....Jews...

The latest group Trump insults…

The list of American constituencies that Donald Trump has alienated
during his presidential candidate isn’t short. At various points over
the last year or so, the Republican candidate and his operation have
alienated women, Latinos, African Americans, Muslims, veterans, people
with disabilities, and Native Americans, among others.

But let’s not leave out Jewish voters.

In December, Trump spoke at a Republican Jewish Coalition forum, where
he told attendees, “I’m a negotiator, like you folks. Is there anybody
that doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room?� The GOP candidate added at
the time, “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.�

Over the holiday weekend, however, Trump made matters vastly worse.

An image of Hillary Clinton that was widely criticized as
anti-Semitic after it was tweeted by Donald Trump, the Republican
Party’s presumptive nominee for president, appears to have originated
two weeks ago on a Twitter account devoted to bigoted memes.

Trump tweeted the graphic on Saturday attacking Clinton in an image
that included what appears to be a Jewish Star of David layered over
$100 bills. The tweet calls Clinton “the most corrupt candidate ever.�
Painting Jews as corrupt money-grubbers out to secretly control the
government has been a well-worn anti-Semitic trope since long before
World War II.

Trump deleted his Twitter message on Saturday, and did not comment on
the controversy he created until yesterday – two days after publishing
the initial message – when he complained about the “dishonest media.�
Trump added that his critics have tried to “depict a star in a tweet as
the Star of David rather than a Sheriff’s Star, or plain star!� (Last
night, Dan Scavino Jr., the campaign’s director of social media, said he
was responsible for lifting the image without attribution.)

It’s difficult to take such a response seriously. We know, for example,
that the star of a sheriff’s badge has globes on the points, and the
image Trump tweeted did not. We also know if Trump’s tweet was a
harmless symbol connected to law enforcement, he wouldn’t have been so
quick to delete it on Saturday morning.

But perhaps most important is the fact that the image Trump published
had been circulated and promoted by white supremacists. The Washington
Post noted the pattern: “For at least the fifth time, Trump’s Twitter
account had shared a meme from the racist ‘alt-right’ and offered no
explanation why.�

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