Technically, Any Number of Seconds Can Be Split Any Number of Times

Yesterday, in Chestnut v. Wallace,* the Eighth Circuit denied an officer qualified immunity. That itself is arguably worthy of noting, since the Eighth Circuit is not exactly predisposed to denying qualified immunity.

The case itself is straightforward: a man (Chestnut) quietly observed a St. Louis police officer perform a traffic stop from about 30 - 40 feet away, while leaning against a tree. The officer viewed this as suspicious, and called for backup. A new officer asked for Chestnut's name, birthday, and social security number; he refused to provide the last of these. The officer then frisked Chestnut for weapons, found none, and then proceeded to have Chestnut handcuffed. After about twenty minutes and a conversation with the officer's supervisor, Chestnut was released. Since observing the police does not provide reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, and since people are allowed to not answer questions from the police (such as providing their social security number), no reasonable officer could have had suspicion of criminal activity, and so there is no qualified immunity.

Judge Gruender dissented. This is considerably less noteworthy, since an officer could probably shove a handcuffed detainee off a six-story building and Judge Gruender would conclude he has qualified immunity.

I do want to flag one thing though, from the end of Judge Gruender's opinion. He writes that "police officers are not—and should not be—expected to parse fine distinctions between statutory and constitutional law in split-second decisions." This rhetoric of "split-second decisions" is increasingly common in judicial opinions that seek to insulate police officers from accountability, particularly in use-of-force cases. Maybe we have sympathy for it in that context, maybe we don't.

But it is interesting to see this rhetoric make a near-reflexive showing in this case, as nothing about the police's interaction with Chestnut involved anything like a "split-second decision". There were no sudden movements, no unpredictable reversals or unexpected flinches. Chestnut was far away from the action and was not an imminent threat to anyone. By the time he was placed in handcuffs, the police already knew he was unarmed. That Judge Gruender nonetheless characterizes this case as involving a "split-second" decision suggests that anything the police do deserves that label. But it's just not true. Not every decision a police officer makes in the field is a "split-second" one; the decision to detain Chestnut certainly was not. It was a decision taken after many seconds, under no particular pressures and with ample time to deliberate.

In that same paragraph, Judge Gruender hoarily remarks that police officers in the field are not "participating in a law school seminar." Indeed, they are not. They are taking real actions which have real consequences for real people. Kevin Chestnut was placed in handcuffs for having the temerity to look at the police in public. That's a terrible thing to have experienced; obscured though it might be behind rhetoric of "reasonable suspicion" and the fuzzy line between "detention" and "arrest". We should step out from the legalese fictions that justify qualified immunity, and start taking the reality of what the police do -- and who they are doing it to -- a lot more seriously.

* The opinion was authored by Judge Arnold, joined by Judge Grasz -- and I'll reiterate again what a pleasant surprise Judge Grasz has been on qualified immunity issues.

On the AMCHA "Bringing BDS into the Classroom" Study

The AMCHA Initiative has a new self-published study, which is gaining some attention in the Jewish Press, purporting to show that when teaching courses related to Israel, Palestine, or Zionism, (academic) BDS-backing faculty are more likely load up their syllabi with fellow BDS-supporters, as opposed to giving their students a balanced perspective. Their big takeaway findings are:

• For academic BDS supporters, a median 78% of syllabi readings are by "BDS supporters", compared to a 17% for non-BDS supporters.
• All academic BDS supporters have  at least a majority of readings from "BDS supporters", whereas only 6% of non-BDS supporters have a majority of readings from "BDS supporters".

I'd been hearing about this study for awhile, and I was finally prompted to look it over after reading this laudatory account from Daniel Gordon. Gordon argues that the AMCHA study proves that BDS supporters are sabotaging the values of balance and even-handedness in favor of a one-sided propagandistic approach in their classrooms -- so much so that he suggests that either academic administrators or "the public" at large might be justified in interfering with their content.

That's an aggressive claim, and one that requires equally strong proof. Yet the AMCHA study provides, at best, mixed evidence regarding who is actually being one-sided. Let me present AMCHA's data in a different way that might generate a different intuition (this is derived from "Figure 1" of the study):

• 63% of "no BDS" faculty have at least 80% of their syllabus readings come from fellow "no BDS" authors. For 31%, that number rises to 90%.
• By contrast, just 33% of academic BDS supporters have at least 80% of their syllabus readings come from fellow BDS supporters. And only 7% (aka, one syllabus) has over 90% of readings come from other BDS supporters.

Framed that way, one could argue that it's the BDS supporters who do a better job avoiding overwhelmingly one-sided syllabi. Two-thirds of them devote at least a non-trivial chunk of their syllabi to their ideological opponents. By contrast, BDS opponents are far more likely to completely or almost completely load their syllabi up exclusively with fellow BDS opponents. If the idea is, in Gordon's words, to present "competing narratives", it's far from clear that BDS opponents are doing their diligence in meaningfully presenting the "opposing side".

Now to be clear, I think one can very easily overinterpret this framing as well. Most notably, it doesn't take into account the base rate -- what percentage of authors active in Israel Studies qualify as "BDS supporters"? If it's only a marginal few, then the "no BDS" crowd might be giving their views proportionate weight even if they only occupy 10 - 20 % of the syllabus (and this would, similarly, suggest that BDS backers are significantly oversampling their side relative to its support levels). But base rate levels are very difficult to tease out, and almost certainly vary depending on the specific topic of the course. It's quite plausible that many more authors working on "Palestinian Literature of Resistance" support BDS compared to those working on "Israeli Constitutional Law", and so the fact that a class on the former contains many BDS-backers on the syllabus (or one on the latter contains few) does not necessarily reveal any especial bias on the part of the professor. And that doesn't even go into the over-simplified notion that "BDS support/opposition" necessarily mark out the relevant ideological "sides" for every class.  The difficulties in parsing these out in practice, when they're almost always going to be matters of interpretation, are just some of the many reasons why outside observers should be very leery about substituting their own judgments regarding "balance" and "even-handedness" for that of the professor.

The AMCHA study also raises another pertinent question: Who counts as a "BDS supporter"? Here, the study authors do something rather slick -- they change their answer for the independent versus the dependent variable. The result is to significantly inflate the level of same-side bias that exists on the side of the "BDS supporters".

Here's how it works: For the independent variable -- that is, the professors authoring the syllabi -- the study only includes supporters of academic BDS, specifically, as "BDS supporters". On the other side, "no BDS" professors are those who oppose BDS in all its forms (not just academic BDS but, say, settlement boycotts as well). Those who fit into neither group (people who support some forms of BDS, but not academic boycotts) are excluded.

But for the dependent variable -- that is, which syllabus readings are identified as being authored by "BDS supporters" -- that entire middle-ground category is grouped back into the pro-BDS crowd. Along this axis, "BDS supporter" includes not just academic boycotters, but also

• Anyone who has supported, or signed a petition in favor of, any form of BDS (including settlement boycotts);
• Anyone who has supported a boycott of "specific Israeli leaders"; 
• For Israeli scholars, anyone who either has "challeng[ed] Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state" or "call[ed] on Israelis to resist obligatory military service", regardless of whether they've endorsed any form of BDS or not.

And any reading that is even co-authored by anyone in this expansive category is coded as being by a "BDS supporter".

Putting these two different renditions of "BDS supporter" together, the study is measuring the homophily of what we think of as the hardest core of BDS supporters (those favoring academic boycotts) by asking how many of their syllabi readings are at least co-authored by anyone at least as left-wing as Peter Beinart. This is not, to say the least, an especially illuminating metric.

In short, the AMCHA study fails to demonstrate that pro-BDS faculty produce syllabi that are more one-sided than their anti-BDS peers. Indeed, it may instead offer some (albeit weak) evidence in the opposite direction. Not only does it almost certainly exaggerate the same-side bias of BDS supporters by contracting and then expanding the definition of "BDS supporters", but even on face the study findings seem to show that the most ideologically-lopsided syllabi -- in terms of giving significant attention to authors on the opposite side of the BDS ideological divide -- tend to come from BDS opponents.

NYTimes Endorses Warren and Klobuchar

The New York Times has officially endorsed not one, but two candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary: Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Amy Klobuchar (MN). In essence, the Times' picked one candidate from the "moderate" lane and one candidate from the "progressive" lane, while suggesting that either one can and should be acceptable to any decent person seeking to defeat Trump.

The internet reaction, at least in my quarters of it, has been mostly disdainful. The NYT should have had the gumption to make an actual choice. Choosing two people was a cop out. Dismiss dismiss dismiss.

