A Feb. 13 article in Vanity Fair reported that two of President Donald Trump’s top advisers, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign chair Steve Bannon, were getting along very well. Kushner even went so far as to propose knocking down the wall that separated his office with that of the notorious right-wing agitator. The report was met with widespread surprise as the backgrounds of the two would lead one to assume that they would be diametrically opposed to one another.

Bannon built his political clout as one of the de facto leaders of the “alt-right,” a movement best classified as a mainstreamed iteration of more blatant racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. He is notorious for his days as the executive chair of the Breitbart News Network, a conservative-leaning news network known for stoking fear of minorities and marginalized groups. Breitbart once published a headline referring to a prominent Jewish political analyst as a “renegade Jew.” In addition, Bannon’s ex-wife once testified during a child custody battle that he did not want his daughters going to a school with a large Jewish population, allegedly explaining that “they raise their kids to be whiny brats,” according to an Aug. 26, 2016 article in NBC News. Bannon represents the anti-establishment, anti-outsider faction of Trump voters that make up an important part of the president’s base.

Kushner, on the other hand, can easily be described as being a member of the “establishment” and an “outsider” in the minds of anti-Semitic Trump voters. He is the son of real estate developer Charles Kushner and is part of a family whose estimated net worth, according to Forbes, is $1.8 billion. In 2004, Charles Kushner was convicted of tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering, costing him his role as CEO of the family real estate firm. Jared Kushner was raised as an Orthodox Jew and is raising the president’s grandchildren as such.

The fact that Kushner wanted to figuratively and literally break down the barriers that naturally separate the two is a microcosm of the inherent contradictions that define resurging nationalist parties across the world.

An April 4 literature review published in The Nation provides a history of far-right nationalist parties in France that paved the way for the candidacy of Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front, for the upcoming presidential election in France. Many authors have noted that anti-Semitic rhetoric among French political movements has often been concomitant with efforts aimed at assimilating Jews into French society. For example, a revolutionary priest in 1789 wanted to integrate Jews as a means to further their “physical, moral, and political regeneration.”

In his book, “The Burdens of Brotherhood,” Ethan Katz explains that nationalist movements in France have, since the 1930s, often reached out to both Jewish and Muslim voters by pitting them against one another while simultaneously displaying a dislike for both groups to their natural base made up largely of white, French Catholics.

This historical anomaly has repeated itself in Le Pen’s current electoral strategy. As detailed by a report in The Guardian on April 9, the candidate denied the role of French authorities in the round-up and deportation of Jews to Auschwitz during World War II in an incident known as “Vel d’Hiv.” She later attempted to vindicate her comments by clarifying that she holds the Nazi regime responsible and that she does not recognize the legitimacy of the Vichy government in France at the time. However, as noted in an April 12 New York Times article and as historians and other French politicians have always acknowledged, French authorities at all levels of government participated willingly in the deportations.

Le Pen’s apparent attempt to downplay the atrocities of the Holocaust came only two days before White House press secretary Sean Spicer offered his own faulty historical account of the tragedy during a press briefing. Spicer, in an attempt to justify a recent U.S. attack on Syria, stated that Hitler did not go to the lengths that Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad has gone in terms of using chemical weapons. In one of multiple attempts at clarification that followed, Spicer dug himself into an even deeper hole when he referred to concentration camps as “Holocaust centers.”

At best, Le Pen and Spicer’s comments show an unbelievable degree of ignorance. In light of how nationalist movements have historically carried out electoral strategies, however, their comments fit in with the apparent need to straddle the support of far-right nationalists and minority groups who are historically viewed as outsiders. Both comments did just enough to appease the anti-Semitic portion of their bases but did not go far enough to preclude justifying them on the grounds that they were simply poorly articulated.

In democracies, it is often necessary to appeal to disparate groups with opposing ideologies on certain issues. The rise of nationalist movements in places like the United States and France show the lengths that those groups will go to in order to justify their support of movements or politicians who support their interests while simultaneously disparaging them to different groups.

In addition to her attempts to downplay France’s role in the Holocaust, Le Pen has made attempts to reach out to Jewish voters by rejecting the more blatant anti-Semitism of the party that used to be led by her father. According to an April 12 article in the Atlantic, in June 2014, she tried to reach out to Jewish voters by identifying Muslims as a common enemy between the two: “I do not stop repeating it to French Jews...Not only is the National Front not your enemy, but it is without a doubt the best shield to protect you. It stands at your side for the defense of our freedoms of thought and of religion against the only real enemy, Islamist fundamentalism.”

While her comments regarding Vel d’Hiv may do enough to eradicate virtually any support the National Front would have otherwise received from French Jews, there is evidence that some have chosen to overlook the historically anti-Semitic nature of the party due to its hard stance against Islamic extremism. According to an April 19 article in The Forward, 13 percent of French Jews supported the French iteration of the alt-right in the 2012 elections.

In the wake of Le Pen’s comments regarding Vel d’Hiv, an Israeli-French lawyer with a large following on Twitter named William Golnadel told French Jews that “instead of dwelling on the Shoah we should focus on the jihadists.”

Jewish groups in the U.S. have shown a similar willingness to overlook the anti-Semitism of the Trump administration if he takes positions that appease other aspects of Jewish nationalism. The Forward recently reported that White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka — who the publication previously revealed was a member of a Nazi-allied group in Hungary and supported a Hungarian anti-Semitic militia — was invited to speak at a number of upcoming pro-Israel events, including one hosted by the Jerusalem Post.

The aforementioned stories elucidate the fact that common ground can be found among the strangest of allies in politics as long as certain interests of each group are satisfied. Upper-class Jews like Kushner and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, for example, may be willing to overlook the signs of anti-Semitism in Trump’s administration if it means having a president who they feel will take a harder line on Islamic extremism. Whatever the reasoning, nothing can truly justify marginalizing members of one’s own community for personal benefit. Recent revelations that the relationship between Kushner and Bannon has soured and that the latter may be losing influence in the White House does not mitigate the absurdity of the former’s willingness to throw his own people under the bus for the personal pursuit of power.

If the Jewish communities in the United States or France really want to take down nationalist movements, then they should start by delegitimizing members of their own community who have been complicit with anti-Semitism.