Does Trump Warrant a Blessing?
Plus, Crimson wins against anti-Israel commenter; Kendi leaves B.U.; Turkey hosts Hamas
The founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, said in his quarterly earnings call this week, “We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading company, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad. I'm optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock.”
This is a remarkable turnaround for Facebook, which in 2021 indefinitely blocked President Trump from accessing his Facebook and Instagram accounts, a ban that it later walked back to a two-year term. In 2021 Facebook thought Trump was such a threat that he had to be silenced or suppressed; now Zuckerberg is “optimistic” about the Trump restoration. You can view it as Russia-style oligarchy or creepy authoritarianism, with the big-business chiefs obsequiously praising the political leaders and coughing up money (a $25 million settlement reportedly in Meta’s case) in response to a shakedown. Or maybe Zuckerberg’s assessment is approaching something close to the truth. (Or maybe, also, it’s a little of both—simultaneously obsequious and true.).
Also this week, in my page-a-day Talmud study, in the tractate Sanhedrin, page 42a, I encountered a mention of a Jewish blessing with the term “הַטּוֹב וְהַמֵּטִיב,” “blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who is good and Who does good.” A note in the Koren Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud that I use explains that this is a reference to “a blessing that is pronounced upon hearing good news that benefits more than one individual or when one experiences an improvement over an existing situation.”
Merely asking if Trump taking over the White House warrants this blessing will surely be enough to cause some readers to delete this email, stop reading, or cancel their subscriptions. Longtime readers know that that isn’t exactly a Trump fan site. (As
put it recently, “if you’re new to our substack…and you’re looking for someone who will reliably reinforce your views either for or against Trump — or anyone — this is not the right place for you.”) While I like to be provocative and contrarian, I also understand that the administration is causing disruption and concern for a lot of people. Over the past week, I watched some of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings, I saw Trump suggest that diversity, equity, and inclusion had contributed to a deadly plane crash, and I heard from people worried that freezes in federal spending could cause genuinely harmful disruption.Yet I have to confess, for all the chaos and in some cases justified concern, the reference in the Talmud note to “an improvement over an existing situation” made me think of Trump. In ten days, he’s turned things around.
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