MAGA Republicans know marginalized groups are stronger together. That’s why they want to divide us.

A recent report by the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International found that 73% of Jewish college students have personally experienced or witnessed antisemitic incidents on their campuses since the start of the 2023-2024 school year. Many of the same respondents stated they do not feel safe as Jews at their colleges and universities, especially since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 and the resulting war between Israel and Hamas.

The report – in addition to one conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – also found a significant uptick in Islamophobic incidents throughout the U.S., including on college campuses. For example, three college students of Palestinian descent were shot in Burlington, Vermont at the end of November.

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Of course Donald Trump is a fascist. Let’s count the ways.

Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump that the United States may technically no longer even qualify as a democracy.

Congress would have been justified in investigating what’s happening to find well-reasoned solutions. Instead, sadly, the MAGA wing of the House’s slim Republican majority chose to concoct a sham trial – nay, an inquisition – against three women presidents representing some of our most prestigious universities purportedly to look into their policies on tackling antisemitism on their campuses. The committee showed no concern or interest in rising Islamophobic incidents.

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Leading the highly coordinated attack were Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and her far-right accomplices (though the other extremists were not actually in attendance to hear the testimonies of the witnesses but rather to attack and criticize these women in front of the television cameras after the fact).

The goal of all this was clear from the outset of the “hearing.”

Rather than seeking to accumulate information on the state of policy initiatives in balancing student and faculty First Amendment rights of freedom of speech with their rights to feel safe and secure, the MAGA gang followed through on its intended inquisition by attacking the university presidents’ credentials and integrity, delegitimizing what could have been a valid discussion on issues of campus safety.   

These representatives demonstrate that the GOP generally has no interest in reducing antisemitism in the country. This is especially true of those who support Donald Trump, who continually employs antisemitic tropes in his speeches and on social media to rile up his sycophants.

Hypocritically, the Committee at the “hearing” employed its dishonest and cynical “concern” for fighting antisemitism on campus as a wedge and a ploy in its ultimate attack on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and to place the final nail in the coffin of Affirmative Action in higher education stemming from the recent Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard) and SFFA v. University of North Carolina.

The previous Spanish and Mexican inquisitions of the 15^th century targeted Jews in show trials that resulted in murder, expulsions, and mass conversions to Christianity. The recent Congressional inquisition against these university presidents, and especially against Black Harvard President Claudine Gay, attempted to use Jewish students as pawns in MAGA’s plan to silence DEI initiatives and to terminate academic freedom.

The committee has clearly learned from conservative state legislatures, boards of education, and governors who have worked to place severe limits on what can be discussed and read in the public schools, using similar tactics regarding hiring policies and academic standards in higher education.

In fact, Jewish students are among those on the front lines in the fight to expand DEI initiatives, as well as racial and gender justice initiatives on campus and throughout the nation.

To be clear and unequivocal: Jews refuse to be used as pawns of the far-right.

Defeating the monster

Swimming through my mind is a series of cartoon images that can be seen as symbolizing the political, economic, religious, and social inequalities of our time.

In the upper graphic, a gigantic monster fish propels open-mouthed, engulfing smaller fish who attempt to escape from being consumed. The lower picture shows the smaller fish joining together (e pluribus unum) to chase and ultimately defeat the monster fish that once seemed so overwhelmingly powerful.

I understand the monster fish as representing the system of patriarchal Christian white supremacy, a system that uses the strategy of fear and division to maintain and extend its power and control.

Those consciously or inadvertently advancing the patriarchal Christian white supremacist system employ the strategy of “divide and conquer” to ensure that the monster fish continues to feed ferociously for all time.

Patriarchal Christian white supremacy wins by building walls of division while inhibiting attempts from the marginalized to construct bridges connecting to each other.

The MAGA movement is dedicated to erecting walls to divide and conquer, to “winning” at any cost, and to stoking fear and division in the body politic.

Trump has excited the worst in the human psyche, but he has merely served as a tool that has revealed the largely submerged resentment and fear of the “other” among Americans. By his example, he has given others permission to reveal their own xenophobic beliefs with strength and even pride.

Trump’s movement could be described as Machiavellian in its single-minded, cunning, unscrupulous, and vicious actions in advancing its power and fortune and enacting its policies. To the MAGA crowd, the ends certainly justify the means. No matter who gets hurt.

Returning to our fish pictures, the bottom figure depicts coalition politics that will ultimately lessen and end the many systems of oppression against us all. This presents an important way forward. Together we can defeat the MAGA fish.