They're The Same Picture

The JTA has an interesting profile on a "new" right-wing Zionist organization, Betar ("new" in quotes because it claims to be a resurrection of a much older Zionist outfit active before Israel's founding). Betar has distinguished itself by its "confrontational" approach -- meaning that it engages in acts of vandalism and violence, and openly calls for things like ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the expansion of Israel's borders well beyond the West Bank and Gaza and into modern Jordan, Egypt, and Syria.

Critical readers will spot a lot of commonalties between Betar and the more hardline elements of the pro-Palestinian movement. Most obviously, Betar uses almost identical rhetorical maximalism -- compare "We don't want two states, we want all of it" heard at pro-Palestinian protests with Betar's recent statement "We don’t want peace. We don’t want co-existence" -- and simply asks listeners to "choose a side". Pick your preferred ethnic cleanser and cleansee.

But there are some other commonalities. Perhaps the most important one to flag is that Betar hates "moderate" Jews as much if not more than it hates Palestinians, and its definition of "moderate" includes many Jews whom external observers would view as hardliners. Consider Betar's confrontational relationship with Columbia professor Shai Davidai, who has organized aggressive (to say the least) counterprotests aimed at pro-Palestinian activism on campus and had to deal with a Betar element crashing his event:

Despite their tiny size, the Betar contingent immediately worried Davidai. Most of them were young men, he recalled; several covered their faces; one had a flag of the Jewish Defense League, an extremist group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. “All they did was scream ‘F— Gaza,’ ‘Gaza is ours,’ ‘Here’s a beeper for you,’ ‘Deport them all,’ ‘ICE, ICE, ICE,’” he said. “Just violent rhetoric.”

Davidai is no stranger to provocation: Last fall, Columbia barred him from campus after months of his vocal criticisms of the university’s handling of antisemitism. Yet he views Betar as a serious obstacle to the movement he was trying to build, not least because they were adapting the same tactics as the pro-Palestinian side: expressing support for a terror group and hiding their faces as they did so.

“I think it’s hypocritical to spend 16 months blaming all protesters who are in this Free Palestine movement for not policing their own protesters, but then let hatred and violence take root in yours,” Davidai said. “I said, ‘Look, you’re doing exactly what we’re telling them not to do….’  At some point I asked them, ‘Go do your thing, but don’t be associated with us.’ They refused.”

After the rally, Betar and its followers began targeting him online. On Instagram he blasted them for only joining counter-protests, while never showing up to rallies for Israeli hostages. The rhetoric has only escalated from there, as Betar has mobilized its followers against him, in public and private. “You will be disrupted at all future speeches,” Torossian messaged Davidai on WhatsApp, according to communications shared with JTA. “You are a radical.”

Davidai has also urged his followers against supporting any further killings or mass expulsions in Gaza, a stark contrast to Betar’s own stated views. Yet in the comments, many of Davidai’s own followers have begun taking Betar’s side, accusing him of naively trying to make peace with the enemy.

There are some lessons to be learned here. One lesson is that there will always be someone more aggressive, confrontational, and hardline than you, and those actors will prove almost impossible to police. Moreover, they (in many ways correctly) view more "moderate" elements of their own community as their most important and salient competition and will ruthlessly try to attack and suppress those they deem "traitors" or "appeasers" in order to accumulate more power to themselves as the "authentic" voice of "true resistance" (this certainly characterizes how the BDS movement has been going after Standing Together, for instance). And finally, leaders of social groups that simultaneously play footsie with the sort of extreme rhetoric while assuaging themselves that of course their actual politics are humanitarian and egalitarian, they're just revving up a crowd or exaggerating for effect, will quickly learn that much of their base isn't in on the bit. They're in it for the hate, and when someone offers that hate better, they won't listen to your attempts to rein things back in.

There's also a very important lesson not to learn here. For some people, it is important to hear about groups like Betar so to disabuse any notions that calls for ethnic cleansing and political violence are only something "they" (the other side) does, whereas "our" movement is purely one of peace and coexistence. That illusion is dangerous and must be dispelled. But for others, the main function of groups like Betar is to give people a permission structure for their own counter-maximalism, because "this is what they're really like". If they're out there saying "Gaza is ours", what choice do we have but to fling them into the sea? If they're out there saying "Israel must be rooted out and destroyed", what choice do we have but to "transfer" them out of Gaza? There are a lot of people who just love the Betars or the Within Our Lifetimes of the world, and are constantly searching for examples of the genre. It's not because they agree with them. It's because their existence gives license to be as extreme and uncompromising and hateful as you want, because have you seen what they want?

The only way out of that trap is to recognize that it's the same picture. These organizations may have different preferred winners and losers, but they're fundamentally on the same side -- trying to convince you that the only choice there is to make is choosing your preferred extremism. And that is a false choice. As important as it is to name and shame these sorts of extremists, if you're main motivation in doing so is to validate your preconceived notion that this sort of extremism is the actual true authentic core of an entire people or culture, then you are not shaming anyone -- you are joining them.

The true enemy, as always, is anyone who rejects the equal dignity and democratic equality of Israelis and Palestinians alike. Anyone who rejects that there are two authentic nations whose homeland is in this territory. Anyone who rejects that there are two communities have legitimate claims to democratic self-determination. Anyone who rejects those premises is fundamentally on the same side, and the wrong side, no matter what flag they fly.

What If Echo Chambers Work?