Most of this reaction has stemmed from more left-ward elements. And to be fair, on net the double-endorsement probably helps Klobuchar, who has struggled to gain traction, more than Warren. So it maybe isn't surprising that the left isn't wild about this choice, insofar as it probably does more to help an "establishment" candidate they dislike over a more progressive candidate they (well, some of "they") like or are at least fine with.

But I think there's another element in play here. Recent events notwithstanding, there remains some efforts on the left-side of the party to build a unified front along the axis of either Warren or Sanders, as against the "establishment" wing represented by Biden or Klobuchar. Key to their efforts is a strong distinction between these two wings, such that it is important to maintain progressive unity so we don't hand the nomination to a moderate because the left can't stop fighting amongst itself. This view is very much adverse to the sentiment, communicated by the Times, that all the Democrats (Klobuchar, Biden, Warren, Sanders ...) are fundamentally on the same side, so that we should all be content no matter which of them is picked. This aspect of the editorial is probably what got the most sustained mocking, at least in my feed.

It also is, as you probably know, a view I basically endorse, which is why the Times' double-endorsement didn't bother me all that much. I'm inclined to think that Warren is the best of the "progressive" wing, and Klobuchar probably the best of the "moderate" wing. There's a case to be made for nominating a progressive wing candidate, and a case for a moderate wing candidate, but if the nomination goes in the direction I disprefer I wouldn't view at as a betrayal. Either way, we'd still be getting a candidate who is more-or-less on my side.

What's the Catch of Clickbait?

Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig is suing the New York Times for defamation, stemming from a headline that read "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret". The lede of the article, in turn, opens by saying "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying."

Lessig contends that this grotesquely misrepresents the position he was taking, which is to not condemn fundraisers when some of the donors they solicit turn out to be unsavory or disreputable. He also asserts that the Times refused to alter its headline or lede after Lessig complained, preferring a flashy and provocative (albeit misleading) title to one that more accurately (but dully) reflects Lessig's actual view. While the article does give a more balanced presentation of his argument later on, Lessig contends that many people never read past the headline and so will only come away with a false picture.

This is all very interesting to defamation scholars, I'm sure. But I want to focus on what has to be the least important aspect of Lessig's complaint: What does "click-bait" mean?

Defendant's actions here are part of a growing journalistic culture of click-baiting. . . . Defendants are fully aware that many, if not most, readers never read past the clickbait...The use of this tactic represents a uniquely troubling media practice as it relates to the harm to and destruction of the reputation of the target of the clickbait.

Here's my bone of contention: clearly there is an issue whereby readers see only a headline and read no further, rendering moot the presence of a more complex depiction in the body text.

But it strikes me as weird to use "clickbait" to characterize the phenomenon. "Clickbait" literally refers to the use of a provocative or flashy headline as means of prompting ("baiting") readers to access ("click") the whole article. The idea is that the title is so juicy and irresistible that the person who sees it on, say, Facebook cannot help but click the link and read the article.

Now to be sure, part of the function of click-bait is that the site owner only cares about the click, that is, that the reader accessed the page (and thereby juices the site's hit rate for ad revenue purposes). The site probably doesn't care if the reader actually ends up reading any of the article text, much less if she completes it. Indeed, it seems likely that many of the readers who are attracted by the title ("oh man, this I've got to see!") will drift away disappointed once they encountered the more prosaic story underneath.

Nonetheless, it strikes me as a weird to say that "readers never read past the clickbait", because the whole purpose of the clickbait is to drive them to the site with the full article. If they only read the clickbait, then the clickbait has failed, because the actual "clickbait" is the content that one can see without ever clicking through to the site. If the New York Times runs a headline like this, the last thing they want is for me to see that headline on Facebook and then read nothing more. They want the bait to catch me -- for me to click the link and actually head over to the NYT site (where I will, presumably, read at least a little more of the article before realizing I've been, well, baited).

Delaware GOP Ousts Official Over Antisemitic Remarks

Nelly Jordan, Vice-Chairwoman of the Sussex County (Delaware) GOP, has been ousted from her position after she blamed "Jews" for orchestrating Trump's impeachment and said that they were "going against God's will". Quick thoughts:

• It's good they did this. I've noted before that the GOP has proven incredibly resistant to implementing any accountability for antisemitism in its party, and this is a welcome break from that trend.
• That said, the vote was apparently razor-thin, with large numbers of people showing up to back Jordan and rail against "political correctness" and in support of "free speech". So there was significant division in the ranks on this.
• Quoth one local Republican: "If we were to throw everybody out here who made a racial/ethnic remark, this place would be totally empty." Hey, you said it, not me!
• Jordan did apologize for her remarks, and -- in what I consider to be an unbelievable upset -- she did not say "I am a strong supporter of Israel". Not once! I wish I wasn't shocked, but I was. Well done, Ms. Jordan!

In other Delaware news, a different GOP official, New Castle GOP Chairman Chris Rowe, resigned after referring to ideological opponents as "faggots" in a social media post. Though he resigned, he wants you to know that:

The Disgrace was not mine, but displayed how weak & timid society has devolved by allowing itself to be injured & offended by viewing a printed word. The words uttered by the Left are words employed by the mentally weak to push shame upon those with which they disagree. They assume because they would be offended, so would their targeted individual or group. Then again, being mentally strong, I do not get offended by words as is your aim.

Kudos to Rowe for showing how mentally strong he is (he proceeded to text the local newspaper and inform them that "The Cancel Culture are now attacking me and causing me hurt.")

One More Reason Why Black Voters Back Biden

Joe Biden's status as front-runner, right now, rests almost entirely on the fact that he is far and away the top choice of African-American voters. There are many explanations for why Black voters like Biden, but I'll add one more, rather simple explanation, to the fray:

As a group, Black voters are more liberal than the average American. But they're not so much more liberal so as to explain voting upwards of 90% for Democratic candidates. You only reach those august heights when a good chunk of Black voters who might otherwise be Republicans are Democrats solely because the the Republican Party is unacceptably racist. Indeed, there are plenty of Black voters who identify as conservative -- they just don't identify as Republicans. What that means is that there is a good chunk of relatively conservative Black voters who are Democrats. A full 30% of Black Democrats identify as having "conservative" political views (compared to 8% of White Democrats).

So given that there are actually plenty of Black conservatives, a large proportion -- maybe even a majority! -- of whom nonetheless identify as Democrats, it's maybe not that surprising that one sees a cluster of support among Black voters for one of the more high-profile moderates in the race.

And, for what it's worth, this also helps explain why Bernie Sanders -- who has the second-highest level of Black support (Biden is at 48%, Sanders at 20%) -- wins among Black voters under 35. Voters under 35, across all races, represent a more liberal demographic. The corollary to "more conservative Blacks back candidates like Biden" is "more liberal Blacks back candidates like Sanders". That might sound obvious, and in many ways it is -- what obscures it is that we mentally sharply underestimate levels of conservativism (or even moderation) among Black voters because of their overwhelming partisan lean towards Democrats.

Why Do White Jews Analogize to the Black Experience (and Vice Versa)?

The latest drama on Jewish Twitter comes from a column from the AJC's Seffi Kogen, speaking on how Orthodox Jews cannot practically avoid antisemitism that targets them as visible Jews. Seeking to illustrate this point, Kogen wrote (in a section that was intentionally highlighted as the pull quote by the AJC):

Without betraying who they are, none of these Jews can hide the fact that they are Jewish any more than people of color could step out of their skin to avoid racism.

A great many Black Jews did not appreciate this comparison. Kogen, for his part, was not exactly defiant, but wasn't particularly contrite either. He did not apologize, nor did he withdraw the comparison. He's sticking by it, and demanding that everyone respect his good intentions.

The easiest move for Kogen would have been to just let the analogy go. His argument doesn't depend on the analogy, it would not collapse if it were removed. It seems to be a cost-free concession to a groundswell of hurt from fellow Jews -- in some cases (as in Black Orthodox Jews) the Jews best positioned to assess the validity of the comparison! -- who are telling him that phenomenologically the comparison does not carry.

Yet he didn't do that. He clearly wants to defend the legitimacy of the analogy, and putting aside his specific case these analogies keep on being made by Jews even in full knowledge of their reception. And I think a lot of us are kind of at a loss as to why.  What makes this analogy so important, that it must be stuck to no matter the reaction from the African-American community (including African-American Jews)? Why do Jews -- and Kogen is by no means alone here -- insist on couching their anti-antisemitism appeals via analogy to the Black experience? What makes that move so popular? What drives it?

I think I can answer these related questions. The reason this analogy is so popular comes at the confluence of two beliefs that are deeply-held in many portions of the Jewish community -- one which is reasonable and understandable, the other which is fictive and toxic.

