The Republican Party was forced to shut down the chat room on their YouTube stream of the RNC yesterday after a flood of anti-Semitic comments overwhelmed the conversation. Unfortunately, this somehow comes as no surprise given that many Trump supporters are neo-Nazis, inspired by the words by doctors like David Duke. And when bigotry is combined with the Internet…
The idiocy occurred when Linda Lingle, the former governor of Hawaii—and the first woman and the first Jew to serve in that position—was touting the progress that the Republican Party had made with Jewish voters in the last few election cycles (dubious, it appears, but whatever), extolling GOP positions on Israel, and connecting BDS with anti-Semitism. As soon as Lingle began on those themes, well… it’s the Internet, so anti-Semitism had to get a quick, faceless word in.
Here’s a sampling of the these unnamed Internet idiots typed with their powerful fingers, as reported by Raw Story:
“OY VEY GOY”
“((( KIKE )))”
“FUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK THE KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKKKEEEESSSSSS”
“THE GOYIM KNOW”
And, of course,
“MAKE AMERICA JEWISH AGAIN”
When asked about the incident, Paul Manafort, a senior Trump adviser, told JTA that he did not “know anything about that.”
Sometimes, Republicans make it easy. You don’t have to plumb the depths to find the humor at the RNC. Besides the incredulity of the Never Trump crowd over their continued losses, there was Lou Holtz carrying around a bottle of Crown Royal, soap actor Antonio Sabato, Jr. saying that Obama was “absolutely” a Muslim, Rudy Giuliani’s version of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and Melania Trump appearing to plagiarize Michelle Obama. And yet, none of those can even touch yesterday’s Anti-Semitic Blunder of the Day™.
That Linda Lingle speech about how American Jews should vote for American Nazis’ favorite presidential candidate was kinda surreal.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 18, 2016
Previous: WATCH: Anti-Trump Republican Delegates Erupt on the Convention Floor
Related: Trump Watch [Tablet series]
Jesse Bernstein is a former Intern at Tablet.
