On Monday, the Republican National Committee went to bizarre lengths to paint President Joe Biden as anti-Semitic, only to have the effort backfire.
It occurred after the president announced he had nominated former federal prosecutor Steve Dettelbach to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
It happened to be a nice spring day in Washington, D.C., and Biden mentioned in passing that Dettelbach “was responsible for the weather.”
That inspired someone at the RNC to conflate what Raw Story correctly called a “corny joke” into something a lot more sinister by pointing out that the nominee is Jewish.
Although many people might wonder why the RNC felt it necessary to mention Dettelbach’s religion, those familiar with anti-Semitic tropes will note that “Jews control the weather” is an actual conspiracy theory.
In 2018, Washington, D.C., city council member Trayon White Sr. came under fire after citing the theory to explain a brief snowstorm. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) referenced the anti-Semitic belief when she tried to blame California’s wildfires on, essentially, Jewish space lasers.
Twitter users were confused about the point of the GOP’s tweet and happy to point out Republican hypocrisy.
