In Las Vegas on Saturday, Donald Trump spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition, organized by mega-donor Sheldon Adelson (who was seen at the event in his TRUMP yarmulke--I wish I was kidding), and essentially dabbled in the same anti-Semitic tropes that he and his party had condemned in Rep. Ilhan Omar.
In Trump's Adderall-addled mind, Jews and Israelis are one and the same. So in his rambling speech, he assured these conservative Jews that he had stood with "your prime minister" in discussions of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The embattled Netanyahu is simultaneously facing criminal charges and re-election. Election Day is April 9.
It was not the only time that Trump made this same conflation, which makes it seem less an inadvertent slip of the tongue and more a mindset of The Other.
It also happened at a point when Trump was railing against Democrats, who he accused of pushing “by far the most extreme, anti-Semitic agenda in history.” He then went on to warn that if Democrats were to be successful their “radical agenda could very well leave Israel out there all by yourselves.”
Trump then invoked Rep. Ilhan Omar, his intuitive sense of bigotry zeroing in on the perfect scapegoat for the audience.
Given the death threat Rep. Omar received this week, this is a dangerous game that Trump is playing.
But speaking for the 75+ percent of Jewish Americans who did not vote for Trump, he was greeted before and after his "pro-Israel rally" by progressive Jewish groups rejecting the white nationalism of Trump.