A few days after the election, I remember seeing a Washington Post column that said something like "You can't win an election if you're going to shun or denigrate half the electorate." And I remember wishing I could ask the author, in all earnestness: Why not?

After all, hadn't we just seen someone win an election while shunning and denigrating half the electorate? Clearly it's possible! The Post's hypothesis had been decisively falsified less than a week before!

This came up again today with the ongoing "echo chamber" discourse about BlueSky, paired against the fact that Republicans did in fact manage to win an election while generating an almost entirely cloistered epistemic bubble for themselves. The belief that echo chambers are antipathic to good electoral strategy is a comforting belief for people of a certain political persuasion (myself included!), but it just seems not to be true.

So the real question, and I think harder question, for Democrats is -- what if echo chambers work? What if one can win an election by constructing an epistemic fortress and just mainlining as many conspiracy theories and wild accusations about the other sides as humanly (or AI-ing-ly) possible?

It's a harder question because, at least for someone like me, this would be a very sad reality to come to grips with. I very fervently don't think democracy should be about scratching your way to the thinnest possible plurality and then steamrolling the other side. If you asked me what I would hope to happen to MAGA Republicans in rural Idaho or whatever after a Kamala Harris win, I'd have answered "I hope they get good healthcare, decent jobs, and well-funded schools." I have no desire to unleash recriminations upon "enemies", and I hate the idea of politics as a lawless bloodsport where all is fair if it wins you an election.

But maybe people like me are naive, and the lesson that has to be learned from 2024 (and 2016) is that brutal, no quarter, snarling attacks are an electorally winning play, and that for Democrats to win they need to harness their inner demonization machine and find some people to vilify. Of course, one could respond to this by saying that even if such a strategy is electorally superior at the margins, it's just plain wrong. That's always a valid response, and one might notice that it's the same response given to arguments that Democrats need to throw trans persons under the bus for electoral wins. There, of course, the retort is "well, enjoy feeling morally pure as you lose the Senate for the next decade" -- it's of course fascinating that the Post would never apply a similar retort to those who demand foreswearing scorched-earth electoral tactics against the GOP ("have fun patting yourselves on the back for your moral purity!"). It goes to show which moral commitments are truly seen as sacrosanct by the mainstream media, and which aren't.

But if we leave the moral objection aside, there remains one circle I cannot quite square. I've never been one to think, contra some narratives, that Democrats have just preemptively surrendered at every turn (e.g., as far as I know I'm the only person who thinks Chuck Schumer has done a pretty good job keeping a very thin majority dependent on some very unreliable actors relatively unified over the course of his tenure). Nonetheless, I am, with great reluctance, coming to believe that Democrats cannot win elections solely by taking the high road and demonstrating sober commitment to good governance and rule of law, when pitted against the emotional fever-dream populist pitch that characterizes the modern GOP. Again -- this is not a conclusion I'm happy to accede to. There probably are some people whose every instinct is to destroy the opposition at all costs and have to be persuaded to stay within the lines; but as noted above that's not me. My sensibilities are extremely wedded towards sober technocracy and good governance, and I reflexively recoil at the sort of hardball, "crush the enemy" tactics we're talking about here.

But here's my problem: if over the short term I think Democrats need to compete with the GOP on the level of back-alley brawl politics, over the long term I think that a politics that takes that form is inherently slanted towards the right. We will never be able to out-hate the GOP. We'll never be better than them at conjuring up some shadowy enemy to put people into a frenzy. There are absolutely ways to pitch distrust towards established institutions and a belief that "They" are out to get "Us" in a left-ish manner, but ultimately those narratives are going to benefit the right more (and we're already seeing how that pipeline flows from left-to-right in the form of folks like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard). So even if I may believe that my fighting faith of good governance liberalism just isn't winning elections, I'm also very concerned that the punchier left-wing populist alternatives will generate a political environment that is even more systematically slanted towards the right. Conspiratorial populism is home turf advantage for the right -- if that's the field we're playing on, we're always going to be starting from behind.

As I said, I don't have a way to square this circle. I'm not a political strategist, and I'm trying to avoid the temptation of "just agree with me and of course we'll win elections." But it's something I'm feeling very glum about.

Which Nuts Crack?

I like to keep a half eye on Senate, House, and gubernatorial polling trends at The Downballot (formerly Daily Kos Elections). There are quite a few swing state races that are certainly close, but seem to have mild Democratic advantages -- these include the Michigan and Pennsylvania Senate races, for instance. But there are also some swing state races where Democrats are running away with it -- Ruben Gallego looks set to smoke Kari Lake in Arizona, for instance; same with Josh Stein over Mark Robinson in the race for North Carolina Governor.

All of these races are occurring in tightly contested swing states. If anything, Arizona and North Carolina are more red leaning than are Michigan and Pennsylvania. So why are Lake and Robinson doing so poorly?

Obviously, the most straightforward answer is "they're both certified nutjobs." But the same statewide polls that have Lake and Robinson down by double-digits have Trump either tied or ahead. And I truly, honestly, cannot figure out what sort of person recognizes the nuttiness of a Kari Lake or a Mark Robinson but doesn't see it in Trump. What's the difference? What makes Trump's lunacy different from Lake's or Robinson's? What characterizes the voter who sees Lake or Robinson as different-in-kind from Trump?

There But For the Grace of God

Over at the bad place, Batya Ungar-Sargon is mainlining copium to explain Donald Trump's debate performance.

