Trump's New Antisemitic Talking Point: "Biden is a Servant of the Globalists"
In the final weeks of his reelection campaign, Donald Trump began using a new, overtly antisemitic talking point, referring to Joe Biden as a “servant of the globalists.” “Globalist” is widely understood to be an antisemitic dog whistle for “Jew.”
As of October 20, 2020, Trump had used this antisemitic talking point nine times:
October 12, 2020
Trump began using a version this new talking point during a speech in Sanford, Florida, at his first rally following his COVID-19 diagnosis:
“Joe Biden is also owned by the radical globalists, the wealthy donors, the big money special interests who shipped away your jobs, shut down your factories, threw open your borders and ravaged our cities while sacrificing American blood and treasure in this ridiculous, endless wars.”
This line plays into the antisemitic trope — referred to by some white supremacists as the “Zionist Occupied Government” or “ZOG” — that Jews secretly control the government.
October 13, 2020
Trump first used the exact phrase that has since become his new talking point during a campaign speech in Johnstown, Pennsylvania: “Biden is a servant of the radical globalist, the wealthy donors.” (Seconds later, Trump used two more terms that have also historically been used as antisemitic dog whistles, accusing Biden of "hand[ing] control to the socialists and Marxists and left-wing extremists.”)
October 14, 2020
The day after his Johnstown speech, Trump deviated slightly, but used a similar “globalist” line in a speech to the Economic Club of New York:
“The last administration sold out American workers like never before, and they sold them to donors, special interests, and globalists. And if you take a look, we have probably plenty of them watching right now, and I understand where you’re coming from, but it didn’t work out too well with me.”
That same day, during a campaign speech in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump deviated again, not calling Biden a “servant” of “the globalist” but referring to the former Vice President as a “globalist” himself: “Joe Biden, personifies the selfless and corrupt globalist who got rich and powerful at your expense.”
October 15, 2020
Trump employed the original talking point again at a rally in North Carolina: “Biden’s a servant of the wealthy donors and globalist and special interests who got rich bleeding America dry.” He also accused Biden of using “economic treachery,”
October 16, 2020
Trump used the exact line again during a campaign rally in Macon, Georgia, calling Biden a “servant of the wealthy donors, globalists and special interests who got rich bleeding America dry.”
October 18, 2020
While Trump gave a speech on October 17 in Michigan, it did not include his new favorite antisemitic talking point. The next day, however, at a rally in Carson City, Nevada, Trump repeated the phrase: “[Biden’s] a servant of the wealthy donors, globalists, and special interests who got rich bleeding, America dry and putting America last.”
October 19, 2020
Trump gave his stump speech in two Arizona cities, using the new talking point during both. He typically says the line roughly 18-20 minutes into the speech, but took much longer to get to it during his Prescott rally. 34 minutes in, he used a version of the talking point:
“Joe Biden is a servant of the globalists and the lobbyists and the wealthy donors, the people that I could be calling, Oh, would I have fun. I would have fun. I’d like to call. Maybe I should call and put the money in escrow and just give it back to them. The Washington vultures who got rich bleeding America dry.”
Trump was more succinct and on schedule during his Tuscon rally that same day, stating at around 18 minutes: “Joe Biden is a servant of the left wing globalists and lobbyists, the wealthy donors, the Washington vultures, who got rich bleeding America dry.”
October 20, 2020
At a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump repeated a new version of the talking point: “He’s a servant of the globalists, lobbyists, wealthy donors and Washington vultures who got rich bleeding America dry.
Anti-”Globalist” Fear-Mongering in the Trump Administration:
Trump’s increasing use of the antisemitic “globalist” trope in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election mirrors his 2016 campaign’s final message. The 2016 campaign’s final ad featured images of prominent Jewish figures, and blamed Americans’ struggles on “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.”
Antisemitism as a tactic has been used by Trump and his allies on the political right from the very start, and has been a consistent part of their political strategy ever since. It is not a coincidence that Trump is leaning on the same antisemitic message he used in 2016 as his last-ditch appeal to voters now.
Fear-mongering about “globalists” and “cultural Marxists” has been a staple of the Trump administration. In 2017, Rich Higgins, a conspiracy theorist who was, at the time, working for the National Security Council (NSC) under fellow conspiracy theorist Gen. Michael Flynn, wrote a memo entitled POTUS & Political Warfare. The memo stated that Trump was under attack from “‘deep state’ actors, globalists, bankers, Islamists, and establishment Republicans” because he posed “an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes that dominate the prevailing cultural narrative.”
These talking points are reminiscent of the rhetoric used by white supremacists, like Patriot Front’s Thomas Rousseau. Lines from a speech Rousseau delivered in 2017 could be believably come from a number of Republican politicians in 2020:
“America our nation stands before an existential threat. The lives of your children, and your children’s children, and your prosperity beyond that, dangle above a den of vipers. A corrupt, rootless, global, and tyrannical elite has usurped your democracy and turned it into a weapon, first to enslave and then to replace you.”
Rousseau delivered this speech less than two months after marching at Unite the Right in Charlottesville, VA. In the years since, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and — as detailed above — Donald Trump have all made statements eerily similar to Rousseau’s 2017 sentiments.
Background on the “Socialists” and “Marxists” references:
The association between Jews and socialists, and Jews and Marxists, dates back to the 1940s and 1950s Red Scare, when the House committee charged with investigating “Un-American Activities” targeted Jews, particularly those working in Hollywood, media, and entertainment. The association has continued to this day, particularly through antisemitic comments about “Cultural Marxism” from white nationalists and their sympathizers on the political right. Trump has echoed these comments in prior speeches, like a Fourth of July weekend speech at Mount Rushmore during which he warned of a “left-wing cultural revolution.”