Is there a connection between the America first movement and the rising tide of Jew-hatred in America? And will Christian nationalism lead to antisemitism?
Obviously, to answer these questions, we must define what we mean by “America first” and “Christian nationalism,” since for many adherents, these are extremely innocuous terms.
At best, and in the most non-threatening terms, “America first” simply means that while we don’t ignore the rest of the world, we put the needs of our country first. Nothing sinister. Nothing isolationist. Certainly nothing antisemitic.
As for “Christian nationalism,” it may have a broader range of potential meanings than “America first.” At best, and in the most non-threatening terms, it simply means that we love Jesus and we love our country.
Again, nothing sinister. Nothing isolationist.
Certainly nothing antisemitic.
Not only so, but many MAGA Republicans, who would identify as both “America first” and “Christian nationalists,” are extremely pro-Israel, primarily because of their evangelical Christian roots.
But are there other ways in which these concepts and movements can lead to antisemitism? More ominously, are they already contributing to the rise of antisemitism in America?
The answer to both questions is a definite yes.
This is because, in short, the Jewish people are the perennial scapegoats who are easily “othered” – viewed as outsiders or potentially dangerous or having other allegiances. And so, the more nationalism rises, especially when it has a non-Jewish foundation, the more Jews are viewed with suspicion, hostility, and even hatred. “We must get rid of these dangerous Jews!”
Recently, a far-right politician in Poland named Grzegorz Braun, speaking outside the Auschwitz concentration camp, of all places, stated that, “Poland is for the Poles,” and “Jews have their own state – Israel.” According to Braun,
“Jews want to be super-humans in Poland, entitled to a better status, and the Polish police dance to their tune. They take pleasure in trampling on us, the Poles.”
Yet there are only 10,000 Jews in Poland today out of a population of 38 million. How on earth can they be viewed as such a threat? (The Holocaust wiped out more than 90 percent of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews, whose history in Poland dates back 1,000 years.)
Tragically, this has been a pattern throughout history, especially when religious fervor joins together with a strong nationalistic spirit. The Jewish people do not belong, and their very presence constitutes a threat.
Consider for a moment that, when it comes to the State of Israel, anti-Zionists view the Israelis as White Europeans who displaced the indigenous, non-White, inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians. (Ironically, the majority of Israeli Jews today are of non-European origin, many hailing from the Middle East and Northern Africa, while more than half of the population of Israel would qualify as non-White.)
Here in America, to quote the words of the 2019 Poway synagogue shooter John Earnest (a professedly 'devout Christian'), “I just shot up a synagogue because I’m defending my nation against the Jewish people, who are trying to destroy all white people.”
So, in Israel, the Jews are the White European invaders. In America, these same Jews are the ones destroying our White European heritage.
This is “the demonic logic“ of antisemitism, as self-contradictory as it is absurd.
Yes, according to Earnest’s manifesto,
“It is unlawful and cowardly to stand on the sidelines as the European people are genocided [sic] around you. I did not want to have to kill Jews. But they have given us no other option.”
Murdering Jews was his 'Christian' duty. As he wrote,
“You cannot love your own race if you do not hate those who wish to destroy it.”
But it is not just demented killers like Earnest spouting such dangerous drivel. Increasingly, in some America first, Christian nationalist circles, similar rhetoric is being heard, even if it is not as overtly murderous.
This is simply history repeating itself.
As noted by Prof. Reena Sigman Friedman, it was in this strong nationalistic spirit that Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist,
“coined the term ‘antisemitism’ in 1879 to describe the Jew-hating League that he had formed. Anti-Jewish rhetoric was prevalent in Central and Western Europe at the time, voiced by writers across the political spectrum.”
Marr “claimed that Jews were ‘conquering’ and ‘subjugating’ Germany, and ‘the western world’ as a whole.”
“According to Karl Duehring, a German economist and philosopher writing in 1881, Jews were a foreign race that had ‘infiltrated’ Germany to the country’s detriment.”
Automobile pioneer Henry Ford popularized similar ideas in America in the 1920s with the publication of his four-volume work, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. The title says it all.
That’s why,
“In a 1923 interview for the Chicago Tribune, Hitler said, ‘We look on Heinrich Ford as the leader of the growing Fascisti [Fascist] movement in America. We admire particularly his anti-Jewish policy … We just had his anti-Jewish articles translated.’”
Hitler even praised Ford in his infamous Mein Kampf and proudly displayed a portrait of Ford in his private office.
And what happens when the call for Christian nationalism translates into a full-blown Christian theocracy? Both history and logic tell us that Jews, easily singled out as “non-Christian,” do not fare well in such environments.
Today, we are being told by so-called Christian nationalists that “the main challenge to” unifying the country is “organized Jewry in America” and that it is “Zionist Jews” who are the real threat to America.
Yes, according to these views, the Jews are a real threat to White America, among the worst of the “replacers.” That’s why some of the protesters shouted at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, “Jews will not replace us.”
According to other antisemitic tropes, “the Jews” who control Hollywood, the media, the banks, and the government, want to subvert the nation through every kind of immoral behavior, all while funneling billions of dollars into genocidal Israel. Those evil Jews!
And as if this was not enough, there is the ever-growing, equally dangerous, antisemitism of the left. But of course!
Patriotic American Christians would do well to remember the words of our first president, George Washington, who famously wrote to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island in 1790,
“For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
He closed with this wonderful expression of hope:
“May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
May Christian Americans who love both their faith and their country echo these sentiments today.
