It’s an interesting time to be a Jewish conservative who is #NeverTrump on the internet, specifically on Twitter. And by interesting, of course, I mean horrible, awful and shocking. Your time is spent swatting at or, if you’re going the sane route, just muting and blocking, dregs of society who have big-nosed caricatures of Jews as their profile picture, talk about how Jews control everything and tell you to “go back” to Israel. They’re all Trump-fans and when people say he’s like Hitler, they’re happy to hear it.
The truth is, if there’s anyone loathe to compare an American presidential candidate to Hitler, it’s Republican Jews. After all, while liberal Jews joined in on 8 years of BushHitler mocking, Republican Jews had to be the ones pointing out that until he kills 10 million people for kicks and sets a continent ablaze, perhaps let’s save “he’s Hitler” for…Hitler.
But when comedian Louis CK posts a note to fans comparing Trump to 1930’s Hitler, it doesn’t sound all that crazy. “But the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the ’30s. Do you think they saw the s–t coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all.” In fact, there were 5 years between the time that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and Kristalnacht, 6 years before Germany invaded Poland, and 9 years before gassing of Jews began at Auschwitz. Hitler doesn’t become “Hitler” overnight. It’s a slow burn. It’s only 7 months, though, between the time Hitler takes power and all other political parties are outlawed in Germany. One of the more telling episodes of how fascist a Trump presidency might be is when he took away the media credentials from a Politico reporter who wrote something he didn’t like. And he’s not even president yet.
Jews who are critical of Trump on the internet, in particular Republican Jews, see this “fascism for beginners” take a familiar turn when Trump’s supporters come out to defend him.
They call themselves the “alt-right” though it’s unclear why white supremacists needed a new title. They’re alternative that’s true, but like the National Socialists before them, it’s not clear that they’re “right” at all. Their hero Trump speaks frequently of all the amazing things government will do for people if he’s elected including, but not limited to, ending the mass “dying in the streets” that Trump seems to think is happening in America.
Jamie Kirchick wrote about several “alt-right” conferences for National Review and one of his big takeaways is how much this movement disdains the Constitution and consider concepts such as “democracy and freedom” to be “buzzwords.” Not exactly conservatives, those alt-righters. There isn’t much there there either, beyond an idea that white people are put upon and need to take the examples of, uh, other minority groups such as Jews and gays in combatting their lower tier status and having their grievances heard. Seriously, this is what they believe.
The rise of Trump has been distressing to many people on many levels. It turned out that so many people were hungry for a message of strength, after years of “leading from behind” rhetoric, that they ignored that the message came with vague platitudes and limited workable proposals. For Jews it exposed a lingering suspicion that there exist a lot of people who simply don’t like and don’t accept us as Americans. For Republican Jews, who pride themselves on voting with the people who have unwavering support for Israel, it was especially sad to see these people consider themselves on our political side. When Donald Trump inevitably fades away, and he will with either a bang or a whimper, perhaps these people will retreat back into the shadows. But it will no longer be possible for Jews to ignore that they are there.