My grandfather’s family (11 children, 10 of them boys) were Jewish. My great-grandfather owned a general store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn—an Irish enclave. The boys were sent down to the docks to pick up the goods for the store. On the way back, they formed phalanx. The stronger boys protected their brothers from the Irish gangs that tried to steal the boxes. The local politicians (all Irish) solved the problem: when they were holding a meeting, they asked all the boys—the Irish and the (few) Jews to help them set up the chairs and take them down when the meetings were over. The result: the two groups became friends. At that time, the NY police force was mostly Irish. No Jews. My grandfather applied to join the force. The fathers of his friends vouched for him and he became the first Jewish detective at Headquarters. For the rest of his life, he had as many Irish as Jewish friends. Another mixed neighborhood story like yours.
As the product of the ethinc world of outer borough NYC -- mostly Irish Catholic on my side, but with much beloved Sicilian cousins -- this spoke to me. My grandparents had a bungalow in Rockaway -- amazingly it is still standing on Beach 109th Street-- that is the source of my earliest memories. Poor Joe would have had to put up with my landsmen's (there must be a Gaelic word for this) behaviors. Later we belonged to the Breezy Point Surf Club on the far tip of the Rockaway peninsula, and we would drive from Bay Ridge on the Belt Parkway, where we could watch the Trump apartment buildings going up in Coney Island. Everybody knew, in the way you knew things back then, that the Trumps were keeping out, excuse this, "the coloreds." Brooklyn had great sweetness, but it hid real ugliness. In a way I am glad that my father died decades ago, because I don't have to know whether he would have supported Trump. He was a Goldwater Republican -- our conversations in the late sixties were like those in All in the Family, but nowhere near as well written -- and I suspect he would.
New York used to give the country people like FDR, Mayor LaGuardia, Shirley Chisholm, but now we have inflicted outer borough bozos like Trump and Rudy Guiliani, the product of my father's high school, Bishop Loughlin, on the country and the world. Jimmy Breslin, would that you could be with us at this hour to explain to us wtf it all means.
Thanks for the memories, Joe. My family moved to Fresh Meadows in Queens in 1960 when I was ten, after Robert Moses shoved the Cross Bronx Expressway through my widowed grandfather’s apartment house. What struck me on moving there was the arrogance of all the locals. As the largest borough, Queens seemed to be the Texas of New York City. You can see it in Trump and also, say, John McEnroe of the same era. (The latter strangely became a supporter of my nonprofit—but I digress.)
My first paper route had me delivering the Long Island Press in Jamaica Estates in 1962. The mansions were so difficult to deliver to that I lasted only a month. Were the Trumps a customer? I suspect so, as they would have wanted to know what the local media was saying about them.
As a Jewish kid, I experienced one or two unsettling moments from rough boys in both the Bronx and Queens, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
The only Black youth I recall was elected president of our high school class. Sweet! You only saw African-Americans otherwise when venturing south of Hillside Avenue, the big divide between northern and southern Queens—reinforced in its own way, I suppose, by the Trumps.
Joe: Likeable he ain't, but cut him at least a tiny bit of slack. His musings about the ethnic/racial components of Harris' "identity" today were tasteless, but he was mightily provoked. And he isn't the only old white guy who's taken it on himself to lecture people of color on who is black. The sitting president famously did it four years ago. Also give Trump an ounce of credit for being willing to take an interview in a genuinely hostile forum. Do you think Harris would similarly expose herself to Fox News or the WSJ or NY Post editorial boards? Come to think of it, is there any sign she's willing to give unscripted interviews to even ostensibly friendly media? Start asking yourself how well she would have handled the questions Jake Tapper and Dana Bash threw at Biden just a few weeks ago.
Lou-Trump is one of the worst human beings I've ever met. He gets nothing from me. ..and I suspect Kamala would accept a Fox News debate with Trump in a heartbeat. And she will absolutely answer questions from the Times and Post--or the current love fest will end precipitously.
Joe: Thanks for responding. Since I post my 5 cents worth here regularly, I expect you recognize that I dislike Trump almost as much as you do, albeit less colorfully. He picks fights stupidly and ineffectively, lies gratuitously, his vitality is all physical, not mental, and he can always be counted on to admire and heed advice from all the wrong people. If I wanted to think of him as a putative dictator my mind would turn to Mussolini, not Hitler or Stalin.
