Republican National Convention Kicks off with a Clear Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, and White Nationalism,
The 2020 Republican National Convention kicked off on August 24, 2020, with a clear theme: antisemitism, racism, and white nationalism. The most notable incidents are detailed below:
Kimberly Guilfoyle, Senior Advisor to the Trump campaign
Guilfoyle gave a loud speech, the full transcript of which can be read here. In the speech, she falsely implied that Puerto Ricans are not U.S. citizens, and invoked an insidious antisemitic dog whistle: “cosmopolitan elites.”
“This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture? The cosmopolitan elites of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, who blame America first?…They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live. They want to enslave you to the weak, dependent, liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.”
“Cosmopolitan” is an antisemitic dog-whistle, one Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) infamously used in a shocking antisemitic speech in 2019. Hitler and Stalin used this same term in their speeches inciting violence against Jews.
Guilfoyle’s history of antisemitism includes: fundraising for a Minnesota politician who once claimed the “Jewish lobby” controls the GOP; and posing for a photo with neo-Nazi Jovi Val just days after he hosted a fundraiser for Heather Heyer’s killer.
Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
Like Guilfoyle, Scott invoked antisemitic dog whistles in his RNC speech, saying, that Biden and the Democrats were “going to help Manhattan elites and Hollywood moguls get a tax break.”
For decades, “Hollywood” and “New York” have both been used as euphemisms for Jews, the former stemming from the antisemitic trope that ‘Jews own the media,’ and the latter tied to the fact that New York has the largest Jewish population in the United States.
Charlie Kirk, President of Turning Point USA
At the end of his remarks (34:54) at the RNC, Kirk said, “Trump is the bodyguard of Western civilization.”
“Western civilization” is a term regularly used by white nationalists as a shorthand for white, Christian, hegemonic societies, which they see as inherently superior to all others. Claims of “defending Western civilization” are not new for Trump, his allies, or the broader Republican Party. In 2019, Trump ally Matt Schlapp called Jewish philanthropist George Soros “the architect of the destruction of western civilization.” In 2018, white nationalist Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said in an interview, “If we don’t defend Western civilization, then we will become subjugated by the people who are the enemies of faith, the enemies of justice.” Not long after that, King infamously gave another interview — one that later prompted his removal from congressional committees, after he said: “white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
Gaetz, whose extensive history of antisemitism is documented here, repeated (47:06) antisemitic Replacement Theory in his speech at the RNC: “The dangerous left need America to be weaker to accomplish their goal of replacing her.”
This is a favorite line of Gaetz’s, one he regularly used throughout the summer of 2020 to condemn the Black Lives Matter uprising and progressive movements.
Patricia and Mark McCloskey
The McCloskeys — infamously known as the couple who drew guns on Black Lives Matter protestors marching past their house — were also invited to speak at the RNC. In addition to threatening to shoot people declaring that Black Lives Matter, the McCloskeys have a history of aggression towards their neighbors, including the synagogue that is home to the St. Louis Jewish Central Reform Congregation.
According to Rabbi Susan Talve, who leads the congregation, the McCloskeys once destroyed beehives the synagogue had placed on their wall between their two properties. In 2013, the congregation placed and cared for a row of beehives to produce honey for Rosh Hashanah. Mark McCloskey, who claimed the beehives were on joint property, took a sledgehammer to the hives, killing all the bees inside.