that as others pointed out, Haley is not dumb, she is making a dumb argument on purpose because she thinks it will play well with her base. 

But calling people stupid is probably my go-to claim, as Mike Day suggested.  So, I thought I should think about that a bit, and this is where I do my half-baked thinking. 

Before I get started, I should note that I got most miffed during my year in the Pentagon when a colonel (who went onto to be a general and the US Iraq war spokeman) told me that I was not stupid, but my ideas were.  Of course, (a) I was working on ideas that weren't mine and (b) they were good ideas, but that was a very memorable conversation.  Can someone's ideas be dumb while the person is smart? Hell yeah, especially when one party is the Party of Bad Faith™.  That definitely applies in this case with Nikki Haley suggesting that US troops died to preserve private health care and prevent socialized medicine.

Anyway, back to me, why do I tend to accuse people of being stupid?  Is it something about being a professor and supposed know-it-all?  Is it that I get upset when I see deliberate stupidity?  Is it something about my identity that causes me to see "stupid" is a harsh insult?  I do think that one of things that I find regularly annoying is that when someone is overrated for being smart... like Paul Ryan.  I find ignorance, especially deliberate ignorance, to be highly annoying--anti-vaxxers, Trump on NATO, etc.  And when I am annoyed, I tend to use stupid/dumb as insults. 

To be clear, I don't think I am the smartest person in any given room.  Nothing like grad school to teach one that there are heaps of smarter people.  I knew that in high school and college, but in the former, I could be smug about doing better than most in most classes without much effort.  But being in a cohort of super-smart people made me doubt whether I should remain in grad school for at least that first quarter or two.  Once I got the hang of it, I felt ok to stick around.  But ever since then or at least a few years later, I became fond of Qui-Jon's insight: there is always a bigger fish.

But then again, being "smart" was something that was highly prized.  That is, when we saw job candidates come through, we listened to the profs who referred to some of these as being "smart" and others not getting that label.  So, I don't know if that socialization experienced caused me to see smart as the ultimate compliment, which, of course, means dumb is a major insult.  Or it could be having been in the brainier clique in high school had that impact.  

What I do know is that yesterday's twitter exchange will make me re-think the terms I use, and focus more on the intent of people, rather than my guesses at the innate intelligence.  I have long noted a distinction, thanks to D&D, between intelligence and wisdom, so I will try to focus on the latter.  And, yes, I will call ideas dumb if they are dumb ideas.  Because, holding all else constant, a smart idea is better than a dumb idea.  Especially dumb ideas that are used as distraction sauce, Nikki. 

Why Dems Should Avoid Bloomberg Like the Plague That He Is

Caveat: Any non-Gabbard Dem is better than Trump.

I see friends on Facebook thinking that Bloomberg is a viable and even attractive candidate, and I am flummoxed.  Haven't we seen what happens with a billionaire with autocratic tendencies becomes President?  So, I have decided to enumerate why Bloomberg is a bad choice for the Democrats even if he is feisty about being anti-Trump (hint: anyone competing in the primary except for Gabbard is going to be feisty in their anti-Trumpness once they get beyond the primaries):

1. The biggest threat to the Dems winning is having a candidate who alienates a chunk of the base.  Guess who is most likely to do so?  The stop&frisk dude with plenty of racist audio.  We need African-Americans to turn out and vote Dem.  Bloomberg is most likely to alienate that vital part of the Democratic base.  
2. Maybe not all billionaire presidential candidates are misogynists, but Bloomberg has more in common with Trump than not on this score.
3. He's great on gun control, but, guess what, other than Bernie, I am pretty sure most of the Dems in the race are good on gun control too.  So, not much of a comparative advantage.
4. Taxes?  Hmmm.  He is against a wealth tax because... he is wealthy.  
5. His stances on health care are also more conservative than what most Democrats want.
6. He is a fan of charter schools, which, in my mind, has always been a way to suck money away from public education.  A Republican stance.
7. Those autocratic tendencies--the rules don't apply to him.  Whether it is getting a third term as NYC mayor despite the rules or avoiding the early primaries, Bloomberg thinks he is above the rules that others have to follow.  Haven't we had enough of that over the past three years?
8. If income inequality is a core problem, how does making a billionaire president who has gamed the primaries by spending way more money help?
9. While people view DC folks as being tainted, having experience in and near Congress is pretty useful for being president.  Having yet another amateur-in-chief (tis one reason why I am not a fan of Mayor Pete as well) seems like a dumb thing to do after the Trump era.