As for digging in to who Ms. Harris really is, you should be aware that Bret Baier has already offered a debate on Fox news. In that regard, the repellant Gavin Newsom accepted a debate with DeSantis on Fox, gave as good as he got, and was treated with respect by the "moderator", Sean Hannity. Kamala will not take the bait. Forget Fox. I'd happily settle for a debate with you and Andrew Sullivan as moderators, knowing that would not be a "love fest" for either candidate.
Lou--I don't place Trump in the realm of standard politicians. He is not on the spectrum of acceptable politics. He tried to overthrow the government of the United States. Kamala Harris is a standard pol, for good or ill. She doesn't deserve to be compared to Trump in any, shape or form. That said, I think she should--and will--take any opportunity to confront the man.
He is,by miles the worst and most dangerous person who has ever run fir hi office in the U.S. and there is nothing in his past or current behavior that suggests he should be given a break on anything.
We each have had our moments when the absurdity of the identitarian mind set smacks us on the head. For me, it was the late ‘80s I was tasked with hiring a top engineer at the (New York) public agency I was at. I was politely told that our candidate was unacceptable because there were no Hispanics in the managerial ranks and this hire had to tick that particular box. I pointed out that our guy was from SPAIN, had in fact been in Franco’s army. No go, they said. I then said “put it in writing that by Hispanic you mean unlettered Puerto Rican” and that did the trick. They caved. I doubt I could get away with that stand for meritocracy today. The left has been trading away wisdom for their phony academic version of intelligence for years - and boy, are we paying the price.
I am a proud centrist democrat and way to the right of Joe. I agree completely with his view of the disastrous politics of the Democratic party’s left. Somehow the bizarre left has managed to turn perfectly appropriate nouns - diversity, equity, and inclusion - into laughing stocks and ammunition for the truly crazy right. And the 90% + part,of the faculty of elite American universities has succeeded in harming - maybe irreparably- several generation of college
I’m not on the left. In fact I’m considerably to the right of Joe. But I think one of his shots at the left here is wrong. But, first, I agree complete with Joe on the topic of the left and its bizarre identity politics. The Democratic Party left has succeeded in making the perfectly appropriate ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion into laughing stocks and ammunition for the really dangerous right in America. And the 90%+ of the faculties of elite American universities who are part of the left has succeeded in irreparably harming several generations of college students. But where Joe is wrong is in his view that democracy itself is not threatened - that it’s all a misreading of the fat orange felon/rapist/lisr. I think Joe’s error here stems from his decades as a distinguished journalist. Today’s journalists have consistently misread the Trump threat, and comsistently wanted desperately to move back to horse race both sideism journalism. They have simply not been able,to imagine a world is really different. Witness for example the executive editor of the New York Times arguing that democracy was merely a partisan Biden issue and they wouldn’t cover it. Joe is wrong here. A,concern about the survival of Democracy if Trump wins is not some amusing foible of worry warts. If/when Trump wins we will all - including the distinguished journalists among us - get to watch how this is not some fabulist theory.
The old joke about Fiorello LaGuardia was that, as an Italian with Jewish heritage who was also a practicing Episcopalian, “he was a balanced ticket alll by himself.” Which is actually an important point: most of us have multiple identities: in my case New Englander, WASP, Irish, Mets fan, American, soccer nut , and many others that we put on lime so many coats in a closet depending on the circumstance. I cannot prove it, but it seems to me that the mental health of people from diverse communities is greater than that of people who live in a monoculture - they seem to slide into a cycle of self-pity and resentment. Identity is a great hobby but a terrible job.
Well said Curtis. As a child of mixed ethnicities, I resemble your remark. Anyone studying genealogy or animal husbandry comes to realize that “cross breeding” is often ameliorating, lest one ends up like the French Bourbon dynasty.
Trump’s ham-handed remarks about Kamala’s heritage were lame-brained on many levels, most pragmatically because anytime not talking about the Biden-Harris record/policies is a missed opportunity.
Also agree with you about the madness of identity politics in general, which reminds of (another) great Yogi Berra line: when told that Eamon DeVelera the Mayor of Dublin was Jewish, Yogi shook his head in wonderment, exclaiming “only in America.”
Much appreciated, PG. this race, alas, may come down to who mis-speaks less. Hope my side avoids sliding toward crazy town (and, yes, the Republicans come back to Earth). In the meantime, if you get to a fork in the road, take it! 😎
The full story of how the Democrats walked head first into the trap of identity politics is yet to be written. That politically dead end journey arguably started around the time that path breaking, truth telling Daniel Patrick Moynihan was vilified by much of the party after his Report, “benign neglect”, and so on. Liberals should’ve listened.