My take on the debate is that Harris did well because she's a factory settings Democratic apparatchik, and the main skill for doing that well is one she's good at: acting, pretending the neoliberal (or now neoconservative!) agenda of the Democratic elite is your own,…

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) September 11, 2024

Ah yes, that explains it. Donald Trump is just too pure authentic for this world. His raw untamable independent streak just couldn't be corralled to please "the elites" ("on either side"!). Harris gets "if anything, she was too prepared" version 2.0. It's amazing how hard one has to work to avoid the Occam's Razor explanation* that Trump sounded like a madman because he is one; that Trump's inability to articulate a concept of a plan for America beyond crude xenophobic nativism is because he lacks one.

Batya's descent into utter madness brain worms territory (which has been ongoing for years, including being a key player making Newsweek the house journal for the alt-right and antisemitic White supremacists and parroting the crudest Putinist propaganda about how funding of "Zelensky's War" is why Americans don't have manufacturing jobs) legitimately frightens me, because I don't know what zombie bit her and so I don't know how to ensure it doesn't bite me too. My main inference right now is "don't become opinion editor for a Jewish media outlet", because it was her experience at the Forward that seemed to drive her into the arms of madness, but I'm terrified that if exposed to the wrong trauma I too might go from being a reasonably intelligent and thoughtful commentator to a true believer in every fever swamp inanity imaginable.

I'm not really exposed to Batya these days, since she's not on BlueSky. There's a line on BlueSky that it's an echo chamber, and that's something I worry about too -- isn't it important that I be exposed to more views like Batya's, to ensure that I'm not cocooning myself in an epistemic bubble? The problem, though, is that while when I expose myself to the Batyas of the world I may pat myself on the back for being a good, virtuous epistemic citizen willing to challenge myself with views-not-my-own, in reality exposing myself to the likes of Batya feels less challenging than it is confirmatory. Reading her takes only makes me feel incredibly relieved that I don't have her takes. She is anti-persuasive. 

If the point of reading diverse views is to have that "huh, I never thought of it that way" moment, reading these people makes me go "huh, turns out that the caricatured mental model I have of brain-rotted right-wingers isn't a caricature at all." They're saying exactly what I expect them to say; there are no surprises. I'm unconvinced that confirming that instinct is actually healthier, even along the axis of remaining open-minded to divergent opinions.

* Of course, this circle also struggles mightily to understand what an "Occam's Razor" explanation is.

UPDATE: Matt Taibbi got bit as well.

UPDATE 2x: The Taibbi piece, in particular, reminded me of an exchange I had with an old high school buddy of mine who sadly has also gone off the deep end. He posted a collage of various media outlets all reporting on the travails of Twitter/X under Elon Musk -- that it had cratered in value and become a haven for bigots and extremists. He decided that the fact that similar reporting was appearing across many different media outlets could only mean one thing: a conspiracy by the legacy media to collude in order to slander Elon Musk's reputation. I sarcastically wondered if he saw a similar conspiracy in the fact that every atlas will tell you the capital of Norway is Oslo, or every science textbook will inform you that the Earth rotates around the Sun. 

He said "I bet you think you're so smart." I assured him that I never dreamed that my observation required any intelligence whatsoever.

The Israeli Right Wants to End America's Israel Bipartisanship

Bibi spoke before Congress today, giving his usual bluster in the face of growing Democratic discontent over his hard-right governance and naked disregard for Palestinian life and rights. Well over a hundred congressional Democrats boycotted his speech, and even some who attended gave scathing reviews (my favorite comment came from Rep. Jerry Nadler, who bluntly described Netanyahu as "the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago.").

One comment I've heard many times is that Bibi has been recklessly pissing away the historic bipartisan support Israel has enjoyed in Congress to tie himself ever closer to the GOP. This has been occurring since at least the Obama administration and only seems to be accelerating. Why is he taking this step? At the bad place, Abe Silberstein hypothesizes that this is a "calculated" decision, predicated on the notion that Democrats will eventually abandon Israel anyway. I agree it is calculated (which doesn't mean it isn't reckless), but I actually might make an even more controversial point -- Bibi wants to drive Democrats away. The breakdown of the consensus is, for him, a positive good.

The rationale is straightforward. Certainly, in an "ideal" world, both American political parties would support Israel in whatever it does, all the time. But in reality, a bipartisan "consensus" around Israel is going to be inherently moderating -- Democrats prevent it from drifting too far to the right, and Republicans from it drifting too far to the left. It's no accident that in the early 2000s (the apex of the consensus), Democrats and Republicans alike generally coalesced around things like support for two states, veneration of Oslo, and so on. There was, certainly, a lot less in the way of Democratic support for sharp and harsh Israel critique, but you were also less likely to see Republicans openly come out in favor of occupation forever. It was the epitome of a mushy middle.

The problem is that Bibi is not part of the mushy middle, and it is affirmatively bad for him if American politics on Israel sit on moderate, middle ground. A theme I've hit on repeatedly in my writing is that polarization actively benefits extremists, and will be pursued by them, even if it reduces overall levels of popular support for their broadly-defined "camp". Polarization gives more space for extremists to flourish, and Bibi is nothing if not a right-wing extremist.

