For a long time, I’ve kept an eye on far-right online forums in order to get a sense of what their discourse looks like. Knowing what language people use online helps to pick up on dog whistles that these people drop in offline conversation, which I find important as a minority in the U.S. One trend that I’ve been seeing more of recently is the rise of explicitly anti-Semitic language conspiratorial thinking. These spaces have always been inherently anti-Semitic, however previously discourse like this was couched in more vague, general talk about “the cabal” and “the deep state”. Since Kanye’s Twitter episode, I’ve been seeing more and more posts like the one attached, in which this vague speak has replaced “the deep state” with the Jews. The comments section contain a slew of Holocaust denial, anti-Jewish conspiracy, and a lot of other features of fascist dialogue that you would expect. And while sites like 4chan have always been explicitly anti-Semitic, I’m seeing it leak into other online spaces that you previously weren’t seeing this kind of language used. I’m concerned with this trend. Im worried that what we’re really seeing here is the rise of explicit anti-semitism as a gradually more normalized talking point for the right. These small steps may seem insignificant in the moment, it’s easy to write them off as a bunch of crazies online saying crazy things, but they always seem insignificant until it’s too late. As material conditions worsen in this country, it’s going to be easier for opportunistic politicians to point people’s frustrations toward a scapegoat, rather than the systemic issues that are actually the source of their issues. As the smartest people on the internet, I wanted to get this community’s take on this.
The only drop that defied trends in explicitly anti-Semitic discourse on these boards, that I've noticed, in the last 2 decades was from around the 2016 primaries through the first 5 or so months of Trump's term. They were mostly too pre-occupied with "Mexicans" and Muslims, a lot of it was brought on by the Black POTUS. I say "drop that defied trends" because there was a definite downward trend in explicit online anti-Semitism throughout the Obama years. But it definitely died down a bit because Trump himself wasn't an actual neo-nazi and just courted them for votes, they were still there and vocal but nobody really cared or paid them much attention.
The confederate monument removal discourse was coming to a head in the first few months of Trump's term, stemming from that Black church getting shot up in 2015, which lead to that stupid "Unite the Right" rally in Aug 2017. That reinvigorated anti-Jewish discussion online significantly, after that guy drove a car through the protesters and killed someone. Predictably everyone involved from the organizers to the murderer to the protesters were claimed by right wingers to be secretly controlled by Jews. I'd have called online anti-Semitism a rolling boil from then until the next year when that synagogue in Pittsburgh got shot up (tomorrow will be the 4th anniversary of that). After that it died down a little bit with the explicit stuff, I guess the bloodlust was somewhat satisfied (even though not a single "powerful" person was affected by that...)
Q discourse deviated from the explicitly anti-Semitic trend for a little while, but it was always understood when they'd talk about Soros or mediaites with echos (
((( )))), and obviously the Epstein/Maxwell-Mossad connection exists and right wingers do conflate Judaism with Israel/Zionism when discussing that stuff, where normal people do not. But Trump was still super friendly with Israel in public so they were never really sure what to make of that, if he was infiltrating the pedophile network to bring it down from the inside or what.I might be a little numb to it all though, I worked on the Freenet software for a while and there's always been a ton of European neo-nazis using it because that speech can actually get you in trouble in some countries. And none of them ever do anything. They just bitch about the cabal and almost nothing ever comes of it, someone spray paints a synagogue or makes the weakest attempt ever at burning it down.