Then, powerless to act against the forces of de-industrialization and globalization that eviscerated the economic standing of the white working class, liberal Democrats, possessed of their fair share of guilt, too, needed something stand for. Enter, stage left, those who became the Wokesters, railing against all manner of social evils, real and imagined. MAGA is the inevitable reaction to that. It should be a good book.
Joe, you really have a knack for reminding us all how we socialized our ethnicity in our youth. I suspect New Yorkers neighborhoods with their forced close proximity may have required a civility not found in my Deep South adolescence. But for both of us, with time and evolved economic conditions, the separation grew even further, eventually reaching full separation-allowing the “other” to be the way we lived, apart from any social interaction. At that stage, we are ripe for the plucking by politicians who use identity politics.
Right Joe, but could you please resist poking dogs with sticks right now? Can't you toss them a bone, a pat on the ears and encourage them to not bark for a couple months? It's enough of a miracle that the crazy-wide Dem coalition has coalesced so hard and fast behind Harris. A miracle, I think, but not accidental. I look forward to a day when the light goes on for all the pundits who are now patting themselves on the back..."We told him to quit months ago!! He waited too long!!....". I believe the two savviest political geniuses of my lifetime, Biden and Pelosi, scripted the whole thing months ago. They played their poker so perfectly, the poor Trump team never saw it coming. Rope a dope. No plan B! They are flailing and leaving Trump out there to be just Trump. How could they ever let him into that NABJ ambush? On and on. It's beautiful, and so far as I can see, Kamala was well in on it, ready to play it perfectly.
I toss bones only to those who deserve it. I don't give participation awards. The extremist left has been a disaster for the Democratic Party. They are minuscule but throw disproportionate weight. They are useful idiots for the Trumpers.
I love the,possibility. In the hands of someone who,could write a really good political novel this idea has legs. But it’s not fact. Remember - we are talking about democrats here. In the incredibly unlikely case that Biden, Pelosi, and Clyburn (you woukd have to add Clyburn to this plot) actually came up with this it woukd remain secret for one nano second. We can’t do plots.
My grandfather’s family (11 children, 10 of them boys) were Jewish. My great-grandfather owned a general store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn—an Irish enclave. The boys were sent down to the docks to pick up the goods for the store. On the way back, they formed phalanx. The stronger boys protected their brothers from the Irish gangs that tried to steal the boxes. The local politicians (all Irish) solved the problem: when they were holding a meeting, they asked all the boys—the Irish and the (few) Jews to help them set up the chairs and take them down when the meetings were over. The result: the two groups became friends. At that time, the NY police force was mostly Irish. No Jews. My grandfather applied to join the force. The fathers of his friends vouched for him and he became the first Jewish detective at Headquarters. For the rest of his life, he had as many Irish as Jewish friends. Another mixed neighborhood story like yours.
Patricia Beard
As the product of the ethinc world of outer borough NYC -- mostly Irish Catholic on my side, but with much beloved Sicilian cousins -- this spoke to me. My grandparents had a bungalow in Rockaway -- amazingly it is still standing on Beach 109th Street-- that is the source of my earliest memories. Poor Joe would have had to put up with my landsmen's (there must be a Gaelic word for this) behaviors. Later we belonged to the Breezy Point Surf Club on the far tip of the Rockaway peninsula, and we would drive from Bay Ridge on the Belt Parkway, where we could watch the Trump apartment buildings going up in Coney Island. Everybody knew, in the way you knew things back then, that the Trumps were keeping out, excuse this, "the coloreds." Brooklyn had great sweetness, but it hid real ugliness. In a way I am glad that my father died decades ago, because I don't have to know whether he would have supported Trump. He was a Goldwater Republican -- our conversations in the late sixties were like those in All in the Family, but nowhere near as well written -- and I suspect he would.
New York used to give the country people like FDR, Mayor LaGuardia, Shirley Chisholm, but now we have inflicted outer borough bozos like Trump and Rudy Guiliani, the product of my father's high school, Bishop Loughlin, on the country and the world. Jimmy Breslin, would that you could be with us at this hour to explain to us wtf it all means.
Thanks for the memories, Joe. My family moved to Fresh Meadows in Queens in 1960 when I was ten, after Robert Moses shoved the Cross Bronx Expressway through my widowed grandfather’s apartment house. What struck me on moving there was the arrogance of all the locals. As the largest borough, Queens seemed to be the Texas of New York City. You can see it in Trump and also, say, John McEnroe of the same era. (The latter strangely became a supporter of my nonprofit—but I digress.)
