Progressives falsely claim Trump’s ‘Sleepy-Eyes’ insult is anti-Semitic

President Donald Trump has renewed criticism of MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, referring to him as “Sleepy Eyes” because, well, he looks tired all the time. Now, a Stoneman Douglas student is falsely claiming this as an anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish journalist.

The charge is absolutely ludicrous.

“‘Sleepy eyes’ is an anti-Semitic term that was and is stilled used by neo-nazis groups relating to ‘how to spot a Jew,'” tweeted Sarah Chadwick, a member of the March for Our Lives movement. “Donald Trump just used anti-semitic terminology against a Jewish reporter. Why are people not talking about this?!”

The reason no one is talking about it is because it’s not an absurd criticism and isn’t based in reality. Look, I know anti-Semitism. I’ve experienced it much of my life, explicitly and implicitly. In an afternoon on Twitter, depending on how active I am and the topics I discuss, it’s no longer shocking to be called all sorts of names. When I tweet with friend and colleague Ben Shapiro, I see it even more. Trump has been using the insult for years but, suddenly, someone discovered it’s supposedly a way to make fun of Jews? I don’t think so. “Sleepy Eyes” is not anti-Semitic.

Shapiro, who was the #1 target of online anti-Semitism in 2016, said “I have never heard this in my life.”

Haaertz, an Israel-based publication, finds scant evidence the phrase is used to malign Jews, calling the evidence “relatively thin.” They report:

The only direct “sleepy eyes” reference is on the racist website “Gentile Nation.” This offers instructions on “How to recognize and identify a Jew” through physical features, and bearing the creative byline “John Doe Goy.”

Cataloging Jews feature by feature, the description of “Jewish Eyes” reads: “There are several types of Jewish eyes: The lizard-like Asiatic eyes, as seen in the photos directly below, the pop eyes and the sleepy and sometimes bulging eyes, the sad sack eyes.”

There is also a mention of “sleepy eyes” on an anti-Semitic forum called Stormfront, which claims to be for the “embattled white minority.”

But searches in both English and German fail to uncover hard proof that would back up the numerous assertions on Twitter that “sleepy eyes” was common in Nazi propaganda as one of the criteria included in Nazi instructions for the German secret police to identify Jews, and the accompanying partisan clamor.

Yet, despite any evidence remotely indicating the term is used in any meaningful way by anti-Semites, Progressive Twitter is pushing the narrative. Why? It’s simple: they want to believe it. It’s how Trump Derangement Syndrome works. And because virtually no one feels comfortable correcting a Stoneman Douglas student, they retweet and like, sharing to their friends a bogus claim of anti-Semitism to go after a President they simply don’t like.

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