The silence on Vance’s anti-Jewish conspiracy theories speaks volumes

Even as the Trump administration continues to investigate major universities for allegedly failing to address campus antisemitism, the president and leading Republicans have all remained disturbingly silent about the Jewish conspiracy theorizing of Vice President JD Vance. 

In Vance’s recent lengthy interview with contrarian podcaster Joe Rogan, the talk inevitably turned to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Repeating a baseless rumor, Rogan opined that “most people think he was Mossad.”

The vice president agreed. “He clearly had connections to the upper — the highest — levels of Israeli intelligence,” said Vance, affirming a purported relationship unsupported in the 3.5 million pages released by the Department of Justice pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

There are two important things to know about conspiracy theories. First, everything counts as proof. There are no events or associations that cannot fit into the theory. Viewed from just the right perspective, it can all be stitched into the narrative. Even the complete absence of evidence confirms the conspirators’ ominous power to cover their tracks.

Second, they all too frequently focus on Jews. Whatever has gone badly in the world, whether trivial (a disallowed World Cup goal) or tragic (the Los Angeles wild fires), the consequences can be blamed on Jews.

Vance’s Epstein-Mossad affirmation is a classic exemplar. No evidence? No problem. It was cunningly removed years ago.

Vance said he asked if there were “documents connecting Jeffrey Epstein directly to our intelligence agencies or anybody else’s, and the answer is no.” He added: “But if that........

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