When Democrats are accused of prejudice against Jews, Republicans can find it easy to discern ugly coded language. But when Trump and others in his party are accused of hostility to black people, Muslims, and Latinos, prominent conservatives set the standard for what constitutes bigotry so high that it’s almost impossible to meet…

But in addition to political calculation, the dramatic divergence between the way conservatives treat charges of racism and charges of anti-Semitism is also a product of selective empathy. Although most Jews vote Democratic, Jews are well represented in conservative and Republican circles. There is no African American, Latino, or Muslim Republican group with anywhere near the prominence of the Republican Jewish Coalition. This proximity sensitizes conservatives to the anxieties of a least one wing of the American Jewish community in ways that doesn’t exist with most people of color.

The radically different standard that American conservatives use to evaluate charges of bigotry against Trump and Omar has nothing to do with principle. It’s identity politics by another name. The harder Republicans work to find evidence of Democratic bigotry, the easier they make it for Trump to get away with his own.