Hatreds are all related. The people who spew anti-Semitism are more often than not the same people who spout Islamophobic bigotry, just as the people who hate blacks and Latinos also hate LGBTQ folk. The lines do not always cross, of course, but they inevitably blur in the bizarre universe in which they are united: white nationalism.
Two key Democratic House members, Rep. Omar Ilhan of Minnesota and Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, this week helped make that point crystal clear with a joint op-ed piece on CNN urging Congress to take the threat of white nationalism seriously.
The goal of these terrorists, articulated in attack after attack, is as consistent as it is unhinged: to create a white ethnostate that excludes religious, ethnic, and racial minorities. White supremacists claim Islam is incompatible with Western society and seek to terrorize Muslim communities in order to strike fear in practitioners of the religion. Jews, who for centuries have faced discrimination, dehumanization, scapegoating and even genocide, are once again under threat today.
Addressing this hate should not be a partisan issue in the United States.
Yet thanks to Republicans, Fox News, and Donald Trump, that is precisely what it has become. Rather than confront the rise of white nationalism, conservatives are bending over to attack anyone who works to confront this hate, and they provide comfort and support to a wide range of white nationalist organizers and for their hateful ideas. It’s happening in the media, and it’s happening in Congress.
They also are playing a disingenuous divide-and-conquer game when it comes to dealing with this bigotry. Conservatives have worked hard to exploit longstanding divisions between Jews and Muslims, taking the side of the former (with more than dose of hypocrisy) as a way to attack the later.
Omar in particular has been subjected to this. After she accurately criticized White House adviser Stephen Miller as a white nationalist, she was targeted with a massive barrage of criticism led by Trump himself, who claimed she was “targeting Jews” in her remarks. Two weeks later, Trump attacked her again for making “anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements.”
In the wake of Trump’s attacks, Omar was the target of hundreds of death threats. This, however, did not slow down the groundless claims that she was anti-Semitic; on Fox News, it has remained a staple among the network’s talking points, amid suggestions that Omar, and not white nationalists, is responsible for anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues.
As Omar and Schakowsky put it in their op-ed, “We may not see eye to eye on all issues, but we must acknowledge that attacks on our faiths are two sides of the same bigoted coin.”
White nationalists win when our two communities are divided. They seek to exploit our divisions and grievances to further an agenda of hate. But we know that when are united, we are stronger. We know this because in our own communities, Jewish and Muslim constituents have joined hands in solidarity and denounced these hate-filled massacres.
Indeed, this is a White House intent on ignoring the serious threat underlying all this: the rise of white nationalism and the terrorist violence that accompanies it. Just this week Trump refused to send an emissary to participate in New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “Christchurch Call” summit in Paris against extremism. More than that, the administration not only adamantly denies that white nationalism is a threat, but it also actively undermines our ability to confront it.
As long as Republicans refuse to take the threat seriously, there’s no reason for Democrats to believe they will ever join in this fight. Omar and Schakowsky have demonstrated that not only is it possible for Democrats to join arms in this fight, but it is necessary.