My first paper route had me delivering the Long Island Press in Jamaica Estates in 1962. The mansions were so difficult to deliver to that I lasted only a month. Were the Trumps a customer? I suspect so, as they would have wanted to know what the local media was saying about them.
As a Jewish kid, I experienced one or two unsettling moments from rough boys in both the Bronx and Queens, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
The only Black youth I recall was elected president of our high school class. Sweet! You only saw African-Americans otherwise when venturing south of Hillside Avenue, the big divide between northern and southern Queens—reinforced in its own way, I suppose, by the Trumps.
Joe: Likeable he ain't, but cut him at least a tiny bit of slack. His musings about the ethnic/racial components of Harris' "identity" today were tasteless, but he was mightily provoked. And he isn't the only old white guy who's taken it on himself to lecture people of color on who is black. The sitting president famously did it four years ago. Also give Trump an ounce of credit for being willing to take an interview in a genuinely hostile forum. Do you think Harris would similarly expose herself to Fox News or the WSJ or NY Post editorial boards? Come to think of it, is there any sign she's willing to give unscripted interviews to even ostensibly friendly media? Start asking yourself how well she would have handled the questions Jake Tapper and Dana Bash threw at Biden just a few weeks ago.
Lou-Trump is one of the worst human beings I've ever met. He gets nothing from me. ..and I suspect Kamala would accept a Fox News debate with Trump in a heartbeat. And she will absolutely answer questions from the Times and Post--or the current love fest will end precipitously.
Joe: Thanks for responding. Since I post my 5 cents worth here regularly, I expect you recognize that I dislike Trump almost as much as you do, albeit less colorfully. He picks fights stupidly and ineffectively, lies gratuitously, his vitality is all physical, not mental, and he can always be counted on to admire and heed advice from all the wrong people. If I wanted to think of him as a putative dictator my mind would turn to Mussolini, not Hitler or Stalin.
As for digging in to who Ms. Harris really is, you should be aware that Bret Baier has already offered a debate on Fox news. In that regard, the repellant Gavin Newsom accepted a debate with DeSantis on Fox, gave as good as he got, and was treated with respect by the "moderator", Sean Hannity. Kamala will not take the bait. Forget Fox. I'd happily settle for a debate with you and Andrew Sullivan as moderators, knowing that would not be a "love fest" for either candidate.
Lou--I don't place Trump in the realm of standard politicians. He is not on the spectrum of acceptable politics. He tried to overthrow the government of the United States. Kamala Harris is a standard pol, for good or ill. She doesn't deserve to be compared to Trump in any, shape or form. That said, I think she should--and will--take any opportunity to confront the man.
He is,by miles the worst and most dangerous person who has ever run fir hi office in the U.S. and there is nothing in his past or current behavior that suggests he should be given a break on anything.
We each have had our moments when the absurdity of the identitarian mind set smacks us on the head. For me, it was the late ‘80s I was tasked with hiring a top engineer at the (New York) public agency I was at. I was politely told that our candidate was unacceptable because there were no Hispanics in the managerial ranks and this hire had to tick that particular box. I pointed out that our guy was from SPAIN, had in fact been in Franco’s army. No go, they said. I then said “put it in writing that by Hispanic you mean unlettered Puerto Rican” and that did the trick. They caved. I doubt I could get away with that stand for meritocracy today. The left has been trading away wisdom for their phony academic version of intelligence for years - and boy, are we paying the price.
I am a proud centrist democrat and way to the right of Joe. I agree completely with his view of the disastrous politics of the Democratic party’s left. Somehow the bizarre left has managed to turn perfectly appropriate nouns - diversity, equity, and inclusion - into laughing stocks and ammunition for the truly crazy right. And the 90% + part,of the faculty of elite American universities has succeeded in harming - maybe irreparably- several generation of college
I’m not on the left. In fact I’m considerably to the right of Joe. But I think one of his shots at the left here is wrong. But, first, I agree complete with Joe on the topic of the left and its bizarre identity politics. The Democratic Party left has succeeded in making the perfectly appropriate ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion into laughing stocks and ammunition for the really dangerous right in America. And the 90%+ of the faculties of elite American universities who are part of the left has succeeded in irreparably harming several generations of college students. But where Joe is wrong is in his view that democracy itself is not threatened - that it’s all a misreading of the fat orange felon/rapist/lisr. I think Joe’s error here stems from his decades as a distinguished journalist. Today’s journalists have consistently misread the Trump threat, and comsistently wanted desperately to move back to horse race both sideism journalism. They have simply not been able,to imagine a world is really different. Witness for example the executive editor of the New York Times arguing that democracy was merely a partisan Biden issue and they wouldn’t cover it. Joe is wrong here. A,concern about the survival of Democracy if Trump wins is not some amusing foible of worry warts. If/when Trump wins we will all - including the distinguished journalists among us - get to watch how this is not some fabulist theory.
