Marco Rubio’s tweet from today:
Anyone who knows anything about the ugly tangled web of right-wing conspiracy, racism, and MAGA knows threads of anti-Semitism are everywhere. Certainly a sitting US Senator knows this. Certainly Rubio, with the second poll in a week showing him literally tied with ultra talented Val Demings, knows this. He also knows his base: prone to conspiracies, violent rhetoric, and racist and anti-semitic thinking. He knows that in far-right circles Soros is the Jewish boogeyman. So he knows his base automatically translates the above tweet to “Jews are causing national violent crime wave.”
This in the immediate wake of Senator Rube’s reactionary attack on the Jewish federal judge that approved the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. In a Fox News interview designed to whip up conspiratorial rage amongst the base Marco Rubio said “They found some Obama donor judge, not even a judge, a magistrate, to give them the search warrant.” Again, Senator Rubio knows how his base will respond to such an attack. From a Politico article:
The Florida federal magistrate judge who approved the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach County residence has faced an onslaught of antisemitic attacks and threats online, some of which targeted the synagogue he belongs to.
Aryeh Tuchman, a senior associate director for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism, said his organization is “monitoring the increased level of threat language generally, and also towards the specific judge.”
“I think it’s fair to say certainly where the judge is concerned, reports of vitriol directed at him and the synagogue have increased,” he said.
Tuchman said that the synagogue [the judge] belongs to has additional security in place and had to cancel an outdoor service due to concerns of violence.
Unstable right-wing people do look to their leaders for signals. Rubio knows this. He knows he is fueling something as evil and extremely dangerous and anti-Semitic rage. But he also knows this type of thinking is key to turnout of the MAGA base. So Rubio is rolling the dice, synagogue members in his own state be damned.
I think the Senate should consider censure of Rubio, who without knowing anything about the evidence in the case that the judge based his decision on, publicly attacked a federal judge and endangered his life.
I think the people of Florida will see beyond the usual weak Republican playbook: blow the anti-semitic dog whistle loudly and repeatedly to fire up the base, then have some photo op with some Republican Jewish group and say “Israel” a bunch of times.
Rubio. Rube. Fraud.
Val Demings for US Senate.