Imagine you're Bibi and you have a choice between two worlds: one where 8 out of 10 Americans support Israel, but they're evenly divided between "left" and "right", and another where only 5 out of 10 Americans are pro-Israel, but 4 of them are conservative. He's going to pick the latter, because in the latter universe the pro-Israel faction is dominated by conservatives, and so will be a far more hospitable environment to his brand of unabashed and unapologetic conservatism. In the first world, the parameters of pro-Israel are set via a balance of liberal and conservative interests. In the second, they're set solely by conservatives -- even as the median position of Americans shifts away from support for Israel, the median position of self-described pro-Israel Americans shifts sharply to the right. 

For that reason, it should not surprise to see Bibi and his allies seemingly doing everything they can to alienate American Democrats even in the face of stalwart support from Joe Biden. Are they spitting in his eye? Yes, and intentionally so. For them, having Democrats as part of the "pro-Israel" camp is more constraining than it is enabling. They'd much rather the parameters of pro-Israel be set solely by the right -- the better to consolidate their own power.

The Most Dangerous Threat To Jews Are The People Threatening To Kill the Jews

Yesterday, June 16, 2023, a federal jury officially convicted Robert Bowers, the White supremacist whose 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that was the deadliest antisemitic incident in American history.

Also yesterday, a man in Michigan was arrested on charges he plotted to conduct his own mass shooting at a synagogue in East Lansing. Like Bowers, Seann Patrick Pietila was also a far-right White supremacist, though it appears his immediate inspiration was the Christchurch Mosque massacre, on whose 5th anniversary he planned to launch his own killing spree.

There is a line one increasingly hears in conservative Jewish circles that insists that Jewish fears over right-wing antisemitism are naught but a ginned up panic. Just a few weeks ago, Jonathan Tobin had the gall to claim that "It isn’t going too far to assert that Soros is endangering far more American and Jewish lives than stray marginal extreme right-wingers." To say that at a moment when the Tree of Life survivors are forced to relive a massacre perpetrated by one of those "stray marginal extremists", one whose violent hate was inextricably bound up in the fever swamp of antisemitic conspiracies for whom George Soros is a central figure and which the likes of Tobin are now trying to render Kosher, is sickening.

The most dangerous threat to American Jews is not liberal Jews supporting policies supported by most other American Jews. The most dangerous threat to American Jews is, and continues to be, the people trying to murder Jews, right alongside the people ginning up, spreading, apologizing for, or horrifyingly endorsing the conspiracies that justify those murders. It's not that complicated. But apparently it still needs to be said.

June 16, 2023, in some ways represents the ongoing circle of antisemitic death, closed in on itself. One antisemitic mass murder reached "closure" (if such a thing is possible). Another was thankfully averted, due to the vigilance of law enforcement who fortunately did not take Tobin's unsolicited, misguided, politically opportunistic, and downright dangerous "advice" that right-wing antisemitism is non-threat.

They know it. We know it. The Tobins of the world, trying to deny it, are absolutely and utterly beneath contempt.

Why Hasn't AIPAC Endorsed Marjorie Taylor Greene?

AIPAC's much-criticized decision to endorse a slew of Republican insurrectionists has been the talk of the pro-Israel town over the past few months. AIPAC's tweet today praising top Trumpist leader Elise Stefanik -- just a few days after one of Stefanik's prize House recruits came under fire for (checks notes) praising Hitler -- is par for the course. AIPAC's defense has always been straightforward: we do not care what any politician says or does on any issue but Israel. Insurrection, antisemitism, bigotry, corruption -- it all takes a back seat. AIPAC is laser-focused on one thing only, and that's Israel policy.

But here's my question: If that's true, why hasn't AIPAC endorsed Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Greene is a fanatic, a bigot, an antisemite, and a certified loon. But I would be surprised if her policy on Israel is meaningfully distinct from that of any other far-right House Republican. So what explains AIPAC's hesitance?

It's obviously not a sudden bout of scruples. It's a calculation -- Greene is someone they don't want to associate with because of her extreme views on issues other than Israel. Which is correct -- they shouldn't associate with her. But having made that judgment, it is entirely reasonable to note that the implied corollary -- that other bigots, extremists, and haters are people they are willing to associate with. It's not a single-minded focus on Israel. They making broader judgments. And they can be justly criticized for them.

The Virtues of Remembering Extremists, Near and Far

Sometimes I think the most important thing we can do keep ourselves politically healthful is to remember the existence of extremists -- both near and far from our own positions.

It's important to remember the extremists whose positions are (relatively) near one's own -- that is, persons who take the extreme version of your "side" of a given political contest -- in order to guard against the allure of purism. Being pro-Israel for example, one ignores or downplays the existence of pro-Israel extremists at one's own peril. It important to remind oneself that it is not better to adopt ever-more fundamentalist or uncompromising iterations of one's own position, and you are not a failure or a traitor for refusing to fall onto that path. Recalling and recognizing those who speak under your banner but do so in a destructive or harmful way can help dissipate some very dangerous temptations and forestall one from excusing things that are fundamentally inexcusable.

It is also important to remember the extremists whose positions are on the far side from one's own -- if only so one is not surprised by them when they inevitably do emerge. Particularly if one is feeling frustrated with one's own camp, there can be the temptation to romanticize one's opposition; going beyond the (important and correct) refusal to generalize and demonize and instead allowing oneself the delusion that there is no dangerous politics on the other side of the rainbow. The delusion is bad enough, but the real damage comes when one is forced to confront the reality -- if one isn't prepared, it is a shock of cold water that can quickly trip the unwary into spiraling down their own path of extremism. I can't tell you how many videos and screenshots I've seen from "pro-Israel" Twitter displaying the worst of terribleness from various pro-Palestinian rallies or protests, all of which style themselves as trying to shock complacent Jews out of their purported stupor. And indeed, if one hasn't prepared yourself to encounter it, it is quite a bracing sight to behold. But for my part, since I've never deluded myself that this sort of anti-Zionist extremism did not exist, I was never unduly shocked when confronted with its manifest existence. 

