Disloyal to What?

Donald Trump isn’t only venomous; he’s also vague. So when he said yesterday that “any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” it wasn’t entirely obvious whom he was accusing Jewish Democrats of being disloyal to. But the most plausible explanation is that he was accusing them of being disloyal to Israel.

In the previous sentence, Trump had condemned Democrats for “defending these two people”—Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar—“over the State of Israel.” And in the past, Trump has repeatedly spoken about American Jews Benjamin Netanyahu “your prime minister” and warned that a Democratic victory in 2020 “could leave Israel out there all by yourselves.” At the White House Hanukkah Party last December, he the mostly Jewish audience that Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, “love your country. And they love this country.”