The man who brought a Nazi flag to a Bernie rally didn't just do it because Sanders is Jewish

Last Thursday, a man unfurled a swastika flag at a Bernie Sanders rally in Arizona. Sanders, who is running to be the first Jewish Democratic Party nominee for president, and the first socialist Democratic nominee, was understandably horrified. The incident, he said, was "disgusting" and "horrible."

The swastika was both of those things. But it's also a sign of emboldened antisemitism on the right — antisemitism that is tied to a hatred of the left. Sanders is a target for Nazi harassment both because he is Jewish and because he is a socialist. And that means that those who want to resist the far right need to be prepared to stand in solidarity with the left.

The connection between antisemitism and anti-leftism is a foundational tenet of Nazism. Adolf Hitler believed that Marxism was a Jewish invention designed to undermine the natural nationalist spirit. "The Jewish doctrine of Marxism,” he said, "denies the value of personality in man, contests the significance of nationality and race, and thereby withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence and its culture."

Hitler hated Jews because he saw them as leftists, and he hated leftists because he saw them as Jews. The Holocaust was both a genocide and a program designed to annihilate the political left. In Hitler's eyes, these were one and the same.

The right today in the United States continues to mix antisemitism and anti-leftism in much the same manner as Hitler did. One of the most popular conspiracy theories involves billionaire Jewish Democratic donor and Holocaust survivor George Soros. The right regularly accuses Soros of working to undermine democracy and corrupt American values, just as the Nazis accused Jews of promoting leftism to destroy the Aryan race.

These conspiracy theories circulate on the reactionary fringe. Cesar Sayoc, who mailed explosive devices to Democratic figures like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, also sent one to George Soros because he believed Soros "was the one behind everything”, according to one of his work colleagues. But Soros conspiracies are also popular with mainstream Republicans, like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, who speculated that Soros might be behind the protests against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Similarly, President Donald Trump suggested that Soros was funding the Central American caravan of migrants trying to enter the United States in 2018. The man who murdered 13 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh also believed Soros was behind the migrant caravan. He may have targeted Tree of Life in particular because the synagogue had a history of pro-immigrant and pro-refugee advocacy. The attack on Jews was also an attack on left political activism, just as the man who brought a swastika to Bernie Sanders' rally was targeting both a Jewish leftist and a leftist Jew.

The connection between anti-leftism and antisemitism is especially dangerous because it recruits conservatives and right-wing politicians to the cause of antisemitism. Hitler's rabid anti-communism drew support from conservative elites: it's not an accident that Martin Niemöller’s famous poem begins, "First they came for the communists…"

Similarly, Republicans like Grassley and Trump find George Soros conspiracies congenial because they're a way to claim that the left is illegitimate, elitist, and corrupt. Even Israel's right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dabbled in Soros conspiracy theories as a way to smear his political enemies.

Of course, disagreeing with leftists doesn't make you an antisemite. Just because you object to the details of Sanders' healthcare plan doesn't mean you hate Jewish people. Nor does all antisemitism originate with the right; the British Labour party has been struggling with reports of antisemitism directed at Jewish members. But the right and the media need to be aware of how irresponsible demonization of the left empowers the absolute worst people, especially when that demonization is directed at specific candidates.

For instance, a recent New York Times story published over the weekend accuses Sanders of being a dupe of Soviet propaganda because when he was mayor of Burlington in the 1980s the city had a sister-city relationship with Yaroslavl. In fact, at the time, the Soviet Union was opening up, and everyone in the US government from Reagan on down was encouraging closer ties between the US and Russia. The Times story is a red-baiting piece which paints Sanders as disloyal and in thrall to a foreign power. As such, it plays into the hands of those who see leftists, and Jewish people, as outsiders and betrayers.

Even more egregiously, MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews compared Bernie Sanders' victory in the Nevada caucuses to the Nazi invasion of France. The suggestion that a Jewish leftist is equivalent to a Nazi echoes far-right propaganda which blames Jewish people for Nazi violence, or which suggests that Nazis were only replying in kind to the threat from Jewish leftists. (Matthews apologized for his comments.)

It's easy to dismiss the white supremacist who unfurled the Nazi flag at Sanders' rally as isolated and unrepresentative. But the mixture of antisemitism and anti-leftism remains a potent and ugly force in our politics. If we want to fight fascism, we need to reject antisemitism, even when, or especially when, it is directed at the left.