As Kanye West praises Hitler, advocates fear antisemitism is going mainstream

The conversation was as vile as you might expect.

Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who has been ordered to pay $1.44 billion US in compensation for promoting false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre, invited Kanye West, a rapper who peddles antisemitism, onto his online chat show today. 

Jones offered West some friendly cover, declaring: "You're not a Nazi, you don't deserve to be called that and demonized." 

West paused and stumbled for a moment, before declaring, "I see good things about Hitler, also."

Throughout the course of the program, West made multiple inflammatory statements, denied the Holocaust happened, and said that Nazis "did good things, too. We gotta stop dissing the Nazis all the time."

For months now, West has been using his sizeable public platform to spread hate, including a tweet declaring he would go "death con 3 on Jewish people." 

A week before he went on Jones's show, he invited Nick Fuentes, a well-known white supremacist and Holocaust denier, to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump. Trump, who only launched his campaign last month, has yet to clearly and unequivocally denounce the incident.

Then there's Kyrie Irving, the NBA star who promoted an antisemitic video. And comedian Dave Chappelle, who has been criticized for spreading harmful stereotypes about Jewish people during an appearance on Saturday Night Live last month. 

When you add it all up, advocates are warning this is what the normalization of antisemitism looks like.

"It boggles the mind. It's almost hard to understand this is happening in 2022," said Meredith Weisel, the Washington, D.C., Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League. 

During a conversation inside her Synagogue in suburban Maryland, Weisel said this kind of hateful rhetoric emboldens people who hold these views. 

"Donald Trump, a former president, going and meeting with a known white supremacist and Holocaust denier. What does that say to the community? What does that say to the public? It's a normalization," she said. 

"Somebody who may be more closeted about it feels, 'Oh, I can be more mainstream, I can be very public about it, I can act on it.'" 

In addition to antisemitic language itself being deeply harmful, Weisel's fear is that these kinds of statements will incite violence — a concern shared by the Department of Homeland Security.