Julius Krein, A Trump Propagandist Plays The “We Didn’t Know” Card

-by Noah

First, some background: Julius Krein is the founder of American Affairs a pro-Trump quartely, and founder of the Journal of American Greatness. He is from South Dakota and is a graduate of Harvard. He went into the financial world and worked for the Bank Of America and the Blackstone Group, a private equity and hedge fund operation that specializes in leveraged buyouts and has its roots in Lehman Brothers. Take a few moments and let the significance of that sink in.

Krein says he formed American Affairs” to, quote, “give the Trump movement some intellectual heft.”

OK, so now that we know all of this, I guess we can assume that Krein is not a stupid man, but, he is a man with a predator background who had a voice that was larger than most, and, sadly, he used it in the service of promoting Donald Trump and Trump’s brand of fascism. It’s hard to think of Krein as a “very fine” person. No, he used his money and what intelligence he has to promote Trump and the evil for which he stands.

Just think of the idea of giving Trump’s fascism “intellectual heft.” Provide cover is more like it. Anyway, Trump and intellect are not two things that would come together in any kind of word association game, unless that game required you to deal in opposites. The only real world way to associate Trump with intellect, and, more importantly, anything good and decent is through the use of propaganda.

So, there you have it, Krein is a propagandist, a press flak, a brainwasher for Trump. Calling him anything else is an insult to caring, intelligent people anywhere (Although I do have to admit that I have thought of a other few things I could call him.)

On Thursday, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Krein titled “I Voted For Trump. And I Sorely Regret It.” The alternative title should be “I Voted For Trump And All I Got Was This Shitty Red Hat.”

In his mea culpa opinion piece, Krein admitted that he had made statements such as Trump being “the most serious candidate in the race” and writing dozens of articles and making a similar number of radio and TV appearances in support of his guy, even when “conservative friends and colleagues said I had to be kidding.” Krein also admits to knowing that Trump was “Crude and meandering for almost all of the primary campaign”, but, he saw Trump as being different than the more “conventional candidates.” True that.

Krein says he liked that Trump was a critic of corporations for off-shoring jobs and attacked financial industry executives for avoiding taxes. I guess how Trump handled his own taxes and off-shored the work of his own companies never bothered him.

The first half of the Krein piece is a catalog of all the things he liked that Trump was saying about foreign and domestic issues. Apparently he never once questioned Trump’s sincerity, perhaps seeing what he wanted to see. It’s a pathetic attempt to justify his actions. He even states that he tried to steer Trump “in the right direction,” as if anyone could. It takes an out of control ego to think you could. I’m guessing Krein saw a bit of himself when he saw Trump.

According to the incredibly self-important Krein, the support he provided to Trump through the Journal of American Greatness was him acting as “one of the leading voices supporting certain themes of Trump’s campaign.” Michael Anton, now an advisor on the National Security Council was one of the journal’s predecessor, simply called American Greatness, most prolific writers.

Once Krein’s mission was accomplished and Trump was in the White House, he formed his previously mentioned quarterly to continue what he’d started. In another moment of self-aggrandizement (that right there could be a also be big part of his attraction to Trump), Krain states that

In this role, as one of the few people in the media who has been somewhat sympathetic to Mr. Trump, I am often asked to comment on his surprise victory, or more recently on his statements, and the gusher of news pouring out of this White House. For months, despite increasing chaos and incoherence, I have given Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt: ‘No I don’t think he is a racist’, I have told skeptical audiences. ‘Yes, he says some stupid things, but none of it really matters; he’s not really incompetent.’

Really? Well, it seems his idol’s handling of what happened in Charlottesville was too much even for a professional apologist and propagandist like Krein. More likely, he just wants credit for being one of the first rats off the ship.

It is now clear that my optimism was unfounded. I can’t stand by this disgraceful administration any longer, and I would urge anyone who once supported him as I did to stop defending the 45th president… Far from making America great again, Mr. Trump has betrayed the foundations of our common citizenship.

Krein even has the gall to say

It is now clear that we were deluding ourselves.

Oh boy. Wow. And to think, this assclown went to Harvard! What the hell do they teach people there? Certainly, in his case, it wasn’t any kind of analytical or critical thinking ability. Then again, maybe we should demand to see his diploma.

Think about this: The birtherism that his boy Trump founded his campaign on never tipped Krein off. The Central Park 5 case, the housing discrimination suits, the treatment of African-Americans at his casinos, his relationships with mafia and Russian mob figures, the ripped off contractors, the treatment of women, the treatment of underage beauty contestants, his racist stances on Muslims and immigrants, the refusal to hand over his tax records, the hypocrisy of talking about off-shoring of jobs while he and his family have their clothing lines made in China, his obvious lack of ANY knowledge of the Constitution, the psychotic desire to take Chemo away from American cancer patients, The destruction of national parks while he tries to protect monuments to treason and slavery, the making fun of the disabled, the Hitler salutes at his rallies, and the fact that anyone with half a brain could watch Trump speak for 2 minutes and see that he is severely mentally ill… none of that tipped off Julius Krein. Fuck you Julius Krein. Lying, disingenuous, 2-bit Goebbels wanna be scumbag. Accessory to treason. Fuck you.

Krein’s piece in Thursday’s Times is like someone saying “I know I didn’t get my brakes fixed. I thought they’d be fine,” after he’s just run over a dozen school kids and a crossing guard.

In Chaucerian times, people wore hairshirts and crawled on their bellies for a hundred miles to ask for forgiveness. This assclown thinks a disingenuous, self-promoting, half-wit not even half apology article in the New York Times will suffice. Not only that, but he still adheres to the republican agenda. Some Republicans are acting all “shocked, shocked I tell you, shocked and surprised” that Trump is what he is. It’s all “gee, we didn’t know.” This is part of an attempt that Republicans are making to create the impression that they are somehow separate from their President Trump.

But, I will be fair to Krein. Regardless of his motivations, he has spoken up. That, I suppose, makes him better than Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who took even longer than Trump to address Charlottesville and pretend he was affronted not that we would have ever expected him to address it at all, especially after seeing his wife by Trump’s side nodding her approval while he said that some Nazis are “fine people” during his now infamous press tantrum. It also makes Krein better in my eyes than Speaker Paul Ryan, an American terrorist in his own right, who once said he couldn’t endorse Trump, went ahead and did so anyway, and continues to support the Trump agenda every hour of every day. It also makes him better than that full staff of Nazi sympathizers that infest the White House and say nothing. Anything any of these cretins have to say from now on will have no credibility because they have given away what is in their charred little hearts. Their silence has spoken. Their words will mean nothing, and you can say that about 99.9% of their party. Only a change of actions and attitudes will matter. Don’t hold your breath.

It’s hard to say that anything good came of Charlottesville but it did expose, once and for all, what lies at the core of the Republican Party, so much so that even a smug, self-important asswipe like Julius Krein could see it. Polls show, however, that the majority of republican voters still support Trump. Trump’s poll numbers may be sinking over all, but, if the election were held today, he would still win in most places where he won last November, just by smaller margins.

One final note: On Thursday night, Krein went on CNN, the Neville Chamberlain of news channels, to make his case for redemption. Oh wait. No, that wasn’t it at all. He just loves being on TV, like someone else I could name. Fuck you again, Julius Krein. May I send you a set of Hari Kari knives?