Why Trump didn’t know “Shylock” is offensive

If you think the president read “The Merchant of Venice,” you're the dumb one

From Jewish Telegraphic Agency yesterday:

After facing criticism, President Donald Trump said he was unaware that the term “Shylock” was widely considered antisemitic when he used it to describe unscrupulous bankers during a rally Thursday in Iowa.

Trump was touting the benefits of the Republican omnibus legislation that had just passed. “No death tax. No estate tax,” he said. “No going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker—and in some cases, Shylocks and bad people.” …

Confronted with … criticism, Trump—who has previously been accused of wielding antisemitic dog whistles and repeating antisemitic tropes — said he had never understood the term as antisemitic.

“I’ve never heard it that way,” he told reporters on Friday. “The meaning of Shylock is somebody that’s a moneylender at high rates. You view it differently. I’ve never heard that.”

The Anti-Defamation League was having none of it. “The term ‘Shylock’ evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous. President Trump’s use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible,” the ADL tweeted, according to JTA. “It underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country. Words from our leaders matter and we expect more from the President of the United States.”

Psst, Anti-Defamation League: Trump’s telling the truth. President Trump does not know the etymology of the noun “Shylock.” President Trump does not know that “Shylock” comes from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, ca. 1598—in which Bassanio raises 3,000 ducats to pay for his courtship of Portia, and in which Shylock asks if a Jew does not bleed like others—for the same reason that President Trump does not know that the witches in Macbeth are the source of the couplet “Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn and caldron bubble” and does not know the lewd pun about the female anatomy in Twelfth Night, Act II Scene 5. He does not know the provenance of “Shylock” for the same reason that he does not know that there were no airports in the 1700s.

Because, ADL, Donald John Trump is an unlettered git. He is not an uneducated man. He is educated, if by that we mean that private schools were paid for, and diplomas were awarded. For high school, he graduated from New York Military Academy, alma mater of Bob Stiller, the founder of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (and before that of a company that sold rolling papers), and elementary school of Stephen Sondheim, who later finished out at the George School, which is Quaker, meaning that Sondheim had an education in both war and peace.

But if he went to school, and sat in classes, there is no evidence that Trump did the reading. He famously does not read books now, and I doubt he read books then. He has no interest in authors; he did not write the books that he is said to have written; and when you search for any mention of authors in his speeches, for any literary allusions, you come up with “The Snake,” a 1968 song by Al Wilson that Trump misattributes to Al Green:

So, no, Trump had no idea that “Shylock” referred to a Jewish character from Shakespeare. If he calls someone a “babbitt” (he won’t, but roll with it), he will not know that it’s a reference to the Sinclair Lewis character. If he calls someone a prodigal son, he will not know that he is referencing the Bible. If he says he’s had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, he will not get the reference that my six-year-old would nail. If he says he’s going to Dallas, don’t ask him who shot J.R., and if he says he’s visiting Beverly Hills, do not ask him to save the Peach Pit.

I read The Merchant of Venice my sophomore year in high school. Mr. Watson was my teacher, and there were two other Marks in that class, Mark McCloskey and Mark Murphy. Come to think of it, Mark Katibian may have been in that class, too. We’d all been named in 1974, not a good year for oil prices, men’s facial hair, or naming creativity for boys. I had to memorize Portia’s “The quality of mercy” speech. And, of course, we spent a lot of time talking about whether the portrayal of Shylock, the Jewish money lender, was antisemitic, and if so, if that made the play offensive, or if it made Shakespeare an antisemite, or it made me an antisemite for not thinking that it made Shakespeare an antisemite.

Even with all that learning, I have no idea what’s in Trump’s heart; I have no idea how he really feels about Jews. But I can say with certainty that his invocation of “shylocks” is not about the Jews; it’s about being an unlettered git.