The miasma of today is one created by a world in which journalists are described as “enemies of the people,” in which immigrants fleeing chaos or seeking opportunity are accused of harboring terrorists and carrying leprosy, in which a politician aspiring to the highest positions of leadership in Congress says, “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to BUY this election!” It is the miasma created by a leader who cheers a candidate for body-slamming a reporter, and whose subordinates’ professed sorrow for bullet-riddled old men and women is swiftly displaced by self-pity and grievance that their boss is being picked on.

This miasma floats up on the left as well as on the right. In Britain, the trope of hook-nosed financiers troubles the leader of the opposition not at all. One day, probably not long from now, a politician on the American left may warn about Adelson and the wealthy Jews of Miami buying a political party, and then the bullets may fly from a different direction.

The Jews can indeed smell it. It is why a disproportionate number of the conservative intellectuals crying out in alarm in 2016 and 2017 were Jews. The People of the Book know that words are powerful, for ill as well as for good. They know that one thing leads to another, and that if someone promises violence they will deliver it. They know that evil never really goes away, but rather remains dormant, ever ready to be awakened, deliberately or unintentionally, retail or wholesale.