Welcome back to #TrumpWatch, where Tablet presents the daily low-lights of Donald Trump’s attempt to use the dark forces of bigotry to become President of the United States. Today, let’s again turn our focus to Twitter, where Trump’s often anonymous supporters continue to use the social media platform to attack people who don’t support or speak out against the presumptive Republican presidential candidate and, in the process, air their nasty anti-Semitic viewpoints.
You know, like tweeting a picture of the entrance at Auschwitz with the words “Trump for President” on the pavement, or an image of a trail of one-dollar bills leading to an oven. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Twitter, are you listening?
Yep, that’s right, these are a few examples of the online abuse New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman received after tweeting the following:
“This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots & salutes but with a television huckster.” Robert Kagan https://t.co/9C8rBqyLbR
— Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) May 19, 2016
Later, he would tweet this:
Melania Trump says @juliaioffe provoked vile antisemitism. Klan all in & Adelson urges Jews to back @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/7wFJwVFOSt
— Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) May 19, 2016
Weisman’s tweets are pretty anodyne as far as tweets “against” Trump go. In one, he simply posted a link to a Washington Post op-ed about how fascism comes to America: via a “television huckster.” In the second, he was simply stating a set of facts that, taken together, kind of proves (perhaps inadvertently) the point of the Washington Post article by showing the ugly base upon which Trump is supported: Melania Trump did in fact say that Julia Ioffe “provoked” the anti-Semitic avalanche that forced her to file a police report; the KKK and David Duke, a prominent leader within its ranks, do support Trump; and Sheldon Adelson, whose casino money is on Trump, did in fact ask Republican Jewish leader to back his man.
(Interestingly enough, Duke’s website, which is littered with disgusting anti-Semitic articles and radio shows, simply posted a JTA news story about how Adelson had come out in support of Trump under its “Zio-Watch” tag, rather than, I dunno, calling Adelson a “Jewish supremacist” as is par for the course on that trash heap of a website.)
Weisman was quickly slammed by anti-Semitic users, and he began to interact with them to drive home a point, retweeting many responses for hours. Here’s one of a menorah with the number 6,000,000 on it. Here are a few more:
@jonathanweisman @RJC You guys can only scream anti-Semite, holocaust and Hitler so many times before people tune you out.
— Trump Putsch (@DreadCrash) May 19, 2016
@jonathanweisman @RJC @Rusted_Ovum pic.twitter.com/Xwj2BiWeJ8
— Spectre ✘ (@SpectreReturns) May 19, 2016
@pantsukampf @RebeccaShabad @jonathanweisman pic.twitter.com/LupMDWFQee
— Naughty Raspberry (@HelloRaspberry) May 19, 2016
Unfortunately, there are similarities between the anti-Semitic abuse flung at Weisman, and that flung at Julia Ioffe, and I bet there will be more. For more about Trump’s Twitter trolls, and what fuels them, read this, by Tablet’s Armin Rosen.
For those who sent kind thoughts, thank you. Antisemites, thank you for showing yourselves. No more retweets. My work is done for the day.
— Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) May 19, 2016
Related: Trump Watch [Tablet series]
Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.