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By Anna Skinner
Associate News Editor
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President Joe Biden unleashed a unique plan on Wednesday to fight antisemitism in the United States, but U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert felt it was a veiled effort to attack conservatives.
Biden announced his Plan to Fight Hate on Wednesday. As America grows more divisive, hate crimes are showing a disturbing trend. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a report in March that showed hate crimes for 2020 and 2021 were at their highest level since the FBI started tracking the statistics approximately 30 years ago. Biden's plan outlined a series of actions such as workshops to counteract bias in the workplace, strengthened educational Holocaust programs, and elimination of barriers encountered when someone attempts to report a hate crime.
However, Boebert took to Twitter with her thoughts on the unveiled plan, comparing it to tactics used by the Soviet Union.
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"When they say stuff like this, they mean they want to go after conservatives. Their tactics are straight out of the USSR's playbook," Boebert tweeted on Wednesday, accompanied by a brief clip of Biden outlining the plan.
Boebert appeared to be comparing Biden to actions taken by the Soviet Union during the 1900s to achieve communism with a centralized government and economy.
"The federal government should not be in the business of censoring free speech," Boebert told Newsweek in a statement. "This is the latest version of this administration's failed 'Ministry of Truth.' The First Amendment guarantees a marketplace of ideas where truth, beauty, and justice ultimately win out. I do not condone antisemitism."
However, Biden didn't make any mention of communism or socialism in his message to combat hate. He did mention that the plan consists of over 100 actions will be taken by the U.S. government to fight antisemitism.
Biden said that the plan is a call to action for Congress, state and local governments, companies, technology platforms, civil society and faith leaders to combat hate.
"Silence is complicity. All of us must stand united to affirm that an attack on any one group of us is an attack on all of us," Biden said in the video.
Boebert's tweet elicited a slew of critical responses, with most responders commenting on how the Congresswoman connected conservatives with antisemitism and hate in her tweet.
Recent Concerns Regarding Antisemitism
Last Saturday, an unknown subject tossed a lit explosive near a synagogue in Lakewood, New Jersey, raising questions on if the attack was actually a hate crime. There were no injuries.
The State of Florida recently rejected two Holocaust textbooks titled Modern Genocides and History of the Holocaust that were intended for high school students. The rejection comes after Governor Ron DeSantis passed a highly controversial law in 2022 that requires teachers to remove books that do not appear on a state-approved reading list until they are reviewed by an employee with a media specialist certificate. Newsweek reported that antisemitism in Florida has reached a "historic" high, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Antisemitism also has been surfacing on social media, specifically on Twitter after Elon Musk purchased the tech company and reversed many of its banned accounts, some of which were known to belong to right-wing extremists and antisemites, according to the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
Update 05/26/23 4:17 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include a statement from Boebert.
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