The reasonable belief is the fear that articulating the rights of Jews-qua-Jews will not suffice to persuade non-Jewish listeners that those rights ought to be defended. That is, even if it were effectively communicated to the listener how important these religious symbols and practices are to observant Orthodox Jews, many would still be at best indifferent to the argument because they do not take protecting Jews to be a sufficiently important motivation in of itself. The fear is that, upon hearing "(Orthodox) Jews are marginalized in X way", the response will be a shrug (or worse): "So what? What do I care about what happens to Jews?"

In response to this vulnerability, the natural response is to look for a broader principle to appeal to by analogy. "You care about X in Y case, so you should care about it in the Jewish case too." And in selecting the "Y" analogous case, the more accepted it is the better. It does no good to pick a "Y" that would also be met with a shrug. The "Y" needs to stand as an impregnable, knockdown case that everyone would accept -- a sure-fire bet to prop up the otherwise precarious Jewish example.

And so we get to the fictive and toxic belief: the belief that anti-Black racism is that "Y". It is the case everyone agrees on, we are absolutely convinced that while people might shrug off hurting the Jews, they would never countenance anything that marginalizes African-Americans. I cannot count the instances where I've seen Jews make arguments premised on this logic: "We would never tolerate this were it said about Black people...." The analogy is made as a means of accessing this imagined power held in the hands of the Black community. Black people are assumed to possess a bounty Jews only wish we could have.

But again: it's a fiction, and it's fictiveness is part of the reason why it is received so poorly. For the reality is that people do countenance marginalizing African-Americans, and do so regularly, and so there is something quite insulting about seeking to conscript -- dare I say "appropriate" -- Black experience to bolster our own position on the premise that they have such an overabundance of social capital that who could object to the less fortunate seizing a piece? The premise is that racism is, in essence, a universally agreed-upon "bad", and so we are justified in diverting some of its surplus power to those cases where such agreement does not existence. That diversion is far less innocent when the premise isn't accepted.

One sees, incidentally, this same dynamic apply in the reverse, for I think similar reasons and I think yielding the same negative reaction from the appropriated party. One sometimes sees various social tragedies referred to as "holocausts" -- for example, the slave trade called the "African holocaust" or other genocides referred to as "holocausts" (a generic term). But why are they taking that term? Well, one reason is presumably the belief that describing the atrocity in its own, organic terms won't sufficiently motivate people to care about it (often a reasonable fear). And another reason is the sense that if it's acknowledged as a holocaust, if it's treated the way we treat a holocaust, why then nobody would think to question the full extent of its horrors. It is assumed that the Holocaust -- that is, antisemitic oppression -- represents the apex of what nobody today would ever countenance or question or shrug off. And at that point, it becomes viewed almost as a hoarded resource -- how dare the Jews keep such a bounty to ourselves? Why not share it with the less fortunate? Whereas we Jews know that "Holocaust" does not actually accord us this impregnability or universal deference, and so reasonably react poorly to efforts to divert it away from a Jewish case that is by no means a won argument.

One reason we know the premise is false is because of the ferocity with which the analogy is clung to. Were it the case that people immediately and unquestionably shrink away from anything that marginalizes the Black community, then the fact that the Black community so clearly disdains this analogy would cause us to immediately drop it. We don't because the fantastical image of a universally-rejected "anti-Blackness" is in fact far stronger than the actual reality of popular commitment to avoiding anti-Blackness.

And so I hope my efforts to explain this phenomenon are not taken to justify it. The analogy generates needless antagonism, and that should suffice to abandon it. And I think the case of Orthodox Jews can be argued fully effectively without it. I've regularly used the case of religion as an example of why "choice", taken literally, doesn't matter -- one can "choose" one's religion or religious practice but do we really want to say that therefore any amount of religious discrimination is justified (because one could always opt out)? The question isn't whether Orthodox Jews are literally, existentially capable of not wearing identifiable Jewish garb, the question is whether it is justifiable to ask them to make such a choice or to impose consequences upon them for choosing wrongly.

This is, indeed, a different question from that faced Black persons who have no way of peeling off their skin -- a true lack of choice. But so what? We should be able to make the argument on its own terms. We should have the confidence to defend Jewish rights in our own language, without the need to appropriate from others.

Karlie Kloss is not her Brother-in-Law

*Project Runway spoilers*

For the past few years, my nickel description of Karlie Kloss -- Heidi Klum's replacement on Project Runway -- has been "she's a supermodel who married one of the good Kushners". Karlie's husband is Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law to you-know-who. But unlike her brother, Joshua is a public-and-proud Democrat, and Karlie too has not been shy about her progressive values. And Jared and his father were apparently real assholes to Karlie when she started dated Josh (I know, who would have guessed?).

This all shifted from "interesting trivia" to "very relevant" last night thanks to a comment by one designer on the most recent episode of Project Runway.

The challenge was to design a look for Karlie Kloss to wear to a fashion gala in Paris. Designer Tyler created a look that was ... not that. It looked old -- not "classic", just out-of-date. When it walked the runway, Jill and I remarked that it was not for Paris ... but maybe for the Kushners ("it looks like something Ivanka would wear", Jill said, not intending it as a compliment).

We thought we were being very snarky. But when Tyler ended up on the bottom and listened to the judges berating him that Karlie wouldn't wear this to Paris or Martha's Vineyard or anywhere else, he couldn't help himself. "Not even to dinner with the Kushners?", he said with a smirk.

Now, Jill and I did basically say exactly that too -- but we meant it to underscore how badly Tyler missed the mark in the challenge (which was not "dress Karlie Kloss to look like her obnoxious in-laws"). But Tyler clearly meant it, not quite as a defense, but as a jab -- a defensive clapback at Karlie for having the temerity to (fairly) criticize his look. It was a jaw-dropping moment, and after getting over the initial shock Kloss handled it with professionalism (which is to say, she proceeded to explain in exquisite and cutting detail why Tyler's look was garbage). Tyler ended up being eliminated, and for the record it was entirely deserved based solely on the merits. His look was terrible, he had struggled all season-long, and this wasn't the first time his mouth seemed to outpace his skills.

Tyler did apologize at the end of the episode. But there is a very popular take around the internet that he said nothing wrong. This reaction is typical:

The reaction shots show how how easy it must have been for all those fashion labels to go Nazi. This level of accountability is scandalous? https://t.co/Hm8nQb3EIN

— Corey Pein 😃🤑😐😩💀 (@coreypein) January 4, 2020

The idea is that Tyler was actually a bold truth-sayer, holding Karlie to account for ... what exactly? Her brother-in-law's politics? Why? She doesn't share them. She's never defended them. She's never given the slightest hint she's sympathetic to them. She's her own woman, with her own views (as, for that matter, is Joshua Kushner, who is of course not his brother either). Yet of course, that doesn't matter in the slightest, because misogyny. And it sickens me to see how many people seem to think they're boldly speaking truth-to-power when they reduce a woman to her male relatives.

Karlie Kloss is not her in-laws. She is her own person. If she herself has done wrong, call her out for that. But who her relatives are is not her wrong, and if you think smugly reminding Karlie Kloss that she's related to the Trump family as some sort of gotcha is anything other than a dick move you're telling on yourself far more than you are on her.

What Went Wrong in 2016?

Right up until election day, most people thought Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election. She didn't, and many people have many different theories about what went wrong. Which one you ascribe to probably does a fair bit of work in explaining who you back in 2020 and why. And the fact that we don't really know which answer is the right one, and feel an urge to cover all our bases "just to be sure", probably contributes to the Johnny Unbeatable problem -- the explanations aren't all mutually compatible, and so "learning their lessons" will pull us in contradictory directions.

Theory #1: It was anti-Clinton mania: Claim: Hillary Clinton is uniquely reviled for idiosyncratic and effectively non-ideological reasons. Lesson: don't nominate Hillary Clinton. Simple.

Theory #2: It was misogyny: It's not just Hillary Clinton. Any female candidate is going to whip up a toxic brew of wounded masculinity and machismo. People nervous about nominating another woman often believe this.

