The Washington Post: Trump blaming Jews crosses dangerous line

Trump is telling others that Jews will be held responsible if he loses the election.

This isn’t just insulting, it’s threatening and dangerous, according to an article by Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post.

Donald Trump has always had a strange—and frankly offensive—way of talking to and about Jews.

As much as he seeks to insulate himself from any hint of anti-Semitism by invoking his Jewish son-in-law, Jewish daughter (who converted to Judaism), and Jewish grandchildren, he often finds himself enjoying the support, even the company, of outspoken anti-Semites, and then finds it difficult to disavow them.

But when it comes to his comments about Jews, Trump has managed to outdo himself — at a campaign event that was billed as a denunciation of anti-Semitism in America, no less.

“I wouldn’t call this a prediction, but in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot of credit for losing if I polled at 40%,” Trump said Thursday, likely overestimating his support among Jewish voters.

This wasn’t a one-off event; Later that day, while attending the annual summit of the Conservative Israeli American Council, Trump raised the issue again.

“If I don’t win this election, the Jewish people will really get a lot of credit for it if I do, because at 40% that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy,” Trump warned.

This is part of Trump’s past and represents crossing a dangerous new line, at a time when anti-Semitism is exploding in the United States and the broader American Jewish community feels vulnerable and besieged.

In Trump’s past comments about Jews and the election, he has seethed with resentment that ungrateful Jewish voters have failed to reward Trump for all the wonderful things he claims he has done for them and for Israel.

However, his latest remarks go beyond the typical Trumpian anger and grievance.

They threaten, if he loses, and especially if he continues with this line of argument, to unleash the wrath of frustrated Trump supporters on Jews.

It doesn’t take much to imagine the backlash and violence that might ensue.

According to the writer, “We Jews know something about scapegoating, and Trump’s comments aren’t made in a vacuum”.

Trump has long made a habit of bringing up people’s Jewishness—sometimes accidentally—on occasions when it seems irrelevant at best.

“Who would have guessed that my top people were Jewish?”

Trump told aides Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller and Jason Miller on Air Force One, according to Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.

(In fact, Jason Miller, Trump told him, isn’t Jewish).

Last month, he called Josh Shapiro “the overrated Jewish governor of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”.

Trump speaks about Jews in stereotypical, offensive ways even as he claims they are flattering, “I’m here with my Jewish lawyers,” Trump told Haberman in 2016, when she called him to ask about the support he received from former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.

“Don’t you think it would be nice for me to have a Jewish agent?” Haberman quoted Trump asking an NBC executive while negotiating a new contract for “The Apprentice”.

Trump regularly speaks in ways that suggest that American Jews have dual loyalties to the United States and Israel.

Speaking to American Jews at a White House Hanukkah party in 2018, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, told Trump, “Love your country… They love this country”.

He called Benjamin Netanyahu “your prime minister” at a Republican Jewish Coalition event in 2019, and in a 2020 Rosh Hashanah phone call with American Jewish leaders, Trump said, “We really appreciate you; we love your country, too”.

Trump addresses Jews as “you,” which is wrong because we are Jewish Americans, not Israelis, and it’s very offensive to be suggested otherwise.

“I love Israel, but my country is the United States”.

It’s a mistake, however different Trump may think, to think of Jewish Americans as a single, single-issue electorate, and to view support for his candidacy as a business-like retaliation.

“Any Jew who votes for a Democrat hates their religion,” Trump said in March.

“They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed”.

Trump has been talking about self-hating Jews for months.

He has no right to lecture me or anyone else about what it takes to be a good Jew.

His new sinister turn is to teach others that Jews like me will be wrong if he loses.

This isn’t just insulting – it’s threatening and dangerous.

We’ve seen this move before, and it needs to be exposed because it won’t end well.