In his column for the Daily Beast, conservative Matt Lewis dropped the hammer on Don Trump Jr. for his attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's appeal for more funding for his country's battle with the Russian invaders.
In particular, Lewis took exception with the son of the former president calling the widely-admired Ukrainian leader a "welfare queen."
Following Zelensky's speech before a wildly-applauding Congress, Don Jr-- who is being scrutinized for his actions related to the Jan 6 insurrection -- smeared the Ukrainian president in a tweet writing, "Zelensky is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen” joining a chorus of far-right conservatives parroting the Kremlin.
As Lewis pointed out, Don Jr., has no room to talk when his fortunes have been directly tied to who his father is and his famous last name.
"Put aside the irony of this trust fund 'nepo baby' calling someone else a welfare queen. The bigger irony is that we are at the end of 2022, a year in which Zelensky’s refusal to flee Ukraine ahead of a Russian invasion probably constitutes the most significant act of bravery and heroism," Lewis wrote. "The term 'welfare queen' was popularized in 1976 when Ronald Reagan described Illinois newspaper accounts of a Chicago woman named Linda Taylor, who bilked the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although Taylor could credibly be called a real-life villain (whose alleged sins were far worse than mere welfare fraud), the term became commonly used as a racist stereotype to suggest that African Americans on public assistance are all lazy con artists."
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As the conservative columnist explained, "Understanding this context is vital, as Don Junior and [conservative gadfly Charlie] Kirk want to exploit this stereotype. By transferring these deep-seated attitudes about race, they hope to apply this same dog-whistle to the Jewish president of Ukraine, who has for almost a year bravely fended off an invasion by a nuclear-armed power with exponentially greater military might."
"Today’s American right perversely admires the likes of Donald Trump, Kanye West, and (in some cases) Vladimir Putin—while mocking and attacking a heroic leader, and resistor of Russian aggression, like Zelensky," he continued before concluding, "I suspect Ronald Reagan would have liked and admired Zelensky. The two former actors might have gotten along swimmingly. But that likely wouldn’t matter to today’s Republican Party—a party that probably wouldn’t respect Reagan to begin with."
You can read more here.
