Donald Trump’s habit of cozying up to white supremacists on Twitter drew occasional notice during the primaries, but it really hit the headlines over the Fourth of July weekend. Saturday, Trump tweeted an image labeling Hillary Clinton the “most corrupt candidate ever”—but it was fact that those words were in a Star of David superimposed on a pile of money that drew the attention.
The Trump campaign changed the Star of David to a circle, while insisting that in any case it wasn’t a Star of David, it was a “sheriff’s star” or “plain star.” Too bad for the Trump campaign that it didn’t take long for the media to report that the image didn’t originate with the Trump campaign and had previously been shared on white supremacist sites. Hmm … which are white supremacists more interested in putting next to Hillary Clinton—a sheriff’s star or a Star of David? Quite a mystery!
But it gets better. Trump’s social media director released a statement saying he’d gotten the image from an anti-Hillary Twitter user. So it’s instructive to see what kind of anti-Hillary user the Trump campaign is sourcing its dank memes from.
Yeah. So. There’s that. But forget about it, because, according to Trump surrogate Boris Epshteyn, “why did Donald Trump tweet an anti-Semitic image” is the wrong question.
“Let’s talk about real issues, such as ‘Who is better for the actual Jews?'”
Call me crazy, but I’m going to go with “the candidate whose campaign doesn’t tweet out anti-Semitic imagery as part of a broader appeal to white supremacists.”