Avoiding the Obvious

Rabbi Seth Winberg, executive director of Hillel at Brandeis, has an interesting/infuriating essay up on JTA about the growing number of young Jews who express preference for a single, binational democratic state in Israel/Palestine. Winberg specifically is focusing on a subset of these Jews, those who are not true anti-Zionist believers but who remain supportive -- at least in concept -- of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. What explains their support of this plan?

To this question, Winberg gives a summary that is, more or less, exactly correct.

The first, two states for two peoples, looks dead after the peace process has repeatedly failed to deliver that outcome for their entire lives. It’s certainly not an option according to the Israeli consensus, with only 15% of Israeli Jews currently supporting two states. 

The second, in which Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza and rules millions of Palestinians who cannot vote, seems to be the vision of Israel’s current government.

The third option, one democratic country, imagines equal rights for everyone. To a young American of decent instincts and thin knowledge of the region, schooled to see the conflict as a matter of racial equality, the last sounds like simple justice: one person, one vote.  

This, broadly speaking, is exactly correct (if maybe a bit patronizingly put). There are three possible solutions to the conflict: some form of a two-state solution, a one-state solution without equal rights (i.e., apartheid), or a one-state solution with equal rights. If the apartheid option is viewed as unacceptable, and the two-state solution is viewed as unfeasible, that leaves door #3. It's really not that complicated. And if you're aghast at young Jews picking door #3, then your options are either to make apartheid sound acceptable (hopefully not) or make a two-state solution seem feasible. Again, not that complicated.

But here is where things fly off course. Instead of accepting the obvious point, Winberg veers off into a long digression about connections to Jewish peoplehood and imbrication in Jewish texts and patriotism and distinguishing between country and government. It's long and meandering and frankly I had trouble following it, but more importantly it just has nothing to do with the problem he accurately identified above.

Let's say a group of the young Jews in question takes on Winberg's ideal course of study. They spend a year in his dojo, burying themselves in Jewish text and ritual. They emerge with a genuine, emotive connection to the entirety of the Jewish people -- in Israel, in America, and around the world. They know full well the difference between country and government. They are proudly part of a live and living Jewish tradition.

They then return to the above trilemma: two states, one apartheid state, or one equal binational state. What's changed? Do they now find apartheid attractive? I hope not! Do they now see two-states as more feasible? I don't see why. Nothing has changed, and so nothing will change. The basic trilemma is identical to what it was before, and so the outcome will be the same as it is before.

Everything Winberg is suggesting about cultivating Jewish connection and peoplehood and authentic bonds may be good for its own sake. None of it changes the dynamics of the problem he's accurately identified. And the most maddening feature of all is that the answer to that problem actually is obvious. If you don't like the binational one-state option, and you're not willing to endorse the apartheid one-state option, then the only move is to do whatever you can to make a two-state solution viable. Actually viable, not just a talking point. That should be the full-court press move of Winberg and all the other Jewish organizations fretting about this problem. Do whatever it takes to bring a two-state solution to fruition, no matter who's standing in the way.

Of course, framed that way, it's obvious why the obvious solution is resisted. In the present moment, genuine, material, full-throated support for a two-state solution puts one in sharp opposition to the Israeli government (and a pretty wide swath of the Israeli Jewish populace too). That opposition is not just rhetorical, it'd be material too -- the government would actively be sabotaging your proposed initiatives, and so many of your initiatives would be directly antagonistic to the government (anything from sanctioning price tag terrorists to imposing boycotts on settlement goods to recognizing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders). For all the talk about separating the concept of Israel-as-a-Jewish-state from a particular suite of government policies, this is what Winberg and his ilk recoil from. They cannot bring themselves to occupy the position of clear and vocal opponents of the Israeli government.  They also cannot bring themselves to endorse either of the two alternatives to the two-state solution. So they start spinning out long complex essays with long complex proposals that sound attractive except for the part that they change nothing about the fundamental problem, which is that you have to back either two-states, one-state with apartheid, or one-state binationalism.

I'm picking on Winberg's essay not because it is unique, but because it is of a type. The trilemma above is a variation on the trilemma we've known about for years: Israel can be Jewish, democratic, or in control of the West Bank and Gaza -- pick two. You can pick any two, but you can only pick two. And everyone kind of knows this, but also resists actually picking the two. They say "it's essential for Israel to be a Jewish, democratic state." Okay, then you must support ending the occupation? "Well," they hem and haw, "I'm not sure about the timing, and there are genuine security needs, and after 10/7 Israel can't be expected to cede control over Palestinian territories." Okay, so if Israel has to stay in control over these territories, democracy means that the Palestinians who live there must get equal voting rights, yes? "No -- that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state!" "So control of the territory but no equal rights ... apartheid then?" "How dare you! Israel must be Jewish and democratic." Round and round we go.

There's a lot about Israel/Palestine that is complicated. But this part of it is not complicated. Winberg is right that even among young Jews, there is not a wholesale rejection of the idea of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. What is there is a wholesale rejection of apartheid and a fatalistic sense that a two-state solution is unfeasible. That leaves one equal state. If one doesn't like being left there, your choices are to make apartheid okay again or to make a two-solution viable again. There isn't another move.

Project Runway Season 22: Opening Thoughts

Long-timers may recall that periodic Project Runway chirping is a recurrent feature on this blog. The oldest post I was able to find about the show was yelling about Mondo's loss in Season 8 (of course it was), but I've seen every season and (I think) every spin-off, and started watching them live as of Season 5.

Anyway, the first episode of Season 22 just dropped. It's the second season on Freeform, whatever that is, or Hulu or Disney+ if you're a normal person. It's either a sign of how far Project Runway has fallen or how far Google has fallen that I cannot for the life of me find pics of the designers' looks from this episode, so I'm going off of memory and hastily fast-forwarding through my recording.

The immediate gimmick was that they're starting with a whopping 22 designers (For season 22! Get it?), but cutting six of them right off the jump. It wasn't even a real Project Runway challenge -- they got to bring a look from home, and just had to fit, edit, and style it. I actually don't mind the concept here -- let's let people put their best foot forward -- but the opening cut (six going home out of a bottom eight) was pretty brutal.

Anyway, I won't comment on everyone or everything, because who has the time, but here are my initial thoughts. First, the general stuff:

• The sassy chyrons continue to be the best innovation of the Freeform era. The stupid "to be continued" cliffhangers continue to be the worst. What, are you afraid I won't watch another episode if I'm not on tenterhooks from the last one? Try making a good product and you solve that problem.

• I've never liked Tyra Banks, and I can't imagine starting now. I suppose she's still better than Isaac Mizrahi. Still, even more than before, I just pray that Nina Garcia actually shows up for more than three episodes this season.

• JosephMcRae is polarizing, and I get that, but as returning designers go I'm not mad about it. The "eliminated by your fellow designers" bit he was subjected to last season was bullshit.

• Law Roach is polarizing, but I am liking him a bit more this time around. Jill was cackling about how he absolutely refused to engage with any of the contestants if they tried to joke around with him.

• There's clearly some tension between the RuPaul fandom that invades Project Runway now that their people are being cast on the show, and the OG PR fandom. I'm very much the latter, and know nothing about the former, which makes it weird to see people on Reddit talk about how they've only watched the former and have no exposure to the latter. Perhaps for that reason, it would be very funny to me if both the Drag Race alumni were eliminated immediately this season (and I think they both deserve it).

And now, the designs (or at least some of them).

• Overall, I thought this was a strong runway -- as one would hope, given the infinite time allotted. I'm not sure I'm convinced Andriy's look deserved to be in the top. I also cannot figure out why I liked his Russian bestie Bobby's look as much as I do, given that it looks like a comforter, but the heart wants what it wants.

• The hat was too much on JosephMcRae's look, but the pattern was actually gorgeous. Learn to edit, my man!

