https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/anti-defamation-league-anti-trump-anti-semitism/How a Democratic operative led the venerable hate-monitoring group off a partisan cliff.
The moment President Trump concluded his announcement of the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Anti-Defamation League fired off a tweet. In it, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tore into Kavanaugh as lacking the “independence and fair treatment for all that is necessary to merit a seat on the nation’s highest court.”
The tweet teased a press release that obliquely demanded that the Senate reject the nomination. The timing made it clear that there would be no questions or deliberative process before the venerable group, which for more than century has played the role of both defender of the Jewish community against anti-Semitism and monitor of hate crimes, made up its mind about Kavanaugh. Considering that the ADL was quicker to publicly oppose the nomination than were some members of the Democratic caucus who were certain “no” votes on the appointment, the group’s haste showed that it had planned to oppose anyone nominated by Trump.
It is no surprise that many liberal groups — including some that are all-in on what some on the left are treating as an apocalyptic fight for the future of the High Court — are reflexively opposed to anyone Trump may nominate. But the ADL’s presence in the ranks of those who are supplying the organizational muscle for the resistance to Trump might come as a surprise to those who haven’t been paying much attention to the group in recent years. Though it spent its first century of existence being careful to avoid getting labeled as a partisan outfit, in the three years since the ADL’s longtime national director Abe Foxman retired, Greenblatt has steadily pushed the group farther to the left and, in so doing, more or less destroyed its reputation as being above politics. After the ADL has repeatedly involved itself in partisan controversies, it is impossible to pretend that Greenblatt’s vision of the group isn’t fundamentally that of a Democratic-party auxiliary that is increasingly overshadowing and marginalizing its still-vital role as the nation’s guardian against anti-Semitism.