“Trump has found a way to put his finger on the Achilles heel of a Jewish community,” notes Sharon Nazarian
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a community roundtable at the 180 Church in Detroit, Michigan, on June 15, 2024. (JIM WATSON/AFP
In the West, historically and in the present, white supremacy, racism, and antisemitism (which are interrelated concepts) have been used to attack and undermine real democracy. Donald Trump and the other neofascists and fake right-wing populists and “conservatives” are experts at using these weapons.
These weapons are used to divide and conquer by creating unfounded fears and anxieties among white Americans that Black and brown people, Jewish people, Muslims or some other marginalized group is going to take away “their country”. From before the founding to the present, that strategy has enabled policies that actually hurt the majority of white people in America. In that way, the psychological wages of whiteness have been toxic on both sides of the color line. As President Lyndon Johnson famously observed in a conversation with journalist and great truth-teller Bill Moyers, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
The Age of Trump, is proof, again, of how that emotional training and conditioning has been so highly damaging to American society and politics.
Public opinion and other research show that a large percentage of (white) Republicans, are willing to end American democracy if it means that (white) people like them are not the most powerful and dominant group. Other research shows that racism is one of the most powerful determinants of party identification where those white Americans who are more likely to harbor anti-Black and anti-brown animus are much more likely to identify with the Republican Party. White Americans who identify as Democrats, by comparison, are less likely to have such animosity.
Racism, white supremacy, and antisemitism are also a key component in how neofascists and authoritarians use conspiracy theories (and disinformation and misinformation) to undermine reality and truth as part of their revolutionary campaign to end democracy. For example, a majority of Trump supporters and Republicans believe in the “great replacement theory” that Democrats and white liberal elites are “importing” Black and brown people to “replace” white Americans. This is a lie: White people are the dominant and most powerful and privileged group of people in the United States. They are in no way imperiled because of their “race.” Moreover, the great replacement theory is antisemitic and draws upon the framework of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the lie that there is a cabal of Jewish people who secretly control the world. The QAnon conspiracy theory, popular amongst a portion of the MAGA base, is also based upon the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Trump and his forces’ antisemitism and white supremacy also includes such blatant behavior as the repeated use of such tropes and themes in their communications (for example, the fixation on “globalists” and Democratic Party donor George Soros, who is a Holocaust survivor), embrace of right-wing hate and other extremist groups, and support for and enacting public policies that deny the historically unique crimes that the Jewish people have suffered such as the Holocaust. Donald Trump has repeatedly channeled Adolf Hitler and the Nazis with his threats to purify the blood of the nation by eliminating “the vermin” and other human pollution.
In an attempt to further sound the alarm about the role of antisemitism and white supremacy in the Age of Trump and the American and global antidemocracy crisis, and specifically how his authoritarian regime will further unleash such antidemocratic values and forces if Donald Trump were to take power in the 2025 Election, I recently spoke with Sharon Nazarian, a distinguished leader in the fight against antisemitism and hate worldwide. Nazarian previously served as the Senior Vice President of International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), where she directed global efforts to combat antisemitism and promote social justice and human rights. She continues to sit on the board of the ADL.
Nazarian’s extensive academic and philanthropic background includes a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California and the founding of the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at UCLA, which is dedicated to exploring Israeli history, culture, and society.
This is the second part of a two-part conversation.
The increase in antisemitism and white supremacy in the Age of Trump and the global democracy crisis is not coincidental. This is critically important and the mainstream news media and the country’s responsible political class have, for the most part, not emphasized this dynamic enough. When the first Trump administration omitted the specific suffering and crimes against the Jewish people in the Holocaust that was a reflection and warning of so many other horrible things to come in the Age of Trump. Of course, there was Charlottesville, mass shootings and other violence by white supremacists, and Jan. 6 where neo-Nazis and Kluxers and other white supremacists overran the Capitol. How were you making sense of these events in real time?
In my assessment, the US Jewish community was transformed from a safe and secure community upheld by Jews around the world as a paragon of successful integration and acculturation, to what I would describe as a vulnerable and insecure community today. That transformation took place over six years, with five watershed crises: Charlottesville, Tree of Life, Jan. 6 insurrection, May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict and 10/7.
With each of these crises came a step toward the normalization and weaponization of anti-Jewish hatred.
The QAnon conspiracy theory, which is embraced and amplified by Donald Trump and across the right-wing media echo chamber is also deeply antisemitic as well. It is part of a much larger conspiracist imagination that includes the so-called “great replacement theory”, which is also antisemitic given its origins in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the lie that Jewish people are part of a secret cabal that runs the world who are conspiring against “white people” by using black and brown people to do their bidding. For decades, these vile lies were largely fringe and marginalized in the United States. Now they are increasingly mainstream.
