Donald Trump just found a way to make the world an even more dangerous place
To refer to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as a forgery, as sometimes happens, is to give it unmerited credit for being a counterfeit of an original, when in fact it is a despicable plagiarism of ancient calumnies against tribes and peoples. It is a poison hoax purporting to be a blueprint for the Jewish takeover of the world, first published in Russia in 1903. This infamous bit of weaponized literature has been promoted and promulgated ever since by such various persons and organizations as Henry Ford, Bobby Fischer, the John Birch Society and the Nazis.
One of the most chilling stolen precepts from the “Protocols” has come to be known as the Blood Libel, the notion that Jews practicing the dark arts of world conquest would sometimes sacrifice children during Stygian rituals for unspeakable purposes. It’s a feature of this great libel that, though preposterous on its face, it has taken on a life of its own, and still pops up from time to time in ever differing forms.
When on Saturday night during yet another of his Nuremberg-style rallies in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Donald Trump made the preposterous claim that Democrats support a conspiracy between doctors and mothers to execute their newborn babies, it is quite possible he was employing yet another variation in that selfsame theme, the Blood Libel. Trump said, “the baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”
This remarkable lie, newly minted from ancient sources and recast in Trump’s words in Green Bay, sounds suspiciously like a concoction of Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller. I sincerely doubt that Trump has read the “Protocols,” but I would not be surprised in the least if Miller has. Miller knows exactly how inflammatory the Blood Libel can be. He also knows that, once uttered by Trump, it has become an indelible semaphore in the collective mind of his base, intended to inspire murderous hatred in each and every one of them. It is arguably the most powerful slander anyone can make against an intended enemy, that the enemy is involved in the murder of innocent children.
The words have been spoken and, in a sense, the spell has been cast, impervious to contradiction from the mainstream media, no matter how urgent nor oft-repeated. Donald Trump’s base has become infested with this preposterous lie, and their hatred for people on the left reinforced. We, and particularly the mainstream media, would be wise not to to underestimate the power of what Trump has done. Thanks to this powerful new lie, steeped in tradition and of proven potency, the world has become a measurably more dangerous place for the enemies of Donald Trump.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.