Republican Congressional Candidate Shares and Defends Antisemitic Meme

Republican Congressional candidate Eric Early, who is challenging Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), came under fire for sharing an antisemitic meme. The meme falsely claimed that Schiff was related George Soros by marriage.

The meme falsely claimed that Melissa Schiff, the daughter-in-law of Jewish philanthropist George Soros, is Rep. Schiff’s sister.

The meme was initially shared by a Twitter user who follows Early, and was posted on October 11 as a reply to a tweet from Early, which read, “Eric stands with the brave Christian nation of Armenia in its war against Azerbaijan.” Early, or someone with access to his Twitter account, retweeted the post. Six days later, Adam Schiff shared a screengrab of Early’s retweet, stating:

“This week, my opponent shared a ‘meme’ about me. A well-circulated antisemitic lie. I don’t have a sister. I’m not related to George Soros. Trump may lose in 17 days. But the Republican Party’s willingness to traffic in bigotry and hate has caused lasting damage.”

In response, Early called Schiff “pathological,” claimed that retweeting the meme was not antisemitic, and referred to Soros — who is a Holocaust survivor — as a “Nazi sympathizer.” The accusation is ironic given Early’s support for Donald Trump, who has openly sympathized with white nationalists and Nazis. Despite posting a defense of his retweet, Early did undo the retweet, indicating he does in fact believe something about it was damaging to his campaign.

Early has a history of making comments that indicate both his personal hostility towards Schiff, and his perception that white men and Christianity are under attack — an opinion that is shared by white nationalists and their sympathizers.

On October 17, Schiff criticized Early for sharing the antisemitic meme. Early replied that same evening.

Schiff has been the target of antisemitic tropes several times over the past few years — often from Donald Trump himself. Conspiracy theories about Geoge Soros have been rampant throughout the political right worldwide for years, and have increased sharply in the United States under Trump’s presidency.

Anti-Soros conspiracy theories cast the Jewish philanthropist as an international “puppet-master,” drawing on ugly stereotypes and antisemitic tropes about a global Jewish cabal secretly controlling government and world affairs. The suggestion that Schiff is secretly related to Soros and that they are conspiring together as a family plays directly into those tropes.