A Dangerous, Astounding Libel

 

Ever hear of the Blood Libel? The Blood Libel is a lie about Jews—about me. It is a lie spread since the Middle Ages through the 21rst century by people who wanted to use it as a tool to oppress Jews and to use them as scapegoats. The lie accuses Jews of ritually killing non-Jewish children in order to take their blood to make matzoh. Crazy, right? Except that over the years, a lot of people who believed this lie have used it as a reason to kill a lot of Jews. To this day, there are anti-Semitic groups who use the Blood Libel as a rallying cry against Jews.

I mention this now, because this is what I thought of when Savannah Guthrie asked President Trump what he thought about QAnon and their claims that Democrats are a Satanic pedophile ring. Just as with the Blood Libel, here was another insane, baseless lie. Just as with the Blood Libel, here was a rallying cry designed to make people want to rise up in violence against a group that included me.

So what was Trump’s response? If he had been responding to a question about the Blood Libel, no doubt he would have refuted it instantly (I hope). But Guthrie’s question was not about a lie about Jews. It was about a lie about Democrats. So without flinching, Trump claimed he had never heard of QAnon, then, in contradiction to that claim, he said, “they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard.”

That is the equivalent of saying people who espouse the Blood Libel are “very much against murdering children to cook with their blood. They fight it very hard.” In fact, this comparison is incredibly apt, because QAnon also claims that Democrats murder and eat children.

So it is astounding that Trump refused to refute the lie and the group that made it.  In fact, he did so knowing that Georgia is about to get a new Republican member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promotes QAnon’s theories. That is really frightening--just as frightening as the group of people who sought to kidnap Governor Whitmer as an answer to Trump's call to "liberate Michigan."

We should all treat Trump's answer to Guthrie's question just as seriously as if Trump had failed to refute the Blood Libel. Otherwise, we will help raise to legitimacy and empower QAnon and other groups that spread insane, baseless, and incredibly dangerous lies.