 In short, Bloomberg may seem like the best anti-Trump candidate now, but Biden was seen as being most electable three weeks ago.  The best anti-Trump candidate is (a) someone who is different from Trump; (b) someone who can unify the party; (c) someone who is not above the law.

So, yeah, if it comes down to it, I will vote for Bloomberg rather than Trump, but I sincerely hope that the Dems don't become the second party taken in by a billionaire who thinks he can do things his own way.

Distorted Priorities: US Foreign Policy edition

The Chicago Council on Foreign Policy released a depressing survey today:

🚨 NEW POLLING 🚨

Americans still see the Middle East as the region most important to US security interests (61%), even more so than when last asked in 2018 (when 50% named the Middle East).

No other region comes close.

Details here: https://t.co/YQpDU9dzli pic.twitter.com/NHQpPa3pGn

— The Chicago Council (@ChicagoCouncil) February 11, 2020

Americans are both right and wrong on this.  If you ask experts, I am pretty sure they will mostly argue that US foreign policy should be focused on Asia, particularly East Asia as China is not only rising in power but in assertiveness and, well, US allies in the region--South Korea and Japan--don't get along.*  With US dependence on Mideast oil a thing of the past (fracking ain't great, but it has given us this), one might think that the Mideast is not so important.  Indeed, Obama's planned pivot was less away from Europe and more about re-setting priorities from the Mideast to Asia.

But it makes sense that Americans think that the Mideast is the most important region because ... the US is acting like it is.  Iraq has consumed trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives.  Most of the forever wars are in the Mideast (Afghanistan is Mideast-adjacent and I would guess that many Americans would identify it as a Mideast country)--Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen.  The US has been "at war" with terrorism since 2001, and American leaders have defined that war as Islamist-related terrorism--Al Qaeda and now ISIS.  Of course, the reality is that more Americans have been killed by white supremacists and other forms of right wing extremism since 9/11 than by Islamist terrorism in the US. 

And if we move from actions to talk, well, I am sure a content analysis of US politicians would show far more references to Mideast countries than to European or Asian ones.  The focus of US foreign policy discussions has been on ISIS and Syria and Iraq, not China although that is changing a bit. 

So, my foreign policy friends shake their heads, but the American people are paying attention to what the US is doing and what its leaders are saying.  The restraint-ists (I am restraint-adjacent as I advocate for more humility and less intervention, but don't want the US to pull its troops out of Europe/East Asia) are right that the Mideast really is not that important to the US.  There are greater threats out there that are far more deserving of attention--climate change, China, and Russia's hacking of democracy here and there and everywhere. Alas, neither the American people nor its government are focused on the threats that can and are doing the most damage to the American people (and folks elsewhere). 








*  Ok, maybe not.

Explaining Trump: The Only Answer is White Supremacy

I have not been posting that much lately about the hostility of the Trump Administration to non-white immigrants because, well, it is an every-damned-day-thing.  But we should not normalize it or accept it.  The latest?  Possibly sending Hmong immigrants back to Laos.  Given the human rights problems there, this may be sending people to their deaths.  Now, this is not new, as the people sent back to Guatamela have been killed or raped.  Not just a few but more of them than not.

Why bother sending back something like five thousand Hmong, who have mostly quite assimilated?  They pose no threat to security or jobs or anything else.  Their main distinguishing feature to this government is that they are brown people and they are refugees.  This move is part of a larger policy of the whitening of America--to reverse the increased diversity of the US by not only slowing down the intake of non-whites but actually kicking them out, no matter the circumstances of homelands that they mostly know not.

Of all of the crimes and horrors committed by Trump and his administration, until he starts a war with Iran or North Korea, it will be his immigration policies that have done the most harm and to people who have done nothing to deserve except to come to the US to realize the American dream.

And why?  Because Trump is a white supremacist and is doing the bidding of white supremacists.  The "populism" of the past four years (and beyond) is clearly not due to economic anxiety but to the fear of "replacement"--that the US is becoming more hetergeneous and that whites will no longer be a majority.  Why is this so problematic?  Mostly projection, I think.  That is, these whites fear that non-whites will treat them as whites have treated non-whites.  Ok, that and just out and out racism and xenophobia.  Remember that the protesters at Charlottesville and elsewhere have chanted "they shall not replace us" and all that.  Such fine people on both sides.... oy.