• Bi's coat genuinely did rock. What was originally under it genuinely was tragic, and it probably did need something else there to end up on top. Also, I hate to say it, but that sweatshop joke (a professor called him a "one-man sweatshop", and he was offended because "I don't sweat!") was hilarious.

• Chloe's look had some very good ideas -- the wide-open back was fantastic -- but it seemed to be ill-constructed.

• Octavius' look was pretty cool. He ended up in the middle, but said that if he was sent home it basically would mean "they don't like me." That sure seems like a healthy attitude.

• The collar on Jude's look was fantastic. I'm a sucker for a tailored suit though.

• Elizabeth's look didn't feel fresh to me. I don't hate it, but I felt like I'd seen it before.

• I'm a little sad we didn't get commentary on Anna's unconventional-materials-in-a-conventional-challenge look. It was very well done! Kudos to her for showing looks like that can hang with the big dogs!

• Look, Bryan: you can have the giant sleeve or the poofy stomach, but not both. Or do both and end up on top -- clearly, I'm not the one you need to impress.

Moving to the bottom designers.

• Jennifer is a former Project Runway model. That could have been a cool angle, and I didn't mind the Poison Ivy costume, but I get why it was sent off. Still rough to be the first one auf-ed though.

• I did kind of find the pants on Andrea's look interesting, and I liked the layers-on-layers concept, but it just didn't all work together. You could make a case for her staying on "has ideas" grounds, but her elimination is not protest-worthy.

• Lre the Artist was fine, but not notable. Goodbye! I won't remember you!

• There really weren't many outright bad outfits on the runway today. Dani's was one of them (did someone say "pirate princess"?). I absolutely cannot fathom how, in a world where three-fourths of the bottom designers were eliminated, she got a reprieve. Completely undeserved.

• Robby's look was also outright bad. He's part of the cliffhanger quartet, but I can't imagine he survives.

• Jeffrey's dress looked, as my astute wife observed, like a fungus.

• I liked the spiked purse Plane Jane's model was carrying. That concludes the parts of Plane Jane's look I liked. The spike-nipples were in particularly ghastly taste.

• The final member of the cliffhanger quartet (along with Jeffrey and Plane Jane) is R'Bonney. So here's the thing. Every few seasons, a designer comes on and brings out a look with an Assassin's Creed style hood. And every time, I like it, because I think that hood looks cool. And every time, the judges hate it, because reasons. At least this time around, I called my shot and said as soon as the model walked "I like that but the judges will hate it, because it has that hood." And wouldn't you know it if she's on the bottom, with Tyra Banks yelling platitudes about how it's good but that's not good enough.

So we have four designers in limbo, and three will be eliminated. Who will be the survivor? I like R'Bonney the best, but the judges will never reward someone they think is boring this early in the competition. And Robby's look was a trainwreck. So that leaves Plane Jane and Jeffrey. I guess I'm pulling for Jeffrey, since he seems less insufferable? Slightly?

To another great season, and may there be 22 more!

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXX: The Fall of Graham Platner

(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here!)

Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner has dropped out of the race following accusations of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. Probably. He said he will, but he also said he's waiting until the last possible day for completely inexplicable reasons. Such a stand up guy.

Of course, nobody can blame any of Platner's backers for what went down here. It would have taken some sort of oracle to spot the red flags, like the Nazi tattoo, or the inflammatory Reddit posts, or the sexting, or the other women who had already said he was abusive during their relationship. You know, microscopic specks like that. There's a reason why folks like Ken Klippenstein feel as if they should apologize for nothing.

But even as Platner (probably) drops out, there are folks out there who see a conspiracy against him -- with varying degrees of explicitness on regarding (((who))) is behind it. Cenk Uygur said, with no evidence, that the accusations trace back to AIPAC -- apparently not realizing that he was paying AIPAC a compliment (if AIPAC indeed was behind us finding out that Platner's a sexual predator, which, again, they almost certainly were not). Platner's own withdrawal speech was filled with petulant complaints that he was the victim of "those in power" -- left vague as always.

But not everyone is being vague at all. In a since-deleted post, a "left of left" journalist named Mark Weaver went all in on defending Platner, up to including diminishing the allegations against him as (this is a direct quote) "lite-rape". But as others noted, Weaver also made a point to count all the Jew-y Jews who were involved in this conspiracy: The New York Times ("owned by the Jewish Sulzberger family"), "the Jewish Dana Bash", "Jewish anchor Jacob Tapper" (has anyone who's not an antisemite or Tapper's mother called Jake Tapper "Jacob"?), and Politico editor Jonathan Greenberger ("well, is Jewish"). I know I just wrote about Jews thirst for representation, but this is ridiculous.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXIX: Egypt Losing in the World Cup

(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here!)

I've been watching some of the World Cup, though not every game. For example, I missed the Argentina/Egypt game -- unfortunate for me, since apparently it had a very exciting ending, with Argentina coming back from down 2-0 with three goals in the last fifteen minutes of the game to win.

There also was a lot of complaining about the officiating in that game, with the Egyptian coach going so far as to claim the game was "rigged" (most of the controversy centers around a disallowed Egyptian goal earlier in the game).

I'm no soccer expert, so I can't speak to whether the complaints are justified. Of course, anyone who knows anything about FIFA knows that both incompetence and corruption are hardly inconceivable possibilities. And anyone who knows anything about the internet knows that someone will have a different explanation for the outcome of the match.

Since Egypt’s dramatic World Cup exit on Tuesday, French referee Francois Letexier has become the target of intense scrutiny around the globe.

[...]

Within hours of the game ending, someone had edited Letexier’s Wikipedia page to say that he was “born to an Orthodox Jewish family.” The editor later added that the referee’s grandfather fled Nazi persecution.

There was no evidence for the claim — the anonymous editor’s only citation was an article that made no mention of Letaxier’s religious background. But after a screenshot of the edited page was posted on X, soccer fans quickly pounced. 

“Born into an Orthodox Jewish family,” wrote one X user. “That explains a lot of things.”

When one user questioned the claim’s veracity, Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool, confirmed the misinformation, citing Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page was then updated again to cite Grok.

The referee’s fabricated Jewish identity stayed on the page for nearly eight hours before it was removed, enabling the claim to spread widely. On social media platforms where antisemitism often goes unchecked, simply sharing a screenshot of the Wikipedia page was enough to start a feeding frenzy.

Even after the claim was taken down from Wikipedia — and the responsible editor banned — others shared screenshots of the removal as proof of a coverup.

Grok coming in with the antisemitism assist is, of course, transcendent. And there's something extra to be said about the double-bind Jews find ourselves in, where correcting obvious antisemitic misinformation is proof of a coverup.

In any event, I can't root for Argentina since they ousted my beloved Cape Verde. So who's my team now? Norway, I guess? Their Sam Denby lookalike is pretty good!

The New Politics of Jewish Invisibility

New York City has put out a map of its "immigrant neighborhoods", and some people are complaining that Jewish neighborhoods aren't represented. These complaints, in turn, are generating a counternarrative expressing the irony of insisting on the foreignness of Jews when the Jews in these neighborhoods are, overwhelmingly, not immigrants.

I'm going to try to fall in the middle on this. First, let's highlight the words of one activist quoted in the article, Isaac Choua, a board member of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America who specifically flagged a "major Sephardi corridor" in south Brooklyn that was not found on the map:

"This is not a small omission," he went on. "It is one of New York’s most distinctive immigrant-descended Jewish communities, and it gets erased from the story. Weirdly enough, Zohran Mamdani’s office wanted to speak with me about this very issue and has not followed up since the election."

