“They, the dominant cultural force, are becoming more like the Seleucid overlords and Hellenizing Jews of yore, even as they view themselves as plucky fighters for freedom and justice.”
Washington, November 29 – News, commentary, and analysis of current events cast in terms of the most recent one-term former president continued this week, as journalists and pundits acknowledged the present Jewish holiday by attempting to flog the dead horse of his importance to public life in the US, a nod toward the traditional account of a single day’s allotment of olive oil lasting a full eight.
Donald Trump left office in January of this year, but media coverage of political, diplomatic, and economic stories has yet to let go of him, a phenomenon that observers note stems from the boon his candidacy and presidency provided to their businesses. The Jewish festival Hanukkah, which recalls, among other events, a miraculous rededication of the Temple in 164 BCE, offers a convenient parallel that media are happy to exploit all year round, but which carries special valence during this season.
Such efforts manifest in myriad interviews by journalists of “experts” who echo Democratic talking points as they seek to ride the attention that Trump coverage generated, regardless of the strength or weakness of the topic to Trump. Scholars took pains to point out several important contrasts between the Hanukkah miracle of Talmudic lore and the endeavor to keep the former chief executive in the news, however.
“The story of the oil discusses an act of God,” explained Professor Joseph Flavian, a scholar of comparative religion at Purdue University. “The Jews of the early Hasmonean period did what they could to resume the sacred routines of the Temple, with the extra adherence to purity that is the mark of the elevated place of the House of God in Jewish life. Their insistence on maintaining those high standards even where technically, compromise was permissible, invited a divine endorsement of their efforts, and illuminated the realization that the military victories of the time, though explicable in tactical terms, resulted from Godly guidance of human affairs.”
“Whereas with Trump, by contrast,” he continued, “the media and their fanbois/handlers in the Democratic party have tries to squeeze more oil out of the metaphorical olive than it can give, regardless of whether it works or not. Having grown accustomed to soaring ratings and exposure when they could turn the outrage up to eleven all the time and let the antics of a bloated manchild pull in the audience, his departure from everyday public life means they have to get used to sagging ratings, but they’re fighting it. They, the dominant cultural force, are becoming more like the Seleucid overlords and Hellenizing Jews of yore, even as they view themselves as plucky fighters for freedom and justice.”
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