Keeping these things in mind allows one to keep one's head on a little straighter. Instead of retreating to pathetic denials that this sort of abhorrent politics is present, or opportunistic romanticism of why it's actually permissible or just, remembering and acknowledging the genuine existence of extremism allows one to keep a sense of perspective. Being able to name and recognize extremism as part of the story also allows one to keep a sense of proportion that it is not the entire story. 

Lesson #2 of the internet:

No matter your ideology, there will always be someone profoundly idiotic who largely agrees with you, and someone profoundly idiotic who largely disagrees with you. Neither fact should be unduly weighted.

 

The Other Horseshoe

I was reading a fascinating review by Yair Wallach about how antisemitism was combatted during the 1917 Russian Revolution,* and he made an observation which in retrospect is very obvious but for whatever reason had never fully clicked with me before.

Many of us are familiar with the idea, often referred to as "horseshoe theory", that antisemitism serves a conduit between left and right-wing politics. Antisemitism bridges the left and the right, so that persons who begin in one milieu can end up finding affinity with persons in the other, united by shared antisemitic beliefs.

But Wallach observes that there is another potential "horseshoe" vector between left and right -- this one running through "anti-antisemitism". Here, left and right overlap based on real and perceived affinity for fighting antisemitism. Persons who feel, rightly or wrongly, that the left is not taking a strong enough stance on antisemitism, that it excuses antisemitism, that it has become infected by antisemitism, may -- need not, but may -- become enamored with right-wing actors who are every day loudly banging the drum calling out exactly these cases of antisemitism.

Just as the left, even if it may start from a principled position of "anti-imperialism" or "decolonialism", regularly finds itself keeping company with (and worse -- being sympathetic to!) outright antisemites whose Israel hatred is merely a subspecies of their Jew hatred, so too are there persons who begin from a genuine anti-antisemitism posture who find themselves in the company of, and eventually even sympathetic to, Islamophobes and other right-wing bigots for whom "fighting antisemitism" really just means hating Muslims and other non-White persons.

This is not something limited to antisemitism, either. One can see versions of this coming out of feminism (some feminists who truly hate what they see has the repressive characteristics of the hijab eventually floating into outright hostility to Muslims) or even anti-racism (some anti-racists whose beliefs in racial self-help and self-empowerment eventually lead them into hierarchical nationalism). If anything, what this demonstrates is that our politics are less organized and coherent as the simple left/right binary would have one believe -- there are all manner of tunnels, thoroughfares, and crossings that offer opportunities to quickly travel from one side of the ideological spectrum to the other.

But certainly this is something I have observed -- sometimes seemingly in real time -- in the Jewish case. The rise of the neo-neoconservatives is one example -- starting as liberals, such persons' travel to more conservative territory is very much greased by a perceived affinity for the sort of anti-antisemitism discourse emanating out of the right. A similar concept was alluded to when I spoke of the knife's edge of radicalization -- the right stimulus can cause someone to rapidly tumble over into ideological terrain seemingly incompatible with their own proffered beliefs. Bret Weinstein was a Bernie Sanders backer, after all! Now he's claiming liberal values are best being protected by the likes of Tucker Carlson.

Weinstein, for his part, illustrates another important point -- that the start of the journey across the horseshoe can very much be prompted by legitimate grievances. Based on everything I've read, Weinstein was indeed treated poorly by his community at Evergreen State. That doesn't justify him becoming a member of the intellectual dark web, anymore than legitimate grievances against the Israeli state justifies one becoming a tankie. But insofar as we're less interested in identifying who we can legitimately chide and more interested in undermining pathways towards people on the left adopting  right-wing politics, it's important to dispassionately map out how these journeys progress. 

And there's no question that at least some persons -- I have many, many more names in mind beyond Bret Weinstein, but I don't want to call anyone out -- make the trek over in part by traversing the causeway of "anti-antisemitism". Surely, anyone reading this knows of whom I speak.

It is unfair, and a gross exaggeration, to conflate noting the horseshoe's existence with saying that any progressive concerns in this arena are tantamount to indulging in right-wing politics. That's true if our horseshoe's base camp begins with legitimate concerns about Israeli policies, and that's true if our horseshoe begins with legitimate concerns about antisemitism in the left-wing, or Muslim, community. Taking the horseshoe seriously means not conflating anyone who expresses concern over the occupation with a David Duke aficionado, and not conflating anyone who expresses concern over Corbynist antisemitism with a Tommy Robinson fanboy. That sort of cheap gotcha politics can only be indulged in by people who don't take the underlying issue seriously at all; viewing it as fundamentally benign enough that it can turned into political sport.

For the rest of us, though, the darker truth is that the horseshoe -- insofar as it is a conduit between left and right -- is both a danger and a temptation. It's a danger because of the prospect of losing people to the right. It's a temptation because of the prospect of gaining people from the right. The conduit flows both ways. It takes a lot of discipline to know of the conduit's existence and even, gingerly, to try to reach through and pull people out of reactionary politics, without falling through it oneself and coming out the other side. That's true regardless of whether the consonance you're pulling on is emotive hostility to Jewish self-determination or snarling suspicion towards Muslim power; seething resentment of (((globalist financiers))) or furious loathing of (((cultural Marxists))).

