Trump plans to deport millions based on antisemitic conspiracy theory

Republicans are bogusly standing up against antisemitism while embracing Great Replacement theory to deport immigrants, as Trump still defends Charlottesville.

Yesterday, as the sensational corporate media continued to focus on campus protests, Republicans pushed through another piece of political theater in the House, the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

While there has been some unacceptable antisemitic rhetoric reported at protests, often from opportunistic haters who are not students—just as there has been anti-Muslim rhetoric from some people mingled among pro-Israel counter-protesters, though it gets less reported on—the vast majority of the campus protests across the country have been civil and peaceful, and a great many of the protestors standing up for Palestinians are Jewish students themselves.

The bill that passed in Congress is a sham, as it conflates being against Israel’s leaders’ actions and its policies with being antisemitic. Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York—my representative, who is Jewish—voted against the bill, saying it would put the "thumb on the scale" in a way that could "chill" constitutionally protected free speech.

The worst part of this theater is that the Republicans who spearheaded the bill, like New York’s Mike Lawler, and those like New York’s Rep. Elise Stefanik, who are attacking university presidents they claim are condoning antisemitism (all part of the GOP attack on higher education and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs), have embraced in their votes and/or their rhetoric white supremacist Great Replacement theory as they rail against policies at the border.

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The antisemitic, racist conspiracy theory, which, as the American Jewish Committee describes it, posits that there is “an intentional effort, led by Jews, to promote mass non-white immigration”—an “invasion”—has gone from the fringes of the racist far right to the heart of the GOP in Congress, as Republican politicians openly claim an “invasion” of migrants (Brown and Black people) is occurring, fomented by Democrats, to “replace” (White) Americans. As the New York Times reported last week: 

The word invasion appears in ads for two Republicans competing for a Senate seat in Michigan. And it shows up in an ad for a Republican congresswoman seeking re-election in central New York and in one for a Missouri lieutenant governor running for the state’s governorship. In West Virginia, ads for a Republican representative facing an uphill climb for the Senate say President Biden “created this invasion” of migrants.

It was not so long ago that the term invasion had been mostly relegated to the margins of the national immigration debate. Many candidates and political figures tended to avoid the word, which echoed demagoguery in previous centuries targeting Asian, Latino, and European immigrants. Few mainstream Republicans dared use it.

But now, the word has become a staple of Republican immigration rhetoric.

Stefanik herself has used racist attack ads promoting the Great Replacement theory, as reported back in 2022:

After the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, where a heavily armed white man is accused of killing 10 Black people at a supermarket in a racist rampage, Ms. Stefanik is under scrutiny for campaign advertisements she has circulated that play on themes of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory. That belief, espoused by the Buffalo gunman, holds that the elite class, sometimes manipulated by Jews, wants to “replace” and disempower white Americans.

Last year, in an ad on Facebook, Ms. Stefanik accused “radical Democrats” of planning what she described as a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION.”

But now we have Stefanik on her high horse, attacking university presidents about antisemitism, and Mike Johnson, the House Speaker who also recently spouted Great Replacement theory with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago—and who’s done so for several years—up at Columbia University, attacking the protests as antisemitic, and attacking President Biden and Democrats for the “out-of-control” situation and for ignoring antisemitism, demanding the president send in the National Guard.

It’s absolutely galling.

But they get away with it because the media doesn’t make the connections. And Democrats seem a little cowed, running for cover rather than forcefully hitting back.

Trump this week also attacked the protests as antisemitic—and said Biden has abandoned Jews and Israel—while he claimed several times this week and last week that the campus protests make the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017 “look like a peanut.” Trump is actually embracing and promoting—once again—violent white supremacist actions in which a woman, Heather Heyer, was killed, and where racist marchers promoting Great Replacement theory and carrying torches were literally chanting, “The Jews will not replace us!”

Trump also gave an interview to Time magazine this week that is not getting enough attention—as the media is laser-focused on every detail of Trump’s New York trial or the campus protests—in which he lays out many of his authoritarian plans, using the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, if he wins the presidency again. Just like at his rallies, he’s saying it all out loud.

As CNN notes, Trump offers more details on his plans for mass deportations than anything else:

Trump repeated false claims that many migrants are former prisoners or have been institutionalized in their home countries. CNN has reported there is no data to support the idea that a rise in immigrants drives a rise in crime. Most measures of violent crime in the US have actually been falling.

Trump outlined an unfathomable, barbaric plan, rounding up millions of people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades. I really have tried to make people envision this on my SiriusXM radio program. Police and members of the military banging on the doors of homes and workplaces. Carting people away. Pulling children out of schools. Rounding kids up from playgrounds. Putting masses of people on trains and buses, and bringing them to massive camps, where we can only imagine what the conditions would be, since Trump has called immigrants “animals.”

Trump told Time he would target between 15 million and 20 million people who he said are undocumented in the US.

He added that he would “have no problem using the military, per se,” although he thinks the National Guard would suffice.

He does not think that laws meant to prevent the use of the military against civilians inside the US without congressional approval would apply to his effort.

“These aren’t civilians,” Trump said of migrants. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”

He also repeated the conspiracy theory, for which there is no evidence, that “fighting age” males from China are somehow embedding themselves in the US.

“You have to do what you have to do to stop crime and to stop what’s taking place at the border,” he said.

All of this is based on Great Replacement theory, but what CNN didn’t do—like most of the media—is make the connection to Trump’s current attacks on supposed antisemitism among Democrats and Biden regarding the campus protests. Nor do they do the same with regard to Stefanik, Johnson, and the rest of the GOP.

Republicans are suddenly railing against antisemitism and claiming Democrats condone it, while embracing Trump’s plan to deport millions of people based on an antisemitic conspiracy theory. That is a simple and damning truth that needs to be highlighted over and over again. And not just by the media but by Democrats and President Biden as well.