All of this is part of a much larger and much more dangerous politicization of American Jews and Judaism in general. The conspiracy theories you mention have also collided with far-right politicians across the planet aggressively trying to court Jews away from liberal and pro-democratic candidates. It’s a very strange environment we are currently living in, and one that remains more dangerous today for Jewish peoples across the West than at any point since World War II. At no point in modern history have so many conspiracy theories, so many contradictory disinformation streams and so many active manipulations of the state of Israel come together. It must also be said that when populist and anti-democratic politicians give Israel a bear hug based on their religious convictions, it is incumbent on those of us who know better, to reject such affiliation. We should always be cognizant that healthy democracies are the only political systems that afford minorities true protection and safety. And those who portend to support and advocate on Israel or Jewish people’s behalf who don’t embrace democratic values as the core of their beliefs threaten the very system that we now know affords us safety and security.
At times I feel like we are in a simulation run amok. Donald Trump is literally channeling Hitler with threats about racial purity, “vermin”, and poisoned blood. Trump admires Hitler and other tyrants. He and his propagandists also use explicitly Nazi rhetoric about the “lugenpresse” or “fake news” and how he is going to punish free speech and dissent. Concentration camps and mass deportations. Trump and his propagandists and other agents have repeatedly trafficked in antisemitism with their claims that there are “good Jews” and “bad Jews”, “loyal Jews” and “disloyal Jews”. This is old school antisemitism and white supremacy. Yet, there seems to be so much denial about the obvious. Why are we still litigating these matters?
We are still litigating these questions because the conspiracies around Jews and Judaism still have deep meaning and utility for those who want to bend democracies to their breaking point. I have to underscore what an important point you make though with regard to the “Good Jew” and “Bad Jew” sorting. This is a classic populist playbook built on polarization and fracturing targeted communities. Given that Jewish Americans have historically voted Democratic, Trump has found a way to put his finger on the Achilles heel of a Jewish community witnessing the denigration of the only Jewish and democratic state. Through his divisive and manipulative tactics, he is attempting to position himself as the savior of Israel at a time when progressive democrats have labeled Israel as the villain in the Israel-Hamas war. Rebranding Hamas as the face of post-colonialist resistance plays perfectly into the hands of Trump’s Christian pseudo-saviors pandering to Jewish fears and anxiety. That’s why Trump is able to divide and conquer using fear and intimidation of Jews and playing to evangelical and Christian End Times ideology. Balancing the pro-Israel and white supremacist camps is no easy feat, and explains the casual antisemitism meant to message his base that he’s still with them.
What are some of the main errors that the American mainstream news media continues to make in its coverage of antisemitism in the Age of Trump and the global democracy crisis?
I think the biggest mistake being made is not covering it. In my travels over the past few months, I’ve been struck by how little mainstream press is covering this topic. There seems to be a real fear, or real insecurity among press around how to cover antisemitism in a way that goes past just the facts of attacks and talks more broadly about clear patterns, the scale of the patterns taking place, the mix and complexity of the ideological underpinnings of current day antisemitism, their interaction with one another, such as we are witnessing what I call the horseshoe effect of extreme right and extreme left/Islamist narratives coming together, mimicking one another, borrowing memes and videos from one another. This is taking place in America of course, but it’s happening elsewhere too. In Germany, the President of the Technical University of Berlin was caught liking social media posts that contained swastikas and the press barely covered it. This is a country where the use of the symbol has been banned and is punishable, where the shadow of the Holocaust created attempts to legislate antisemitism out of their society and even there, they are having this issue. I hate to say it, but we’re losing.
As noted by many leading historians, given the obvious parallels between the rise of Nazism in Germany and the fall of that democracy and what is happening in the United States with an aspiring dictator and convicted felon Donald Trump and the neofascist MAGA movement and its forces, why is there so much reluctance among the mainstream news media and political class to make those connections and explain to the American people why we are facing an existential danger? What about learning from the errors and tragedies of the past so as not to repeat them in the present?
We must be extra careful with comparisons of any modern-day phenomenon to Nazi atrocities committed during WWII. That being said, looking for patterns of strategy and tactics used to dehumanize a targeted community the way the Nazis did can be instructive and an effective mechanism to raise the alarm bells. The better we understand the Nazi playbook, the better we can warn against similar strategies and tactics being used by those sowing hatred in our societies today.
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