After Trump’s Dinner with Nick Fuentes, would Bob Hugin still use the Words ‘Great President” to Describe Him?
Since Bob Hugin entered the New Jersey statewide political scene in 2018 as the Republican candidate for the United States Senate, he has been reminiscent in baseball terms of the late Dick Stuart, the error-prone former first baseman of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Red Sox, known as “Doctor Strangeglove.” And time has not resulted in the replacement of Hugin’s political glass jaw, reminiscent of the late heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, who was described by sports writer Jerry Izenberg as having the “chin of a poet.”
Hugin’s political glass jaw was first in evidence when it was revealed during the 2018 campaign that as the undergraduate president of the Princeton University Tiger Inn eating club, he had opposed the admission to the club of both women and gays. Later when he was an alumnus in his thirties, Hugin continued to oppose the admission of women to the eating club.
During the 2018 campaign, Hugin expressed regret for his previous defense of this gender discrimination. Yet on Election Night 2022, he uttered a phrase of misogynistic rhetoric that was bound to cause questioning of the sincerity of his renunciation of earlier gender bias.
Specifically, Hugin used the phrase “piece of shit Congresswoman” in referring to the victorious incumbent Democrat Representative Mikie Sherrill. While I would not go so far as to call Hugin a gender bigot for simply the utterance of these words alone, this offensive phrase “piece of shit Congresswoman” does, in my opinion, constitute misogynistic rhetoric and is certainly tone-deaf.
A state party chair is the unofficial spokesperson of his or her state party. Any state party chair who utters misogynistic rhetoric is committing an unforgivable political offense, demonstrating rank incompetence, gross insensitivity, and overall unfitness for the office. The top echelon leadership of the New Jersey Republican State Committee should have fired Hugin immediately. His subsequent apology for his Sherrill comment constituted no basis for retaining him as chair after his manifest unfitness was demonstrated.
Yet it only took one week after his Election Night verbal transgression for Hugin to again demonstrate his penchant for verbal infelicity. In an interview with New Jersey Spotlight News on November 15, Hugin referred to Donald Trump as “a great president in terms of the issues and policies he adopted.” Among these policies, Hugin used the words “America First.” He did not specify what the “America First” policies were.
Now I confess to a high sensitivity to the words” America First.” Thanks to the sacrifices of my parents, I was able to attend Northwestern University, where I studied history and political science, under the tutelage of some of the world’s finest professors.
And one of my major areas of research was the America First movement, the isolationist movement in the late 1930s and early 1940s, whose leadership, including Charles Lindbergh, was largely composed of antisemites who accused American Jewry of attempting to draw America into war with Nazi Germany.
Now I have no reason to accuse Bob Hugin of antisemitism. But his use of the phrase “America First” has both historically noxious and xenophobic connotations, in whatever context it is used. In fact, America First Foundation is the name of the entity founded by the infamous Nick Fuentes, the Neo-Nazi White Supremacist fascist who dined with Kanye West and Trump at the controversial dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week. In any event, Hugin’s use of “America First” betokens both deep insensitivity and historical ignorance, evidencing further Hugin’s mammoth unfitness for the role of NJGOP chair, regardless of his fundraising prowess.
Yet that leaves open one overriding issue. Does Hugin still believe that Trump was a great president in view of his planning of the January 6 seditious conspiratorial coup, his defense of the
Charlottesville mob as “fine people,” and finally now his dining with virulent antisemites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes?
The New Jersey Republican Party has a dire need to gain more support from minority and Gen Z voters. The rhetoric of Bob Hugin gives him a severe case of political halitosis in communicating with these constituencies.
There is only one way to resolve this issue. If Bob Hugin and the NJGOP do not issue a statement of repudiation of Trump and his deplorable Mar-a-Lago dinner within the next 48 hours, the state GOP chair will confirm that he is not only ethnically insensitive and historically ignorant. He will also reveal himself to be an absolute political dunce.
Alan J. Steinberg served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
The author was on target re Hugin and his politically incorrect and just plain awful utterances .
If I was a Republican and I am not – I would vote to send Hugin packin.
But the 48-hour ultimatum is kind of silly even for rhetorical purposes, don’t you think?
Better yet, if Joe Biden doesn’t issue a repudiation within 48 hours, of the Chinese Communist Party beating, terrorizing, torturing and killing their people over COVID lockdowns , and the murdering and vivisecting of Uyghur Muslims, and the stealing of over $500 BILLION dollars of military technology from the U.S. under the Biden Administration, and that violates national security interests, then the repudiation of Donald Trump for meeting with an alleged “white supremacist” that the left is using to attack Trump, is a “nothing burger”. Nick Fuentes is of Hispanic ancestry, yet is being called all sorts of names by the Leftists-Communists organizations, individuals and media. Funny how that works–when you don’t tow the Leftist-Socialist-Democrat Party line as a minority.
And, by the way, everyone is upset at Trump because Kanye’s guest had (unknown to Trump) alleged antisemitic feelings.
Did you notice how everybody attacked Obama for cozying up with one of the most antisemitic people on the planet, Louis Farrakhan? I don’t remember EVER seeing anything in the media or coming from the White House about that.
So, the Leftist Propaganda Media here should STFU!!!!
“I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.” https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2008/jan/23/chain-email/obama-decried-farrakhans-racism/
Loved the last sentence—“‘ He will also reveal himself to be an absolute political dunce.”
As a New Jersey voter, I lost respect for Bob Hugin
during the 2018 Senatorial Campaign. He flooded the air waves with despicable, vile attack ads, beyond human decency. The voters were horrified,, at least
this voter was.
AND SO…….He lost the election by 10 points after
spending over 7 million dollars of his own money.
Political dunce sounds about right to me.
Alan Steinberg, don’t hold your breath waiting for an explanation from Bob Hugin. InsiderNJ readers need you to keep us informed with clear, insightful
Columns.
Although I have nothing good to say about Bob Hugin’s politics, I’m not sure he is such a dunce: look at how many people support him! That part of the GOP which is MAGA- enamored probably approve of his dinner companions. And there are obviously many other who simply vote by the label. As someone who did quite a bit of canvassing for this last election, I ran across numbers of people who literally knew nothing of the current politics, don’t read the newspapers, think it doesn’t matter — and simply vote the way their parents or sposes did and assume nothing will change anyway. I almost never found that any of the helpful policies of the Biden administration — negotiating prescription prices, getting Gateway underway, the Inflation Reduction Act (admittedly one has to READ it and see the future!), the Child Tax Credit — left an impression because so many people were unaware that those laws had been passed. Nick Hugin is speaking to people who want to hear what he has to say, or to people with deaf ears. I believe one of the Founding Fathers said it correctly: democracy depends on an educated population. Do we have one? Hugin will stay around, it’s up to people who disagree with him to make a better case for what we really need.
I guess the New Jersey electorate, which comprises a majority of Democrats doesn’t seem to get it. Taxes, Taxes, Taxes!!!! That’s the main problem with NJ and the Democrats. Democrats have nothing, so they will go out and attack Republicans and Conservatives with ad hominem personal attacks that are nothing more than projecting what Democrats are doing. Ilhan Omar, AOC, Ayana Pressley, Rashida Tlaib are howling anti-semites, but they get a pass for publicly wanting Israel and Jews destroyed. The leftist-Democrat, and I daresay Communist, commenters here, show their vitriol against all things Republican and Conservative, but continue to have serious mental problems with brainlock when it comes to their own anti-semitic party.