Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Democrats’ anti-Semitism problem

issue 16 March 2019

 Washington, DC

‘Nobody told me “no deal” would lead to this.’

Republican strategists have long complained about how, every election, the Democrats mobilise minority groups against them. Now they’re trying to turn the tables. Right-wing social media warriors, encouraged by @realDonaldTrump, have spent months talking about ‘Blexit’: a black voter exit from the Democratic party. This week, the President and others have begun calling for a ‘Jexodus’ — a Jewish exodus — too.

How Trump must delight in those clunky portmanteaus. He knows that, while black voters usually vote Democrat, they are not altogether anti-Trump. He also senses that Jewish voters, traditionally the most left–liberal people in America, are alarmed at a new Democrat tendency to bash Israel. Suddenly, left-wing anti-Semitism has become a talking point, much as it has in Britain. As with Jeremy Corbyn’s Jewish issue, it is hard to tell real prejudice, right-wing spin and hysteria apart.

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