"Kanye. Elon. Trump." Hate Speech is Protected Speech for Republican Extremists
Antisemitism is tied to designs to take down American democracy
"I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis," said Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to Alex Jones during a Dec. 1 interview on Jones' show. “I see good things about Hitler,” declared Ye, who blamed “Jewish media” for giving the Führer a bad reputation. This is a sentiment that Jones’ fellow guest, neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, undoubtedly shares.
A week earlier, a dinner Fuentes and Trump had with former president Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago sparked outrage among Republicans who now see Trump as a liability to the party and want to distance themselves from him. The Republican Jewish Coalition denounced “the disgusting triumvirate of conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers, and antisemites,” and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Ye’s remarks “unbelievable.”
No one should be fooled by these Republican protestations. Hate speech, including Holocaust denial, has always been protected speech in the Trump-era GOP, and its point is to create a space for authoritarian political action.
From 2016 on, GOP elites cheered Trump on as he cultivated neo-Nazis, Oath Keepers, and other extremists. None of them protested as he used racism, antisemitism, and celebrations of violence as political currency. And the GOP has yet to denounce Jan. 6, when all of these extremists came together to stage a coup attempt on Trump’s behalf.
Trump's comment after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that he considered neo-Nazis "very fine people" has overshadowed the gift he gave to Holocaust deniers at the very start of his presidency. In Jan. 2017 his White-nationalist inflected administration (Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller) released a Holocaust Remembrance Statement that did not mention Jews.
Trump's then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus justified this omission as recognizing "everyone's suffering in the Holocaust" —a nod to those who believe that Nazi perpetrators had their reasons for participating in genocide.
When “everyone's suffering” is emphasized, perpetrators can become victims, and victims can become the perpetrators who got what was coming to them.
Throughout his presidency, using his pro-Israel policies and Jewish son-in-law and daughter as cover, Trump publicly echoed antisemitic stereotypes and tropes that have long incited hostility and hate crimes against Jews. From repeated criticisms of Jews' "dual loyalties," to his 2019 depiction of Jews as venal "brutal killers," to his 2020 speculation on Fox News that Jewish philanthropist George Soros was funding Antifa, Trump said what antisemites needed to hear him say to retain their loyalty.
Add in the presence in the GOP of White nationalists like Rep. Paul Gosar, who associates with antisemites and Holocaust deniers (Gosar spoke at a conference Fuentes organized in 2021), and Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose appearances with Fuentes, Katie Hopkins, and other extremists have helped her rapid emergence as one of the most influential GOP politicians.
The GOP also has a very close relationship with one of Europe’s major antisemitic propagandists: Soros-obsessed Hungarian head of state Viktor Orban. He recently asserted that Hungary should not become a people “of mixed race.” The result: a party that, as McCarthy knows well, has no problem with using antisemitism as a political tool.
No wonder the GOP tweet "Kanye. Elon. Trump," which implicitly defended Ye's antisemitic tirades and Twitter chief Musk's decision to restore far-right accounts known for hate speech, remained up even when Ye tweeted on Oct. 3 about his desire to kill Jews. "I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE," he wrote. It was only when Ye also talked about loving Nazis that the tweet was deleted.
We can expect Trump to continue to associate with antisemites and Nazis in the future. As I told the New York Times, the more desperate and humiliated Trump feels due to the many investigations he faces and having been cast off by many in the GOP establishment, the more he will "double down on his extremist and cult leader profile. There is no other option for him.”
In the strongman tradition, Trump will also do anything necessary to return to office. Do not forget that the current wave of antisemitism and other hate speech is tied to designs to take down American democracy.
Figures like Fuentes are not just Holocaust deniers but advocates of dictatorship who were active supporters of Trump’s Jan. 6 coup attempt. Gosar offered “blanket pardons” to people organizing Jan. 6 protests. And Musk, a man of authoritarian sympathies, is doing his part by restoring the accounts of some of the most dangerous neo-Nazis, such as Andrew Anglin, who promoted Trump's "Stop the Steal" movement to overturn the 2020 election.
The nexus between hate speech and authoritarian action is why the "Kanye. Elon. Trump" tweet chilled me as a historian of Fascism. It was not sent from the general GOP account, but from the account of "House Judiciary GOP." Under Nazism, hate speech and organized antisemitic propaganda created a psychological climate in Germany that proved conducive to low-level violence after 1933. Yet it was an act of legal discrimination that opened the door to widespread physical violence later on: the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which were backed up by the Nazi party and enforced by the German judiciary.
The truth is that West and Fuentes, and their racist followers, are now the core of his brand. That is bad news for the stability of our country, but good news for antisemites everywhere. "Let us never hear of Jewish suffering or victimhood ever again...it boggles the mind that people can be so evil," one wrote to me recently, echoing their sentiments. "Seeing [the Jews'] behavior today, I can well understand how the Hollowcost [sic] happened, and I think Never say never again."
When my Con Law professor opened his lecture with, "There is no such thing as free speech," we all gasped. But, as we learned, there IS NO such thing as free speech. Speech has always been regulated, from 'fire in the theater' to incitement, to slander and more. I grind my teeth when I hear Musk, et. al. maundering on about free speech, and I'll soon have to consult my dentist. Many countries have grappled with hate speech and crafted wise and functional responses. We don't have to invent this wheel.
Thank you, Ruth, for wading through the sewer and summarizing the various manifestations of unfortunate expressions. Breathing in and out to keep my equilibrium.