The Democratic Party is deservedly facing pointed questions about its willingness to confront antisemitism in its own ranks. In Maine, Graham Platner easily won the Democratic Senate primary despite him having a tattoo on his chest resembling a Nazi symbol. In New York’s 13th Congressional District, voters nominated a Democrat who attended a rally the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel where attendees reportedly condoned the massacre. And last month in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Senate while attacking Israel, demonizing the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, contextualizing anti-Jewish violence and appearing on the campaign trail with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has routinely employed antisemitic rhetoric.
But make no mistake: Democrats are not the only political party with an antisemitism problem.
At a White House press conference Thursday afternoon, Vice President JD Vance referred to podcaster Tucker Carlson as “a friend.” Keep in mind that Carlson has hosted Holocaust deniers on his podcast, promoted numerous antisemitic conspiracies, including the Great Replacement Theory, and even claimed that Israel purposely withheld information about the 9/11 attacks. But the vice president said that while he disagrees with Carlson “on a number of things,” he won’t throw him “under the bus.”
In short, Musk says he knows a Jew when he sees one, irrespective of how Jews define themselves.
Carlson arguably has a worse track record of antisemitism than Piker. If Democrats are asked to throw Piker under the bus — as they should — shouldn’t Republicans be asked why it’s OK for Vance to embrace Carlson?
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man — who spent close to $300 million promoting GOP candidates in 2024 alone — continues to embrace his inner antisemite.
Earlier in the week, he made this statement on X, responding to a poll that asked, “Are Jews White?”:
People are what they appear to be. Beyond that, unless they can cite specific ACTG sequences for their cell or mitochondrial DNA that somehow defy appearances, it’s all in their mind.
I’ve met so many people who look extremely European in every way and tell me they’re Jewish. Well, maybe there are a few OG “Jewish ACTG” sequences in there somewhere, but clearly not many!
Where is the list of these ACTG sequences?
If you’re confused by this, you’re not alone. ATCG refers to the four key attributes of DNA, and while it’s true that there’s no specific ATCG sequence for Jews, European and Middle Eastern Jews actually do share some similar genetic characteristics.
But Musk’s larger point is insidious.
Musk, who has seemingly become more and more interested in race and eugenics, is crudely arguing that Jewish identity is not determined by family lineage, religious affiliation, cultural and national attachment, or even self-identification, but rather by how someone looks. In short, Musk says he knows a Jew when he sees one, irrespective of how Jews define themselves.
Musk is seemingly obsessed with using his platform and huge social media reach to fish for online validation and attention — and nothing gets attention on social media quite like demonizing and attacking others.
The irony of Musk’s statement is that Nazis and other white supremacist groups accused Jews of standing apart from white Europeans but still exercising malign influence on their societies. In Musk’s formulation, Jews aren’t really Jews — they’re just white people with a fake identity.
As an aside, on behalf of my fellow Jews, it would be helpful if antisemites could pick a lane. It’s honestly exhausting to keep track of the shifting rationales for anti-Jewish hatred.
In fact, many American and European Jews with white skin refer to themselves as off-white, because while we enjoy some of the privileges of having white skin, we are still the victims of prejudice and discrimination and are decidedly not embraced by white nationalists. Just this week, new data released by New York City, the second-largest Jewish city in the world, shows that antisemitic hate crimes are up nearly 10% over last year and that more than half of all hate crimes in the city were committed against Jews.
This is not the first time Musk has waded into the sewer of antisemitism.
In 2024, he reinstated the X account of Holocaust denier and popular right-wing podcaster Nick Fuentes. Not coincidentally, after Musk took possession of the social media site formerly known as Twitter, antisemitic posts significantly increased. Like Carlson, he has endorsed the Great Replacement Theory, which posits that Jews are bringing “hordes of minorities” into America and Europe in order to weaken these societies.
Both parties prefer to point a whataboutist finger of blame for antisemitism at the other. Neither wants to look seriously at the mess in their own houses.
In January 2025, at Trump’s inauguration, he delivered a speech in which he appeared to twice perform a gesture remarkably similar to a Nazi salute. Days later, he used X, the social media platform he owns, to share a series of Holocaust puns including “Some people will Goebbels anything down!” and “Bet you did nazi that comin.” The tweet was compelling evidence that Musk is both vile and not funny.
Though he is the world’s richest man, Musk is seemingly obsessed with using his platform and huge social media reach to fish for online validation and attention — and nothing gets attention on social media quite like demonizing and attacking others. This would be bad enough if Musk were merely the world’s richest man. But he’s also one of the Republican Party’s most important donors. This week, he dropped $800,000 in campaign spending on behalf of GOP candidates in Texas and Maine, and he reportedly has authorized his super PAC to spend $100 million in the final months of the midterm elections.
Yet Republican officeholders are rarely pushed to distance themselves from Musk and his financial support, as Democrats are regularly — and appropriately — asked to do with Piker and other antisemitic actors on the left.
The same Republicans who attack Democrats for nominating antisemitic candidates or hanging out with Piker will say nothing about Musk’s vile eugenics and Vance’s embrace of Carlson. Conversely, Democrats will lambaste Vance and Musk while defending their support for El-Sayed and contextualizing the increasingly hard-edged and often prejudicial rhetoric used on the left about American Jews, Zionism and Israel.
The result is that antisemitism has become yet another political wedge issue. Both parties prefer to point a whataboutist finger of blame for antisemitism at the other. Neither wants to look seriously at the mess in their own houses. For American Jews, who are preparing to celebrate the Jewish New Year next week, it is a fraught moment and one in which many are increasingly asking themselves, who is left to speak for us?
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