Triggered: Donald Trump Jr.’s bestseller is firmly pro-Israel
The book addresses what he sees as the current state of bias in the mainstream American media.
By JOSEPH SCUTTSTriggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us(photo credit: Courtesy)In November 2019, before the outbreak of the coronavirus, I had the chance to meet and speak to Donald Trump Jr., author, businessman, philanthropist and the son of the US president, when I purchased his new book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, at a bookstore in New York City.The book addresses what he sees as the current state of bias in the mainstream American media, including his view that the American Left has “a victimhood complex” and the Democratic Party poses a threat both to Israel and the Jewish people. It debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.As I met Don Jr., who at 42 is President Donald Trump’s eldest child, I expressed my appreciation to him and the Trump administration for standing so strongly in defense of both Israel and the American Jewish community.He replied, “Thanks Joe, but what I don’t understand are members of the Jewish community who stand by the Democrats, a party that clearly doesn’t align with the pro-Israel stance we have always stood by.”As an example of Don Jr.’s pro-Israel stance, in 2017 he called out the BBC for a headline on a Jerusalem terror attack that neglected to mention that a Border Police officer was stabbed to death and focused only on the three Palestinians terrorists killed, without noting that they were the assailants. The headline read, “Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem,” and was posted on a BBC tweet. Don Jr. immediately tweeted back: “You mean after they stabbed a female Israeli police officer to death… right? This is as close to being misleading as possible.”In his book, Don Jr. says the same pundits who originally wrote off his father’s candidacy were baffled when he received support in the American Jewish community. He goes on to say that President Trump kept his promises to both the Jewish community and to Israel by moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, something his predecessors had promised but never delivered.“He believed it was the right thing to do. The State of Israel gets to decide where their capital is and the United States should support the only democracy in the Middle East. You see, the United States is a leader, and others follow us,” Don Jr. writes. “It’s time for America to take its rightful place as the leader of the free world once again.”He discusses the dangers of socialism (having had grandparents who went through Communist rule in Czechoslovakia) and the hazardous direction he thinks the Democratic Party has taken by tilting so far to the Left. He slams “the Squad” (Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley), their support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, disdain for Israel and hateful rhetoric.“The rhetoric and those views might seem radical to a normal person, but they’ve already entered the mainstream of the Democratic Party,” he warns.
Don Jr. places a great emphasis on the fight against intolerance, recalling the atrocities committed in the Holocaust and praising the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center as “one of the greatest examples of those who take a real stand against intolerance. Wiesenthal tracked down and brought to justice Nazi war criminals from around the world. Today the center serves to educate the next generation when horrors of humanity are ignored.”He makes a point of thanking his close friends, Carol and Larry Mizel, who chair the center and were among the first to endorse Trump as president. For Don Jr., there is no gray line when it comes to his and his family’s support for the Jewish people and Israel, and the stand that they take against antisemitism and intolerance.His book is definitely worth reading if you want a personal insight into the worldview of the Trump family. ■The writer received his undergraduate degree in business from Yeshiva University and his MBA from Long Island University, works as a financial adviser in NYC and is involved in Israel-based and Jewish advocacy organizationsTriggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence UsDonald Trump Jr.Center Street, 2019304 pages; $17.0
