Donald Trump’s Closing Campaign Ad Is A Terrifying Anti-Semitic Dog Whistle

GOP Nominee’s Final Spot Casts Three Prominent Jewish People As Villains

The Anti-Defamation League, the nation’s leading Jewish civil rights group, has condemned GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s closing campaign ad, called “Argument for America,” as anti-semitic. 

In addition to the Clintons, the ad casts three prominent Jewish people as bad guys: Fed Chair Janet Yellen, financier George Soros and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

“The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election,” Trump says in the ad. “For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind.”

The ADL issued a statement saying that, “Whether intentional or not, the images and rhetoric in this ad touch on subjects that anti-semites have used for ages.” 

“This needs to stop,” the group wrote. “In the faint days before the election, tensions are extremely high. It’s a time when all candidates need to be especially responsible and bid for votes by offering sincere ideas and policy proposals, not by conjuring painful stereotypes and baseless conspiracy theories.” 

At Talking Points Memo, Publisher Josh Marshall writes that the ad is anti-semitic “every bit as much as the infamous Jesse Helms ‘white hands’ ad or the Willie Horton ad were anti-African-American racist ads.” 

“There’s been a lot of discussion of anti-Semitism and the Trump campaign but a fierce resistance to coming to grips with the fact that anti-Semitism is a key driving force of the Trump campaign, that the campaign itself is an anti-Semitic one even though the great majority of Trump’s supporters are not anti-Semites,” Marshall writes. “When he closes out his campaign with a blatantly anti-Semitic ad, it’s time to rethink that resistance.”

Also condemning the ad was Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who called it “a German shepherd whistle, a dog whistle” and “an appeal to some of the worst elements in our society.” 

Watch Franken discuss the ad with CNN’s Jake Tapper below. 

Image via CNN on YouTube