Today a flier, tomorrow a shooting in a synagogue. Words matter, and the path from propagandist to killer can be short. We shouldn’t let our political leanings blind us to that fact
Photo: A screenshot of the ADL H.E.A.T. MAP (ADL)
I
t would be easy to read the annual Anti-Defamation League Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents and come away a skeptic. That’s because the organization has done something either phenomenally transparent or phenomenally guileless, which is to list each of the 1,879 incidents it counts as anti-Jewish hate crimes for 2018 and publish them in an easily accessible Excel spreadsheet.
Go look for yourself. It’s called the “ADL H.E.A.T. Map” and will tell you everything you need to know about anti-Semitic incidents in the United States. Why is it perhaps not the smartest move? Because one could read the report and conclude that the emperor has no clothes.
A large proportion of the almost 2,000 incidents are what the ADL calls “White Supremacist Propaganda” and includes entries such as the following: “Identity Evropa, an alt right group, distributed fliers at Eastern Illinois University that read: ‘European roots American greatness.’ ” Other fliers in the category carried messages like “Money does not rule you,” “Better dead than red,” and “Reclaim America.”
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