“Godwin’s Law” says that the longer an online discussion continues, the probability of invoking Hitler and Nazis approaches one. But that law was coined many years ago. The odds today that extended debate will descend into anti-Jewish conspiracism seem almost as high. Now a constellation of figures — from JD Vance, the US vice-president, to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man — are, wittingly or otherwise, making antisemitism respectable again.

America’s anti-Jewish threat comes largely from the right. Zohran Mamdani, New York’s likely next mayor, is widely accused of antisemitism because of his criticisms of Israel. Equating the two is highly questionable. He denies the charge and a non-trivial slice of Jewish New Yorkers back him. Even if Mamdani exercised the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant on Benjamin Netanyahu (he could not) would that stem from prejudice? Sixty-eight per cent of American Jews have negative views of Israel’s current government. Mamdani’s critique is no outlier.

Now take Vance. Confronted by a stream of anti-Jewish hatred on a Young Republicans WhatsApp group, the vice-president dismissed it as the kind of edgy humour in which kids indulge. He was referring to men in their twenties and thirties talking of sending their political opponents to the gas chambers. Whatever his other flaws, Mamdani does not speak like that. A conservative student last week asked Vance why the US helps Israel “considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours, but also openly supports the prosecution [sic] of ours”.