2016 Trump Surrogate, Joe Arpaio, Says He Will Fight "Radicals of the Jewish Left"
Republican politician and former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who infamously violated the civil rights of immigrants he imprisoned, and served as a 2016 Trump surrogate — announced a new initiative: America’s Sheriff. The press release calls the project a “new public interest watchdog whose mission is to promote, protect and fight for the interests and legal rights of the nation's law enforcement, including but not limited to local police.”
The release goes on to warn of attacks from “radical leftists,” and goes on to specify who those “radical leftists” are:
“In recent months, our brave law enforcement from all quarters have literally been under attack, with radical leftists looting, burning stealing, maiming and even assaulting and killing law enforcement officers, as well as innocent citizens. These radicals are comprised of socialists, communists, African-American anti-white separatists, radical Muslims, radicals of the Jewish left, anarchists, atheists, and other leftists of all races, sexes and persuasions. Their obvious goal is to destabilize and take down the creation of our Founding Fathers, and in its place install a Marxist state.
Furthering this Bolshevik-style revolution have been local mayors and governors in many of the nation's largest cities and states, whose agenda is to use these leftist radicals to also remove President Trump from office, paving the way for a Democrat socialist/communist takeover of all three branches of government. In this way, the radical left will be able to consolidate its power and hold over the American people.”
The list of “radicals” is remarkably similar to the groups the 1920s-era Ku Klux Klan viewed as enemies, particularly Jews, Black people, communists, socialists, and leftists. Even the warning of a “Bolshevik-style revolution” evokes language in the 1926 The Klan’s Fight for Americanism, which asserts “Liberalism has come completely under the dominance of weaklings and parasites whose alien ‘idealism’ reaches its logical peak in the Bolshevist platform.” Like Arpaio and his America’s Sheriff co-founder, Larry Klayman (who identifies as a “Jewish Christian,” and is an Islamophobic extremist), The Klan’s Fight also references criticism of the Founding Fathers: “Our forefathers had standards — the Liberals today say they were narrow!”
Antisemitic tropes about “radicals of the Jewish left” evoke not only to the revival of the KKK, but also to the Red Scare, during which Jews from Eastern Europe were seen as likely communists and socialists — and thereby traitors to the United States. Similar sentiments were expressed in The Turner Diaries, an infamously racist 1978 novel that tells the story of — and advocates for — a race war. The book includes lines about a “Jewish-liberal-democratic-egalitarian plague," and was a source of inspiration for the Oklahoma City bomber.
Arpaio has a long history of white supremacy and brutality. He referred proudly to the jails and “tent city” he ran as Sheriff as “concentration camps,” and the description was accurate. Arpaio’s treatment of immigrants won Donald Trump over; Arpaio spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, the same year he was voted out of office. He campaigned heavily with Trump in Arizona, and received a pardon from Trump the following year. Republican politicians like Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and the Chair of the Arizona Republican Party, Kelli Ward, cheered on the decision.
Joe Arpaio campaigning for Donald Trump in 2016
Arpaio ran for Senate in 2018, and in the process, granted multiple interviews to the antisemitic outlet, America Free Press. He initially refused to criticize the outlet, later tweeting that he “did not support” its “point of view.” He lost his primary election, but remains a Republican Party star. In 2019, he headlined an event hosted by the St. Louis county GOP.
While Arpaio continues to tie himself to Trump’s Republican Party, the America’s Sheriff release specifies: “America's Sheriff is non-partisan but it is founded to defend America's Judeo-Christian heritage as depicted in the Bible, where God looks to the counselors and judges to restore the Tarnished City to the Faithful City.” (The reference to “Judeo-Christian heritage” in a document employing antisemitic language is unsurprising; the phrase is regularly used by conservative politicians and pundits as a synonym for “Christian” that simply gives the impression of diversity of faith).