Ann Coulter’s Twitter feed featured a string of Tweets using a far-right anti-Semitic slur on Thursday night.
Coulter, a conservative author and pundit, posted seven tweets calling out so-called “globalists”—a coded slur for “Jewish.”
icymi Ann Coulter appears to have gone full anti-semite last night. pic.twitter.com/03mfVzqysI
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 9, 2018
“Paul Newman is only half-Globalist,” reads one tweet (Newman’s father was Jewish); “Baseball hall of famer Sandy Kofax is also a Globalist,” reads another. She also links to a Huffington Post story about the use of the term “globalist” by the far right.
It appears that Coulter is using the term to mock the news outlets for their interpretation of President Donald Trump’s statements about former economic advisor Gary Cohn. Cohn stepped down from his post last week after Trump announced new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Upon his departure, Trump said, “He may be a globalist, but I still like him. He is seriously a globalist. There’s no question.”
Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney echoed the sentiment, saying, “I never expected that the co-worker I would work closest, and best, with at the White House would be a ‘globalist.’”
Trump’s entire campaign has been built on economic nationalism, with promises to bring industry back to America and American workers. Trump employs nationalist economic advisors like Peter Navarro who support that vision. Cohn has favored an international, interconnected approach more consistent with other post-Cold War administrations.
The word “globalist” can certainly refer to such a worldview, one which promotes international trade, cooperation, and movement. But it can also have a covert, dog-whistle meaning among the alt-right.
As the New York Times explains, “For the far right, globalism has long had distinct xenophobic, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic overtones.”
“It refers to a conspiratorial worldview: a cabal that likes open borders, diversity and weak nation states, and that dislikes white people, Christianity and the traditional culture of their own country,” the article says.
Alex Jones of InfoWars uses the term consistently in connection with various conspiracy theories, including claims that the Parkland shooting was a false-flag operation ordered by globalists to distract from the FISA memo.
As Eli Rosenberg points out in the Washington Post, “‘Globalist’ is frequently deployed in far-right and conspiracy-theory-minded circles on the Internet as a Jewish slur. In this line of thinking, globalists are a shadowy cabal who run the financial institutions, corporations and media organizations around the world,” bringing to mind long-running conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family, or that Jewish people control the media.
It’s not the first time Coulter has been accused of anti-Semitism. In 2015, she tweeted, “How many f–ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?” during a GOP debate in which the candidates expressed their support for the state of Israel.
How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015
Coulter brushed off criticism, saying the tweet expressed her frustration with Republican pandering, but the explanation did not go off well.
Xenophobic opinions are Coulter’s bread and butter. She recently tweeted in defense of Britain First, a hate group whose leaders were recently convicted of anti-Muslim hate crimes, and blogged about the dangers of racial quotas in schools. Her support for Trump, which has waned over his tenure, was based on his anti-immigration positions.