A note to editors.
The editor’s impulse to properly attribute accusations in print is understandable for legal and ethical reasons. I’m fastidious about this myself.
But it was startling to read so many headlines last night reporting that Democratic candidate Maureen Galindo lost the Texas primary runoff for a House seat following mere “accusations” of antisemitism.
The Hill: Garcia beats Texas Democrat accused of antisemitism in House primary runoff
The New York Times: Democrats Pick a Moderate in a Texas Race Roiled by Antisemitism Accusations
CBS: Maureen Galindo projected to lose Texas Democratic House runoff after antisemitism accusations
Calling for “American Zionists” to be imprisoned and also probably castrated — as she did — meets any working definition of antisemitism.
In the bizarro Instagram post that brought Galindo into national disrepute, her campaign account described Zionism itself as antisemitic and accused her opponent of wanting to put Jews in camps, while at the same time vowing to send American Zionists to a converted ICE detention facility. She added with a flourish, “It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists.”
The post was logically and morally unintelligible. National Democrats probably were concerned they might soon host an MTG-style loon at the Capitol and got to work nuking her chances before the runoff. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the remarks “bigoted garbage.”
Galindo later argued that she only wants “billionaire zionists,” even Christian ones, imprisoned and that her words had been twisted. They were twisted, all right, just not in the way she contends.
Editors don’t need to hedge here. For the record, CNN and the Washington Post didn’t. And the WaPo showed you can accurately describe the race’s outcome — Texas Democrats reject House candidate who called for imprisoning Zionists — in the same amount of headline space.