With Trump’s Twitter history, latest no surprise

But this is wishful thinking. Trump may be a loose cannon in front of the cameras, but he knows exactly what he is doing when it comes to social media. He knows that the impact of images like these is immediate, and that the originals will continue to circulate, even if he deletes them.

As to the argument currently being circulated by surrogates that Trump is pro-Israel, and thus can’t really be anti-Semitic, images really do speak here more loudly than words. There’s also the historical precedent of leaders who were “good for the Jews” — until they weren’t. Take Benito Mussolini: he promoted Jewish Italians in the fascist bureaucracy. Then he passed the anti-Semitic laws in 1938. Among the victims was his own longtime mistress, Margherita Sarfatti, who was among the shocked Italian Jews who fled overseas.

Trump is not pro-Israel. Trump is only pro-Trump. He will do, or say, whatever it takes to get elected. That apparently also means exploiting anti-Semitism, which throughout history has proved quite reliable in rousing people in predictable ways. If we look back at Trump’s track record toward all non-white and non-Christian peoples, we can’t say we have not been warned.