Theory #3: Clinton was too elitist: Generally a favorite of not-Democrats, though endorsed by some "moderates" too. The idea here is that Hillary Clinton represents a far-left agenda and the Democrats need to return to the good old days when they were the party of ... Bill Clinton? JFK? FDR? Unclear. What is clear is that Democrats need to show more respect for rural heartland voters, respect people who oppose gay rights, respect people who want to deport immigrant children, and above all respect people who want to ban abortion. Oh, and under no circumstances should a Democrat call anyone "deplorable" -- except maybe Ilhan Omar. These folks believe Joe Biden would have won in a cakewalk

Theory #4: Clinton was too centrist: Hillary Clinton didn't offer a true progressive alternative to conservatism, to capitalism, to corporatism, to technocracy, or to neoliberalism. Hence she didn't inspire voters thirsting for an alternative. Donald Trump at least purported to speak to voters who believed the system had failed him, and a Democrat who basically was seen as a "the status quo is okay" figure would not do well. A bold and uncompromising progressive vision that unabashedly targets the systemic forces immiserating us all, by contrast, can speak to the millions of Americans who feel dejected, disempowered, and ready for a change. Favored diagnosis of the "Bernie would have won!" crowd.

Theory #5: Clinton abandoned the Midwest: "She didn't even visit Wisconsin!" The blue wall cracked, Democrats lost Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. So to win -- rebuild that blue wall, by nominating a candidate most likely to be extremely popular among rust belt swing voters in the Midwest. This could point you anywhere from Joe Biden to Tim Ryan to Amy Klobuchar to "recruit Sherrod Brown".

Theory #6: Clinton didn't excite the base: Democrats took for granted the constituencies that are most responsible for powering them to victory and so left a ton of votes on the table. Rather than chase the elusive (and probably white) swing voter, the strategy here is to goose turnout among voters (especially women) of color. It's not the same as Theory #4 because -- despite what Jacobin Mag would have you believe -- it is not necessarily the case that people of color are inspired by fire-eating leftism of the Jacobin Mag bent. Often believed by those who think Democrats must nominate a woman and/or person of color; and often also paired with a belief that Democrats should abandon the rust belt and focus more on winning emergent sun belt swing states like Arizona, North Carolina, or (dare to dream) Georgia and Texas.

Theory #7: PC backlash: The Democratic Party allowed themselves to be taken over by a radical identity politics fringe who alienated regular Americans with all this talk of "intersectionality" and "microaggressions" and "trigger warnings". Trump's victory was a result of a PC backlash prompted by White men who just was sick and tired of being called racist all the time, and lashed out by ... endorsing a really racist candidate. The interesting thing about this diagnosis is that its political description basically boils down to "White Americans are hella racist" while its political prescription is usually "don't ever say White Americans are racist." Facts sure care about those feelings.

Theory #8: Voter suppression: Lower turnout among the base wasn't (just) because of less enthusiasm for Clinton. It was also a function of a sustained conservative campaign to obstruct poor and minority communities from voting. Proponents of this view aren't necessarily tied to a particular candidate as they are to urging Democrats to take voter access seriously as a top priority -- both in terms of legislating and in terms of activism. Unfortunately, the Senate won't pass any legislation, the courts are basically endorsers of the voter suppression project, and it's not like Republicans are going to be less invested in voter suppression the next time around, so this can rapidly turn fatalistic.

Theory #9: Conspiracy theories: Russian interference, social media, fake news. Voters were buffeted by a frenzy of misleading or outright false information. Not only were some taken in by outlandish nonsense (QAnon, Pizzagate, Soros conspiracies), even those who weren't directly affected often suffered a general decline in trust for political institutions and the reliability of authority -- something that ended up redounding to Trump's benefit. And the Republicans exploited media timidity and its reflexive instinct to tell "both sides" to put naked falsehoods on par with actual truth. To a large extent, people in this camp think the media has to accept in a much more decisive manner its obligation call lies lies -- even if it makes "certain" elected officials mad.

Theory #10: The Democratic Party is corrupt/incompetent/in disarray: Democrats don't really want to win, or they don't want to win if it means displeasing their true corporate masters. The party is beholden to an out-of-touch consultant class and big money donors locking them into unpopular positions that predictably lose elections. Only by seizing control of the party apparatus and smashing the old guard can Democrats actually run races that will actually inspire people. The more militant version of Theory #4.

Theory #11: Nothing went wrong -- it was a fluke: During the entire 2016 cycle, the polls oscillated between a high of "Hillary Clinton landslide" and a low of "statistical dead heat". The argument here is that all that happened in 2016 is that election day happened to have the tremendous bad luck of occurring at one of the nadirs, leading to what was effectively a statistical dead heat and a coin-flip Donald Trump win. The lesson here is that there is no lesson: if you have a campaign strategy that gives you a win 75% of the time, that's a pretty good strategy even though (as Nate Silver reminds us) statistically you should lose a quarter of the time. All the efforts to "explain" the outcome basically a function of statistical illiteracy. To the extent Democrats should be on alert for anything, it's in letting the "we have to change something" impulse to tinker lead to making things worse.

Some Nuanced Thoughts on Protecting Jews via Police

NBC News, which as a mainstream media source Is Not Covering Violence Against Jews(tm), has an interesting article up discussing how the Jewish community in New York is assessing calls to increase police presence in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods as a means of combating rising antisemitic violence:

Audrey Sasson, executive director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, or JFREJ, a left-wing "movement to dismantle racism and economic exploitation" based in New York City, said deployment of more police would be an understandable reaction — and one that would worry her.

"Of course, we all need to feel safe. That's fundamental, and there is no arguing with that," Sasson said. "But how do we get there?"

Sasson said that her group is multiracial, as is the Jewish community at large, and that many Jewish people wouldn't feel safer with a greater police presence.  

"Right now, the tools we have for safety [are] more police and more guns," Sasson said, "but the question for me is how can we build other tools?" 

Those tools, according to Sasson and JFREJ, include making sure the Jewish community is in a coalition with other targeted communities, having a better system for reporting violence that doesn't rely so heavily on police, creating community-led transformative justice projects and implementing non-punitive and restorative-oriented approaches to violence. 

Sasson acknowledged that the vision is a long-term one, and she does not discount the desire for more police from people living in fear after "the whole holiday was marked by attacks." [emphasis added -- DS]

This is good, and I dare say snaps my long streak wherein everything I've ever read from JFREJ is neither bad nor good but "meh" (Mazel Tov!). The reason I like it is because:

(a) It does not disparage those Jews who desire police protection in the immediate term, or suggest that it reflects a failure of solidarity on their part to desire this solution;

 (b) It acknowledges that viable alternatives to police protection need to be built -- that is, they do not exist now -- and that this construction project is has a long-term time horizon attached to it.

Those twin acknowledgments are, I think necessary if the critique of "more police" is to have ethical traction. Without them, the objection to more policing sounds like a demand that Jews place our lives in the hand of vague feel-good bromides about "community building" or some such that have all the practical bite of a consciousness-raising bed-in project -- and if we don't accede to the demand we're basically giving into our inner-fascists. I think Sasson is read properly in tandem with Eric Ward:

"You can't tell a community that is being physically assaulted that they can't increase law enforcement response but then offer them nothing in response," Ward said. 

Still, Ward, who has studied anti-Semitism extensively, acknowledged that it's not that simple. 

"We know increased policing brings increased racial profiling," he said, adding that high police presence to protect Jews "is likely to be seen as feeding into black and Jewish tension."

Ward is, I think, making the same point as Sasson, just with the opposite emphasis. Telling Jews "how dare you ask for more police" when there isn't any practical, immediate-term alternative isn't going to be received well, and reasonably so. That's true even though, as Ward also points out, there are real costs to the "increased policing" proposal -- including costs along the very dimension its nominally supposed to help (tamping down on intra-group tensions and hostility). There's legitimate space to critique the "more police" response -- but it has to come with enough humility to acknowledge that there's ample reason to be skeptical of the existence of viable alternatives in the short-term.

Ultimately, my view on this is basically that of Batya Ungar-Sargon: Whatever my intuitions are on the wisdom of this strategy, I should defer to the people on the ground. Of course, the people on the ground will themselves often have divergent takes. But one suspects the consensus that will emerge will lie somewhere in between "abolish the NYPD" and "send in the National Guard."

New Year's Resolutions: 2020 Edition

Or is it New Decade's Resolutions? It'd take the pressure off to have ten years instead of a measly one.

The 2019 resolutions are here, and the series is collected here. But we start with how we performed last year:

Met: 2, 6 (absolutely!), 7, 9 (just a few weeks ago!), 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

Missed: 1 (it's crawling along), 5, 8, 10.

Pick 'em: 3, 4.

Forward unto the dawn of 2020!

* * *

1) Submit one political theory article to a journal. (Met)

2) Complete a draft of a new law review article. (Missed)

3) Have a complete draft of something that could pass as a dissertation. (Met -- in the nick of time!)

4) Become, to my own satisfaction, passably good at Super Mario Maker 2. (Missed--got distracted and then our Switch became 100% Animal Crossing)

5) Travel to one new city I have never been to before. (Missed -- 2020....)

