Chris Walker
Truthout / September 23, 2024
“Trump’s rhetoric … invokes the classic antisemitic trope of disloyalty,” one critic said.
During a campaign event on Thursday in Washington D.C., former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee for 2024, said he would partially blame Jewish voters if he loses the election to Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
“[I]f I don’t win this election…[then] the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” Trump said in his speech, which took place at an event supposedly denouncing antisemitism.
Underlying Trump’s complaints was the implication that Jewish Americans owe him votes for his support of the state of Israel — drawing upon the centuries-old white supremacist conspiracy theory of “dual loyalty,” which suggests that Jewish people are inherently disloyal to their countries. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the charge has been that Jewish people are more loyal to Israel than to their countries of residence, a refrain echoed by Trump many times before last week.
Trump’s supposed support for Jewish people extends solely to far right politicians who support him, many critics have noted. During his presidential tenure, Trump gave full backing to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his violent expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and his brutal campaign against the Palestinian March of Return. Trump has also expressed support for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians so far.
“With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24 percent of the Jewish vote,” Trump whined, referring to the results of the 2020 election. “I really haven’t been treated very well, but it’s the story of my life.”
“You should have your head examined,” Trump went on, directing his words toward Jewish people who are planning to vote for Harris.
Trump then claimed he was “protecting” Jewish people in the U.S., asserting that Democratic politicians “are the people that are going to destroy you.” (Notably, when neo-Nazis marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Jews will not replace us” during Trump’s tenure, his response was to claim there were “very fine people on both sides” of the rally.)
Trump also promised a renewal of his infamous Muslim ban, saying he would not accept Palestinian refugees into the U.S. if he became president again. In his statements, Trump parroted racist talking points regarding potential refugees from Palestine, saying they would come from “terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip.” In the past, he has described immigrants in fascist terms, describing them as “vermins,” saying they are “not human,” and accusing them of “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Some Republicans have defended Trump’s antisemitic comments. In an appearance on CNN over the weekend, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), an ardent Trump loyalist, bizarrely suggested the comments weren’t an issue because Trump has engaged in such rhetoric before.
“Donald Trump has been saying things like this for at least 11 months,” Cotton told CNN host Jake Tapper, who is Jewish.
“Are you comfortable on [Trump] blaming [a potential election loss] on the Jews pre-emptively? … This is the first time he’s ever said, ‘if I lose, it will be the fault of Jews.’ … Just yes or no, are you comfortable with him using that language?” Tapper asked the senator.
Cotton reiterated his point, saying, “It’s the same kind of language he’s been using for months.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s okay,” Tapper retorted.
Others condemned Trump’s statements on social media.
“History has shown us that when leaders start blaming ‘the Jewish people’ — like Donald Trump did [on Thursday night] — it doesn’t end well,” the account for the Jewish Democratic Council of America wrote on X. “Donald Trump scapegoating all American Jews for a potential election loss is incredibly dangerous. This kind of antisemitic targeting has led to violence before.”
Directing his comments toward Trump himself, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said:
President Trump, your words pre-emptively blaming Jews for your potential election loss is of a piece with millennia of antisemitic lies about Jewish power. It puts a target on American Jews. And it makes you an ally not to our vulnerable community but to those who wish us harm.
Former Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-New York) also criticized the former president. “Donald Trump’s latest antisemitic rhetoric puts Jewish people in danger,” Jones said.
“Trump’s rhetoric at an event called ‘fighting antisemitism’ invokes the classic antisemitic trope of disloyalty,” said the X account for T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. “His hateful words are not just wrong; they’re dangerous. Anyone who cares about stopping antisemitism must call this out.”
Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, and is based out of Madison, Wisconsin
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In anti-semitic trope, Trump says Jews will be to blame if he loses, calls them ‘brutal killers’
Scott Prosterman
Informed Comment / September 24, 2024
Let’s get this straight: Donald Trump is not “good for the Jews,” nor “good for Israel.” Republicans have done a great PR job in conning many wealthy Jews into believing that Trump’s presidency was what it was not: good for the Jews and Israel. Any Republican perceived strength is founded upon and built on myth. With their sinking popularity earned by unrestrained racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia, the Republican agenda is to implement full-bore Fascism under a new Trump presidency, wrapping their myth of the great white saviour in deceit and hate, shrouding it in fictions. Let’s unwrap this one:
The driving force behind Trump’s alleged “love” for Israel is to strengthen his hold on the Evangelical community; not the Jewish one. That has driven what Republican there is for Israel since Christian Zionists took over the party beginning in the 1980s. Trump argues that Jews have an obligation to support him because he’s been Israel’s “best friend;” when in reality, he has abetted and enabled Israel’s political-economic suicide by granting PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s (Bibi) entire wish list. This includes appointing David Friedman as ambassador to Israel, whose understanding of Israel-Palestine history is limited to Temple Sunday School myths, which ignores and whitewashes the Palestinian Nakba (Holocaust). It includes Trump and Bibi’s evil political alliance, all but positioning them as running mates on the same ticket.
Trump earned his popularity among wealthy, Republican Jews by pandering. Except when he said, “You have to support me because you’re all brutal killers.” But they forgave that because they believe his con about “loving Israel,” and also buy the myth that he’s been good for the investment economy. There can be destructive ignorance among intelligent people, as not all bright and successful people are deep thinkers.
Many progressive Jews have abandoned support of Israel over the genocide in Gaza and fascist elements of Bibi’s government. The alliance between Bibi and Trump is as destructive as the alliance between Elon Musk and Trump. It’s become a Fascist Axis among very wealthy entrepreneurs and deeply corrupt politicians, more interested in their wealth and political survival, rather than the health, wealth and security of the countries and corporations they govern. Or in Trump’s case, want to govern again from a purely statist, Fascist standpoint.
Trump is already forecasting his upcoming electoral defeat, and pro-actively placing blame on outside agents, including Jews who don’t vote for him and even Taylor Swift. While he whines about “all he has done for Israel,” the reality is that his policies have severely weakened Israel by granting impunity to its most self-destructive elements, and thus helped turn it into a global pariah by pledging support for the genocide in Gaza, and promising to grant Bibi his wish list of being free to terrorize and murder innocent Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It was Trump who initiating the move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in violation of International Law. Jerusalem is just as much a Muslim and Orthodox Christian city as it is a Jewish one. (There, I said it!)
The alliance of Trump and Musk has dragged American political discourse to an all-time low. Trump has brought the Republican Party to an unprecedented low of dysfunction, abetted by Musk buying Twitter/X. As Trump has marginalized the Republican Party into a clownish state of lurid sensationalism, Musk has turned Twitter/X into a platform for unfettered defamation, hate, racism and divisiveness. Musk is allied with Trump to better secure his wealth, and is investing $45M per month in his campaign.
Why is Musk so deeply invested in Trump’s return to the presidency? Because like Russia in Ukraine, Trump will let Musk “do whatever the hell he wants.” Trump will let Russia take over Ukraine and bully other European countries. He’ll let the Israeli Likud Party continue its reign of terror over Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; thereby placing more kindling and gasoline onto an already-explosive situation. And he’ll let the Supreme Court continue to undo many generations worth of protective and progressive judicial rulings.
Trump’s campaign strategy is to tell so many lies so fast and furiously, that it’s hard to keep up, and impossible to address and debunk each one in the time allowed for rebuttal? As Hannah Arendt wrote, “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer,” enabling totalitarianism. Part of Trump’s strategy is also to undermine the free press, and depict journalists as “the enemy of the people.” That’s the dynamic of gaslighting. Or is it an effort to befuddle and flummox the mases to the point that people don’t know what to believe and stop caring?
Scott Prostermanis a writer and communications consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area