If Kamala Harris is the distillation of the ultimate perfect political plot then our country really is in trouble!
The old joke about Fiorello LaGuardia was that, as an Italian with Jewish heritage who was also a practicing Episcopalian, “he was a balanced ticket alll by himself.” Which is actually an important point: most of us have multiple identities: in my case New Englander, WASP, Irish, Mets fan, American, soccer nut , and many others that we put on lime so many coats in a closet depending on the circumstance. I cannot prove it, but it seems to me that the mental health of people from diverse communities is greater than that of people who live in a monoculture - they seem to slide into a cycle of self-pity and resentment. Identity is a great hobby but a terrible job.
Well said Curtis. As a child of mixed ethnicities, I resemble your remark. Anyone studying genealogy or animal husbandry comes to realize that “cross breeding” is often ameliorating, lest one ends up like the French Bourbon dynasty.
Trump’s ham-handed remarks about Kamala’s heritage were lame-brained on many levels, most pragmatically because anytime not talking about the Biden-Harris record/policies is a missed opportunity.
Also agree with you about the madness of identity politics in general, which reminds of (another) great Yogi Berra line: when told that Eamon DeVelera the Mayor of Dublin was Jewish, Yogi shook his head in wonderment, exclaiming “only in America.”
Much appreciated, PG. this race, alas, may come down to who mis-speaks less. Hope my side avoids sliding toward crazy town (and, yes, the Republicans come back to Earth). In the meantime, if you get to a fork in the road, take it! 😎
The full story of how the Democrats walked head first into the trap of identity politics is yet to be written. That politically dead end journey arguably started around the time that path breaking, truth telling Daniel Patrick Moynihan was vilified by much of the party after his Report, “benign neglect”, and so on. Liberals should’ve listened.
Then, powerless to act against the forces of de-industrialization and globalization that eviscerated the economic standing of the white working class, liberal Democrats, possessed of their fair share of guilt, too, needed something stand for. Enter, stage left, those who became the Wokesters, railing against all manner of social evils, real and imagined. MAGA is the inevitable reaction to that. It should be a good book.
I meant “a” phalanx”. AI left out a word.
American Democracy is not at stake in 2024.
American decency is.
YES!
I am not convinced that a Harris win would tell us anymore than a Trump one would. Alas.
https://x.com/Canaansdad1987/status/1818782554347950477
Masterful. And so true.
Joe, you really have a knack for reminding us all how we socialized our ethnicity in our youth. I suspect New Yorkers neighborhoods with their forced close proximity may have required a civility not found in my Deep South adolescence. But for both of us, with time and evolved economic conditions, the separation grew even further, eventually reaching full separation-allowing the “other” to be the way we lived, apart from any social interaction. At that stage, we are ripe for the plucking by politicians who use identity politics.
Right Joe, but could you please resist poking dogs with sticks right now? Can't you toss them a bone, a pat on the ears and encourage them to not bark for a couple months? It's enough of a miracle that the crazy-wide Dem coalition has coalesced so hard and fast behind Harris. A miracle, I think, but not accidental. I look forward to a day when the light goes on for all the pundits who are now patting themselves on the back..."We told him to quit months ago!! He waited too long!!....". I believe the two savviest political geniuses of my lifetime, Biden and Pelosi, scripted the whole thing months ago. They played their poker so perfectly, the poor Trump team never saw it coming. Rope a dope. No plan B! They are flailing and leaving Trump out there to be just Trump. How could they ever let him into that NABJ ambush? On and on. It's beautiful, and so far as I can see, Kamala was well in on it, ready to play it perfectly.
I toss bones only to those who deserve it. I don't give participation awards. The extremist left has been a disaster for the Democratic Party. They are minuscule but throw disproportionate weight. They are useful idiots for the Trumpers.
I love the,possibility. In the hands of someone who,could write a really good political novel this idea has legs. But it’s not fact. Remember - we are talking about democrats here. In the incredibly unlikely case that Biden, Pelosi, and Clyburn (you woukd have to add Clyburn to this plot) actually came up with this it woukd remain secret for one nano second. We can’t do plots.