There are articles that inadvertently slip in an anti-Semitic trope or racial statement. Then there are stories that heap on the verbal and visual cues so thick that it’s hard to believe the attack was anything less than fully intentional. The story Politico Magazine ran on Friday is definitely one of the later. This story wasn’t authored by some guest writer, but by senior staff writer Michael Kruse.

Not only does the opening image picture Bernie Sanders against a money tree, the theme of the entire article is that Sanders is “cheap, but he’s sure not poor.” On other words: Bernie Sanders is a rich but stingy Jew. That theme is carried through the entire article, which sneers again and again at the idea that “The champion of the underclass and castigator of ‘the 1 percent’ has found himself in the socioeconomic penthouse of his rhetorical boogeymen.”

Kruse dismisses the fact that Sanders’ net worth is only visible because the candidate has released 10 years of tax returns. And when Sanders points out that his wealth only increased over the last two years because he wrote a best-selling book, Kruse puts that down as a “churlish” response. He’s equally quick to spurn the fact that Sanders has continued to call for higher taxes on the wealthy even if those taxes would affect his own bottom line.

The blatant nature of the Politico attack piece drew the attention of Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Can ⁦@politico⁩ explain to us how photoshopping money trees next to the only Jewish candidate for president and talking about how “cheap” and rich he is *isn’t* antisemitic?

That’s a damn good question.