If I'm anti-Trump, does that mean I'm anti-American. Note: I'm a retired Veteran with 20 years of USN Service. So, no it doesn't. Likewise, if I oppose Likud's pell-mell settlement expansion in the West Bank, using US taxpayer's fungible funds, does that make me anti-semitic ? No ! I stand arm-in-arm with all progressive Jews here in America and in Israel who oppose Likud's right-wing policies. Also, I humbly submit, boycotts are a matter of free speech (Texas!).
13
It is appalling and perplexing to me why 'liberalism', 'socialism' and 'anti-semitism' seem to go hand in hand? Jews are some of the most welcoming inclusive people on the planet, why on earth are they lumped into a progressive agenda as an enemy. And please, dont go with the anti-semitism is not anti-zionism schtick. That is not it at all, its just an attempt at a politically correct excuse.
14
"Here I am, sstuck in the middle with.." most of America!
3
The only major political figure in either the Democratic or Republican Party in at least over a century and probably longer than that who expressed antisemitic thoughts was Nixon who we found out from his secret tapes that his view of Jews was something from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Of course, the Republican Party has moved so far right in the last half century that perhaps Mr. Douthat considers Nixon a left winger.
5
Everyone who is mad at Ross Douthat about this article should calm down and have some sympathy for the plight of the "serious, ideas-driven" conservative in today's world. I imagine it must be like being a gay conservative.
You have "serious ideas" that you want to come out, so to speak, but the group you've chosen to associate with hates ideas and facts. What can you do? So even while you make an obvious point ("The Republican party is full of racists") you have to say something false at the same time. ("Democrats have a antisemitism problem that is just as bad!")
Have some sympathy.
4
Jeremy Corbyn does not have an "anti-Semitism" problem, he works closely with Jewish activists in the UK, people who like him oppose the colonialist "settler movement" with its eerie echo of "Lebensraum," and the corrupt, anti-Humanist Netanyahu regime. Mr. Douthat, you're speaking solely for a cabal trying to silence anyone who criticizes the Israeli right and its enablers in the US.
13
Conflating Michael Moore with Sharpton and Farrakhan is wrong. Michael Moore never fomented riots or falsely accused people of terrible crimes.
9
is criticizing some of Netanyahu's most egregious actions anti-Zionist and, therefore, anti-Semitic? I was not aware of that.
8
Let's be real- the Right has a racism AND anti-semitism problem.
15
Anti-Semitism on the left? Radical lefties carried out the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue? Or any of the increasing number of incidents taking place over the last 2 years? Nazi sympathizers don't want to see the Jewish race wiped out?
Acknowledging the humanity and rights of Palestinians is one thing. Yes, "the left" may be guilty of that sin. Anti-Semitism--in the form of violence and desecration--is carried out entirely by right-wing fanatics...remember "Jews won't replace us" in Charlottesville? That wasn't Louis Farrakhan marching.
17
Leftists may oppose Israel's treatment of Palestinians, but that doesn't make the Left Anti-Semitic.
The Right has a profound racist problem.
Equating the Right with the Left, on anything, is brain lazy and foggy minded.
Joseph in Missoula
11
No matter which way you turn, the bigots on the right and the bigots on the left have one thing in common: let's blame the Jews. Surprising ? Not really.
12
it is time for american jews to come to the realization that not everything that is good for Israel is good for the US. the strategic interests of the two countries are often in direct conflict. lets remember that the Israelis bombed the USS Liberty so the US would not be able to interfere with Israle's conduct of the 1967 war. Lets also acknowledge that the only reason Trump and supports Israel is that the evangelicals do. And the only reason the evangelicals support Israel is because they consider its existance essential to the advent of the rapture during which all jews will supossedly go to hell. one has to ask oneself given the heretofore nearly unquestioning support that Israel gets from the american jewish community whether it time for us to support a US foreign policy that runs counter to Israel's security interests in favor of our own. in particular its time for american jews to allow the US government to put more pressure on Israel to stop settlement building and to move forward with the two state solution both of which are clearly in the bests interests of the US. The US should at a minimum reduce military aid to Israel by 10 dollars for every dollar it spends on settelment building and support. now if this is antisemitism then i am an antisemitic jew
5
Are there more anti-Semites on the left than on the right and in the middle? Mr Douthat is concerned about blurring the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, but as an anti-Zionistic Jew, it appears to me that he has blurred the distinction between anti-Zionism and bigotry. Some (not all) of the controversy around the Women's Marches was perpetrated by Zionists who objected to including Palestinians among the oppressed. In at least one case, Zionist women had to be asked to leave a march because they were trying to torpedo it, and then they claimed to be victims of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a real and serious problem but it is not the same thing as Anti-Zionism.
8
I don't support bigotry. However, these arguments often seem to be angrier, less thoughtful versions of the same arguments that have roiled society in the past - forced on the public debate by people who seem cynically uninterested in any substantive discussion. There are an array of public policy issues that the nation desperately needs to deal with - including human rights issues such as prison rape, effective debt prison situations, corrupt abuses of the criminal justice system such as bail bonding and a trial tax system that railroads people in vast numbers. Our criminal justice system, by sweeping people who don't have the resources to defend themselves and cheating them of due process, often on charges that don't get nearly enough scrutiny, entangling them for the rest of their lives and keeping them from rebuilding their lives, arguably promotes high crime rates. We could save oceans of money if we could untangle and shut down the mass incarceration mess. But the all-important name-calling in politics makes work on policy issues vastly more difficult. There are other urgent issues that the Left and Right ought to be able to built practical, effective compromise policy on - the US debt overhang, working with other nations that are also sick of China's dishonest trade policies and human rights abuses to force change, rather than the US acting alone, the opioid crisis, infrastructure, college costs. But people are too addicted to dehumanizing other people for honesty.