The emphasis is mine, and of course it is a telling descriptor: immigrant-descended. An odd phrase, that, since it raises the question of which neighborhoods in NYC have residents who are not predominantly descended from immigrants (I don't think there's currently a "Little Lenape" in New York). Assuming that the map covers neighborhoods that have large quotients of immigrants (and the article does quote a city official as saying the map is meant to cover neighborhoods with "substantial foreign-born populations"), and assuming further that the Jews in most of the predominantly Jewish neighborhoods are not generally "foreign-born", that could be the end of that.

In terms of this being a scandal, I do think that basically suffices as an explanation (again, assuming the premises are true, which I can't verify). But I also think that lurking behind this is a more legitimate concern that's worth excavating. As in many things, Legitimate Concern + Mamdani Derangement Syndrome = Unnecessary Hysteria, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't figure out what the legitimate concern is.

What's being pushed against here is a sense that Jewish distinctiveness is being erased -- that when we talk about diversity and difference in American politics, Jewishness is elided as a relevant contributor. Obviously, this was a theme of my White Jews article as well as "The Baggage of Whiteness", and it's one reason I think the counter-claim that the protesters here are themselves being antisemitic by presenting Jews as "foreign" is too cute by half. The critique presumes that being associated with "immigrant" is inherently endangering to the targeted community. In certain contexts that might be true, but this map hardly seems one of them. "Immigrant" is a focus of celebration for this map, not a vector of threat. We can imagine a critic lambasting this map as providing a target list for ICE, but that critic is a product of our imagination -- the actual communities listed seem to find security in recognition, which should make it legible why another community, not included, might feel vulnerable for the omission. It is not the case now (if it ever was) that highlighting a minority group's distinctiveness (or even "foreign" roots) is necessarily a harbinger of discrimination, and there's no reason why Jews must be different in this respect.

So while at first blush this debate (in the Jewish case) may seem to be another iteration of the age-old assimilation vs. differentiation contretemps, I actually think it's a somewhat novel and mutant version of it. In its original form, assimilation vs. differentiation was a debate over what would keep Jews most safe as against antisemitism. But, despite the claim that Jew-as-immigrant-as-"foreign" = antisemitism, I don't really think the argument being made here is about maximizing Jewish safety. Those who push back most aggressively on Jewish attempts to highlight our differentiation, these days, tend to treat Jewish assimilation not as a normative goal but as a descriptive reality, and then treat those Jews who resist that description as engaging in a sort of stolen valor. We're not actually different from the White American majority, and when we pretend otherwise we're trying to unfairly claim a share of the diversity spoils from communities actually entitled to it. I flagged this dynamic in my White Jews article:

As one Jewish feminist [Joyce Antler] related being told (at a conference that featured presentations by Black, Latina, and Irish Catholic women), “Jewish women are just White middle-class women.” Consequently, her interlocutor went on, “There is nothing that differentiates them from the ruling majority. There is no reason to treat them as a specialized minority or to devote any of our time to their particular experience.” To demand significant time and attention be devoted to the Jewish case is little different from demanding still more resources and consideration be accorded to White people—that is, an insistence from those who already have so much that they should be given yet more.

That style of argument -- one which treats Jewish efforts to mark out Jewish difference as a form of cheating -- is one that will rightfully chafe many Jews who recoil at the notion that highlighting our community's distinctiveness is an illegitimate move, particularly in political contexts that for other groups treat such highlighting as constitutive of social inclusion.

If we go back to Mr. Choua's complaint, it seems pretty clear that something like this is playing a role (and the last sentence, where he indicates that Mamdani initially did express interest in highlighting the distinctive NYC Sephardi story but then ghosted them, is a further clue unlocking this particular reaction). The American Sephardic community, in particular, is very sensitive (and appropriately so) to how its narrative and history is regularly elided both when speaking of "Jewish" history but also "ethnic" history (see also: the California Ethnic Studies curriculum controversy). They feel like they are perpetually rendered invisible, and that stings. They feel as if the same people perpetuating their invisible status are too often those who are -- at the very same moment they suppress Jewish difference -- proudly in the midst of highlighting the diversity of others, and that stings more. They want representation. That's a legitimate want. And to reduce it to a sort of self-inflicted antisemitism attributable to Islamophobic ressentiment is I think profoundly disrespectful (in addition to completely missing the mark as to what's happening).

So there's a real, legitimate sore spot here, that extends well beyond this particular map project.  To be clear, I have no doubt that this real sore spot is being mixed with a healthy dose of Mamdani-hate to bring matters to a frothy boil. Again, it is perfectly appropriate that a map of immigrant neighborhoods not include neighborhoods whose residents are predominantly non-immigrant (Jewish or otherwise).

But it is true, and it has been true for a while, that many Jews feel as if Jewish distinctiveness is systematically occluded when we as a society purport to celebrate difference. And that rawness that exclusion engenders won't go away until it's made clear not just that Jews are welcome, but that Jews are welcome as Jews -- as a distinct group, with a distinct history and distinct triumphs and tribulations, and it isn't treated as cheating when that distinctiveness is explicitly claimed.

DMFI Yields To Rahm-Bo

As you may have heard, former Chicago Mayor (and Obama White House Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel went to Israel and delivered a tough love address: lambasting "Greater Israel" and calling for an array of sanctions on Israeli politicians, businesses, and other figures who support violence against Palestinians or illegal West Bank settlements.

To me, this matters only in terms of "which way the wind blows". Despite often seeing Rahm's name next to the words "2028 presidential candidate", I don't see any universe where he's viable in the Democratic primary. Nonetheless, it's clear that Rahm views taking a stance like this as crucial to having any future in Democratic politics (which is not to say he doesn't believe what he's saying -- I'm actually very confident he does -- only that it matches up with his raw political calculation). And, whatever one thinks about Rahm in general, it is absolutely a good thing that someone who still holds certain cachet in certain circles is talking like this. Rightly or wrongly, when he speaks in these terms, it koshers certain discourses and positions in a way that a generic replacement Democrat couldn't do.

And in similarly meteorological-but-not-practical data, I was very intrigued to see that Democratic Majority for Israel issued a statement praising Emanuel's speech. Again, that matters not because I see DMFI as an especially relevant or influential institution (it's in fact been impressively inept throughout its existence), but because Emanuel's jeremiad was of the sort one would have expected DMFI to be appalled by (Sanctions? On Israel? Heavens to Murgatroyd!). And a few years ago, had a speech like this been given, I bet they would have expressed apoplexy -- but then, a few years ago, Rahm Emanuel would not have delivered this speech. The significance here, I think, is that DMFI can no longer hold the line on unblinking support for Israel in Democratic Party politics in a world where even folks like Rahm Emanuel are challenging it. DMFI may be dim, but they're not so dim as to think that they could retain any practical relevancy as Democrats in a universe where they're trying to throw Rahm Emanuel out of the tent.

Party On

I don't have much to say about the latest Graham Platner allegations. Of course he should drop out. Of course he's being extra-selfish in trying to extort concessions from the state party in exchange for dropping out (Rep .Sean Casten brings the heat).

"I'm not taking no for an answer until you let me impose my will on this process" is a hell of a hill for Platner to die on.

— Sean Casten (@seancasten.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 6:19 PM

Of course there were plenty of red flags before the latest one, though I'll continue to assert that Platner's Nazi tattoo was unfortunately part of what attracted people to him and that we need to reflect on what that means. Everyone's got their I-told-you-so on this, and it will surprise no one that mine is "when you pick candidates based solely on an aesthetic of 'I'm a fighter and I hate the establishment' and nothing else, bad things happen." And of course, right now everyone is running away from Platner and acting like it was only other people who supported him. Victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan, after all.

But perhaps related to that last point: the particular iteration of buck-passing that's getting my ire up the most comes from those who somehow blame "the Party" for not waylaying Platner in the first place. How could the Democrats not found a better candidate than Platner (where Mills doesn't count as "better" because she reminds us of our mom or something)? Platner was clearly and unambiguously a vanguard of the anti-establishment wing of the party, but it's still really the establishment's fault for not stopping us.

