The Trump Regime Is Furthering White Supremacy, Not Fighting Antisemitism

“Jews will not replace us!” “You will not replace us!” Hundreds of torch wielding white nationalists shouted these chants as they marched on the University of Virginia campus on August 11, 2017. This was a prelude to the violence that would erupt over that weekend at the “Unite the Right” rally in the college town of Charlottesville. As journalist A.C. Johnson describes it in the ProPublica/FRONTLINE film, Documenting Hate: Charlottesville, this rally “would become the largest gathering of white supremacists in a generation.” In an act of domestic terrorism, an avowed neo-Nazi, James Fields Jr., deliberately drove his vehicle into a crowd of marching anti-racism counter-protesters, injuring dozens and killing a civil rights activist, Heather Heyer. Donald Trump, then in his first presidential term, infamously stated that there were “very fine people on both sides.”

The Department of Homeland Security released a Homeland Threat Assessment in October 2020 which states:  

“Among  DVEs [Domestic Violent Extremists], racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists—specifically white supremacist extremists (WSEs)—will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.”

Speaking before the Senate Appropriations Committee in May 2021, then Attorney General Merrick Garland affirmedthis assessment:

“In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race.’”

Now, Donald Trump, in his second presidential term, is using the guise of defending against antisemitism to exercise draconian, unconstitutional, powers to repress dissent and retaliate against dissenters. Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Ranjani Srinivasan had her student visa revoked and was sought after by ICE agents, before hurriedly deciding to flee to Canada. Leqaa Kordia was arrested by federal immigration officers for overstaying her expired student visa. During the spring of 2024, all three—Khalil, Srinivasan, and Kordia—had participated in student-led protests against Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza on Columbia University’s campus. The Trump administration, rather, regime, deemed those protests to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” and has since taken the extraordinary action of canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University.

In the late 19th century, Ida B. Wells, a Black woman, journalist, civil rights activist, and crusader against lynching in the American South wrote: “The way to right wrongs is to shine the light of truth on them.” In the “light of truth,” it is abundantly and unmistakably clear that Donald Trump both espouses white supremacist rhetoric and sympathizes with white supremacists. In a 2020 presidential debate with Joe Biden, Trump said, “Stand back and stand by,” to the Proud Boys. In one of his first acts after being sworn in for a second term, Trump pardoned and commuted the sentences of approximately 1500 people, including leaders of far-right extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who had been convicted of criminal offenses in connection with the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Both Trump presidencies are 21st century iterations of the 19th century Redemption that brought a violent end to the post-Civil War period of Reconstruction. However, Trump 2.0 is the most dangerous.

In his book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

“Every Trump voter is certainly not a white supremacist, just as every white person in the Jim Crow South was not a white supremacist. But every Trump voter felt it was acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.”

Donald Trump is a white supremacist. Following in the footsteps of his forebears, who were determined to “redeem” the American South for white people, Trump is determined to redeem all of America for white people—regardless of the costs. Pursuing college student protesters and academic institutions has absolutely nothing to do with rooting out antisemitism. White supremacist ideology, including Great Replacement Theory, is not only inherently racist, but also quite antisemitic. Believing that a white supremacist truly cares about fighting antisemitism is as asinine as believing that an arsonist truly cares about fighting fires. And it is into such foolhardy hands that such foolish people have entrusted the fate of our country.