As noted in “Minority group members in positions of power increase prejudice?”, people express sometimes unhappiness with an entire group when an individual in power does something that they don’t like. I’m wondering if Bernie Sanders being elected to the Presidency would result in a huge increase in hatred directed toward American Jews. Nobody likes paying the current 40-50% tax rates (federal plus state). Imagine how outraged they will be when a Jew president cranks up the rates to 90%.
There is already a fair amount of acceptance for any statement blaming Jews for whatever is upsetting a non-Jew. Here’s an example from Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace laureate writing in the NYT about “A Five Nation Plan to End the Syrian Crisis”:
Before the revolution began in March 2011… Because of many complex reasons, he was supported by his military forces, most Christians, Jews, Shiite Muslims, Alawites and others who feared a takeover by radical Sunni Muslims.
Wikipedia says that the “Jews” Former President Carter was talking about numbered 50 in 2011 and 22 in May 2012 (the last significant group having departed in 1992). What have those 22 Jews done for Assad that merits a mention in the New York Times? This article says that “all are elderly without family abroad and living in a building adjoining the (only work) synagogue in Damascus.” Apparently no editor at the New York Times was willing to ask Mr. Carter “Is an old Jew using a walker a substantial threat to ISIS?”
It’s not reasonable to say that Jimmy Carter blamed Jews for anything in those sentences. If he did, then he was also blaming Christians, Alawites and so forth for the same support they gave Assad.
This is interesting in the context of the current stories about “political correctness” on college campuses. You perceive anti-Semitism where many other readers would not.