One of the elusive, reality-distorting qualities of Donald Trump’s campaign is the resurgence of anti-Semitism around the margins of major-party politics. It is difficult to tell just how deliberate the association, or how widespread. Trump retweets neo-Nazi memes, his election inspires a celebratory wave of anti-Jewish vandalism in Philadelphia, and a tiny number of anti-Semites manage to command disproportionate attention with social-media harassment. Is it a case of inadvertent dog whistles picked up by some marginal kooks, or something real?
Senator Jeff Sessions is making his best case for the latter. The Alabama senator was once denied a federal judgeship for his fanatical opposition to African-American voting and later became Trump’s most fervent champion in the Senate. Trump singled him out for praise in his victory speech Wednesday morning. Sessions, meanwhile, has been wallowing in a public vendetta against globalist financiers. Yesterday, Sessions told Laura Ingraham that George Soros ought to be the focus of right-wing propaganda attacks:
Of course, there are any number of wealthy people who spent money opposing Trump, not to mention plenty who have spent money on his behalf. Why is Soros, in particular, the perfect face? Is it because he’s a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who is a fixation for alt-right anti-Semites? Or just that he’s a global-intellectual elite-type in general? So hard to say.
At Trump’s victory speech, Sessions told our Gabriel Sherman that hostility toward Trump was limited to “the mainstream media, big business, and among George Soros and his globalist crowd — those people are getting hammered.” Somehow, Soros is the center of a shadowy nexus of globalists and media elites. Also, he’s an “intellect.” You know the type. Anyway, Sessions is making it perfectly clear that the anti-Semites’ love of Trump is not unrequited or coincidental.
