An alleged threat to assassinate Jewish government leaders in Michigan shows two of the most severe and interconnected concerns in American politics and society: an alarming rise in antisemitism and an increase in threats against elected officials.
Last month, police arrested a guy on suspicion of tweeting a threat to “bring out the punishment of death” on anyone Jewish in Michigan’s government. On Thursday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel revealed she was among those targeted.
This is the latest example of an increasing trend of intimidation and attacks against Jews at a time when radicals who were previously isolated find confirmation and impetus to act through social media.
The consequences are horrific, not only for those immediately targeted but also for the larger Jewish community.
Another Michigan legislator, state Rep. Samantha Steckloff, who was allegedly targeted in the threat, said such instances made her doubt her public service but that she felt obligated to fight for her community.
“Putting myself out there openly as a Jewish representative at a time when I was already receiving death threats on a daily basis was one of the worst things I’ve ever done,” Steckloff said on “AWN This Morning” on Friday. “And I know that by displaying my face and speaking out against this horrific catastrophe that could have happened, I am still vulnerable to some today.”
Only a few years ago, senior American leaders would bemoan rising antisemitism in Europe and wonder if the Holocaust’s lessons were being forgotten: It is now a poisonous and rising part of American life, threatening the security and peace of mind of millions of people whom extremists want to isolate as outsiders in their own country.
Antisemitic speech that was once taboo appears to be flowing into normal discourse in certain political and social media circles, sometimes driven by celebrities, alongside conspiracy theories like QAnon. It is scarcely surprising that assaults, vandalism, and harassment against Jewish communities and people in the United States have reached all-time highs.
And the ramifications of this inhumanity are far-reaching. History demonstrates that antisemitism, which appeals to deranged conspiracy theorists, is frequently an early warning sign or symptom of escalating dangers to democracy. The most recent rash of events aimed at Jewish Americans comes with increased attacks on the integrity of elections and the public authorities who oversee them. That comes as right-wing commentators ponder the “Great Replacement Hypothesis,” which holds that outsiders are flocking to America in order to overwhelm the country’s majority White population – a fantasy that has its roots in antisemitism but is now frequently applied to migrants.
“Unfortunately, whether in Michigan or other parts of the country, we are seeing the convergence of anti-government, Covid, and other conspiracy theories combined with antisemitism, and we see how this is animating people to action,” Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said on AWN Thursday.
“It operates not only in online areas, but also in the dreams and imaginations of those who are eager to act.”
The use of violence as a political weapon
Political cruelty is no longer a remote theoretical possibility in this day and age. Ex-President Donald Trump’s lies and provocation spilled over after the 2020 presidential election, when the US Capitol insurgency chillingly exposed that some Americans saw violence as a valid means of expressing political complaints. The unending lies about a stolen election, the currency that election doubters have on the right, and the never-ending propaganda on conservative media all contribute to a simmering pool of rage that motivates people who are motivated to act on their own anti-democratic complaints.
The reported threats against Jewish leaders in Michigan are merely the most recent and high-profile illustration of an anti-Semitic trend. Last month, police in San Francisco detained a guy for allegedly making political statements and firing what seemed to be blank rounds in a synagogue. A man allegedly tossed a Molotov cocktail at a New Jersey synagogue days earlier. A 63-year-old man was assaulted in New York’s Central Park in December in what police described as an antisemitic attack. These were simply the most recent in a long line of anti-Semitic episodes, including heated tweets from Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, with whom Trump dined at Mar-a-Lago in November, alongside White nationalist Nick Fuentes. Last year, protestors were seen on a Los Angeles bridge performing the Nazi salute and carrying anti-Jewish banners. In Jacksonville, Florida, shocking anti-Semitic messages were also projected onto buildings.
In 2018, 11 people were killed in a mass shooting at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue. The previous year, white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, yelling, “Jews will not replace us,” in a march that then-President Donald Trump criticised. Hundreds of such episodes have gone unnoticed by the media but have had a corrosive and scary influence on America’s Jewish community. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s most recent yearly numbers, a total of 2,717 antisemitic incidents were reported in 2021, a 34% increase from the 2,026 occurrences reported the previous year.
According to the FBI National Threat Operations Center, a person using the Twitter handle “tempered reason” stated he was travelling to Michigan and “promising to carry out the sentence of death to everybody that is Jewish in the Michigan government.” Any effort to “subdue” him will be faced with “lethal force in self-defense,” according to the user.
Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said Thursday that the allegations against Nessel and other officials highlighted the growing dangers of political attacks motivated by antisemitism and extremism.
“This is exactly in line with what the FBI and Director [Chris] Wray have informed us. “The threat from domestic violent extremists is the most frightening, the most concerning threat that they confront on the counter-terrorism side,” McCabe said on “AWN Newsroom.” He went on to say that such perpetrators were frequently “driven by racial animus, antisemitic feelings, anti-immigrant attitudes, sometimes filled with political grievance and then inspired to act brutally on their own.”