How Mastriano sank deeper into antisemitism | Will Bunch Newsletter

In a week that just couldn’t be bigger for both my outer world (World Series! MLS Cup! Midterms!) and my inner one (watching my daughter, my oldest, turn 30 today ... wow), there is something else to ponder. Elon Musk, the world’s richest jerk, now owns Twitter. And he wants me to pay for my cherished blue check mark. No way is he getting one dollar from me. I don’t need Elon’s validation to connect with you!

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I think we can all agree on this: When a journalist asks a major political candidate to explain that he’s not prejudiced against Jewish people, and he hands the microphone to his wife rather than answer the question in his own words, then he’s off to a bad start.

Yet that awkward moment is exactly what happened on Saturday night at a campaign rally for Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, in Lancaster County. In a rare moment for arguably the most media-averse campaign in modern memory, the state senator held a question-and-answer session, with his wife Rebbie by his side at the podium. It was a chance for a reporter from an Israeli news outlet to raise a question about campaign antisemitism that has troubled folks from Jerusalem to Beaver Falls and places in between.

“Yeah, so...” Mastriano said, and then he froze.

Arguably, there was a lot to explain, starting with his once close relationship with the founder of the extremist social-media website Gab, which became notorious when the gunman who in 2018 killed 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue posted his manifesto there. Despite that and founder Andrew Torba’s history of outrageous anti-Jewish remarks, the Mastriano campaign this year had paid Gab $5,000 for promotion. Then there has been the tone of Mastriano’s comments criticizing his Democratic opponent Josh Shapiro for sending his children to a private Jewish day school in Bryn Mawr.

Then, Rebbie Mastriano hopped over and asked to grab the mic from her suddenly speechless husband.

“I would like to make a comment on that real quick,” she said, as the Mastriano supporters who lined the room let out a whoop. “As a family, we so much love Israel. In fact I’m going to say we probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do.” She went on to say that her family has supported Israel for a decade, and even saved up to ensure their son could travel to the Middle East nation with the couple and see it for himself. She went on to say, “We are [an] extremely pro-Israel, pro-Jewish community.”

If you’ve been following the fraught 2022 midterm elections, then this idea — rock-solid support for Israel, but sharp criticism of those who are Jewish but don’t support its government or its Zionist mission — probably sounds familiar. Donald Trump posted a similar idea not long ago on his Truth Social site, writing in a somewhat threatening tone that Jews in the United States must “get their act together” and show more appreciation for the state of Israel “before it is too late.”

Critics of the Trump statement, which was so closely echoed by Rebbie Mastriano on Saturday, have said that it plays off dangerous tropes about American Jews being more loyal to Israel than the United States. But the twist is their argument in a new age of Christian nationalism that instead paints U.S. Jews, many of whom are more secular than religious, or who vote Democratic, with a broad brush of condemnation. In fact, Mastriano’s close adviser Jenna Ellis once even criticized Shapiro as “a secular Jew” for supporting the transgender community and abortion rights — much like President Biden, “a secular Catholic.”

“Non-Jews may not all understand that this is rank anti-Semitism,” the progressive writer Jeff Sharlet posted on Twitter, in response to Rebbie Mastriano. “It is. Not because all Jews love Israel—I don’t—but because it traffics in the “good Jew/bad Jew” narrative that licenses action against ‘bad Jews’ like me.”

Indeed, rabid support for Israel is a key attribute of today’s Christian fundamentalism, in part because of the nation’s perceived role in the fulfillment of Biblical prophecies, and in part out of respect for the authoritarian nature of its mostly hardline governments in recent years. But some on the right seem to also see their Israel support as an opening for sharp words against wealthy or powerful Jews on the left, like billionaire George Soros, or Shapiro, that might tap into deeper prejudices held by some voters.

What’s more, controversial comments like those by Trump and Mastriano about Jews and Israel come in a brutal political season and a post-Trump landscape that’s triggered a flood of more clear-cut political hate speech — including rank antisemitism — than any moment in recent memory, punctuated by the backlash against hip-hop megastar Ye, or Kanye West, for a late-night Twitter rant against Jews as well as other comments.

