A man incapable of taking responsibility for anything is again seeking the position of greatest responsibility on Earth. And, as usual, he’s blaming everyone but himself in advance if he loses the election. “The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” former President Donald Trump said at an event that was supposed to focus on fighting antisemitism, complaining that polls show Jewish voters prefer Vice President Kamala Harris. He repeated the complaint at a second event the same day.
As I have explained on my fact-checking podcast, “They Stand Corrected,” Jewish people make up approximately 2% of the U.S. population (about 1% in Georgia) and 0.2% of the world. We won’t have “a lot to do” with any electoral outcome.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Some Trump supporters insisted that “in context” he was arguing that Jews should support him because of his support for Israel. As usual, these Trump fans ignore the extreme dangers of his movement. Anytime Trump blames a group for his failure to secure power, new threats follow.
Take election workers. “The people who administer U.S. elections — from poll workers and ballot counters to county clerks and secretaries of state — have endured a year of terroristic threats from supporters of former President Donald Trump, inspired by his false assertions of widespread fraud in the 2020 vote,” Reuters reported in 2022.
Some took place in Georgia. Election worker Ruby Freeman had to flee her home, and her business was flooded with threatening messages, some mentioning lynching. The family of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger received death threats as well. As the AJC reported, his office called on Trump to “stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.” The threats didn’t stop. Now, polling sites across the country are taking on new measures like panic buttons and bulletproof glass.
Trump blamed Congress for daring to certify the election, whipping up rabid followers into such a frenzy that many attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Some called for hanging then-Vice President Mike Pence, who later said Trump’s “reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.” Threats against public officials continued to surge.
Trump also routinely blames and demonizes the media. After celebrating physical attacks on reporters during his presidency, he has repeatedly praised Jan. 6 rioters, some of whom engaged in violence against journalists. He has accused some news agencies of “treason,” a crime punishable by death. A column published by the Knight First Amendment Institute this year said violence and threats against the press “are facilitated by the rhetoric of people like the former president, who regularly decries the ‘fake news,’ calls journalists ‘enemies of the people’ and says the media should ‘pay a big price.’”
This is context. When Trump says “the Jewish people” would hold “a lot” of blame for his loss, it can rightly be seen as a signal to violent pro-Trump mobs. The nonpartisan American Jewish Committee wrote, “Setting up anyone to say ‘we lost because of the Jews’ is outrageous and dangerous. Thousands of years of history have shown that scapegoating Jews can lead to antisemitic hate and violence.”
When I discuss the story of the Jewish people, I explain that we are a tiny group known by different names (Hebrews, Israelites, the People of Zion or Judea, and more). We do not believe in proselytizing or trying to threaten or scare anyone into being like us. So we remain a minority. Humans scapegoat minorities. The survival of the Jewish people shows that a minority can keep existing despite all that, including in our tiny homeland.
Threats against Jews have been skyrocketing, particularly since the Oct. 7 terrorist massacre by Hamas in Israel, and as Israel’s military has fought to ensure it won’t happen again. These threats come from both sides of the U.S. political spectrum and are driven by the kinds of antisemitic myths that I bust on my show.
Far left mobs that support Islamist terrorist groups are responsible for much of the danger and must be condemned by all Democrats. Threats from the far right are every bit as dangerous. It was a far-right terrorist who slaughtered 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
Trump, for the record, has no qualms about cavorting with antisemites — as long as they support him. He embraces white supremacist antisemites like Nick Fuentes, or Kanye West, who threatened to go “death con” on Jewish people. Trump’s campaign is doing events with Tucker Carlson, who lavishes praise on a Holocaust denier. Trump’s golf club has hosted events with a virulent Nazi sympathizer.
Harris, by contrast, has condemned antisemitism among protesters and repeatedly expressed support for Israel to defend itself. In fact, a group described as “pro-Palestinian” refuses to endorse her. Of course, she can and should do more to reject antisemites in the party.
Anyone seeking national office should fight to end all forms of antisemitism — and never do anything to make it worse.
Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, a podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.
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