6) Present at a conference (any field). (Missed -- again, 2020....)

7) Regularly do the exercises recommended by my physical therapist. (Pick 'em, to be very generous)

8) Write at least four articles published in the popular press. (Missed, through no fault of 2020)

9) Seek out candid career advice from people, even when it hurts your pride to ask. (Met)

10) Attend a professional sporting event. (Met, back in February)

11) Make substantial headway at organizing a conference. (Missed)

12) See old friends at a time other than the annual new year's get-together. (Missed--2020!!!)

13) Attend a Jewish event that is not a religious service (Seder not included). (Missed--seriously 2020 can burn in a fire)

14) Donate to a political candidate who is not running for President. (Met)

15) Write an unsolicited note to an academic figure whose work I like just to say I like their work. (Met)

16) Unlock my Twitter account. (Met, and for the happiest of reasons!)

Rise of Skywalker: Quick Thoughts

In keeping with the traditional Jewish Christmas festivities, I saw a movie last night. I actually managed to avoid most of the substantive discussions of Rise of Skywalker in advance, and what I did read sounded so muddled and crossed that I managed to come in with no substantive expectations.

Now that I've seen it, I can say one thing with confidence: Rise of Skywalker is, without a doubt, the worst Star Wars film to have Wedge Antilles in it.

Of course, that still makes it presumptively better than all the films without Wedge Antilles in them. Does it manage to hold that high ground? Here are my quick thoughts (*SPOILERS*):

• I think the movie starts off shaky and improves as it goes.
• The new droid gives off a real Portal vibe to me. Also reminiscent of Portal: the GLaDOS rig-up that Emperor Palpatine is attached to.
• The almost complete omission of Rose felt like the producers were giving in to the most toxic elements of the Star Wars fan base, and I disapprove.
• I was among those who very much liked the idea that Rey really was "no one" descended from nobody of consequence, and so I sharply disagree the decision to make her the Emperor's granddaughter.
• More so than the original trilogy or the prequels, the new trilogy (is that what we're calling it?) feels much more like a fantasy story than a science-fiction story. Ancient artifacts giving rise to eldritch power and all that.
• Even for a Star Wars film, Rise of Skywalker in particular badly fails what I call the "James Bond" test (the James Bond test is how early and/or how often the movie would end if the antagonists were remotely competent at aiming). 
• That said, did you ever notice how many Imperial First Order Last Order(?) troops died because they bother to ask questions before shooting? They're always yelling "freeze" or "show me your identification". Resistance fighters just blast people without giving anyone a chance to surrender.
• The "hyperspace skipping" move in the beginning really strained my suspension of disbelief (even granting that I'm watching a super-futuristic Star Wars film). Much like the "hyperspace Kamikaze" move Admiral Holdo did in The Last Jedi, it feels too useful (even if dangerous) not to have been seen before. Also -- TIE Fighters aren't hyperspace capable, so how are they following the Falcon? And even if they are fitted with hyperdrives, how could they track it? Finally, the whole reason Poe does this desperate tactic in the first place is because they're being followed by a huge swarm of TIEs. But after a few "skips" they've only got two behind them -- they should be able to handle those with regular turret fire.
• Speaking of suspension of disbelief, who exactly is crewing all those Last Order Star Destroyers? This is actually one of my least favorite genre conventions -- the big organization, seemingly all-but-fallen, having a giant secret army/base/fleet in a location completely unknown to everyone (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is positively awful about this). Where does it get logistical support? What were all those crewmen doing back when nobody knew where Exogol was?
• Another genre convention I hate: the big bad villain with hundred/thousands/millions/billions of deaths on his hands gets a redemption arc, while meanwhile, hundreds of random and relatively innocent mooks (indeed, the movie goes to some lengths to note they're mostly conscripts kidnapped as children) are slaughtered without remorse or a second thought.
• On the other hand, great job with gender and racial equality here: I heard plenty of female voices in the random stormtrooper death screams!
• After watching the conclusion of the narrative arc, I have to say: I really wish they had told the story of the Thrawn trilogy from the old Timothy Zahn novels instead.
• This is all adding up to a pretty negative assessment, so I will say that I felt like the movie ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. But I still think it's probably my least favorite of the New Trilogy. And that's with Wedge Antilles in it!

UPDATE: I basically endorse Abigail Nussbaum's take.

Happy Holidays!

I'm off to the Florida panhandle to spend time with my in-laws -- then back to California where my college buddies will come to me for New Year's!

Whatever you're celebrating this season (Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus ....), I hope it is suitably celebratory.

Impeachment

The House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump.

I have many feelings competing for primacy about this moment. I'm somber, certainly. I feel shame, by the fact that not a single Republican was willing to put loyalty to America over loyalty to Trump. I feel despair at the fact that Senate Republicans have predetermined their decision, and there's nothing -- no argument, no evidence, no "smoking gun" -- which could ever change their mind.  But I'm also proud of the majority of the House which did its duty under exceptionally trying circumstances. Posterity will remember.

And on that note: Posterity will remember. There will come a time -- and I don't think it will be a very distant time -- where Republicans will race to excuse, overlook, or plead forgiveness for what they have done these past few years. They will say they never liked Trump, that they were trying to be the adults, that they were caught in a tough situation, that hindsight is 20-20, that they managed the best they could. They will want history to, if not absolve them, then at least overlook them.

It is my sincere hope that this, at least, they do not receive. History should remember them, and it should remember them with opprobrium. Their legacies should be forever tarnished. Their grandchildren, who might have been proud to say they descend from a U.S. Congressman, should be ashamed to admit the relation. They should take their place as villains.

There is no argument, no leverage, no pressure that can compel Republicans to do the right thing. History will be their only consequence. They should be forced to endure it.

The Worst Spoiler

Here's a question I've been pondering:

Imagine an election with three parties: A, B, and C. Suppose that the election is decided on a plurality-winner (first-past-the-post) basis, and that B and C both would prefer the other to win over A (that is, B is C's second choice and C is B's second choice). Consequently, many members of both parties support "strategic voting"  whereby if B is the best chance of beating A C's voters should vote B, and vice versa.

In two districts, the results of the election are as follows:

District 1: A = 45%, B = 43%, C = 4%

District 2: A = 42%, B = 24%, C = 34%

In both districts, A wins, even though the combined B + C vote is larger.

My question is which party, B or C, is more to blame for failing to "vote strategically".

On the one hand, in District 1, C clearly had no chance of winning. So the voters who did pick C did so, under this view, on a completely selfish and self-destructive basis. But, one could say, the relatively small numbers who voted for C demonstrated C backers, as a whole, probably did try to "do their duty" and vote strategically. Maybe 4% is about the minimum one could plausibly expect even when voters are thinking in strategic terms.

On the other hand, in District 2, B arguably was competitive with C -- even if C had an advantage, B wasn't obviously drawing dead like C was in District 1. It's one thing to say "don't waste your vote on a third party that will be an obvious non-factor", it's another to demand dropping one's first preference in a situation where it is realistically in the mix. Yet of course, the flip side is that in District 2 it looks as if B backers didn't even realistically contemplate voting strategically, and thus a district which is overwhelmingly "B + C" ended up in the "A" column (whereas District 1 at least looks to be on face a swing district).

Obviously, part of the answer depends on what the baseline levels of support would have been for voters had they not been acting strategically. It's hard to credit B backers in District 1 for voting strategically if their base of support was 4% to begin with.

But anyway, this is something I've been pondering.

There's Little To Celebrate About the UK Elections Outcome

Had Labour won last week's UK general election, it would have been a stamp of endorsement for the horrifying wave of antisemitism Corbyn and his allies of ushered in.

That would have been a catastrophe, and it was avoided.

But the tragedy of this election is that in averting that catastrophe it ushered in several other catastrophes. An unstoppable Brexit. A historically unpopular Conservative Party nonetheless receiving a giant electoral mandate to bring back brutal austerity politics. The effective legitimation of the Tories own brand of xenophobia, Islamophobia, and racism.

And worst of all, the politicians who tried to be the adults in the room ended up being punished the most.

Each of the former Labour or Conservative MPs who left their parties trying to chart a different path lost their seats. The LibDems, who at one point seemed like they might pose a viable liberal alternative to the populist fever that gripped both Labour and Tory, lost a seat (specifically, party leader Jo Swinson's seat). Most terribly, the Jewish MPs most wounded by Labour antisemitism, and who had risked the most to fight it, lost their seats. Luciana Berger will not be returning to parliament. Neither will Ruth Smeeth, or Mike Gapes. Louise Ellman was bullied out of politics altogether.