This drives me nuts. We have endured years upon years of conspiratorial sour grapes whining about "the Party establishment" supposedly "rigging" primary elections in favor of its preferred candidates. But now, in a situation where there can be no question that "the establishment" took its hands off the rudder and let the process play out (not that I concede they were "rigging" other races), we get a novel round of whining that they didn't interfere enough?

Spare me. Or better yet, learn a lesson. The folks in "the establishment" -- however you define that -- are by no means perfect. But they are in fact not just a bunch of fat cat idiots cashing checks to dole out plum candidate nominations to their buddies and nepo babies. They in fact perform a valuable service vetting people, and head off potential disasters ahead of time. The purpose isn't to ensure only "smoothgroined" androids get a shot. The purpose is to ensure that a guy with Nazi tattoos and a history of sexual predation doesn't storm to a swing seat nomination because a bunch of podcasters think his beard is manly in all the right ways.

Politics is a job, and not an easy one. It is not the case that any idiot with a working class affect who yells in the right tone can win an election, and it's even less of the case that said idiot will be an effective legislator. The vetting process exists for a reason. Dismiss it at your peril.

Could You Bari a Network?

July 4 seems like a good day to talk about hubris.

You've all read those articles about men and hubris -- the absurd number of men who think they could take a tennis game off Serena Williams or could win a fight against a bear.

I do not share that hubris. But I do have my own version of it. One manifestation is that I honestly believe I could hold my own in an interview with Isaac Chotiner (surely, that's the intellectual equivalent of "win a fight against a bear"). But another that I just realized is that I earnestly think I could successfully Bari a network news program.

Here are the parameters for how I define Bari-ing:

1. You come in with virtually no relevant experience or qualifications aside from being a pundit (check).
2. You remake the news program in line with a particular political ideology.
3. You have the absolute support of the network owners for whatever you do (so if you fail, it won't be simply because you tick off your bosses).

A successful Bari means that the news program is, you know, successful (gains viewers, is influential, etc.). Basically, everything Bari Weiss hasn't done at CBS. (To be honest, I suspect that "Bari" as a verb will inevitably incorporate a tenor of failing at this project. To "Bari" a network is to fail at doing the above in spectacular fashion. One can even slant-rhyme it with "bury". But for purposes of this exercise, we'll associate it with the attempt, not the outcome).

Under this framework, Bari Weiss Bari-ed CBS by trying to turn it into a network Free Press -- alt-center quasi-contrarian sucking up to the powerful.

By contrast, my ideological line would basically be Last Week Tonight without the comedy, and with an especial laser focus on public corruption. Most importantly, though, it wouldn't pull punches. "Supreme Court decimates Voting Rights Act." "White Supremacy Spreads Amongst Trump Administration Officials." "Trump Takes Billions Through Apparent Insider Trading Scheme." No tap dancing around with the rhetoric. Just call it as it is.

Would this work? Would it quench the thirst of American viewers desperate for a news network that doesn't bowdlerize the truth because straightforward descriptions feel "partisan" (someone -- I feel like on Lawyers Guns and Money -- once said something like "the greatest act of partisan media bias is accurately quoting what Republicans say, verbatim")? I dunno. But I earnestly believe it to be so, and that despite lacking any formal qualifications I could make it so, and that's my version of overwhelming male hubris.

The End of Caring What Jews Think

Bruce Pearl, Auburn basketball coach and prominent Jewish Republican, has delivered an ultimatum unto Vice President J.D. Vance: cut ties with Tucker Carlson, or he won't support Vance's 2028 presidential bid.

I don't know if Pearl will stick to his guns on this. I do feel quite confident that Vance will not oblige Pearl. Vance, if nothing else, sees which way the winds blow, and there is increasingly little profit in politicians paying heed to Jewish objections.

This, alas, is not unique to any party. If anything, it is more noticeable amongst Democrats -- not because the problem is "worse" there, but because Jews are of course far more successfully imbricated in the Democratic Party coalition and so the waning of influence is far more noticeable. But this cycle has already seen a slew of "local Jews raised the alarm about [candidate]" followed by "[candidate] wins anyway." It's gotten noticeable.

And while sometimes the "alarm" is making a mountain out of perfectly reasonable molehills, it isn't always. Graham Platner's totenkopf is an obvious example; Avila Chevalier attending an October 8 pro-Hamas rally is another. And while Melat Kiros' demurral on whether the Boulder firebombing murder was antisemitic isn't quite as bad as one might think from the topline description, it certainly isn't good. While it is clear (and I'm gladdened) that Kiros is quite clear in condemning the murder, it is in fact still quite bad when "is burning an elderly American Jewish woman alive because one is mad at Israel antisemitic?" is treated as a sort of trick question one must tip-toe around.

These are, in short, reasonable alarms to raise; and it matters that they are often ignored with impunity. And that's a change. So what caused it? Obviously, a lot of factors are in play, but one that looms large for me is that fragmenting of a hitherto relatively unified Jewish political consensus over the past few years. The Leviathan has fallen, and we are now in the era of the warring kingdoms. Here was my prediction at the onset of Trump 2.0, tell me if it looks familiar: 

So what we are looking at over the next several years is an American Jewish community that simultaneously is under unprecedented threat and is wracked by unprecedented internal division. What I expect to see, then, is that a depressingly large proportion of Jewish political action will take the form of fratricidal squabbling and internal jockeying for position. If the suzerain is falling, the border lord upstarts are going to race to annex as much territory as possible.

[....]

Even as external threats grow ever grimmer, Jews will relentlessly concentrate on our own internal power plays -- trying to grab space for ourselves and prevent the growth of our rivals.

Now again, maybe you think that the status quo hegemony of the ADL-type organizations was sufficiently awful that this transition is necessary and salutary, notwithstanding the growing pains. I won't argue the point here. But necessary or no, during the anarchic interregnum it's hard to imagine Jews being able to leverage much in the way of political influence. We are weak externally, and we are weak internally, and that is a very scary position to be in no matter how you slice it. 

I take no pleasure in vindication here. And (since this sort of caveat is always necessary whenever a Jew has a temerity to speak about Jews) I don't claim that this vulnerable position is unique to Jews, or is worse for Jews, or falsifies other vulnerabilities, or anything of the sort. I'm speaking about Jews-qua-Jews, not making some tacit comparative point. But for Jews, this is where we are. And it is a very unpleasant place to be.

This is a change for Jews. It used to be that "Jews are upset about X" was a substantial political negative, either intrinsically (people genuinely cared about Jewish feelings) or at least instrumentally (people correctly calculated that being perceived as being hurtful to Jews was a political loser), now both of those premises are increasingly shaky. The former has been rattled, but (perhaps more importantly) the latter has been decisively falsified. The lesson of 2026 is that backlash from Jews (and I'm trying here to be agnostic as to whether the backlash is "fair" or not) can be safely ignored.

Indeed, I might go further: it's not (at least not always) just a matter of people no longer feeling the need to listen to the Jews. It's more than agnosticism; Jewish discomfort or anger or panic is seen as a sign one is doing right -- akin to (in the Democrats case) learning that an evangelical church is sounded the alarm about the candidate. But even that undersells it, because it doesn't account for the libidinal sense of release being experienced. There is, at least in some quarters, a very strong undercurrent of glee in standing against the Jews -- a sensation that people are throwing off shackles that had constrained them. So it's more than just not caring about what Jews think, and it's more than a sort of negative polarization based on correlating Jews with conservatism. It's a more primal desire that associates Jews with these negative feelings of self-censorship and walking on eggshells and suppression, and now suddenly feeling free to break the chains.

