Cosmopolitan
The Huffington Post tells us the word “globalist” is the hot new thing in the White House right now…and not in a good way.
The term “globalist” has been used at the White House at least three times this week in reference to an outgoing Jewish Trump administration official, raising some eyebrows because the word is increasingly used in xenophobic and anti-Semitic contexts.
The word came up on Wednesday when a reporter asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether a similar candidate will take the place of Gary Cohn, the outgoing director of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council.
“He was a noted free trader, a globalist. Will the president seek another globalist, another free trader?” Fox News reporter John Roberts asked.
Normally, we’d think of Republicans as fitting that description somewhat more than Democrats, at least left-leaning Democrats. The left is cautious about “free trade” because it can mean doing away with all regulations, including ones to protect workers, consumers, the environment, natural resources – that kind of thing. Normally free trade is bedrock principle with Republicans and ambivalent with Democrats. But we’re not in Normally any more.
Also, Fox News reporter.
Also, Fox News reporter apparently taking care to cue Sanders how she is supposed to respond. “Not the good kind of globalist, Sarah, but the kind who opposes something Our Dear Donald favors. The enemy kind. Nothing to do with the J-word, but enemy all the same.”
This followed Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, using the word “globalist,” in quotation marks, to describe Cohn in a statement that was tweeted by his department on Tuesday.
Business Insider also looked askance at Mulvaney’s creepy statement.
“As a right-wing conservative and founding member of the Freedom Caucus, I never expected that the coworker I would work closest, and best, with at the White House would be a ‘globalist,'” Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement.
He continued: “Gary Cohn is one of the smartest people I’ve ever worked with. Having the chance to collaborate with him will remain one of the highlights of my career in public service.”
“Globalist” is often used as a derogatory term by opponents of free trade and internationally focused economic policies. In far-right circles, it often carries anti-Semitic undertones. Far-right news organizations like Breitbart, for example, have used globe emojis or “globalist” as a way to denote Jewish people, including Cohn.
So it’s a twofer – it’s an anti-Semitic dogwhistle and it frames an internationalist outlook as evil.
“Globalist” should be a compliment. “Globalist” should be to “nationalist” as altruist should be to egomaniac.
Business Insider again:
This isn’t the first time a White House official has used the term to disparage a colleague. Last April, The Daily Beast reported that then-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon vented about Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner “being a globalist.”
And Jared Kushner is what else? Oh yes…Jewish. What a coincidence.
Back to the Huffington Post:
The third instance came during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, when Trump lauded Cohn as “a globalist,” while adding, “but I still like him.”
“He’s been terrific,” Trump said. “He may be a globalist, but I still like him. He’s seriously globalist, there’s no question, but you know what, in his own way he’s also a nationalist because he loves our country.”
There’s a reason “America First” had stopped being a useful political label until racist Donald Trump came along: it was the slogan of a nativist anti-Semitic veering-into-pro-Nazi movement fronted by Charles Lindbergh up until Pearl Harbor. It kind of lost its luster once the Allied troops arrived at Auschwitz.
The term can be used to describe someone who has universal or open-world beliefs, particularly in regard to trade or public policies, but it can carry a more sinister meaning for members of the far right.
For the anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi members of the so-called “alt-right” white supremacist movement, “globalist” is a euphemism for “Jew.” It refers to the longstanding conspiracy theory about an international Jewish cabal working to undermine the traditional white family and Western culture by pushing for immigration and diversity.
A glossary of extremist language published by The New York Times places “globalism” among terms like “alt-right,” “antifa” and “cuck.”
“For the far right, globalism has long had distinct xenophobic, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic overtones,” the article states. “It refers to a conspiratorial worldview: a cabal that likes open borders, diversity and weak nation states, and that dislikes white people, Christianity and the traditional culture of their own country.”
In other words a cabal that does not exist.
When will this nightmare end.
Cohn is probably going to go out and join Emmanuel Goldstein, if he wasn’t already his agent…
Guess I’m getting tired. I saw this, and my mind read that we’re not in Normandy any more, and I killed a couple of brain cells trying to figure out what this had to do with Normandy.
I like to keep y’all on your toes.
I don’t think I was in Normally to begin with.
It’s hard trying to keep up with all the dog whistles. I suppose they have to come up with new code words as the old ones are exposed and discredited. I’d heard of “globalization” before, but not “globalist.”
“The left is cautious about “free trade” because it can mean doing away with all regulations, including ones to protect workers, consumers, the environment, natural resources – that kind of thing.”
I’ve never been crazy about this corporate friendly manifestation of globalization which drives countries to compete in a race to the bottom. It’s a shortsighted view of the world as simply a source of resources and a market for selling, with little regard for our Planet Earth as our shared home, neighbourhood and life support system. I’m much more inclined to an internationalist type of globalism where raising the standards that protect the environment, human rights, worker safety, etc. is encouraged. So often it’s the first type that underlies trade agreements rather than the latter. The “level playing field” undergoes rezoning to build a deeper basement.
“…a cabal that likes open borders, diversity and weak nation states, and that dislikes white people, Christianity and the traditional culture of their own country.”
Where do I sign up?
Quite so. I’m part of that left that is cautious about “free trade” for those reasons. I think at a minimum there should be exceptions for to protect workers, consumers, the environment, natural resources. Those of course can be used as lightly-disguised tariffs, but…I’mnotaneconomistsodon’tlookatme.