And this doesn't even get into the efforts by some on the left to "blame the Jews" -- as opposed to Jeremy Corbyn's almost ludicrously low approval ratings -- for their defeat. Between the ones who think Corbyn's failures were entirely a result of Jewish slanders, and the ones who vaguely admit that the Jews had a legitimate grievance but if they so much as dare breathe a sigh of relief that Corbyn won't be PM they're basically cheering Windrush deportations, the next few months hardly seem likely to be much more pleasant for UK Jews than the last few months.

Meanwhile, once one gets past the fact that Jeremy Corbyn will not occupy the Prime Minister's office, one has to look long and hard to find anything positive in the race-by-race results. Let's see: Margaret Hodge retained her seat.  Chris Williamson lost his in deeply humiliating fashion. Those are nice, I guess.

But beyond that, what's worth celebrating? That Boris Johnson will be Prime Minister? That the nativist right has never felt more emboldened? That the most tangible upshot of the British public's "rejection of antisemitism" was to reject the Jews who had fought hardest against it?

A catastrophe was averted. More catastrophes are coming. There's not much to celebrate here.

Trump and the Conservative Judiciary's Legitimacy Crisis

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a series of cases testing the authority of government to exercise oversight over Donald Trump. Trump has bitterly resisted turning over certain documents to congressional and state regulators, despite most legal commentators viewing his arguments as frivolous.

Now, historically it has not been the case that a SCOTUS hearing bodes well for an incumbent president on matters such as these. Just ask Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton.

But there is a lot of anxiety in legal circles that this might be different. As Scott Lemieux put it: "Supreme Court to indicate exactly how deeply it's in the tank for Donald Trump."

One thought I've been turning over in my head is the possibility that, in a very real sense, the very legitimacy of the conservative judiciary -- especially (though not exclusively) Trump appointees -- is bound up in them ruthlessly dismissing any legal argument that might delegitimize the Trump administration.

This is not something that's been true of every administration. It's probably a myth to have ever thought of a court as wholly apolitical. But I don't think Bush-appointed judges necessarily thought ruling against the Bush administration threatened their legitimacy; ditto for Obama-appointed judges re: Obama.

The big difference is that with Trump, the issue isn't the possibility that here or there administrative actions fell outside the authority of the law (something that will happen to all administrations, at least periodically). It's not even a matter of losing a "signature issue" (as with, say, Obama and the Affordable Care Act). With Trump, the judiciary is repeatedly confronting legal questions that cut to the heart of his basic status as a legitimate leader of a democratic state. Legitimate in the sense of not being a naked avatar of White Supremacy, as in the Muslim ban and immigration cases. Legitimate in the sense of not being a cesspit of pure corruption, as in the Ukraine/Russia and tax returns cases. It's even more extensive of a legitimacy crisis tham the Clinton or Nixon cases, because with Trump it isn't a discrete case of (serious) illicit conduct, but the possibility that his entire administration is a corrupt, bigoted enterprise.

If you're person whose authority to exercise the judicial power comes from an appointment by Donald Trump, and Donald Trump's entire presidency is fundamentally delegitimated as either a racist or corrupt criminal endeavor, that starts to crack the foundations of one's own authority. What does it mean for, say, Neomi Rao if her very presence on the bench is attributable to a guy who it turns out is basically a mafia don? One shudders to think. And so it becomes incredibly important for judges in that position to insulate Trump (and by extension, themselves) from that conclusion.

Moreover, I think -- while this is more of a stretch -- that this outlook extends to conservative judges who were not appointed by Trump himself. Trump has appointed, by and large, orthodox conservative judges. This is a bit ironic, given that the conservative legal elite prior to 2016 would probably not have comprised Trump's biggest fans -- they were the sorts of conservatives who would have privately and sometimes publicly contended that Trump was a lawless maniac. That Trump has appointed these judges is taken by these orthodox legal conservatives as a welcome surprise. They are resolutely avoiding pondering what it means if the man who they well know thinks of rule-of-law as a speedbump also thinks that the ideal judges to have on the bench are judges who think and act just like them.

What this means is that Trumpism has effectively tied itself to the orthodox conservative legal movement. If Donald Trump had nominated judges of a very different type than those typical of Republican administrations, "smashing the establishment", then the old guard might have turned against them. Instead, like a medieval lord who marries into the family of a rival, he's drawn them inextricably together. The legitimacy of Trump-nominated judges depends on the legitimacy of Trump, and since Trump-nominated judges are generally indistinguishable from other conservative judges, that means that conservative judges generally -- and the entire conservative judicial philosophy -- depends on the legitimacy of Trump too.

(A similar issue, I think, explains why Republican politicians have closed ranks so decisively around Trump. The same voters who elected them elected Trump, and declaring Trump a corrupt racist means admitting that the electoral coalition that approves of corrupt racists also chose them. Of course, Republican politicians also have to be re-elected, which means that they have not just "legitimacy"-based but also quite practical interests in pandering to the electoral coalition that supports Trump).

This doesn't mean that no conservative or Trump-appointed judge will ever rule against him. But it does suggest that they will be fiercely resistant to making rulings which extend beyond the normal wins-and-losses that all presidential administrations take, and instead suggest a more fundamental rot. They will never rule in a fashion that suggests Trump is a flagrant racist, because that would imply that they were the ideal judicial choice of a racist. They will be loathe to allow investigations that would prove Trump corrupt, because that would imply that they were the preference of lawless, bought-out presidency.

The conservative judiciary has to protect Trump in order to protect themselves. Get ready for the wagons to circle once more.

My Atlantic Debut: The Story Behind the Firestorm over Trump's Antisemitism Order

I've been keeping a bit of a lower profile this year -- I'm on the job market, and so it just seemed prudent to maybe tamp down on anything that even had the slightest risk of provoking controversy or offending a hiring committee.

Anyway, here I am writing in the giant international platform that is The Atlantic on Trump's antisemitism executive order (this follows on the heels of yesterday's JTA article on Trump's antisemitic IAC speech and the response of groups like the AJC to that).

Fortunately, the stress of managing reactions to a new publication will be canceled out by a relaxing day of following British election returns. I can feel my energy returning already!

British Jews Should Announce They Can't Support Corbyn--or Johnson

This was a piece I initially wrote for publication outside of the blog. It had a tumultuous journey, including being accepted in one newspaper before the editor withdrew the offer an hour later. Most recently, it spent two weeks in limbo after the editor who was considering it solicited the draft ... then immediately went on vacation for a week. When he returned, he promised to get to it "first thing Monday". I never heard from him again.

Anyway, the election is tomorrow and there's still no sign that he will get back to me, so you're getting the piece here. It's slightly less timely than I'd like -- though much more timely than if I posted it after election day.

* * *

Earlier this month, The Guardian published a letter from twenty-four prominent non-Jewish figures, publicly declaring that they could not support Labour in the next election due to the raging antisemitism that has enveloped the party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

For the UK’s beleaguered Jewish community, it was a taste of that elusive elixir: solidarity. The knowledge that Jews do not stand alone, that we do have allies, that there are people who will not stand idly by and do nothing as this wave of antisemitism comes bearing down. That the letter’s signatories included figures like Islamophobia watchdog Fiyaz Mughal, who is intimately and painfully aware of the direct dangers a Tory government would do to him and his community, only makes it more powerful. In a very real sense, this is what it means to have true allies.

These past few years have been rough on British Jews, but if there is a silver lining, it is in moments like these: the public witnessing of all those who remain willing to plant their banner and fight antisemitism. The statements of resignation from persons who no longer can associate with a party that has become a force for hatred against the nation’s Jews. The figures—some Jewish (like MP Ruth Smeeth), some not (like London Mayor Sadiq Khan)—still bravely resisting antisemitism from within the party.

And there is grim satisfaction to be taken in Corbyn’s almost comically-high public disapproval ratings—which have reached upwards of 75% in some polls. For this, too, is at least in part a public and visceral repudiation of the brand of antisemitism Corbyn has come to represent.

Yet it is the ironic misery of the Jewish fate that we cannot even take unmediated satisfaction in those rejecting Labour antisemitism. Why? Well, because of the primary alternative to Labour: the Conservative Party, led by Boris Johnson.

The Tories have their own antisemitism problems, although—and as a liberal it pains me to say this—they pale in comparison to those afflicting Labour, at least today. And for me, I’ve probably written more on Labour antisemitism than I have on any other social problem outside of America or Israel.

But if the Tories are not today as antisemitic as is Labour, where the Tories can be aptly compared to Labour is along the axis of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. It is fair to say that on those issues, the Conservative Party is institutionally xenophobic in a manner that is on par with Labour’s own institutional antisemitism. Or put differently: Boris Johnson is to Muslims, Blacks, and Asians what Jeremy Corbyn is to Jews.