This was central to my thesis about Platner, of course. And he's hardly alone. What crystallized this thought for me was an odd duck story about a local Portland coffee shop, Heretic Coffee, which received a donation routed through the Jewish Federation (the shop had made the news for offering free meals to persons facing hunger due to SNAP cuts). There was clearly some confusion about the donation, which was unsolicited. The shop owner initially reached out unsuccessfully to the Portland JFed, when the gift actually was from someone working through the SF JFed (hence perhaps why the former initially had no idea what the coffee shop was assking about). And the shop owner didn't seem to realize that it wasn't really a gift from the JFed at all, but rather an individual Jewish donor using the federation as a donor-advised fund.

But what could have just been a comedy of errors became something grimmer when the shop owner decided to "do his own research", determined that the gift must be "blood money" due to the JFed's alleged support for Israeli genocide, and defiantly tore the check up. Again, much of this misapprehends the structure of a donor-advised fund in the first place, but I don't actually want to focus on these details. Rather, what stood out to me was the owner's preemptive acknowledgement that he would likely face severe backlash from the Jewish Federation's supporters, and that he was ready for it and eager to receive it and prepared to be martyred by it. At one level, it stands out for viewing Jewish antipathy as a positive -- if the Jews cry out, he won't take that as a cause for concern but as further proof of his righteousness. But at another level, the bravado about his bold stand masks a pretty clear calculation -- and I think probably a correct one -- that the owner doesn't think he'll be martyred at all. For every mad Jew, there will be countless others ready to fete him for his bravery (see also: the Cornell student who said he wasn't interested in working for a Jew and then quickly raised $20,000 off the ensuing backlash).

So yeah. This is a new era for Jews in American politics -- an era where Jewish concerns are routinely ignored, if not viewed as an outright positive. It won't last forever -- nothing does -- but I don't harbor much optimism for the near-term.

The Lovable(?) Selfish Incompetent

I'm going to describe a character archetype to you, found in many modern comedies. These characters have an extremely high opinion of themselves, but are generally incompetent. They are also typically portrayed as selfish and self-absorbed, though occasionally one will get a peek at a supposedly deep-seated vulnerability or "heart of gold" in extreme situations. Finally, and essentially, the characters are not presented as antagonists even though 85% of the time they make a good person protagonist's life harder (either through the aforementioned incompetence, selfishness, or both). From the show's perspective, one is clearly supposed to find these characters lovable -- if only in a "oh, that rascal!" sort of way.

Examples of the archetype include:

• Tom Haverford (Parks and Rec)
• Bender (Futurama)
• Kayla (Hacks)

My question is: why? Why are we supposed to like these characters? Why are we supposed to view them as anything other than antagonists? Why is the incessant message that they deserve infinite grace and good humor and are, underneath it all, good people? They're not! They're obnoxious, terrible people who rarely (if ever) face any accountability for being self-absorbed entitled jerks.

Am I the only one who hates these sorts of characters? I'm not saying they shouldn't be on television -- bad people can make good characters -- but it's maddening that the shows don't seem to present them as truly bad people, when they are. At least with Eleanor Shellstrop her being objectively terrible (at first) is the explicit plot of the show. Yet I talk about how Kayla is an objectively awful human being, and people act as if I'm punching a puppy. I'm sorry, but "lovably chaotic" my ass. If this person was in your life you'd want to chuck them out the window, and if you couldn't do it because she's an untouchable nepo baby it would only accentuate the hellish injustice of being in a society where people like her get to fail up.

Okay, rant over.

Family in Paris: It's Getting Hotter

I am back from Paris. It was very hot. And I need to vent.

Before I do so, I want to stress that we had plenty of fun on this trip. When I told my mom I was invited to present at the Critical Theories of Antisemitism conference, she seized the opportunity to organize a whole family vacation around the trip, including my parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter (who's six months younger than Nathaniel). And as far as that project is concerned, it was great. We saw a lot of neat things, and more importantly, we got to spend time together as a family.

But on the travel side of traveling, boy did we get rogered.

As a quick point of reference, here was what the plan was, travel-wise:

• June 12: Depart PDX for Chicago O'Hare, then continue onward to Paris.
• June 13: Land in Paris.
• June 13-17: Stay all together as a family in an AirBnb in Passy
• June 17: Brother and his family leave for wine country.
• June 17-20: Parents and our family go to an AirBnb in the Marais while I attend the conference.
• June 20: Parents leave for Normandy.
• June 20-24: Jill, Nathaniel and I go to a hotel in Montparnasse for the remainder of the trip.
• June 24: Fly home (via O'Hare), arriving in PDX at 9:30 PM.

With that said, here's the actual blow-by-blow.

June 12

• We arrive at the airport three hours early for our international flight, scheduled to depart at 1:45 PM. As soon as we get to the ticketing desk, we learn that our flight to Chicago has been delayed such that we'll miss our connection to Paris. The woman at the desk tries to rebook us on another flight.
• We spend three hours at the airport perpetually almost being booked on another flight. At one point she told us to run to the Delta counter to check our bags for a flight leaving in 40 minutes, only for that flight to get delayed (and thus make our connection impossible). Nathaniel is a good sport for most of this, but by the third hour he's starting to get understandably cranky.
• Eventually, the agent gives up and tells us to call a phone number. The earliest we can get rebooked? 7:30 PM ... the next evening (through Heathrow). It will get us to Paris a full thirty hours later than scheduled.
• We go home.

June 13

• I hear it might be a bit warm in Paris, so I decide to use the extra day to get a quick haircut. I'm so excited, I accidentally back out of our garage before the garage door actually, you know, opens. Now it won't close. Oops. No time to deal with that.
• We get a worried text from our neighbor who noticed our garage door was open. Aren't we supposed to be on vacation? That stung.
• Off to the airport (we manually closed the garage door before we left)! We've actually done the PDX-Heathrow flight before with Nathaniel before, so we're optimistic. And it pays off -- he sleeps through most of the flight! Way to go champ!

June 14

• We land in Heathrow. There is a tram to take us from where we land to the main terminal.
• Just kidding: the tram is out of service. We have to walk the entire distance.
• We get to our departure gate, which is actually apparently a bus depot. And given how long the bus ride to the airplane took, I think our plane may have actually been on a runway in Gatwick.
• We get to our plane. While we've purchased a seat for Nathaniel so he doesn't have to sit in our laps, the gate agent tells us that our car seat won't fit in the plane seat and we'll need to gate check it (along with our stroller, which we had already been gate checking).
• We board the plane and reach our aisle. The flight attendant is confused as to why we don't have a car seat, since it would absolutely fit on the plane.
• We land in Paris. Our "gate checked" stroller and car seat are not gate checked at all but are sent to regular baggage claim.
• Finally we reach the AirBnb 30 hours later than expected. My parents had hired a private chef to cook dinner from us; he's in the middle of serving when we arrive. It looks delicious but we're too tired to really appreciate it. It is a warm evening, but it will get hotter.

June 15-17

• We spend several quality days together as a family. I take the metro to a bunch of art galleries and auction houses (including one that had a very neat preview of a chateau's collection being auctioned off), then walk to the Arc de Triomphe. 
• It is getting hotter.

June 17

• Brother, sister-in-law, and niece all say goodbye, while the rest of us travel to an AirBnb in the Marais. The apartment has two main levels (not including a terrifying basement we don't mess with). The bottom level has two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. The upper level has a spacious kitchen and living room, all as one space. The problem is that the crib will literally only fit in the upper level, meaning that once Nathaniel goes to sleep we're all trapped in our hobbit hole bedrooms from dusk till dawn.
• I spend the day visiting art galleries. It is a lot of fun.
• It is getting hotter.

June 18-19

• I attend my conference, which is very nice, and my parents are able to watch Nathaniel so Jill can have some personal time as well.
• We book a time at an indoor petting zoo near our next hotel in Montparnasse, since that seems like a fun activity to do with Nathaniel.
• It is getting hotter. News reports speak of a generational heatwave making headlines around the world, with temperatures into the 90s and still rising. Paris is in a state of declared emergency.

