“What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob. “
Read MoreWith all of the claims for diversity the one they need the most is intellectual diversity. It is fine to discuss critical theory and Marxism but not without the balance of constitutional democracy and free markets. It is shameful when graduates have studied Howard Zinn, Karl Marx, or Ibram Kindi but have never heard of Gordon Wood, Friedrich Hayek, or Thomas Sowell. Hiring practices should seek a far more balanced faculty.
Read More“If a member of an oppressor class says something edgy, it is a form of violence. If a member of an oppressed class commits actual violence, it’s speech.”
Read MoreThe media, apoplectic for weeks from hatred displayed in Charlottesville in 2017, lack the same outrage at the depth and scale of the hatred that followed the Hamas attack on October 7. It is worth noting how often the cry against Zionism quickly turned to plain hatred of Jews. It has always been a false distinction. Jewish sympathizers for these attacks on Israel are progressive kapos, selling their soul hoping the alligator eats them last.
Read MoreI always thought identity politics would end badly. The reaction will not be just about the tolerance of anti-Semitism but will address all the other values that embraced it.
Read More“The mystery is why the Palestinians continue to put up with it, and have for so long. They don’t need “days of rage.” They need property rights, free enterprise, the rule of law, and decent government. And nobody would be better pleased to see them have these than the Israelis. “
Read MoreSocial justice grifters in all their forms were easy prey for the Jew haters. It was just the next logical step. Periods of revisionism and moral ambiguity are breeding grounds for antisemitism and other forms of social and moral rot.
Read MoreIf Israel and the Jews disappeared tomorrow, do you seriously think this hatred will dissipate and they will peacefully attend to the grinding work of building a civil society? Who will they then blame for their dysfunction and misery and how will they react? Do you think their animosities will be contained in their region?
Read MoreDEI is just an institutionalized form of political correctness. It is intolerant and anti- intellectual and when these two vices combine we know what is to follow.
Read MoreRhetoric may not stop extremism, but it will direct and influence it. If Trump is deemed responsible for Charlottesville then Omar and her gang are responsible for Colleyville.
Read More“After a white-nationalist attack, the media devote considerable resources to tracing the attacker’s ideas and search history along the ideological continuum and tarring the Republican Party with “complicity” in his crimes. After an Islamist attack, the imperative is not to establish politicians’ complicity with the criminal, but to avoid any inquiry that might amount to “Islamophobia.””
Read MoreWhatever you may think of Trump, he has been the strongest unequivocal supporter of Israel since its independence and his recent executive order strikes a strong blow to anti-Semitism on college campuses. To draw a conclusion from this that he is a tool of the alternate right requires a willing suspension of the obvious.
Read MoreIf it had appeared in Breitbart or a similar political tilt, the airwaves would be jammed with condemnations and no apology would suffice. Its proximity in time to the recent shooting at the Chabad in Poway near San Diego would have made it unforgivable. That is how the New York Times treated far less offensive remarks from Republicans; Sarah Palin’s use of the word ‘cross hairs’ in a political speech was enough to blame her for the Gabby Giffords shooting.
Read MoreReilly notes that the sheer number of false hate crimes is significant and it began before Trump. This desire of the progressive left to relive the social justice victories of the civil rights era of the 1960’s creates a bigger demand for hate crimes than we can supply. They wish to continue fighting a war they have long won. The are like the Japanese soldiers stranded on a Pacific Island unaware the war is over.
Read MoreThe failure to address this problem will only cause it to proliferate. Witness the Democrats boycotting AIPAC- a first. I saw Obama and Pelosi speak there. The left wishes to put their heads in the sand and contend this is a minority in their midst. They have not yet learned that passionate minorities rule politics.
Read More“Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has pointed out that Jew-hatred is usually justified by appeals to a culture’s highest authority. During the Middle Ages, that was religion—so the Jews were charged with killing Jesus. During the Enlightenment it was science, so Jews were deemed an inferior race. Today’s highest source of authority is human rights—so Israel is portrayed as the worst violator.”
Read More“If you rationalize mob behavior every time you don’t get your way in the electoral process, you don’t care about the temperature. And if your first instinct is to play politics with tragedy for partisan gain, you are part of the problem.”
Read More“It was his administration that kicked the Palestine Liberation Organization, the most successful Jewish-civilian murdering organization of the past 60 years, out of DC. It was the Trump administration that cut funding to the anti-Semitic U.N. Relief and Works Agency. It was also the Trump administration that turned around the unique Obama-era legacy of standing against Israel at the United Nations. And it is his administration that cracked down on anti-Semitism on college campuses and that deported one of the last real-life Nazis.”
Read More
The Identity Trap
I disagree with Mounk that this shift is sudden. It has been ignored, tolerated, and excused for decades. It is shameful that it took the overt antiSemitism displayed after October 7 for it to be recognized for what it is.
Read More