These days when self-described “progressives” yell and scream about so-called “cultural appropriation” for such innocuous activities as frat boys wearing sombreros on Cinco de Mayo, how would you classify the use of the term “The Resistance” to describe the opposition to Donald Trump?
I would call it the most appalling, morally reprehensible example of cultural appropriation imaginable. Why? Well, think what is being appropriated — the Holocaust.
Making your extreme dislike for Donald Trump and his policies equivalent to battling the Nazi extermination of six million Jews and countless other people — when the original Resistance came into being and got its name — is beyond absurd and completely despicable. At that time, innocent people were being shot in cold blood, incinerated in gas chambers and often buried alive by the thousands. Donald Trump makes intemperate remarks on Twitter while supporting some conservative policies and judges. Are those things even remotely the same?
Not only is this an insane comparison, it is also wildly anti-Semitic. That some Jews participate in this abominable exploitation of their greatest tragedy gives those same Jews a lot to atone for during these coming Days of Awe. They should think about what they are doing for ten seconds.
It’s worth remembering too, speaking of cultural appropriation, that the participants in the original Resistance during World War II risked their lives day and night, hiding out in forests while being hunted by the Nazis as they attempted to liberate concentrations camps. Large numbers, members of the Maquis and others, were themselves shot or gassed. (The works of Primo Levi have dramatic accounts.)
As far as we know, no members of the real Resistance were parading around in pink pussy hats or smashing windows on college campuses. They were fighting some of the worst evil in human history.
So in honor of Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year that starts Monday evening, Hebrew calendar 5779, let us put an end to this nauseating comparison. That includes, of course, the equally nauseating reference to the “Resistance” by the creep who wrote the anonymous op-ed for the New York Times. The use of the term is as puerile as that author is cowardly. It’s a metaphor that pretends to be progressive but is actually totally reactionary.
So please, you may not like Donald Trump or his policies — even though minorities are doing better economically than they have in years, even though Trump is the only president to fulfill his promise and move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — but enough of this morally narcissistic “Résistance” crap. There’s no genocide going on. Auschwitz is not in operation in Wyoming. You’re not Edith Piaf, Serge Gainsbourg or Jean-Paul Sartre. What you’re doing is monumentally disrespectful to people who died in the noblest cause of the twentieth century. You should all be ashamed of yourselves — dare I say it — before God.
Instead, how about doing the adult thing? You oppose Donald Trump? Fine, vote him out. I won’t vote with you, but that’s okay. This is a democracy.
L’shana Tova.
Roger L. Simon — co-founder and CEO Emeritus of PJ Media — is an author and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter.
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