June 19

• Our last night in the Marais. We are ready to check out of the AirBnb in the morning and move to our final stay location, the voco Paris Montparnasse, while my parents depart for Normandy.
• At 10 PM, we receive a message from the hotel that the air conditioning is broken. They suggest calling them for compensation and assistance rebooking.
• We call them. Nobody answers. The hotel may not even be open, as it is getting hotter.
• Scrambling, we book a new hotel near the Opera. It is almost three times as expensive as the old hotel -- which is what happens when you book on eight hours notice in the midst of a generational heatwave. Luckily, the email from voco suggested they'd provide compensation.

June 20

• We check into our new hotel. The people there are lovely and we really like the neighborhood. I decide to spend the day with the family to ensure we get settled rather than attend the last day of the conference. In spite of everything, I'm glad to be at this new hotel, particularly given their robust assurances that their air conditioning was in top-notch condition.
• On the other hand, Nathaniel learned how to whine today when he doesn't get what he wants. Literally -- it was a milestone discovered mid-trip. How lucky for us.
• I do go to the conference closing dinner in Montmartre. I consider not going, because I am very tired and it is getting hotter, but I decide to attend. By sheer exhaustion-related luck, I elect to Uber to the restaurant rather than take the metro, which turns out to be exceptionally wise as the restaurant is up a mountain of steps from the closest metro stop and the temperature is now approaching 100 degrees. Disaster averted.

June 21

• Conference is over -- now it's just family time! We decide to go to the petting zoo anyway, even though it is nowhere near our new hotel. It is a lot of fun, though it was extremely hot waiting outside on the building waiting for it to open.
• It is getting hotter.

June 22

• We finally get in contact with the voco to discuss compensation. We ask to be paid the difference in rates between the hotels, since we had to rebook at the last minute. The man at the desk is confused as to why our new hotel costs so much, and says that had we called him, he could've found a hotel for much less money, so no, he will not reimburse us for the difference. After all, what if we had booked the Ritz Carlton?
• We point out that we did not book the Ritz Carlton, that the reason the new hotel was more expensive was because it was last-minute in the midst of a historic heat wave, and that we tried to call the original hotel and nobody answered so we were forced to do our best. These are apparently not persuasive arguments. There will be no reimbursement.
• Defeated, we decide to see the Calder exhibit at the Louis Vuitton Fondation. It is fantastic, and more importantly, extremely well air-conditioned, which is important because it is getting hotter.

June 23

• It's our last full day in Paris. We have some ideas for some things to do, but ultimately we decide to stay close to the hotel and its air conditioning. It is the hottest it has been the entire trip -- over 100 degrees.

June 24

• Time to go home! We leave for Charles de Gaulle at 10 AM. Today will be even hotter than yesterday, but thankfully we'll leave before the temperature peaks.
• Our flight to Chicago takes off on time. But Nathaniel -- who has always been fantastic on flights and has really been a rock star this entire trip -- decides that our luck has run out. He screams for the first third of the journey, then for the second third decide he needs to run up and down the aisle. Finally he sleeps a little bit for the final hour (but starts screaming again during the landing).
• We arrive in Chicago forty minutes early, and we have a three-hour layover. How lucky for us! We can relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, even grab some dinner. We just have to get through customs, pick up our checked bags, recheck our checked bags, and go back through security.
• Customs line stretches approximately back to Wisconsin. A nice official spots us and moves us up in the line (thanks Nathaniel), but then the customs agent checking people at the front of said line goes on break and isn't replaced. The line stops. It's been an hour since we landed.
• Finally reach the customs agent, who is very interested in exactly what sort of "academic conference" I was attending in Paris. I debate whether telling him I was at a conference on "global antisemitism" will make it more or less likely I'll be thrown into a prison camp. Land of the free, baby!
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out there were two flights arriving from Paris at the same time, and this was the other one. We sheepishly move to the correct baggage carousel.
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out someone took them off the carousel while we were at the wrong one and set them aside. We sheepishly gather our bags and then immediately recheck them. This process feels gratuitous. It's been two hours since we landed.
• There is a tram to get from the international to the domestic gates. It is up a flight of stairs. There is one elevator with a capacity of approximately 1.5 people, which moves at a speed best described as "glacial", and a line of twelve people in wheelchairs in front of us. We decide to take an escalator, studiously staring upward to avoid seeing any signs suggesting strollers can't go on escalators.
• After the tram and two more elevator rides, we get back into a long security line. By the time we reach the front, it has been three hours since we landed. We arrive at the gate fifteen minutes before boarding, having had no time to relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, or grab dinner. My eye is feeling irritated.
• We board the plane. The plane then sits delayed on the tarmac for an hour. My eye is getting worse, and starts exploding with tears. Fortunately, being absolutely exhausted and being unable to open my eye without excruciating pain synergize surprisingly well, and I sleep through most of the flight. Even better, so does Nathaniel.
• We arrive in Portland a mere hour late (better than thirty hours, amirite?). Grab our bags, grab a taxi, get home before midnight. Remember we need to call someone in the morning to fix the garage door. Go to bed. Pray that Nathaniel approximates sleeping through the night (he does, but only because he doesn't fall asleep until two AM).

Fin.

Mal Voyage

Greetings from Portland!

That's not a sentence I wanted to write. If things had gone to plan today, Jill, Nathaniel and I would be en route to Paris right now. But a delay on our first flight meant we were going to miss our connection in Chicago, and from there the day devolved into three hours of camping in front of an American Airlines agent as she strove unsuccessfully to find us any alternative flights. 

There were several occasions where we almost got booked on a flight to London, but then we kept being kicked out. But the most comical sequence came in attempting to get us on a flight to San Francisco (to London, to Paris). The timing was tight, since by the time we got around to that solution the flight was leaving in forty minutes (of course, we had been at the airport for almost two hours at that point). So the gate agent told Jill to get in line at the United booth so we could check our bags immediately in the event she was able to get us on the flight. Which she was able to do ... until she wasn't ... and then she was again ... and then she wasn't ... and then she was. And I have a corresponding text chain with Jill where I tell her to come back ... no stay in line! ... wait, no, come back--DON'T COME BACK GET BACK THERE!

And after all of that, the San Francisco flight was delayed too, so we wouldn't make the London connection.

After three hours, we gave up and rebooked a flight tomorrow evening to London and then onward to Charles de Gaulle, which will get us in a scant thirty hours later than scheduled. Huzzah.

A few bits of silver lining. 

1. We'll be able to sleep in tomorrow morning.
2. We've actually done this Portland --> London flight before, and Nathaniel did great on it. To be sure, five months old and seventeen months old are very different in terms of travel experience. But Nathaniel is a phenomenal sleeper and the flight is a red-eye, so we're optimistic.
3. And speaking of Nathaniel, he did pretty great all told. Most of the time we were at the airport, he was cheery and climbing around and generally a happy camper. By the end -- when we had blown past lunch time (we gave him snacks) and nap time -- he was understandably starting to get a bit cranky. But he instantly fell asleep on the Lyft ride home (which again augurs well for sleeping on the plane).

Anyway, the trip is off to an inauspicious start. Here's hoping tomorrow goes better.

First Last Day of "School"

It was Nathaniel's last day of school today.

Now, there are a lot of asterisks around that statement.

First, he didn't attend for the full year. He started in January, and didn't move to his current class for a few months after that.

Second, he's not even 18 months. What is "school", compared to "daycare"?

Third, he's coming back to the same place for summer camp in a few weeks. And related to the above, for an 18-month old, what is the difference between "school" and "camp"?

But even with all of those caveats, I am verklempt. He is positively thriving, and it is a joy to see. He's confident and he's active and he's learning and growing at an incredible rate. Picking a preschool/daycare felt extremely high stakes -- probably higher than it actually is -- but to the extent there was a "right" choice, boy did we ever make it.