And beyond that, voters of all stripes — but especially those of non-Christian faiths, and the non-religious — need to weigh the Mastrianos’ professed love for Israel against the multitude of statements made both by the candidate himself as well as the self-proclaimed prophets and his other fundamentalist backers that endorse a brand of Christian nationalism that places religious dominion ahead of secular democracy. It seems to me that Mastriano’s recent statements that Jesus Christ is “guiding and directing our steps” might feel more immediate to some of these Pennsylvania citizens than the future of the Middle East.

And finally, every Keystone State voter is badly served by the way this election keeps getting dragged, again and again and again, back into this nonsense. Not only is debating the loyalty of American Jews offensive, but it also means we’re not talking about our Commonwealth’s crummy roads and bridges or our underfunded schools and universities.

That’s the kind of election that Pennsylvania deserves, and isn’t getting, as long as Mastriano obsesses over which kids are using which bathrooms, or controlling women’s bodies.

When Republican voters nominated Mastriano back in May, I wrote in this space that there was no bigger story than the threat to democracy posed by his candidacy and his warped beliefs in conspiracy theories, in not counting all the votes, or on the role of religion in the public sphere. Since then, I’ve written a number of columns warning about everything from Mastriano’s homophobia to his obsession with the lost cause of the Confederacy to his dangerous education plan — and I’ve been far from alone in raising alarm.

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Pennsylvanians are rejecting his extremism, but the undisguised antisemitism of the Mastrianos is merely the latest reminder that this final week is no time to ease up.

Question: How do you think the midterms will impact Joe Biden’s plan for 2024? Will he run/not run regardless, or will the midterm results influence his decision? — Via Deborah Woodell @DebWNJ on Twitter

Answer: That’s a great question, Deb — I suspect the answer is going to be counter-intuitive to a lot of folks. By that I mean that I think if next Tuesday goes surprisingly well for the Democrats and they somehow hang onto the House (unlikely, but ... ) and also gain a couple of Senate seats, Biden will be able to cement his legacy as 46th president by passing a voting rights bill and codifying abortion rights. And if so, I suspect he’ll be happy at age 81 to pass the torch to the next generation. But if the midterms bring a GOP wave, the new House may well move to impeach Biden on trumped up charges, and thus cause the old man to want to punch back in 2024. Indeed, a dire 2023 on Capitol Hill may convince Democrats that an aging Biden is the only guaranteed way to defeat Donald Trump ... again.

One recurring theme of America’s grim political life these last six years has been our justifiable fears about foreign powers meddling in our elections. The two names that top this worry list have been China — and especially Vladimir Putin’s Russia — whose agents were busted, at least metaphorically, for internet hacking and trolling in a campaign to help Donald Trump get elected in 2016. Meanwhile, the foreign actor that’s done the most to wreak havoc in American life, and arguably for a long time, continues to hide in plain sight: Saudi Arabia.

Here’s the deal. First, polls have shown repeatedly there’s no greater factor in influencing both President Biden’s approval rating and the mood of U.S. voters in general than gasoline prices. Second, only Saudi Arabia has the oil resources that allow it to drive the global price of crude oil — by raising or cutting production. Third, you don’t need a Ph.D. in political science to know that the de facto ruler of the Saudi dictatorship — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — forged close ties with Team Trump and now disdains Biden, who in his 2020 campaign called out human rights abuses by MBS, including the murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

All of this was the secret sauce that went into Riyadh’s recent reneging on a supposed hush-hush deal with the Biden administration, as reported by the New York Times, to boost oil production and calm energy markets this fall. Instead, Team MBS announced a production cut that raised prices, coincided with a GOP revival at the polls, and even gave a boost to Putin and his thoroughly immoral war in Ukraine, which is funded by petrodollars.

Meanwhile, the Saudis also reinvest their obscene oil profits in various other schemes to corrupt American life, whether it’s the unwarranted $2 billion payday for the unqualified investment firm run by Trump’s son-in-law, their sleazy pro golf tour now propping up Trump’s resorts, or the fact that another Saudi royal, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz, has joined with Elon Musk in taking over Twitter. If America made any sense these days, the Saudis’ ability to mess with both our economy and — more importantly — our politics, would be a front-burner issue going into Nov. 8. Instead, our addiction to oil keeps both parties either tied at the hip to MBS, or cowering in fear. In a logical world, U.S. leaders and the electorate would wake up on Nov. 9 with a shared determination to end U.S. dependence on Saudi oil, for good. We can do that by transitioning to renewable energy. Isn’t it pretty to think so?