Trump Campaign Issues Antisemitic Press Release About "Elitist, Globalist Billionaire"

In response to Michael Bloomberg’s plans to spend $100 million to help elect Joe Biden, the Trump campaign issued a press release that used antisemitic tropes against Bloomberg, who is Jewish.

The release stated: “Accepting Mini Mike’s money means Biden and Harris will be indebted to an elitist, globalist billionaire.” This phrase evokes the antisemitic notion of Jews as an elite and wealthy class exerting control over other and prioritizing loyalty to a global Jewish cabal over national patriotic identity.

“Globalist” is an antisemitic dog whistle regularly used by the political right, often in reference to Jews and with antisemitic connotations. In March of 2020, Trump himself claimed, “globalists would rather keep our borders open than keep out infection” in reference to the spread of COVID-19. In July of 2019, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) publicly railed against “cosmopolitan elites” who he claimed were “loyal only to the global community.” In 2018, Donald Trump, Jr. claimed that Nobel Peace Prizes were determined by “the globalist elite.”

By claiming that Biden would be “indebted to” Bloomberg, the campaign suggested that the Jewish billionaire would be exerting a hidden hand of control over a Biden presidency — a long-standing and harmful antisemitic trope about Jewish power. The Trump campaign and the Republican Party have made similar statements about other Jewish figures before, referring to Biden as a “puppet” of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

The “puppet-master” characterization is a long-standing antisemitic trope used to present Jews as shadowy manipulators, secretly orchestrating world events on the political or financial main stage. Jewish philanthropist George Soros has long been depicted by right-wing pundits and politicians as a literal puppet-master controlling Democrats, social movements, and global incidents. This is one of the very conspiracies invoked by the Tree of Life shooter before he committed the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. As the 2018 Tree of Life shooting made all too painfully clear, the puppet-master trope can have material and even deadly consequences.