If we're being honest with ourselves, all of us probably know which version of the horseshoe we're more vulnerable to. Some of us are more likely to be tempted by persons whose pure, uncompromising loathing of Israel is intoxicating even as it spills out and over into hatred of Israelis and Jews. Others of us are more likely to be seduced by those whose vocal, prideful denunciations of antisemitism is mesmerizing even as it laps against the walls of race-baiting and conspiracy-mongering.

We can pound our chests all we want and how very dare you the premise, and I don't need anyone to raise a hand and admit to anything.

Just -- be mindful. The conduit is there. Know yourself, know your weaknesses, and don't walk through it.

* Which is, of course, a very different question than how antisemitism was "combatted" -- which is to say, implemented -- by the Communist government after the revolution was over. The review (and I assume, the underlying book) do not pretend that the actually-established Communist regime was anything other than a disaster as far as antisemitism was concerned.

The GOP is Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Here's my scary/controversial hypothesis of the day:

Right now, the national elected GOP is a moderating influence on the American conservative movement.

I say that fully accounting for folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Josh Hawley, and Lauren Boebert. Even accounting for them, the nationally-elected GOP cadre, taken as a whole, is more moderate than the overall American conservative movement. Which is terrifying, given just how radically extreme the nationally-elected GOP cadre is (see the above list). The reason it's a scary hypothesis is precisely because the current national elected GOP should never be a moderating influence on anything. It is a party utterly and completely out-of-control. And yet, when you compare them to the people they're representing -- oh boy, can it get even worse.

The Republican caucus flirts with just abandoning democracy outright, the Republican base has already signed the prenup. The Republican caucus contemplates creating a new "Anglo-Saxon" caucus, the Republican base thinks the absence of one is the greatest civil rights travesty of our time. The Republican caucus tip-toes around whether George Floyd was murdered, the Republican base would call Derek Chauvin's conviction a lynching except that might suggest they admire it.

We are, in short, nowhere near rock-bottom. Party officials aren't always 100% aligned with the rank-and-file, but the latter certainly exhibits a strong gravitational pull on the former. The pull on the GOP is to move even further to the right than it is now. We're going to see more persons who to any sane observer would be seen as rock-ribbed conservatives be primaried out, or retired and replaced, by open and avowed extremists. We're going to see more ambitious GOP pols try to separate themselves from the back by going deeper and deeper into the rabbit holes of open racism, White supremacy, antisemitism, and conspiratorial authoritarianism of all stripes.

It's going to get far worse before it gets better.

Extremist Anti-Zionist Jewish Sect Requests Asylum in Iran

The Lev Tahor sect (really, closer to a cult) of Haredi Orthodox Judaism -- notorious for facing kidnapping and child abuse allegations -- has apparently requested asylum in Iran.

You may remember the Lev Tahor from their time in Guatemala, when Students for Justice in Palestine -- noting that Lev Tahor was (a) Jewish and (b) bad -- concluded that they therefore must be "Zionists". Lev Tahor is in fact extremely aggressively anti-Zionist, which may explain why they think Iran might be a hospitable site for an asylum claim. (As best I can tell, SJP's response to the fact that Lev Tahor is anti-Zionist, not Zionist, was to define the problem out of existence: anti-Zionism is good, Lev Tahor is not good, therefore, Lev Tahor cannot be anti-Zionist).

ADL Publishes New Report Linking Misogyny and White Supremacy

The ADL has a new report out examining the intersections between misogyny and White supremacy. The content isn't necessarily groundbreaking, at least for those in the academic space, and the conception of "misogyny" is limited to a relatively narrow set of violent extremists (contrast the more expansive exploration in Kate Manne's Down Girl).

But that said, I think it is still a worthwhile read and an important milestone to see this linkage explicitly identified by a "mainstream" civil rights group. Hopefully, it will spur more attention to this toxic interaction (one obvious area for growth -- the observation by many feminists that expressed misogynist attitudes seem highly correlated with mass shootings).

SPLC Apologizes to Maajid Nawaz

The Southern Policy Law Center has formally apologized to Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation for including them in a 2016 list of "anti-Muslim extremists" (they're also paying a multi-million dollar settlement, earmarked for fighting anti-Muslim bigotry as well as Islamist extremism).

I remember when that SPLC document came out -- I was at most dimly aware of Nawaz at that point, but as I wrote at the time "even solely going off what the SPLC says about him in this document the case for labeling him an 'anti-Muslim extremist' seems exceptionally thin. Placing him on a list that includes Pam Geller seems recklessly irresponsible at best, discrediting at worst." So it's good that the SPLC apologized, although I'm a bit surprised that they did -- it's been two years, and while Nawaz had threatened a defamation suit, the legal basis for such an action was exceptionally thin.

On that note, it is worth reiterating Ken White's cautionary note, which is that while -- again -- the SPLC almost certainly wronged Nawaz from a moral and ethical point of view, legally they should have been in the clear. Their description of Nawaz and Quilliam as anti-Muslim extremists, irresponsible and unwarranted as it was, still clearly falls in the realm of protected opinion. To the extent that the tool of anti-defamation law was used to extract this settlement, that has worrying First Amendment implications notwithstanding the fact that on-substance it was the right thing for the SPLC to do.

