The hypocrisy behind the GOP’s war on antisemitism

At the May 8 hearing of the House Education and Workforce Subcommittee, Republicans accused the leaders of liberal school districts in New York City, Berkeley and Montgomery County, Md. of failing to discipline antisemitic administrators, teachers and students.

David Banks, New York City’s schools chancellor, pushed back at House members’ zeal for “gotcha moments.” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) added that if her Republican colleagues were really concerned about antisemitism, they would have condemned President Donald Trump’s assertion that there were “very fine people on both sides” when white supremacists shouted “Jews will not replace us” in 2017 in Charlottesville, Va. After asking whether any Republican member now had “the courage to stand up against that,” Bonamici paused, and then said, “Let the record show that no one spoke up.”

Bonamici is right. Republicans’ partisan weaponization of antisemitism has not diminished their toleration of anti-Jewish dog whistlers in their own ranks.

In November 2022, Trump, who once declared himself “the least antisemitic person you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” had dinner in Mar-a-Lago with Nazi-sympathizing rapper Kanye West (known as Ye) and Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier who has praised Hitler, called for a “holy war against Jews” and advocated putting “a crucifix in every home, in every room in every school, and every government office to signal Christ’s rule over our country.”

Although a few Republican officeholders denounced the former president, most remained silent or hemmed and hawed. “We all make mistakes,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “Whoever let him in the room should be fired,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) suggested. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) hoped Trump would condemn Fuentes, “Because I know he is not an anti-Semite.” Trump “certainly needs better judgment in who he dines with,” opined Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), “but I’m focused on investigating the current administration … about waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.”

When the GOP took control of the House in 2023, Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who had accused three Jewish billionaires, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, of trying to “buy” the 2018 midterm elections — removed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Affairs Committee because of her “antisemitic and un-American” comments. But no action was taken against antisemitic Republicans in the House or other prominent party members.

Here’s a list of just a few of them.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) scheduled a fund-raiser with Nick Fuentes and declared his “love” for Gab, a media platform popular with white nationalists, neo-Nazis and antisemites, and for “the communities that use it.” Members of Gosar’s family, including his brother, have denounced him.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) invited Holocaust-denier Charles Johnson to be his guest at the State of the Union address. Gaetz appears frequently on “Infowars,” whose host, the infamous Alex Jones, has said, “It’s not that Jews are bad, it’s just they are the head of the Jewish mafia in the United States. They run Uber, they run the health care, they are going to scare you, they’re going to hurt you.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested that a deadly wildfire in California may have been caused by a laser from space controlled by wealthy Jewish bankers. She shared a video quoting a Holocaust denier’s claim that “Zionist supremacists have schemed to promote immigration and miscegenation.” Greene attended the American First Political Action Conference in Orlando, organized by Fuentes, who questioned whether comparing Vladimir Putin to Hitler “was a bad thing.” She voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act because it “could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” a Scriptural reading that was repudiated by the Catholic Church and most Protestant dominations decades ago.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), an aggressive critic of educators who are allegedly soft on antisemitism, insisted in 2022 that a statement by Carl Palladino, a Republican candidate for Congress, that “Hitler is the kind of leader we need today. We need someone inspirational,” was taken out of context. Stefanik also declined to comment on Trump’s dinner with Fuentes and Ye.

Shortly after Ye tweeted “death con 3 on Jewish people,” Sen.-elect Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) tweeted “America needs a @kanyewest @KidRock tour.” Like the former president, who maintained he didn’t know anything about Nick Fuentes, and Charles Johnson, who insisted his Holocaust-denying post was meant to test Reddit’s free speech algorithm, Schmitt pled ignorance about Ye’s “recent [antisemitic] comments.”

Kari Lake, who is running for the Senate from Arizona, once said meeting a Nazi sympathizer named Greyson Arnold was “a pleasure” and advised her followers to join her on Gab.

Most important, Trump has trafficked in antisemitic tropes since he rode down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015. In 2016, his campaign ran an ad charging three Jews (Soros, Federal Reserve  Chair Janet Yellen, and Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs) with engineering policies that benefited their fellow globalists at the expense of American workers. He tweeted an image of Hillary Clinton with a pile of hundred-dollar bills and a Star of David across her face.

In 2018, Trump suggested that Soros bankrolled a migrant caravan from Central America. In 2023, Trump sent at least 790 emails to his supporters blaming Soros and other “global conspirators” for a multitude of misdeeds. And in what could be a textbook example of projection, Trump tweeted that President Biden “HATES the Jewish people.”

Far too many Republicans are playing a double game: enable or remain silent about their colleagues’ antisemitism, while condemning Democrats for failing to punish hate speech in public schools, colleges and universities. Republicans shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.