When I asked to see the text messages you’re receiving, I was mainly interested in the presidential race and even more those coming from the right. I’m also interested in ones from the Harris side and from the big Senate races. It’s a fascinating and illuminating prism into an often subterranean part of the campaigns, and ones that can fly under the radar. But I was particularly struck by this text TPM Reader BG received in New York City.
It identifies itself as coming from a group called “Turn Left,” which is associated with Richard Ojeda from West Virginia. Ojeda’s name isn’t a household word. But you may remember him. He came to a fame as a West Virginia Democrat who voted for Trump in 2016 and then turned against him. He gained a lot of attention in 2018 and 2020 as a candidate who could give Democrats purchase in rural, Trumpy parts of the country. This ad combines the hurricane misinformation of the moment — $750 checks to storm survivors — with pretty florid and traditional anti-Semitic tropes about a “genocidal AIPAC” that has its “claws so deep in Washington” that it “cuts checks to bomb civilians while your neighbors drown.”
“This is what happens,” it continues, “when genocidal groups like AIPAC buy off our leaders. When the same corrupt politicians line their pockets with blood money, then look us in the eye and tell us there’s nothing left for healthcare, education or disaster relief.”
Full text after the jump …
Needless to say, there are many people who disagree with U.S. military aid to Israel. And AIPAC has legions of critics, among whom I include myself. But this language and the tropes it invokes are stock and trade anti-Semitism, not to mention peddling false information about hurricane relief that is mainly coming from the right.
Turn Left’s website provides no contact information. Attempts to contact Ojeda were unsuccessful.