I'm a Celebrity! Roundup

I've been busy basking in the glow of my status as a big magazine contributor. That means that I haven't had as much time to do regular blogging as I'd like, and that means it's time for a roundup.

* * *

* Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and has defied court orders requiring her to fulfill her official duties, has been jailed for contempt of court. Will any Republican candidate take a stand for the rule of law here? I can actually respect -- to some degree -- someone whose deeply-felt personal beliefs require them to abstain from certain public activities. But the right choice in such a circumstance is to resign from office, not to demand a public salary while obstructing the law.

* The ADL, incidentally, has just issued a statement that gets this issue 100% right. Good on them.

* Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin has a great column up on the threat post by extremist Jewish settlers. Unlike him, though, I'd rather we not "wait for it to get worse so that it might get better."

* Wouldn't it be hilarious if, after all the sound and fury on the American side, it was Iran's parliament that rejected the deal? Actually, that outcome would probably be the single best thing that could happen for the anti-deal conservatives here in America.

* Dan Drezner urges that Political Science not emulate Economics. Hear, hear (says the political theorist)!

* Local news, but semi-important: Rep. John Kline (R-MN) will not seek reelection. Kline was my representative during college (he represents the area south of the Twin Cities), and his district is trending towards the Democrats. But Kline himself was pretty well-entrenched, so his departure is a big boost to Democratic pickup chances.

* Oh, one more: Virginia Postrel on what's actually driving stressed over-achievers at elite universities. It's not crass desire for fame or materialism, and it's not pushy caricatured Tiger Parents.

* Fine, two more. Shorter PJ Media: If Hillary Clinton is elected, conservatives will break every law that they possibly can and possibly launched an armed revolution. This reflects poorly on Hillary Clinton.

Fitness Tests

Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens, commenting on the brutal kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, stated that "a culture that too often openly celebrates martyrdom and murder is not fit for statehood." This column came across my Facebook feed last night, and I immediately noted its resonance with the neo-colonialist position of Daniel Doron. The nickel version is simply this: self-determination is not a cookie that we give to reward the good boys and girls. One's right to self-determination is unconditional -- one has it regardless of whether as "a culture" (to inevitably overgeneralize) one is good or bad. We deal with bad states all the time. And bad states with bad policies and bad worldviews and bad human rights records should be dealt with. But the solution is not "deprive their constituent populations of their right to vote."

There is a name for putting a people under the occupation and political control of an external sovereign, of whom they are not citizens and have limited political, social, and legal rights, until such time as they are deemed enlightened enough to be worthy of self-governance. Its name is colonialism, and its track record is not good.

Hold that thought.

Early today it was discovered that a Palestinian teenager was abducted and murdered in Jerusalem. This grisly discover occurred contemporaneously with a vicious campaign amongst some segments of the Israeli population calling for violent revenge and mass expulsions of Israeli Arabs. These were not all fringe figures: the General Secretary of Bnei Akiva, the world's largest Religious Zionist youth movement, put up a post calling for Israel to slaughter 300 Arab youth and take their foreskins as prizes (apparently he did not realize that Muslims, like Jews, circumcise their children).

The point of this post is not to say that Israeli culture celebrates death or anything of that nature. Just as President Abbas condemned the kidnapping of the Israeli teenagers, Prime Minister Netanyahu was firm in his condemnation of the "revenge" killing. There are enough people who seem to take comfort that their adversaries truly are an indistinguishable mass of monsters; I do not join them.

The point is that we play dangerous games when we start talking making sweeping statements about "cultures" and whether they "deserve" basic human rights. Anyone who is active in Zionist circles is, or should be, familiar with the favored tactics of Israel's adversaries, which begin from the fact that Israel's inception was not an idealized deliberative process as John Rawls would have envisioned and draw the conclusion that therefore Jews clearly don't "deserve" a state of their own. It's a reprehensible game, the terms of which act to openly encourage racist and anti-Semitic generalizations. Ultimately, it reinforces the very elements -- and they are elements, which are neither trivial nor stand-ins for the whole -- that view murder, mayhem, and incitement as positive goods.

Those, like Bret Stephens, who are up in arms about the barbarity not of the kidnappers themselves but entire swaths of Palestinian society are notably quiet when it comes to the brutalism of the Price Tag movement or calls by Jewish mobs for revenge on Arabs writ large. And vice versa -- those who view the most vicious and irredentist portions of Israeli society as emblematic of the whole are typically the first to excuse violent terrorism and genocidal impulses by Palestinians as legitimate resistance.

We play dangerous games in a land that does not need more danger.

Roadspierre

Well this will certainly brighten the grim DC mood:

On October 11th, a group of right-wing truckers is planning to drive to DC to shut down the major commuter highway that circles the city. They’ll continue to block traffic, they say, until they see the arrest of elected officials who have “violated their oath of office.”

Organizers of the event, which is titled “Truckers Ride for the Constitution,” say they are fed up with a variety of headaches caused by the government: Fuel efficiency standards enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency, Obamacare, state and local laws over idling their trucks, and “insurance companies purportedly requiring technological updates,” according to US News and World Report.

They say that to demonstrate against violations of the constitution, they plan to circle interstate 495 — known widely as the beltway — and not allow through any traffic. If police try to stop them, they’ll park their trucks right on the highway.

