In recent years, Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed a degree of disdain for Jewish voters in the United States. As the former president sees it, he took steps he considered pro-Israel, with the expectation that he’d receive an electoral reward, and when Jewish voters largely stuck with Democrats anyway, Trump deemed them ungrateful.
This attitude continues to produce ugly results. NBC News reported:
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday night shared a post on his Truth Social platform that accused “liberal Jews” of voting to “destroy” America and Israel. “Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed in false narratives!” said the post, which came on the weekend of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. “Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward!”
It’s worth clarifying that the online posting, which referred to Jewish voters as “sheep,” wasn’t written by Trump himself. Rather, it was content someone else created, which the Republican chose to promote.
To put it mildly, that was unwise.
If this were simply one unfortunate social media item, it might be easier to overlook, but it’s not. There’s a larger pattern here, and if there’s a defense for it, it eludes me.
During his 2016 campaign, for example, Trump spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition and said, “You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians.” He added, “I’m a negotiator — like you folks.”
Several months later, in the runup to Election Day, the Republican promoted antisemitic imagery through social media. In the closing days of the 2016 campaign, Trump again faced accusations of antisemitism, claiming Hillary Clinton met “in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.”
While in office, the then-president used some highly provocative rhetoric about Jews and what he expected about their “loyalties.” Soon after, Trump spoke at the Israeli American Council’s national summit, where he suggested Jewish people are primarily focused on wealth, which is why he expected them to support his re-election campaign.
There was also, of course, his ugly reaction to a racist event in Charlottesville in 2017, in response to torch-wielding bigots chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” After his defeat, Trump kept this going, whining that Jewish voters “don’t love Israel enough,” dining with prominent antisemites at Mar-a-Lago, and arguing that Jews need to “get their act together” and “appreciate” Israel “before it is too late.” Late last year, the former president declared that Jewish leaders “should be ashamed of themselves” over their “lack of loyalty.” Around the same time, he added to the list, using related rhetoric about Jews with a documentary filmmaker. Or put another way, Trump’s latest example of antisemitism was offensive, but it was not surprising. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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