So, how does one prevent "replacement":
Step 1: Stop immigration from non-white countries.
Step 2: Discourage undocumented immigration--the wall and kids in cages.
Step 3: Send non-white people away even if it means they are being sent to their deaths.
Step 4: Try to encourage non-whites to have shorter lives by gutting the health care system.
Step 5: Suppress the votes of non-whites.  Ok, that really is step one, and it preceded Trump.

While not everything Trump does is systematic or consistent, white supremacy has been a core aspect of Trump's personality going back to the 1970s and going back to his father much earlier than that, and it has been reflected in the start of his campaign and his rallies ever since then.  It is one of the few consistencies of his tweets and of his policies.  It has been reflected in his appointments--hey, remember Jeff Sessions?

Pettiness, projection, vanity, and white supremacy are the keys to understanding much of what Trump does. 

When Politics is Too Much Like Sports But Not Enough: Iowa

So, the Iowa caucuses are a big mess.  Woot!  It reveals to all the farce it is to have one or two (NH) unrepresentative states feeling entitled about shaping the choices the rest of the country faces when it comes to Presidential elections.

All of this reminds me of a tendency in sports coverage: that in any playoff series, the commentators must come up with a new narrative after every game.  Things often swing 180 degrees after each game when the, alas, yes, fundamentals haven't changed.  It makes for good drama, but it is highly annoying when the narratives become so predictably swingy.

Which brings us to the modern Presidential primary campaign.  It has seemed like it has been going on forever in part because we can count the number of narratives over time as if they were rings in a very old tree.  Most candidates (sorry for the most forgettable Dems) had their week or two in the sun, being treated as a potential front-runner, only to find the next week the media swinging to cover someone else.  Remember when Kamala Harris was presented as the candidate to beat?  That was a fun week way back when.

I raise this because my strongest preference would be for the media to stop privileging Iowa and New Hampshire and to stop trying to create narratives rather than just covering what the candidates are saying and promising.  I understand that is not going to happen.  So, instead, I suggest we borrow from the NBA reformers.

The NBA problem is this: each year, there is a draft of the next generation of players, and whoever goes first gets to pick the player perceived to be the best.  Of course, this is screwed up all the time, but the key dynamic is this: it creates a temptation to tank--to lose lots of games--so that one can draft earlier.  The NBA instituted a lottery so that all of the non-playoff teams get a chance at the first pick.  But then a series of not-so-bad teams managed to win the lottery.  So, instead, they created a weighted lottery and then a lottery where the worst team could do no worse than fourth.  The key reform being discussed now is the wheel:

each of the 30 teams would pick in a specific first-round draft slot once — and exactly once — every 30 years. Each team would simply cycle through the 30 draft slots, year by year, in a predetermined order designed so that teams pick in different areas of the draft each year. Teams would know with 100 percent certainty in which draft slots they would pick every year, up to 30 years out from the start of every 30-year cycle. The practice of protecting picks would disappear; there would never be a Harrison Barnes–Golden State situation again, and it wouldn’t require a law degree to track ownership of every traded pick leaguewide.

For primaries, this would work a bit differently: arrange groups of five states so that the primary process has ten separate election periods with each group being a mix of states so that a group of five together is representative enough.  Then have each group of five being in a different spot in each election so that each group of five is first, last, fifth, and so on over the course of ten cycles.  Would be the most fair thing to do.

But then again, politics isn't fair nor is path dependence.  So, I don't anything to change except maybe folks either dump apps or actually, you know, develop ones and test them way ahead of time.  And,yes, we are stuck with Iowa and New Hampshire because politicians are cowards.

Lamenting the End of OpenCanada

is not dead, but it is no longer alive either.  Hiatus means coma or something like it.  It has served since 2011 as THE place for smart analyses and commentary on international relations and Canada's role in the world.  Sure, I am biased as I used to be a columnist there, and I would still occasionally write stuff for them from time to time since then.  But it was one of a kind--a real portal to the world for Canadians, one that was not stuck in any particular perspective or focused on a specific sector.  It was great for non-Canadians to read as well--it was not limited to just pondering Canadian things.

And now it is "on hiatus."  Why?  I don't know all of the history, but financial troubles have been a challenge for a while.  OpenCanada, if I am right, started out as an outgrowth of the Canadian International Council (which is like the World Affairs Councils in the US), which is an association aimed at providing interested Canadians with fora to meet and discuss the world and to hear speakers.  Anyhow, CIC and OpenCanada went their separate ways due to, I think, previous financial problems* with CIGI, a think tank based in Waterloo, funding OpenCanada.  While I have occasionally suggested that CIGI is the Borg of Canada, assimilating that which it can, this particular effort was quite a productive move.

