Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, during the Israeli American Council National Summit in Washington, on Sept. 19.KENT NISHIMURA/The New York Times News Service
Donald Trump had it half-right when he said that Jewish voters will bear “a lot” of blame if he loses the presidential election in November. Speaking at the Israeli-American Council National Summit in Washington last week, Mr. Trump said, “If I don’t win this election – and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens because if 40 per cent, I mean, 60 per cent of the people are voting for the enemy, Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years.”
But his prophecy told only half of the story, because Jewish voters will also bear “a lot” of the blame if Mr. Trump does win the election in November. Such is the nature of being a chameleon scapegoat, an enemy of both the extreme right and extreme left. Certain groups will blame Jews if Mr. Trump wins, and others will blame them if he loses, especially now that Mr. Trump has helpfully told them where to direct their frustration.
Defenders of Mr. Trump’s enduring bigotry (he has, for example, frequently pushed the dual-loyalties trope by referring to Israel as “your country” when speaking to American Jews) like to point out that his son-in-law, daughter and grandchildren are Jewish, as if his personal proximity to Jews makes him any less of an ignoramus on how his words might propagate harmful stereotypes. But it only emphasizes the depths of his cluelessness; indeed, it’s almost impressive that someone who has Jews in his own family would pre-emptively blame Jewish people, who make up two per cent of the U.S. population, for an election loss, especially at a time antisemitism in America is the worst it has been in generations.
There’s no point in emphasizing just how dangerous Mr. Trump’s words are, and the very real threat it ignites for American Jews come November. We’ve already seen the effect that one baseless stereotype amplified by Mr. Trump – that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating family pets – has had on that city, which has endured dozens of bomb threats just in the last couple of weeks. And while it’s true that any normal candidate would’ve been absolutely pilloried for such expressions of bigotry, it’s also true that anyone who would’ve been persuaded to think twice about their support for Mr. Trump has already done so by 2024. Indeed, it’s become as mundane to point out that Mr. Trump is a perilously destructive force as it is to note that there’s some water in the ocean, and bananas are usually yellow. Yes, you will get wet swimming in the ocean. And?
What is worth pointing out about this specific illustration of Mr. Trump’s ignorance, however, is the sign it sends about the state of his campaign.
This was, to put it bluntly, loser talk. With six weeks still to go until election day, Mr. Trump is already identifying which group will be to blame for a potential loss. It’s not the type of message that someone confident in his electoral prospects would tell a group of ostensible supporters, and it’s not reflective of a campaign that knows how it will chart the next 40-some days. Mr. Trump’s strategy against President Joe Biden was straightforward: convince the voters that Mr. Biden was too old, too cognitively impaired to run the country. Mr. Biden made the case himself.
But Mr. Trump still hasn’t figured out how to campaign against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris: she has a dumb laugh, she’s a Marxist, she’s not Black, she’s unintelligent, she’s … uhh … uhh … It’ll be the Jews’ fault if I lose!
The campaign is still close, with Mr. Trump leading in some battleground states, but the Democrats have the momentum, and this is certainly not the runaway path to victory that Mr. Trump might have expected back when Mr. Biden was still on the ballot. And not even two attempts on his life have given him much of a boost. So the would-be president is spiralling: rattling on about postbirth abortion, immigrants eating cats, and Jews who can’t see what a gift he is to their country, Israel.
Mr. Trump was never a disciplined candidate, but he now appears to be one in the throes of a crisis. With his campaign seemingly stagnant, he’s resorted, quite sloppily, to a tried-and-true tactic – political antisemitism – which is even older than his former opponent (but unlike Mr. Biden, it exists and thrives on both ends of the political spectrum). Clearly, Mr. Trump doesn’t care about what it means for Jews in his country – but he might care about what it says about his campaign.