I had a conservative friend who registered ample disdain for Donald Trump throughout the 2016 campaign - only to suddenly reverse course a couple of days before the election because a lot of Dems and never-Trumpers saw pretty clear hints of anti-Semitism in Trump's "closing ad" that year.
My friend thought - or said he thought - such critiques were terrible, evidence that the left would do *anything* to bring down a Republican, even false race-baiting charges of anti-Semitism.
This is how dog-whistles work: They're plausibly deniable.
If you see anti-Semitism in the fact that Donald Trump and a lot of Republicans talk about George Soros endlessly, well, you're the one with the problem - either over-sensitive or (once again) a race baiter trying to stir up trouble over something innocuous.
But Trump is not the type to let "plausibly deniable" remain plausible. And so:
Former President Trump dined and conversed with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: Trump's direct engagement with a man labeled a "white supremacist" by the Justice Department, one week after declaring his 2024 candidacy, is likely to draw renewed outrage over the former president's embrace of extremists.
You probably know who Ye is. Who is Nick Fuentes?
Fuentes has made a number of racist and antisemitic comments under the guise of being provocative and ironic. For example, he has referred to Daily Wire columnist Matt Walsh as “shabbos goy race traitor” because he works for Jews (Ben Shapiro, a Jewish conservative, runs the Daily Wire). On a livestream episode, Fuentes “jokingly” denied the Holocaust and compared Jews burnt in concentration camps to cookies in an oven.
There's more, but you get the idea.
While it makes me angry, I do get why some people still support Donald Trump. Maybe they're pro-life, or maybe they see it as a way of punishing the pointy-headed elites that have made their lives miserable. And yeah: More than a few of Trump's supporters are racist or boorish or just plain mean.
It's the former group I hope hears this message: I don't need you to vote for Democrats if you find them so alienating. I don't agree with them all the time, either.
But at some point, you're either with the anti-Semites or you're against them.
This isn't just a style choice. We know what anti-Semitism does. The worst of it still remains at the edges of our living memory. Hatred lays the foundation for terrible violence. Don't be an accomplice to that, I beg you.
UPDATE:
As Maggie Haberman points out, that’s not exactly a repudiation of anti-Semitic views held by Fuentes. And given Ye’s recent expressions of anti-Semitism, it’s basically a statement that Trump only meant to hobnob with one Jew hater, not two. Not really a great excuse.