And yeah, sometimes he’s a bit tuckered out. But that’s okay too.

So pride of my guy!

The Candidate of Their Choice

Before it was butchered by the Roberts Court, a key purpose of the Voting Rights Act was to ensure that, where cohesive minority communities exist, they would have a reasonable opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice.

For Black communities, this often understandably meant electing a Black representative. But not necessarily.

For example, the Tennessee congressional district that until recently was anchored around Memphis is a majority-Black district represented by a White man, Steve Cohen. Why does Cohen represent that district? The same reason anyone represents any district: the majority of voters in his district like him, he's earned their trust, so they keep reelecting him. Periodically during his tenure he would draw an African-American challenger, often to much fretting and teeth-gnashing from the national media, and each time he would absolutely flatten them, because again, Steve Cohen was well-liked and trusted by the voters in his district. That he kept winning, and winning handily, in a majority-Black district was not a failing of the Voting Rights Act. Neither would it have been a failure of the Voting Rights Act if Memphis decided to vote differently. The purpose of the Voting Rights Act is to give cohesive minority communities, like that which exists in Memphis, the ability to elect the candidate of their choice. If they choose someone like Steve Cohen, that's their prerogative.

All of this is introduction to the fussing that's surrounding Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's decision, in the wake of Florida's latest round of partisan gerrymandering wrecking her current district, to run for re-election in the safely-blue and majority-Black 20th district (just north of, but not encompassing, her current turf). The complaint is that, with the evisceration of the VRA already signaling a cataclysmic drop in Black representation (particularly in the South), Wasserman-Schultz's bid will necessarily come at the expense of one of the few districts where a Black Democratic representative might have shot at winning.

But again: the point of the VRA is to permit minority communities to elect the candidate of their choice. And either they'll choose to elect DWS or they won't. If they do, that's their prerogative. If they don't, that's also their prerogative. It's not a foul for Wasserman-Schultz (or any other politician) to try to win the support and backing of another political community, any more than she is entitled to the support of a community. Again, either she wins or she doesn't, but that's a decision that can and should be made by the voters of the district.

I'll give this Mo Tkacik column an inch of credit for at least gesturing at a more viable basis for complaining at DWS' choice: that she should have run in the 22nd district (where she lives) because with a strong candidate it represents an at least outside chance at a Democratic victory and Democrats need to expand the playing field as far as possible. Sure, she'll probably lose in the 22nd. But she might not, and she'll give team Blue a better chance than any other candidate. Meanwhile, a Democrat will represent the 20th district no matter what. So DWS is placing her own self-interest in trying to occupy a safe seat over the party's interest in winning as many seats as possible.

Maybe. It's not exactly clear to me why DWS is the only strong candidate Democrats could possibly run in the 22nd district -- a depressing thought, if true. And this being Mo Tkacik, by the end of the column it dissolves into rambling about AIPAC and some real old-school classics about how DWS rigged the primary for Hillary Clinton against Bernie. Aside from its nostalgic value, though, that last part again speaks to this very frustrating tendency in some segments of the Democratic Party (and, to be sure, all segments of the Republican Party) that losing an election under via normal political contestation must be cheating.

On that note, there's chatter that some of the Black candidates running in the 20th District have held a meeting to see if any will drop out, in the hopes that this will consolidate the Black vote and make it more likely one of them will win. Under "Bernie was robbed" logic, non-viable candidates dropping out and endorsing a remaining candidate is, of course, the most abusive act of rigging imaginable. Under actual, normal politics, there's no problem here and such a decision is their prerogative as well. Once again, DWS is not entitled to this seat, and she is not entitled to have the political factions which oppose her just roll over and clear a path for her. If at the end of it all she wins, good for her. If she doesn't, good for whoever does. Either way, the most we can hope for is that the voters in one of the apparently few remaining majority-Black districts are able to elect the candidate of their choice.

SovCit Therapy

My current algorithmically-fed guilty pleasure is watching clips of "Sovereign Citizens" losing in court.

"Sovereign Citizen", for those who don't know, is an umbrella term capturing believers in an array of pseudo-legal gibberish that they think provide, more-or-less, a get-out-of-law-free card. There are probably infinite permutations of SovCit "theory", many of which these days don't use the term "sovereign citizen" (as they've gotten wise that this has become the generic term courts use when rejecting their nonsense). But if you've ever heard someone talk about how we're actually under Maritime Law or how the courts are actually bondholders, or offered to give some magic words that discharge your car payment or mortgage without actually paying for it, you've probably encountered a SovCit.

In various corners of the internet, SovCit peddlers confidently declare that they've cracked the code of U.S. law and so are immune to normal rules and regulations (like needing a driver's license to use a car, or being subjected to the criminal jurisdiction of their county judge). Once they're haled into court, however, they're frequently outraged and dismayed to find that their legal incantations have no effect. As in any conspiracy theory, the proponents always have an explanation for why it didn't pan out, usually taking the form either of (a) you didn't use the right magic words or (b) the judges/police/bailiff/everybody is corrupt and treasonous. And so the theories remain resilient in spite of loss after loss after loss. "As oft as reason is against a man, so oft will a man be against reason."

So why are these videos grabbing me right now? Well for one, in spite of their widely-acknowledged fringe status, I have to ask just how long it is before one of these cranks makes it onto the bench or some other position of substantial legal influence. After all, just how distant is their crackpottery from the crackpottery that dominates the MAGA movement? Are we really relying on the vetting capacity of this administration to keep them at bay? They're of a kind! One can very easily see how the sovereign citizen's self-serving assertions about the fictitiousness of pretty much all contemporary "law" -- as much as they are gibberish -- would hold appeal for a movement that fundamentally is about making up new law as they go in order to serve their own self-interest.  If anti-vaxx nuts can worm their way into top healthcare postings, I don't think we can be sanguine about SovCits finagling their way into the DOJ.

But leave the doomsaying aside. I think the main reason I'm enjoying these videos, as a law professor, is because right now there is something deeply cathartic about watching bad legal arguments lose. In a world where the highest court of the land acts in increasingly arbitrary and lawless fashion, to see a domain where law matters is a form of escapism. No, I'm not saying that an opinion like Callais is (quite) sovereign citizen caliber. But as a law professor, it genuinely and sincerely hurts to see how weakly rule of law constrains those actors constitutionally empowered to declare what the law is.

And yes, I can hear the tutting from a section of the bleachers that it was naive to ever think that law was anything other than dressed-up politics or judicial preference. But as popular as that line is (and as much as its proponents are now, with some justification, crowing with vindication), I still don't fully believe it. The late Fred Schauer's insight about "easy cases" -- the fact that most legal disputes are not in fact seriously contested and are the subject of massive intersubjective agreement from judges of wildly different social and ideological priors -- continues to carry weight. More importantly, the notion that most of the time legal questions should have relatively reliable answers is an important one. There is little point to the existence of the legal profession if the answer to every legal question posed by a client is "I dunno -- depends on the judge." We believe and we have to believe that there are cases -- a lot of cases, most cases -- where one can answer a legal question with a reasonably confident legal conclusion.

The SovCit smackdowns speak to that. They are dramatic, albeit in many stylized, illustrations that law is what it is even in the face of very loud yelling and screaming and dancing to try and incant it into something that it isn't. In a time where it sometimes seems as if force of political will alone can convert gibberish legal arguments into binding precedent, it is nice to watch brute insistence crash against actual legal reality.

The Submission is the Point, Part II

The Rome Pride Parade has banned Keshet, Italy's LGBTQ Jewish organization from having a float in their parade. They say it's because Keshet failed to "distance" itself from the "ongoing genocide in Gaza." Specifically, they did not expressly use the word "genocide" to describe what was happening in Gaza.

