Ben Shapiro, right-wing podcaster and editor in chief of The Daily Wire, accused Democratic presidential primary front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders of playing “the ‘I’m a Jew’ card” to “pretend he’s not just a white guy” Monday. If elected in 2020, Sanders would become the United States’ first Jewish president.
On Monday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show” podcast, Shapiro took issue with reporting that noted Sanders has spoken more frequently on the 2020 campaign trail about his Jewish faith and how his Jewish identity informs his policymaking and worldview. Despite this, Sanders has been attacked by some Jewish advocates who disagree with Sanders’ criticisms of the Israeli government.
“Let me say as someone who didn’t have to up their Jewish identity—right, it’s been pretty clear from the beginning because I wear the funny hat on my head and everything, right—as somebody who doesn’t need to actively up my Jewish identity—as though I’m leveling up in a video game just in time to pretend that I’m intersectional—Bernie Sanders pretending that he has any serious association with Judaism while campaigning with Linda Sarsour, open anti-Semite, Ilhan Omar, open anti-Semite, Rashida Tlaib, open anti-Semite, hanging out with the Jeremy Corbyn-ites of the party, promulgating an agenda that includes funding of Hamas—he can stick it,” Shapiro said.
He continued, “I don’t want to hear about Bernie Sanders’ Jewish identity when that has basically amounted to conveniently pulling out his Jewish identity to pretend he’s not just a white guy every few minutes. That’s pretty much his only association with Judaism.”
“You don’t get to play the ‘I’m a Jew’ card after your association with Judaism has basically been campaigning with anti-Semites throughout your entire career, undermining the state of Israel, and covering for the anti-Semitism in your own party. Sorry, you don’t get to do that. That does not hold any water at all,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro has often attacked other Jewish people who disagree politically with him, frequently accusing them of being somehow illegitimate Jews or, as he put it in 2011, “Bad Jews.”
The Jewish people has always been plagued by Bad Jews, who undermine it from within. In America, those Bad Jews largely vote Democrat.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 8, 2011