CIGI is famous for having been funded by Jim Basillie, founder of RIM (Research in Motion), the company that produced the Blackberry.  CIGI has been known as the richest think tank in Canada (not saying much since there are few think tanks in Canada and fewer still have much of an endowment).  OpenCanada was such a great opportunity for CIGI--to have an asset that would facilitate the transmission of research to the wider public.  Alas, in cutting back, CIGI didn't think so.  I am pretty bummed and pretty critical because I thought CIGI was getting more bang for its buck supporting OpenCanada than anything else it has done. 

Of course, I am also sad because OpenCanada was (is?) a partner of the Canadian Defence and Security Network.  It was a natural partner for helping provide an outlet for the research we at the CDSN will be producing.  They needed content, we have content, and need outlets.  Alas, it looks like we will have to find other ways to get our stuff out to wider audiences. 

Colleagues have suggested that we take it over, but we don't have the funds to keep the OpenCanada staff employed, and that is the key.  The people behind the site did great work, were smart, super creative, and diligent.  I'd like somebody in Canada to fund it, but there simply is not the same kind of incentive structure here as in the US (no taxes on inheritance, for example, here in Canada so less creation of foundations by rich people). 

Hope, as they say, is not a plan, so my hope that someone or some entity can come along and bring OpenCanada back to life is just that--hope.  Maybe another rich person will want to make a difference and find it to be an established way to inform Canadians and others about the world.  I hope so.  Thanks to Eva and Cat and Taylor and the rest of the gang for doing such great work.  Good luck finding the next thing for yourselves.  Based on what you accomplished, I am sure you will land on your feet.

*  I stopped being a columnist because, well, OpenCanada's challenges meant that they could no longer pay me on a regular basis.  I found writing weekly posts to be a challenge--that spewing is far easier than writing a post that is new/original and speaks to larger audiences about Canadian foreign/defence policy or about international relations in ways that interest Canadians.  It was not impossible--it was just work.  Which meant, well, I wanted to get paid for it.  Since I quit columnist-ing, I would write for OpenCanada when I had an idea that I wanted to share with a Canadian audience.  As I got busier with creating the CDSN, I wrote less and less, which is kind of ironic since a core part of the CDSN is to share research with wider audiences

75 Years and Now What?

Entrance to Sachsenhausen

Today is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest death camp run by the Sachsenhausen last spring.  I have been to numerous memorials and museums including Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. 
Nazis.  I have not yet visited it, but I have been to Dachau (33 years ago) and

On this particular day, I am feeling more outrage than sadness.  Why?  Because the lesson of Never Again is being eclipsed by the utility of hate.  The White House is chock full of white supremacists and, yes, anti-semites who have it quite useful to play up hatreds to gain and stay in office.  Trump started his campaign by calling all Mexican immigrants rapists and then promising a ban on Muslims.  Since then, the US has not only spent money on a farcical wall, but has set new lows in the number of refugees admitted.  So, instead of never again, it is more like Again, FFS?!

Yad Vashen, room that
identifies the victims

I still wonder whether Trump is genuinely a fascist, but I have no doubt that he and his administration are the greatest threat to large swaths of the American people (and to folks elsewhere).  Autocratic Trump does not see any limits on using the powers of the state against his enemies, and his enemies include people of color, women (at least those who don't go along with his crap), immigrants, and, yes, Jews.  Sure, he proclaims himself to be a philo-semite, but that is what modern anti-semites do--buy into stereotypes about Jews and suggest that these are positive things.

What is left of Sachsenhausen's crematoria

Of course, Trump is not alone in empowering anti-semites.  The aspiring autocrats of Europe are using the same playbook--all using George Soros as the modern day equivalent of the Rothschilds--a rich Jew portrayed as the evil force behind everything.  Even the Prime Minister of Israel is empowering these folks.  When in Israel, I asked folks why they put up with Netanyahu as the most anti-semitic leader of Israel, and they basically said that folks see Netanyahu siding with right-wing anti-semites against left-wing ones (anti-zionists).  Seems like a dumb way to go and one that betrays those lost in the Holocaust.

I happened to be reminded by a tweet about the Dutch museum of resistance, which made it more clear than most museums of this kind that there are three choices--resist, do nothing, or collaborate.  It can get complicated, but the right stance today is to resist the Trump Administration as much as possible.  Because Never Again requires work and effort, not sitting by and watching folks deploy hate against those who are different.