Before we proceed further, let's read what Keshet did say while under lying under the gaze of Rome Pride.

They said that, as a Jewish (not Israeli -- Keshet has no affiliation or connection to the Israeli government) organization, "the conflict in the region is not our area of expertise." Nonetheless, they said they "feel close to the suffering of the Palestinian people." However, they also explained their hesitation around using the specific word "genocide", including their experience with how those using that word frequently ended up targeting the entire Jewish, not Israeli, community for culpability: 

We are especially concerned with the sentence that we keep on hearing that ‘the Jewish people are carrying out what they were subjected to,' a sentence that does not just refer to a conflict or a government but ends up connecting what is happening to the whole Jewish people.

Agree with Keshet's stance or not, this hardly seems like the sort of intractable political gap that should make them personas non grata. If it were the case that Rome Pride was hoping to find a mutually acceptable arrangement with Keshet; a way that they could stand together even if they didn't fully agree together, this would seem to more than satisfy that.

This is a critical point to make. I don't doubt that there are differences in how the leaders of Rome Pride and the leaders of Keshet perceive what is happening in Israel and Palestine. And sometimes differences are simply too large, and the gulf is too wide, such that there is no hope for reconciliation. But there is a distinction between how a group acts when it views its interlocutor as a partner whom it hopes to be able to stay in fellowship and community with, with whom it would be terrible and agonizing if it were forced to cut ties with, versus when it sees the other as an enemy, to either be placed under vassalage or  be met on the battlefield. In the former case, you look for how you can harmonize, for how differences and distinctions can be absorbed in the spirit of a broader common ground. In the latter you desire disagreement; you try to throw up as many redlines as possible, you are excited to find a reason to say "no".

And it's very clear how Rome Pride saw its relationship with the LGBTQ Jews. What they wanted out of Keshet was not something that could be mutually acceptable. What they wanted was submission. Knowing why Keshet didn't want to use that specific word, knowing that its demurral had nothing to do with refusing to extend care and concern for Palestinians or even with expressing solidarity with Israel and everything to do with their specific experiences as Jews and how they were being actively marginalized -- that only made the prospect of submission all the more alluring. They wanted Keshet to bend before them, and if they didn't bend, they were happy to see them break. JTA reports that Rome Pride announced Keshet's exclusion within 15 minutes of the end of the two parties' meeting. That is not a timeline that speaks to an organization that was earnestly attempting to find common ground and would only announce exclusion as the last resort of completely irreconcilable differences. That is the timeline of a group that was ready and eager and excited to righteously announce their expulsion.

All of this is familiar. And again, it is not about finding common ground; it is entirely about asserting dominance. Two years ago, I wrote about the Israeli artist showing at the Venice Biennale, who elected to close her exhibit until "a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached." You might have thought those protesting her presence would be elated, that she was publicly taking a stand against the war. They were in fact furious. They hated that the artist (a regular presence at Israeli anti-war demonstrations) did this voluntarily, of her own accord, when what they wanted was for it to be wrested from her. Nothing would satisfy them unless they felt that their target was beaten and broken. What might appear to be a mutually agreeable resolution is despised not in spite of but because of its mutuality: "if they agree, then it was not imposed, and if it was not imposed, then there was not truly submission."

Rome Pride says they are "fully capable of distinguishing between the Israeli government and the Jewish community." But they also hold Keshet "responsible for having failed, and continuing to fail, to distance itself from the ongoing genocide in Gaza," Which raises the question: why should they need to "distance" themselves? What makes them so close?

It is, of course, because they're Jewish. Keshet's concern -- that the term "genocide" was being used to demand collective responsibility and collective culpability from Jews, not Israelis -- was entirely vindicated. They understood the game. All Jews understand the game. How many years ago did Steve Cohen write this immortal passage?

Every Jew on the left will know that terrible syndrome whereby, whatever the context and wherever one is, we will be tested by being given the question "what is your position on Zionism?" Wanna support the miners—what's your position on Zionism? Against the bomb—what's your position on Zionism? And want to join our march against the eradication of Baghdad, in particular the eradication of Baghdad—what's your position on Zionism? And we all know what answer is expected in order to pass the test. It is a very strong form of anti-Semitism based on assumptions of collective responsibility. Denounce Zionism, crawl in the gutter, wear a yellow star and we'll let you in the club.

Cohen's insight is that this practice is not about ensuring overlapping values or common interests. It is about domination. That's why Cohen, who is in fact anti-Zionist, is deemed to fail the test -- he does not abase himself enough; he does not make it clear that he acknowledges being beneath those demanding his supplication.

And so too here. Leave aside the fact that last year's Rome Pride march saw the Jewish marchers attacked and harassed in despicable fashion. That is more standard-issue thuggery, albeit thuggery that is rightly viewed as part of the context for Rome Pride's decision this year. This year, Rome Pride demanded a show of self-abnegation from the Jews. The Jews refused to give them one, and Rome Pride deemed that unacceptable. That's what happened. Do not get caught up in thinking that there is some deeper or more essential ideological gap here. The submission was the point.

Rage Induced by the Machine

I don't really use Facebook anymore. It's an open tab and an app on my phone, so I check it periodically out of habit, but it's not part of my basic rotation.

I'm a millennial, so I started using Facebook in college, when it was limited to college. I didn't at all mind it expanding to "everyone" -- hey, I was graduating too -- and for quite some time it did exactly what I wanted it to do: served as a convenient vector to keep up with friends who had flung themselves around the country. And that would still be a nice use today -- I'd love to know what people are up to these days. So many cute babies!

But alas, these days Facebook is essentially worthless. No, that's too tame -- it's actively malignant. When I open Facebook, it defaults to an algorithmic feed that maybe shows an actual friend's post once in every half a dozen. The majority of posts are either AI slop history lessons or, more often, polarizing political ragebait. The irony is there isn't a clear side to the ragebait, though for me it's mostly Israel- and antisemitism related. But it's invariably someone angry about something and expressing their position in the most inflammatory way possible. Every time I click through to read more, I feel myself becoming a worse person.

And that's not even the bottom of the pit. God help me if I read comments. Even on the rare occasion I get a basically neutral news article or press release, the comments are just full of people being their absolute worst selves. In the wake of the San Diego shooting, here are some of the comment categories that stood out to me as repeated themes:

• On posts by Jews or Jewish institutions condemning the shooting, ostensibly Jewish people blasting the condemnation because Muslims have it coming and Jews should never defend them even from terrorist violence.
• On posts about how the shooter harbored antisemitic views, non-Jewish people blasting Jews for "making it all about you" (what?).
• On any post by anyone, saying this all traces back to Israel.

Again, these were not isolates -- these were categories. I'd see comment after comment like this. The inescapable feeling was grief, anger, and despair over how awful my fellow humans are. It took effort to remind myself that this is not in fact all humans, it is a very limited and non-representative subset. But it was, again, damaging me to keep reading these. When one is swamped with instances of people being terrible, it makes you more terrible too. Even though I know that most people's responses to San Diego shooting are normal, it hacks your brain into thinking that this is how the world is.

That's what Facebook is these days -- an algorithmic machine that tries its level best to make people the worst versions of themselves because that sort of person will engage more. Such a price would be too much to pay even if Facebook was useful as a catch-up tool with old friends -- which it isn't.

And sure, to some extent this is a problem with all social media. But not like this. I actually like Bluesky, and Reddit has been decent since I stay away from politics. Facebook really seems to be in a category of its own (perhaps along with X/Twitter, which I don't use at all anymore) in terms of the intensity with which it pushes awful messaging.

(It's one saving grace right now is that my reel algorithm is mostly handing me standup comedy clips from comedians I actually like. But to by honest, I suspect most of those clips are stolen bot reposts -- not the least because they're increasingly cutting off before the actual joke gets told. Even when you find something good, Facebook finds a way to make it awful).