This is hardly unknown, and the latent nativism of the Conservative Party’s Brexit policy is only the tip of the iceberg. We saw the ugliness of Conservative racism in the Windrush Scandal, where Afro-Caribbean British citizens were harassed, detained, and even deported as part of the Tories’ pledge to create a “hostile environment” for undesired immigrants in the country (notwithstanding the fact that the Windrush Generation consisted of natural-born British subjects). We saw it in the game efforts by Muslim Conservative politicians to draw attention to festering Islamophobia amongst Tory candidates and politicians, and the grinding resistance of the Conservative political leadership to seriously investigate the issue—surely, this resonates with Labour’s own kicking-and-screaming approach to rooting out antisemitism inside its own ranks.

And—like with Corbyn’s Labour party—Tory xenophobia starts right at the top. In 2018, Boris Johnson was slurring Muslim women in Europe as “letter boxes”. Advocates at that time urged then-Prime Minister Theresa May to withdraw Johnson’s whip. She declined. Now he’s Prime Minister. In the meantime, Islamophobic instances in the country surged 375%.

There is a terrible commonality here: the legitimate fears Jews have about a Corbyn-led British government are mirrored by the equally legitimate worries BAMEs (Blacks, Asians, and Minority Ethnics) about the prospect of another term of Conservative rule.

To be clear: the Jewish community has not endorsed these Conservative predations. They are overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit. They have spoken out and stood out against racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia, and have done so consistently.

But there is another step that has not yet been taken. The Jewish community might return solidarity with solidarity, and write their own letter announcing that they cannot sanction voting for Labour—or the Tories. Twenty-four Jewish luminaries, each pledging that just as Labour’s antisemitism means that they cannot support Labour, Conservative racism and xenophobia preclude them from backing the Tories.

The UK, after all, is not a complete two-party system, and in many constituencies there are very live options that extend beyond Labour and Tory. The resurgent Liberal Democrats, for one, bolstered by refugees repelled by Labour antisemitism or Conservative xenophobia and showing renewed strength particularly in marginal constituencies where Labour is flagging. Regionally, the SNP or Plaid Cymru also are often competitive. Even the Greens, in some locales, are a viable option.

None of these parties are perfect. One does not need to search far to find instances of antisemitism in these other parties, for example, and the Liberal Democrats still have trust to re-earn following their disastrous stint as junior coalition partners to the Tories less than a decade ago.

But imperfections notwithstanding, none of these parties has completely caved to gutter populism in the way that both Labour and Tory have. They are cosmopolitan in orientation. They have faced antisemitism and other forms of prejudice, but they’ve responded decisively to it. They are not perfect, but they are viable choices, in a way that neither the Tories nor Labour can at this point claim to be.

And yet, still this companion letter—rejecting Conservative hatred with the same public moral clarity as The Guardian writers rejected Labour hatred—hasn’t been written. As much as many dislike Conservative politics, as much as many loathe Boris Johnson and the insular nativism he stands for—we have not forthrightly declared that the bigotry of his party is of equal moral weight and equal moral impermissibility at the bigotry of Corbyn’s party. We have not insisted that both be rejected.

Responding to the argument that Labour antisemitism had to be overlooked because of the pressing necessity of avoiding the disasters of a Tory government, the Guardian letter writers asked “Which other community’s concerns are disposable in this way? Who would be next?”

One could perhaps forgive the Windrush Generation for taking a tentative step forward in reply.

So again: why hasn’t that companion letter been written? Why hasn’t there been the declaration that the Windrushers, the migrants, the Muslims—that these community’s concerns are indispensable in the exact same way that the Jewish community’s concerns should (but often are not) be viewed as indispensable? Why has the wonderful solidarity demonstrated by the Guardian letter not been returned in kind?

The most common answer is that as terrible as Johnson is and as repulsive as Tory policies are, only a Conservative majority can guarantee that Corbyn will not become Prime Minister. Even the LibDems might ultimately elect to coalition with Labour if together they’d form a majority (ironically, many left-wing voters who dislike Corbyn but loathe Johnson express the same worry in reverse to explain why they can’t vote LibDem—they’re convinced that Jo Swinson would instead cut a deal to preserve a Conservative majority). As terrible as Johnson is, stopping Corbyn has to be the number one priority for British Jews. And a vote for anyone but the Tory candidates is, ultimately, a vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

Jewish voters who act under this logic, they would say, are by no means endorsing Brexit, which they detest, or xenophobia, which they abhor. They hate these things, genuinely and sincerely. But their hand has been forced. In this moment, they have to look out for Number One.

I understand this logic. I understand why some Jews might believe that in this moment, we cannot spare the luxury of thinking of others.

 I understand it. But it is, ultimately, spectacularly short-sighted.

To begin, if we accept that British Jews are justified in voting Tory because we are justified looking out for our own existential self-preservation, then we have to accept that non-Jewish minorities are similarly justified in voting Labour in pursuit of their own communal security and safety. We cannot simultaneously say that our vote for the Tories cannot be construed as an endorsement of Conservative xenophobia but their vote for Labour represents tacit approval of Corbynista antisemitism. Maybe both groups feel their hands are tied; trapped between a bad option and a disastrous one. And so we get one letter from the Chief Rabbi, excoriating Jeremy Corbyn as an “unfit” leader, and another competing letter from the Muslim Council of Britain, bemoaning Conservatives open tolerance of Islamophobia.

But if the Jews reluctantly vote Conservative “in our self-interest” and BAME citizens reluctantly vote Labour “in their self-interest”—well, there are a lot more BAME voters in Britain than there are Jewish voters. So the result would be a massive net gain for Labour. Some pursuit of self-interest.

Meanwhile, those Brits who are neither Jewish nor members of any other minority group are given no guidance by this approach. There is no particular reason, after all, for why they should favor ameliorating Jewish fears of antisemitism over BAME fears of xenophobia. From their vantage point, these issues effectively cancel out, and they are freed to vote without regard to caring about either antisemitism or Islamophobia. At the very moment where these issues have been foregrounded in the British public imagination in an unprecedented way, insisting upon the primacy of pure self-interest would ensure that this attention would be squandered and rendered moot.

Of course, all this does not even contemplate the horrible dilemma imposed upon those persons who are both Jewish and BAME—the Afro-Caribbean Jew, for instance. They are truly being torn asunder, told that no matter how they vote they will be betraying a part of their whole self.

And finally, whatever we can say about the status of Tory antisemitism today, painful experience demonstrates that tides of xenophobia, nativism, and illiberal nationalism reflected in the Conservative Party will always eventually swallow Jews as well. That day will come, and if history is any guide it will come quickly. Jews should think twice and thrice before contemplating giving any succor to that brand of politics, no matter what seductive gestures it makes at us today.

So no—it will not do for Jews to back the Tories out of “self-interest”, for doing so will ultimately fail even in protecting ourselves. Ultimately, the reason that Jews should clearly and vocally reject both Labour and Tory is not sentimentality, but solidarity—solidarity in its truest and most robust sense. There simply are not enough Jews in the United Kingdom to make going it alone a viable strategy. We need allies, and so we need to find a way to respond to the reality of Labour antisemitism in a way that binds us closer to our allies rather than atomizing us apart. The solidarity they showed us must be reciprocated in kind.

If there is one theme I have heard over and over again from UK Jews, it is the fear of becoming “politically homeless”: unable to stomach voting for Tory nativism, unable to countenance backing Labour antisemitism.

But as The Guardian letter demonstrated, Jews still have friends, and allies, and people who will have our backs no matter what. And if you’ve got friends, allies, and people who have your back, what do you do if you’re worried about homelessness?

I’d say, you start building a new house—one with room enough for all of us.

This Jew is Tired

It's been a rough week (he says, on a Thursday [dear God it's still only Wednesday -- DS]).

It began with President Trump once again dipping back into the antisemitism well in a speech before the Israeli American Council -- repeatedly treating American Jews as if we were Israelis and not American, calling us "not nice people" who would nonetheless vote for him because our great "wealth" was at stake.

It continued when Jewish communal representatives -- typified by the AJC -- could only issue the most mealy-mouthed half-condemnations (couched in lots of insulating rhetoric about how wonderful Trump has been as a friend of the Jews). One could see American Jews start to steam in frustration that, once again, antisemitism on the right would be given a pass (it already feels like forever since I wrote this, but it was actually just released on JTA a few hours ago).

