Trump Is Gaslighting the Hell Out of Jews

Just hours after glowingly referring to himself as the “King of Israel” and the “second coming of God,” President Donald Trump doubled down on—and ramped up—his blatant anti-Semitism, making clear to the White House press corps that he thinks Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats are being disloyal to Israel.

When a reporter asked him directly if those remarks are anti-Semitic, the president replied, “It’s only anti-Semitic in your head.”

Trump’s affirmation of the centuries old anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty came amid a barrage of equally unhinged proclamations before the president boarded Marine One en route to Kentucky for a speech to a veterans organization on Tuesday.

“I am the chosen one,” the president exclaimed at one point, when asked about his administration’s ongoing negotiations with China, turning his face toward the sky.

Trump also criticized Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for calling his insane idea to buy Greenland “absurd.”

“I thought it was a very not nice way of saying I can’t buy Greenland,” Trump whined. “They could have just told me no.”

But (deep sigh) back to the anti-Semitism for a moment. By clarifying his earlier remarks that Jewish Democrats are not simply disloyal—to whom, he hadn’t previously said—but in fact disloyal to Israel, Trump has not only affirmed the pernicious idea of Jewish dual loyalty, but has elevated it to the point of claiming that his idea of a bad Jew is one who doesn’t have enough dual loyalty. In doing so, Trump has essentially given the green light to his followers to divide Jewish Americans into two categories: a minority who are “loyal” (both to him and to a foreign power where he believes their true loyalties lie), and the rest—the vast, vast majority of American Jews, in fact—who are traitors to his deranged concept of what Judaism actually is and therefore deserving of his brand of anti-Semitism.

This is, it should go without saying, not only deeply bigoted, but profoundly dangerous for the bulk of American Jews, some of whom pathetically attempted to explain away Trump’s previous remarks yesterday by claiming he was only speaking about communal and religious cohesion. Well, joke’s on you, dummies!

Let me be extremely clear here: President Donald Trump is an anti-Semite who is incapable of seeing Jewish Americans as actual Americans. He is weaponizing his anti-Semitism for personal political gains, and seemingly has no concerns about what that might lead to. And as bad as that all is, it’s hard to see things getting better anytime soon. So buckle up, folks. It’s gonna be a bumpy, racist ride.