A new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) confirms that antisemitic vandalism, harassment, and violence once again rose substantially in 2022. There were 3,697 recorded incidents—the highest number measured since ADL began its tracking in 1979. It's also a 36% uptick from the 2021 numbers, which itself was a spike from 2020 numbers.
The numbers tell the story, and it's not a hard one to interpret. Antisemitic incidents began rising as Donald Trump mounted his Republican bid for the White House. From 942 incidents in 2015, each year of the Trump presidency saw nearly or over 2,000 of them. The number escalated to 2,717 in 2021 following the Jan. 6 coup attempt, soaring to 3,697 such incidents last year.
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As for why antisemitic Americans are feeling increasingly emboldened to act out on their conspiratorial beliefs, you can almost certainly blame the campaign of white nationalist and neo-Nazi conspiracy beliefs that have been adopted as daily talking points by Trump-allied Republicans and their pundit ranks. Republican lawmakers adopted conspiracies about powerful "globalists" directly from neo-Nazi propagandists who themselves adopted the term as online euphemism for "the Jews;" the word continues, in Republican hands, to be a reference to a supposedly secret cabal of powerful elites who are said to control world events ranging from immigration patterns to pandemic strategies to war.
White nationalists and open neo-Nazis have long targeted one Jewish American in particular as the supposed ringleader of this world domination: pro-democracy philanthropist George Soros. That rhetoric, too, has moved from the neo-Nazi fringe to "mainstream" Republican rhetoric. It is the stuff of Fox News. It is the explanation Donald Trump himself gives when faced with possible consequences for his own actions.
In a Thursday attack on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is Black, Trump again attacked Bragg as a supposed tool of Soros, by name. "BRAGG REFUSES TO STOP DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL," Trump wrote. "THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE."
Trump has repeatedly invoked Soros as he attempts to rally violent white nationalist militias to his defense ahead of a possible criminal indictment, but he's not alone. Republicans have adopted a once-fringe conspiracy pushed by neo-Nazis into a party talking point.
It. Is. Everywhere.
Republican Party candidates have even been turning those antisemitic conspiracy theories into campaign ads:
A Republican Party that adopts neo-Nazi conspiracies as central tropes of their own claims will, almost by definition, validate those conspiracies in the eyes of far-right Americans who share them. It's not a bit surprising that those "MAGA" Americans have been adding their own hate speech, antisemitic vandalism, and violent attacks.
It's not just speech. Donald Trump and his administration embraced a host of white nationalist beliefs—and white nationalist administration members. From the Trump administration's "Muslim ban" to an aggressive, paranoid campaign against immigrants and refugees, to Republican suggestions that the COVID-19 pandemic was a malicious act by China against "the west," "MAGA" Republicanism embraces white nationalist rhetoric to achieve white nationalist goals.
And history has shown that whenever racism escalates or is given broader cultural "permissions," antisemitism increases hand-in-hand. When Tucker Carlson invites white nationalist figures on the Fox News airwaves or he spends segments promoting the neo-Nazi "great replacement" theory that claims "elites" or "globalists" are intentionally sending refugees to the United States in order to dilute white "culture," that is not a mere hat tip to white supremacist paranoia. That is the intentional promotion of white supremacist paranoia.
It has consequences, and we're seeing them. Incidents of antisemitic violence and hate speech are soaring in America, and it's because the Republican Party, Fox News, and individual Republican elected officials have adopted antisemitic conspiracy theories as core elements of their new fascist movement. There's no question who's to blame here.
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