Two Queens

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump met today, and it went ... well? For all of Trump's prior bloviating about Mamdani being a communist, he seemed quite taken with Mamdani's charisma and was pretty much all praise during the meeting.

Obviously, there is an angle on this that goes "can you imagine if Hakeem Jeffries ....!?!" Trump is (as Mamdani described him on the campaign trail) a despot and an autocrat. If pretty much any other Democrat did an Oval Office meeting with Trump and made nice-y nice, the left would have gone ballistic.

For my part, I take the opposite lesson. One does, indeed, have to recognize that Trump is a despot and an autocrat. Yet even holding that recognition, that doesn't mean the right play is always the one that most performs "resistance". There is space for maneuvering, and we should recognize that savvy actors sometimes have maneuver. Of course, that does not mean that any "maneuver" is always savvy, and sometimes one does need to dig in one's heels. But it is a good thing to give good Democrats some latitude on this -- we don't truly know what the best strategy is going to be.

So no, one does not have to go full Ryan Grim and decide that actually Trump has now revealed himself as a champion of the working class. That remains as gullible as all get out.

But one also does not have to view Mamdani as some sort of traitor for taking this meeting. The true moral here is to not treat the mere fact of a meeting like this as sufficient evidence on its own that a Democratic politician is a traitor.

Shocked To Find Antisemitism in this Establishment

The decision of the Heritage Foundation to defend platforming an unabashed and unrepentant antisemite like Nick Fuentes has caused a burbling unease over the presence of antisemitism in conservative spaces to crash into the mainstream. It is evident that what might once have been labeled "far-right" antisemitism no longer is especially "far" at all; it is wholly mainstream and incorporated into the most prominent factions of contemporary American conservatism.

We are already seeing evidence of a crackup. Heritage's leadership is thus far standing by its position, perhaps cognizant of the substantial following Fuentes and his band of neo-Nazis have amongst younger GOP apparatchiks (one conservative commentator estimated that "30 to 40 percent of DC GOP staffers under the age of 30 are Groypers."). And they've gotten backup from none other than Donald Trump himself. But others prominent conservatives have dissented, announcing their resignation from Heritage or delivering impassioned speeches criticizing the growth of antisemitism in conservative spaces.

I don't want to denigrate the persons in the latter camp. Truly, I don't. They're speaking up, and that's good. But I do wish they would recognize how the overt antisemitism they're critiquing now is downstream from the slightly more covert antisemitism these same actors had been pushing if not justifying for years.

Consider today's big news story about a wild dissent from Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith in the Texas gerrymandering case, where Judge Smith delivered lurid and histrionic conspiracy theories claiming that the entire litigation is being done at the behest of and to the benefit of George Soros. This sort of raving is simultaneously a clear antecedent of Groyper-ism and also effectively unremarkable in conservative circles save that one rarely sees it emanate from a federal judge. You push the "shadowy Jewish financiers are responsible for everything unholy and wrong in society" as your conservative-mobilization button often enough, and it just can't surprise you when the next generation of conservatives mobilizes around viewing Jews as the problem.

This isn't even the first brush the Fifth Circuit has had with antisemitic allusions in recent years -- I flagged in my "Liberal Jews and Religious Liberty" article an opinion where Judge James Ho complained that corporations have been so overtaken by "woke" ideology that they no longer care about the bottom-line, and concluded by asserting that we live in the era of "the Goldman Rule  .... The guys with the gold get to make the rules." As I noted in my article, several Jewish commentators "flagged this passage—substituting the Jewish-coded name 'Goldman' for 'Golden' to speak of wealthy elites' ability to manipulate and control the rules to the detriment of ordinary Americans—as at least raising the specter of antisemitism."

Judge Smith's opinion is, I think, far more explicitly problematic than Judge Ho's was. But the broader point is that, when I read stories about FedSoc organizing a panel of federal judges to speak out on the growing scourge of antisemitism, I need them to realize that the call is coming from inside the house.

Life is a Metaphor for Life

I had one of those deep/dumb epiphanies the other day. Raising a baby is really a commentary on the human existence and how we relate to the independent existence of other people!

Nathaniel's latest milestones are, in rapid succession, crawling and pulling himself into a standing position. And every time he hits one of these milestones, I am beside myself with joy. That's for his sake, of course -- he's learning and growing -- but also mine. He can move on his own! If he wants a toy, he can just crawl to it. If he's bored with his current vantage point, he can maneuver himself to look at something new.

And yet.

Every one of Nathaniel's new milestones carries with it new opportunities to defy my will. It was, admittedly, very nice when I could set Nathaniel down and I'd know he'd stay where I put him. If I didn't want him to move, he didn't move. Now? Things aren't so simple. I might want him to play quietly in the living room; he might have an alternative idea of booking it at top speed towards the nearest stairway. As much as I love and cherish these milestones it was, I find myself ruefully admitting, a lot easier when I could basically control his every move.

Right now (as in, over the past day or two), Nathaniel is at that lovely stage where he can pull himself into a standing position ... but can't quite sit back down. This is a problem since the standing up part is very exciting and far preferable to, say, a nap, but the standing up indefinitely part is infuriating and demanding of a response from mom or dad. One might think that after being laid back down in these circumstances -- apparently baby's most heartfelt desire -- one would not immediately roll over and pull oneself back up again, but you are not a ten month old. Nathaniel has (and objectively still is) a great sleeper, but this has been a rare moment where I've had to spend hours coaxing him down for a nap that, ironically enough, he absolutely does want to take but keeps on self-sabotaging by standing up along the crib instead.*

Anyway, much like with humans, generally, on net I'm happy that this human is learning and growing and becoming more independent (I reserve the right to change that assessment during the teenage years). But yeah, I do have newfound appreciation for why those developments sometimes engender resentment.

* Jill once spotted him on the monitor crying before he pulled himself into the standing position but nonetheless proceeding to finish standing up anyway, as if he was possessed by some infernal demon forcing him to stand against his will.