ADL's silence on Donald Trump protects him and Roger Marshall
By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit ·
By condemning an antisemitic slur without naming Donald Trump, the ADL enables a pattern of hate while ignoring the predatory medical debt lawsuits Trump defended in Kansas.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is playing a dangerous game of selective silence. When Donald Trump used an antisemitic slur at a Kansas rally, the ADL issued a generic warning about hate speech. They did not name the man who spoke the words. This is not a neutral stance. It is a failure of nerve that protects a powerful man while leaving the targeted community vulnerable.
A slur to shield a predator
Donald Trump went to Park City, Kansas, to support Republican senator Roger Marshall. According to CNN, Trump used the term “Shylock” while defending Marshall’s record. Marshall is not just a politician; he is a physician who sued more than 700 patients for unpaid medical bills. Those lawsuits led to 18 arrests.
Trump tried to frame this predatory behavior as a legal necessity. He claimed Marshall was “mandated by law” to “go after those people.” He told the crowd that critics made it like Marshall was “some kind of a shylock-type guy.”
This is a lie. Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown Law School told CNN that while Marshall can sue for bills, he is not required to do so. Trump used a slur to attack the people calling out the exploitation of sick, working-class families. He weaponized hate to protect a man who weaponized the law against the poor.
The institutional double standard
The ADL's response was a masterclass in cowardice. As reported by The Guardian, the organization posted on X that the term is “rooted in a longstanding antisemitic stereotype.” They warned that its use can “normalize language that has long been used to target the Jewish community.”
They just forgot to mention Donald Trump.
This selective hesitation is a pattern. Former Sanders adviser Matt Duss noted that if a Democrat had used the slur, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt would be “knocking people over to get in front of a camera.” We have seen this institutional flexibility before. In 2014, Joe Biden described certain lenders as “shylocks.” At that time, the ADL accepted his apology and called the incident “a teachable moment.”
The ADL treats the powerful with a softness they never extend to the marginalized. They offer "teachable moments" to some and nameless public service announcements to others.
The machinery of normalization
This was not a slip of the tongue. This is Donald Trump's use of the word 'Shylock' in Iowa. In July 2025, Trump used the same slur to describe bankers. The ADL called that use “very troubling and irresponsible.” Trump then claimed he had “never heard it that way.”
He lied then, and he lied again in Kansas. The repeated use of a slur after being explicitly corrected proves that the language is a tool for normalization rather than a mistake of ignorance.
This is how hate becomes mainstream. It starts with a trope, followed by a weak rebuke, and ends with a repeat performance. By using these canards, he tests the boundaries of what the public will tolerate. When watchdogs like the ADL refuse to name him, they tell him the boundaries are open. They provide the cover he needs to keep pushing.
The ADL is no longer acting as a watchdog; it is acting as a buffer. By scrubbing Trump's name from its condemnation, the organization protects its own political alignments over the safety of the people it claims to serve. This institutional cowardice will only fracture the coalition of civil rights advocates.
Donald Trump will continue to deploy these slurs because he knows the cost is zero. He will keep shielding predators like Roger Marshall because he knows the ADL will provide the sanitized silence he requires. Justice requires naming the bigot and the predator in the same breath. Until the ADL finds its spine, it is merely an accomplice to the normalization of hate.