Expert details antisemitism’s role in Trump’s assault on democracy: 'Perfect scapegoat

12 July 2024

Donald Trump has a complex relationship with Judaism. Although his once-Presbyterian daughter Ivanka Trump is a convert to Judaism and he welcomed Jared Kushner (who is Jewish) as his son-in-law, the former president has drawn criticism from Jewish groups for embracing far-right Holocaust deniers like white nationalist Nick Fuentes and North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

On February 8, 2021, the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) Los Angeles branch published an op-ed headlined "The Link Between Donald Trump and Antisemitism."

In an interview with Salon's Chauncey DeVega published on July 12, Sharon Nazarian — the ADL's former senior vice president of international affairs — detailed the role antisemitism plays in the global anti-democracy movement she considers Trump and the MAGA movement a part of.

Nazarian told DeVega, "We are in a moment of crisis for democratic institutions across the world. Trump, much like Italy's Georgia Meloni, Marine La Pen in France…. are all symptoms of the same problem: the systemic dissociation and feelings of dislocation that many people are feeling from democracy."

Nazarian warned that many countries, including the United States, are seeing "a battle between liberal and illiberal forces, democratic and anti-democratic governments." And she stressed that antisemitism and authoritarianism often go hand in hand.

"Antisemitism functions similarly to a virus," Nazarian told DeVega. "It's not always seen; its symptoms are not always felt, but can lay dormant in the body. When the immune system is weakened and the body is under stress, it flares up…. When the body politic is unstable, under stress or weakened, one of the very first symptoms of societal decline, upheaval or collapse tends to be a movement toward the 'conspiracy of the Jew'…. Jews serve as the perfect scapegoat precisely due to the millennia of hatred targeting them."

When DeVega noted the "very large increase in antisemitism in the Age of Trump," Nazarian responded that in 2023, the ADL reported a 140 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in the U.S.

Nazarian told DeVega, "We have seen this movie before…. Those of us fighting to combat antisemitism are very careful with Holocaust comparisons; in fact, usually we criticize such comparisons. However, we are at a point right now where there is no way to close our eyes to the same patterns and societal forces at play and the impact on Jewish communities worldwide which is one of fear and disillusion."

Chauncey DeVega's full Salon interview with Sharon Nazarian is available at this link.

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