How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel

Asked by The Times whether she was aware that the invocations of Mr. Soros are widely considered anti-Jewish in certain contexts, Ms. Van Duyne posted the questions and her response on X. In addition to funding “organizations that are driving antisemitism on college campuses,” she wrote, “Soros also funded the violent BLM movement, organizations who fought to defund the police, and helped elect pro-criminal district attorneys.”

And when conservative movers and shakers gathered in late February for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual homecoming of influential activists and politicians on the right, they were greeted this way: “Welcome to CPAC 2024, where globalism goes to die.”

Methodology

The Times used a variety of methods to examine the extent to which federal politicians have used language promoting antisemitic tropes.

Reporters examined official press releases, congressional newsletters and posts on X (formerly Twitter) of every person who served in Congress over the past 10 years that contained the words “Soros,” “globalist” or “globalism” — terms widely accepted by multiple historians and experts on antisemitism as “dog whistles” that refer to Jews. Reporters read each message to determine if the terms were used in a way that echoed conspiracy theories about Jews. The Times used a similar process to analyze about five years of campaign emails from former President Donald J. Trump.

The Times also examined congressional press releases, newsletters and posts on X for words and phrases that experts said could have antisemitic implications when used in conjunction with discussions of Israel. These included “from the river to the sea,” and variants of “colonial,” “Nazi” and “lobby.”

Retweets or approving quotes of other messages were counted in the Times analysis, and repeated messages that used the same or very similar language were each tallied separately.

Using computer analysis techniques that allow the examination of large amounts of text, The Times also analyzed extremist websites and podcasts to explore how they discussed Mr. Soros and globalists. The Anti-Defamation League provided transcripts of extremist and conspiracy-oriented podcasts that frequently mentioned Mr. Soros and globalists.

Additional sources for congressional newsletters, congressional press releases and emails from the campaign of Mr. Trump: DCinbox, LegiStorm, congressional websites, Archive of Political Emails.

Michael H. Keller contributed reporting. Additional work by Lazaro Gamio.