Originally, reports from US News and World Report indicated the truckers were looking to impeach President Obama. But Earl Conlon, an organizer of the event, told US News, “We’re not asking for impeachment, we’re asking for the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office.” These include House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), both for purportedly arming al Qaeda linked Syrian rebels.

Oh joy. But wait! I take the Communist Socialist Metro for my commute! Joke's on them!

A Stirring Tribute

There is something profoundly depressing about this:

The ANC [African National Congress -- South Africa's main political party and anti-apartheid organization] Youth League wishes to send its heartfelt condolences on the passing away of the Great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il. As we remember this revolutionary we call upon the Korean people to forge ahead with the struggle to reunify their country, to free it completely of a legacy of Colonialism left to its people by imperialists represented by the United States of America.

May the undying spirit of Comrade Kim Jong Il continue to inspire the Korean people to defend the Songhun, the idea that it is possible for the people of Korea, Asia and the world to live well alongside each other in an egalitarian society, free from poverty, joblessness, hatred of each other and the oppression of one country by another.

…

In commemorating this Great Leader we sent warnings to traitors of the people, led by Lee Myung Bak, who deliberately sunk his Cheonoan war ship and blamed it on the government of the Democratic People’s republic of Korea, to desist from an unsustainable offensive against the North of Korea and the Korean peninsula in general. His continued assault on the image of the DPRK in collaboration with the United States will not continue unabated. In this regard we support the just cause of the Korean people to defend themselves, using whatever means at their disposal, to continue struggling for a just and equal world order and to defeat Capitalism in all its facets.

…

In technology to save our climate you also excelled, as we saw the successful introduction of an air steriliser, to curb emission and related hazards from the climate, and this shows the effectiveness of the Korean nuclear technology, and this equally shames the Western and Imperialist Propaganda, that the DPRK nuclear programme is aimed at creating war in the world. “Korea is right, do not retreat”.

…

We say to all the Korean people fighting for peace and justice, Victory is Certain. Amandla, Awethu!!

All Power to the People

It's not as if members of the tripartite alliance haven't flirted with radical reactionary extremism before, but still, demoralizing.

Jewish Jihadists

Tablet Mag has a mesmerizing piece up about the young women who attend a radical settler school deep in the West Bank, where they are raised to be extremist warriors against any agent (Israeli, Arab, or otherwise) seeking to remove them from the area. The article does a good job capturing the raw religious fervor underlying the girls (albeit also eroticizing it in a more-than-a-little-creepy manner). It also makes quite clear the utter disdain these radicals have for Israel and the bulk of the Jewish people more generally. Though they consider themselves fighters for the Jewish people, they have no qualms about violently resisting the state of Israel (and proudly boast of attacking Arabs and their desire for "vengeance"). This love/hate relationship they hold towards the broader Jewish community -- seeing themselves as authentic representatives of the people while simultaneously viewing most of their religious compatriots with contempt -- is a quality they share with certain other, similarly marginal strains of the Jewish communal tent.

But the most important point is the way the girls and their teachers talk is virtually identical to how radical Islamist extremists speak. This is not surprising -- expected overlaps amongst fanatical religious extremists aside -- the young women at times explicitly hold out Arab terrorists as models, wondering why Jews can't be more like them (once again, folks I thought to be my enemy are apparently instead models to emulate). They mock traditional Jewish concerns for justice and repairing the world, in favor of a vision of theocratic autocracy imposed at the tip of a sword. They are, in effect, Jewish Jihadists.

"Death to X" Marchers are Bad People

Far-right Israeli protesters marched through Jerusalem yelling slogans like "death to the Arabs" and "Muhammad is Dead".

These people are bad people. They are enemies of peace; they are, on the Israeli side's key barrier to an eventual peaceful settlement and coexistence with the Palestinian people (just as their Palestinian analogues who talk about death to Jews -- e.g., in Hamas' charter -- are the primary Palestinian barriers to peaceful coexistence with Israel). As I have expressed before, if I had my way, they'd be excommunicated from my faith.

People who march around calling for the "slaughter" of others are bad people. David Bernstein wants to talk about recognizing "enemies", well, that works as a pretty good definition of whom I think are mine -- those calling for the wholesale slaughter of other people. It's true of the radical Palestinians who want it of Jews, and it's true of the radical Israelis who want it of Palestinians. Both are my enemies. How's that for some moral clarity?

Huckabee Plays Footsie with the Birthers

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) (in what a spokesperson now is claiming was simply a misstatement) claimed that President Obama grew up in Kenya and expressed, at the very least, ambivalence regarding his place of birth.

The only reason I'm not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons [inaudible] and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it.

Kevin Drum gives Huckabee credit for the best birther-dodge he's seen -- playing off the image of the Clinton's as ruthless smear-merchants as a reason why he's "not as confident" about the birth certificate being a legitimate issue. Unfortunately, the interviewer's follow-up managed to destroy that, as he plays off the emergent-theme of the Obama campaign as Chicago-style mafiosos as well: "The Clintons probably - there was probably a lot on the Clintons that the Obamas could have said, 'yeah, you do that, we'll come back with this.'" In any event, "I'm not as confident" is hardly the resounding rejection of birtherism that we ought to expect from any serious political figure.

Meanwhile, Jon Chait wonders why Obama's supposed "Kenyan anti-colonialism" is supposed to be a bad thing, given that the Tea Party is metaphorically inspired by ... resistance to British colonialism.