The Atlantic

What Trump Still Doesn't Understand About the Holocaust

The president’s address downplayed the Shoah’s universal lessons, turning the occasion into an exercise in ethnic politics.
Source: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Given his administration’s bizarre rhetorical struggles when it comes to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the bar for Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday at the Holocaust Memorial Museum was low. All he really had to do was show he understands that anti-Semitism is bad, and that the Holocaust happened mostly to Jews. He did that, and more. At times, his speech was genuinely moving. It was also disturbing in a very instructive way.

The Holocaust is both a defining event in the modern history of the Jewish people and a defining event in the modern history of inhumanity. It has

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