Media Coverage of Jews in Wake of Donald Trump’s Election
Since Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election the United States has seen an extreme rise in public displays of Nazism from a political faction of people known as the “alt-right.” This has been a first for journalists to cover throughout the country as these ideologies have never been recognized as an acceptable way to think. This hatred to towards Jews was never expressed publicly before so and now that it has, regardless of one’s thoughts on objectivity, it is the jobs of the journalists reporting on this absurd phenomenon show why these sentiments cannot be tolerated.
This story from The Atlantic entitled “Are Jews White?” features both proper and improper ways of covering the religion. The article looks at whether or not Jews should be considered white based on how they have assimilated into American society. It takes the approach of how Jews perceive themselves racially and how it is different for different factions of Judaism. The article also looks inward from an outside perspective and looks at of how much white privilege Jewish people receive. The piece analyzes Judaism as both a race and religion to see how people identify with Judaism and whether or not Jews can comfortably identify as Caucasian, which the writer equates to being “safe” in during Trump’s presidency despite the public resurgence of Nazism.
The article subtly answers its title question with a “Yes” and I find that to be completely untrue. This was an example of a writer looking for people to corroborate his answer to that question. The day after Trump was elected swastikas were appearing throughout the country and videos have surfaced of a massive white-pride group meeting in which all of the attendees were chanting “Heil Trump.” It is preposterous to witness these acts and think nothing will change for the treatment of Jews in the United States. Trump has also appointed Steve Bannon, the Executive Chair of Breitbart Media, to be his Chief Policy Officer. Bannon has described Breitbart as the online “platform for the alt-right.” While I do think this was an interesting way to analyze the future of Jewish people in the United States I think the actual reporting failed to look at every angle.
However, one of the redeeming qualities to this article is how it portrays the history of Jews in United States to recognize that early on in the country’s history Jews were seen as equal. It moves on to when the country experienced a large influx of Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and reminds us that Jews were mostly relegated to confined areas where they were forced to basically create their own society within the one they immigrated to. From there it shows how Jews assimilated into white culture and elevated themselves into the middle class. While I disagree with the notion of this article that Jewish people will see no more discrimination now that Trump has been elected, if you are going to make that conclusion it is important to show how Jewish people arrived at that point.
The New York Times has two articles covering the anti-Semitic phenomenon that show both the right and wrong ways about how to cover it. The coverage that has shown how truly drastic this resurgence comes from an article titled “Both Feeling Threatened, American Muslims and Jews Join Hands.” This article portrays a newly expanding solidarity found between American Jews and American Muslims who are coming together over Trumps proposed treatment of Muslims in the United States.
The article shows that what Trump is proposing is similar to what the Nazis forced upon the Jews in the 1930’s by requiring all of them to register themselves. The article does a very good job of showing how completely asinine this is by providing quotes of Jewish people saying in these meeting that they would register as Muslim if this idea ever came into fruition. What makes this article so effective is its inherent contradiction. It was a surprise to me to discover that groups of this nature existed because of the deep-seated conflict between Jews and Muslims that persisted for so many years. In addition, the idea that Jewish people would register themselves as Muslim as a sign of support shows how outlandish this proposal from Trump is.
The ending to the article is what hits the hardest as it is mentioned that one of the women profiled in this piece will put her search for a vacation home in Tampa, Florida on hold to spend her winter vacation in Canada looking for a house and opening a bank account so she and her family can flee the United States easily if they ever feel unsafe. No one should even have to consider doing this at any point in their life especially not in 2016 because of their religious beliefs. This article does a great job of showing what impact the rise of White Nationalism since Trump’s election is doing to marginalized groups.
This is however balanced out by The Times’ article that profiles the rise of the alt-right entitled “An Alt-Right Makeover Shrouds the Swastikas.” This article does tells the story of how the alt-right went from being a group that received next no publicity to being an incredibly fast growing political ideology. The problem with this article is not that The Times is telling this story, it is that the article mostly expresses the group’s ideas without condemning them. The article does use a few words that express distaste for the group’s stances on non-white people such as “muck,” but still tells the story as though they are just another political ideology as opposed to the racist, neo-Nazi group it is. The article told almost entirely from the perspective of alt-right people and does very little attacking towards its actions or beliefs.