Then a few days later, the New York Times put out what appeared to be a bombshell story contending that the Trump administration was going to issue an Executive Order reclassifying Jews as a separate "nationality". Already raw from the IAC speech, and mistrustful of our communal representatives who seemed to discount the threatening subtext of that speech, Jews boiled over -- furious at the prospect that American Jews should be viewed as being of any nation but America.

A few of us familiar with the civil rights context -- in particular, that Title VI only covers "race, color, and national origin", but not religion -- suspected that the EO was really just going to reiterate a policy interpretation dating back to the Obama and Bush administrations: that when antisemitism targets Jews on basis of actual or perceived ethnicity or ancestry, it is covered under the statute. But we found ourselves shouting into a void as people worked themselves into a greater and greater frenzy. Jews who a few days ago were singing the praises of neo-Bundism were now emphatic that Jewishness was "just" a religion -- a position which would, if adopted, remove Jews from the ambit of Title VI protections altogether.

I could see decades worth of civil rights progress unraveling in the face of an ever-increasing frenzy. Reflexive opposition based on incomplete information was making otherwise sensible people start putting out ideas that would virtually dynamite huge swaths of the legal apparatus standing against antisemitism -- and they were doing so under the banner of fighting antisemitism. And on a personal level, after spending literally years trying to draw attention to the mainstreaming of antisemitism on the political right, this is what gets the Jewish community to finally blow its top? This is what we rebel against? I was actually getting nauseous.

Thankfully, things died down a little today as the EO's text was actually released and people realized it was not redefining "Jew" out of "American". Attention now has shifted to the EO's implementation of the IHRA antisemitism definition -- a non-legal definition that was not designed for use in legal enforcement actions and whose vagueness and imprecision risks, if not managed carefully, chilling protected First Amendment activity.

But I scarcely have the bandwidth to dive into that issue (and boy does it ever need diving into), because while all of this was happening there was a shoot-out at a Jewish grocery store in New Jersey, killing five. At first, police said they didn't think it was "terrorism-related". Then the story shifted -- maybe the store had been specifically targeted. Now we've learned that at least one of the perpetrators was a Black Hebrew Israelite -- portions of which have long been associated with radical antisemitic activity. And that, in turn, has brought out some of the ugliest iterations of the Twitterati, who are just transparently delighted that this shooter was Black and are eager to let actual Black Jews know it. It's despicable. It's despicable that Black Jews aren't even allowed to mourn antisemitic violence without someone insisting they take responsibility for it.

Want to know one difference between being a White Jew and a Black Jew? When a White guy shoots up a synagogue, I don't worry that the next time I show up people at my shul will look at me and question whether I'm one of them.

But what we should really be focusing on is that this appears to be an antisemitic shooting, and it confirms what -- contra a particular sort of grievance-monger would have you believe -- is in fact very well-known and very well-attended-to in the Jewish community: that there is a branch of radical antisemitism in other minority communities that can and has turned violent against Jews. Black Hebrew Israelites do not fall neatly on a left-right spectrum (you should read this entire Emma Green column, and not just because it makes this point), and it's crude and debased to think that just because Black therefore Left. But regardless of where one situates it ideologically, it is certainly a distinct form of antisemitism that needs to be taken seriously as distinctive.

Not that anyone needed to tell us that. But by golly you can bet people will tell us that, over and over again, as if we didn't already know, as if we needed the lecture while we grieved.

What a week. What a terrible, tiring week.

Can We Just Resist the Bauble for Once?

The Justice Department Inspector General completed its review into the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia, and found no wrongdoing. If you're Attorney General Bill Barr, this is obviously The Wrong Answer, and by golly he's going to keep on creating new investigations until someone gives the Right One.

At which point, we all know what's going to happen, right? The newspaper headlines will blare "Justice Department: FBI Behaved Inappropriately in Trump-Russia Investigation." Trump will declare victory. The media will put on its sternest contemplation face as it ponders this new revelation. Nobody will have the guts to say it's an obvious concoction, and not worth any attention at all.

But -- futility aside -- I'll still issue my plea: Can we not? Given that we all know exactly what it is coming, why it's coming, and what it is -- can we just resist the shiny bauble? Just this once?

I know, we can't. But still ... please?

What To Do With The Two Truths About Kamala Harris

Ever since Kamala Harris prematurely ended her once-promising presidential bid, I've seen a host of progressive takes making roughly the same claim about two simultaneous "truths":

1. There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to have preferred Senator Harris as one's number one candidate; and
2. Senator Harris was held to a higher and more unforgiving standard because of her race and sex.

And indeed, both of these things are true. Obviously, people are allowed to have policy beliefs that align with other candidates more than Senator Harris. And equally obviously, racism, misogyny, and misogynoir also factor in to how people weigh various issues and commitments in assessing the different candidates, as well as in governing how people move along the spectrum of "not my speed, but that's okay" to "she-devil COP!"

But what I haven't seen is a lot of people taking the next step, and asking what we do with these two truths.

This isn't, after all, just a Kamala Harris problem. These truths will emerge in any circumstance where we believe that unjust social prejudice is systemic and ingrained, such that it will manifest not just in fits of irrational hatred but also in "normal politics". An important implication of viewing racism and sexism as systemic is that it will still exert force -- often considerable force -- in political and policy disputes where there are perfectly valid reasons to take a variety of different positions. So the remedy can't be "don't oppose Kamala Harris" (there are legitimate reasons not to support her!), but neither can the existence of legitimate reasons to oppose Kamala Harris be taken as decisively falsifying any influence of racism and/or sexism.

Obviously, this is a question I've pondered for awhile, since it roughly corresponds to how I think the antisemitism-Israel relationship works (there are perfectly valid reasons to dislike many things Israel does, and also Israel gets held to a more exacting and unforgiving standard because of its Jewish character). And there too, the answer can neither be "never oppose Israeli policies", nor can it be "because there are legitimate bases to oppose Israeli policies, antisemitism isn't an issue." The uncomfortable truth is that antisemitism still operates even in the arena of legitimate opposition to Israeli conduct, and by the same token the fact that antisemitism still operates in that arena doesn't in itself delegitimize the validity of opposing Israeli actions.

Boiled down this way, the problem is even thornier than many have let on: under conditions of ingrained, systemic racism and sexism, there is probably no way to have a discourse about Kamala Harris that is not affected by racism and sexism. There's two trade-offs here: the one I already mentioned, where Harris opponents can't say "there's no racism or misogyny at work here, we have legitimate reasons for our views"; but also another one where Harris proponents can't say "in any case where we can say racism or misogyny is doing work, that case is per se delegitimated."

Why can't the latter claim work? Because one implication of viewing racism and misogyny as pervasive social forces is that there isn't a way to extract a "pure" discussion of her that is innocent of them. They'll always be there. Which means -- since again, the conclusion can't be "everyone is obligated to support Kamala Harris" -- we have to figure out what it means to ethically participate in a political discourse about prominent Black women in conditions where racism and misogyny simply will be present. People are not taking that problem seriously enough, because they retain a fantasy whereby via either sufficient cognizance or self-discipline we can neutralize the effects of racism and misogyny and drop them from our analysis. If that's not possible, and the racism and misogyny must always factor in even as they don't control, we're in far more discomforting terrain.

Post-Thankful Roundup

I was thankful on Thanksgiving, but now the holiday is over and I'm back to being misanthropic.

* * *

The Chronicle of Higher Education profiles Kate Manne (congrats on her baby, by the way!).

I'd find these complaints about how the right is rewriting Mizrahi history to suit its political agenda more compelling if the left hadn't completely abandoned this arena for years (with occasional exceptions for hopelessly idealized histories that are equally political, just with different motivations).

A new survey on British antisemitism is out and making waves. I think several of their methodological choices are questionable, to say the least, which prevents me from endorsing its conclusions without reservation. That's unfortunate because there is some interesting data in there, but it's occluded by the authors' own manifest ideological biases. I might write separately on this.

Shocking-not-shocking, part one: A Jewish member of the McGill student government was given an ultimatum to either withdraw from a trip to Israel or resign (she's doing neither, and daring the body to impeach her). Shocking-not-shocking, part two: A non-Jewish student government member going on the same trip was weirdly overlooked and given a pass.

Ohio legislators introduce bill threatening life imprisonment for any woman, girl, or doctor who has or performs an abortion. "Abortion", here, includes not reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy, which is currently not medically possible.

Anti-Vaxxers make headway in Samoa; dozens of people die of measles in Samoa.

Is there a word -- presumably, a German word that's four words smashed together -- for the distinct feeling of anger one gets at a person or object precisely because one knows one can't reasonably be angry at that person or object? Inquiring minds would like to know.