Trump fueled a ‘tsunami’ of antisemitism, and anti-Jewish hate in America will increase if he wins again
Throughout my three-decades-long counterterrorism career, I’ve shied away from politics. But the two have become more intertwined than ever. Tropes once confined to skinhead clubs and white supremacist Internet forums now litter the rhetoric of pro-Donald Trump and MAGA feeds.
Antisemites and hate influencers are thriving on X, which is headed by one of Trump’s most prominent advocates, Elon Musk. Users on The Donald, another forum frequented by antisemitic ultranationalists — and the same one that played a major role in mobilizing ahead of the Jan. 6 attack against our democracy — are now mobilizing to become poll workers.
The truth is that no one deserves more blame for this tsunami of antisemitism than Donald Trump. It is reasonable to assume that if Trump is re-elected, anti-Jewish hate in America will increase.
I am an Israeli-American Jewish woman and, like many of my Jewish friends, I’m concerned about the safety of my family, friends, and community. But while antisemitism has reached new levels since Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, its trajectory began with Trump.
At the counterterrorism organization that I lead, the SITE Intelligence Group, we saw how America’s extremist landscape swelled during the 2016 election cycle. Racist, antisemitic, and conspiracist online communities found new influence over political discourse, and at times credited themselves for Trump’s victory.
As such rhetoric and threats surfaced, Trump consistently refused to disavow it — and antisemites rejoiced. “Glorious Leader Donald Trump Refuses to Denounce Stormer Troll Army,” read a headline by neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin in May 2016. It was posted to his website, The Daily Stormer, named after the Nazi Party’s Der Stürmer newspaper.
Anglin afterward told The Huffington Post that he interpreted Trump’s silence, “as an endorsement.”
Trump gave these communities unequivocal support when, in Feb. 2017, just two weeks into his presidency, he signed an order changing the US’ “Countering Violent Extremism” program to focus solely on Islamist extremism, removing white supremacists from its scope. It was essentially a green light for the far right, and white supremacists celebrated the act.
“Every move he made was ****ing AWESOME,” wrote a member of the Stormfront white nationalist forum.
Dangerous hate rhetoric quickly turned into action. On August 11, 2017, far-right antisemites converged at a rally in Charlottesville, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Oft-forgotten details of that day included men dressed in fatigues and carrying semi-automatic rifles standing across the street from a local synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, during their Shabbat prayers.
Here was an easy opportunity for Trump to assert moral clarity. Instead, he famously said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
Though Trump and his supporters continue to deny the intent of that statement, the fact is “fine people” were now more emboldened than ever.
For American Jews, the writing on the wall couldn’t be clearer.
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