First, Rep. Ilhan Omar spewed anti-Jew rhetoric.  Then her fellow Democrats effectively indulged her; they omitted specific mention of her from the resolution she herself inspired.  In its final, wildly general form, it meant next to nothing.

Now liberal commentator Paul Begala is marching in that nauseating company.

During a 3/12 CNN broadcast, Begala dismissed the idea that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump might one day suffer White House demotions for perceived disloyalty.  

"Of course, they'd survive," laughed Begala.  "Cockroaches are going to survive nuclear war!"

Kushner is Jewish, and Ivanka converted to Judaism following their 2009 marriage.

As WWII historians have recorded, Nazis commonly dehumanized Jews as "cockroaches" and "vermin" in propaganda.  That was what Begala echoed.

If challenged, he may either deny malicious intent or claim historical ignorance.  But he surely was aware of the significance of his chosen epithet.  It was not a harmless mistake. 

Similarly, Senate minority leader Nancy Pelosi claimed that Rep. Omar simply didn't understand her rhetoric's raising of age-old anti-Semitic sentiments. 

(Omar recently pronounced President Trump "not human."  So apparently, the claim that one's ideological opponents are less than human — and presumably not deserving of commensurate rights and liberties — can be wielded universally when convenient.)

Increasingly, today's prominent Democrat voices like Begala can be heard echoing dehumanizing, anti-Semitic language best left in the past.  As President Trump has said, the modern Democrat Party is "anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitic."

Average Democrat voters do not share such vile sympathies.  But they are voting for them.  Do they realize that?

Iowan DC Larson is an author, freelance essayist, and blogger.  His writings have run in American Thinker, the Daily Caller, Free Republic, and numerous newspapers.  His political blog is https://americanscenemagazine.blogspot.com.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.