1
Anti-semitism on the left is an insult to its supposed principles of inclusiveness, equity, diversity, tolerance, understanding, and the power of the collective human spirit. In other words, all the things that make me a liberal. We expect intolerance from the right - it's been part of their playbook for decades, if not centuries.
But liberal intolerance is beyond disgraceful. It is the opposite of what they espouse. But we are indeed seeing more and more intolerance or de-legitimization by liberals of certain views, certain demographics, certain rights, and certain grievances. That ain't liberal.
IF - a Woman's March has any conscious connection with, much less tolerance for, overtly anti-Semitic elements, shame on them. There is enough of that in right wing white nationalism. Let them specialise in it.
Liberals, make sure this isn't a case of *real* equivalence between the wings. That's what the author is warning against. If it continues, the left is wandering much farther from its core principles than it already has. If a conservative is worried about the integrity of the left, you should be even more so.
9
I don't even know where to start on the vagueness, generalizations, and lack of logic in this article. I think other readers have pointed out enough flaws in the reasoning.
10
Douthat seems to think that the GOP missed its opportunity to erase Trump during his birther jihad. He fails to understand that Trump's birtherism was no impediment but part of Trump's appeal to the GOP. It was his calling card, a neat way to signal that he wasn't about to endorse the notion that a black man could aspire (and occury) the White House. When he shouted this idea into the abyss, back came the echo of millions of Republicans. If you doubt this, consider that well after the 2016 election and Trump's grudging disavowal of his birtherism, many Republicans still embraced that canard: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-republicans-kenya-744195
Douthat should consider that Edmund Burke might be the fig leaf that covers the real soul of "conservatism." Below that fig lives David Duke.
7
Thank you Mr. Douthat for this timely column.
There is growing racism that is enabled by our current political discourse. But I would like to comment on antisemitism that is on a steep upward projectory as well. And this phenomenon can be observed in two forms. One I would call old style nazi like hatred of Jews and another form that is subtle but even more pervasive and dangerous and that is left wing antisemitism. Whereas the former is readily recognizable and is repugnant to most of us, the latter mascarades as something totally different. It is often expressed as a political anti Israel stance. And even more often by subtle references to money, power and control. This is not limited to the US and you don't have to go further than to observe what is happening with the British Labor party. The more we expose and talk about this form of antisemitism the better the chances of at least containing it.
9
Sorry, but the only difference between King and Trump is that one of them is president.
6
Opposition to Israel's occupation of Palestine is not only anti-Semitic, it is also not anti-Zionist. There is no contradiction in believing that Israel has a right to exist as a democratic, majority-Jewish state, and believing that Israel should not keep colonial control over Palestine.
7
The people marching and shouting "death to Jews" vote for Trump and wear MAGA hats as Charlottesville showed.
Further one can disagree with the corrupt Government of Israel, and their policies, without being an anti-semite. There are many citizens of that country who do so on a daily basis.
But then corrupt leaders like Trump and Netanyahu are who the right claim as "religious" leaders.
Ross Douthat doesn't want debates about Israel. Nor, even to deal with actual anti-semitism where it exists. He just wants to throw stones at the left.
All Mr Douthat wants is to equate the barbarity and grotesque loss of morals that the right has managed with some bogeyman on the left that to be blunt is not the ultra right wing sort of people who shoot up synagogues. They are more people Republican Rep Steve King would retweet.
5
Being politically correct, where you are held responsible for the actions and thoughts of your ancestors, since time began, has it's downsides.
1
Fear on the right, of the other, and jealousy on the left of the other, have been the nature of the human animal since the beginning of times. Now, however, everyone has a right to their 5 minutes of fame on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., making the evolution of the species making a both a right, and left turn backwards, as far as I can tell.
1
There's plenty of anti-semitism on the Right, as well -- in fact, too much to go around.
So, apparently, it has continued to spread over to and among the Left. I've personally experienced it, as have many I know, and the level and types antisemitism emanating from the Left has been turning me and those fairly progressive friends and acquaintances off and away from their ranks and making us question their credibility on other issues as well.
To use their own language, those on the Left also needs to check their Gentile privilege and internalized judeophobia, lest they shoot themselves in the foot by losing numbers and support as they embrace or fail to call out religio-ethnic bigotry in their ranks.
4
Generally someone who falls under the umbrella "leftist," I have long struggled with the subject of Israel. On one hand a fundamental principle for me is that no nation should be established for a particular ethnic or religious group. This I assume is an outgrowth of my American heritage of religious outcasts. On the other hand centuries of persecution of the Jews by an extraordinary range of other peoples demonstrates a genuine basis for a dedicated Jewish homeland. To my dismay I see new attempts at persecution of Jews bubbling up all over in this country as well as elsewhere. This forces me to accept that the tension between these two principles perhaps cannot be resolved. Perhaps Israel must be the proverbial exception that proves the first of my fundamental principles.
I do not agree with Ross that honest-to-God antisemitism on my side of the political spectrum is as strong as it is on the fringes of his side of the political spectrum, let alone as strong as the more general racism found on his side of the political spectrum. Our struggle is with the concept of Zionism. It is a struggle that those of us with good faith know is not simple or bi-modal.
2
Racism and ant-Semitism are both views that we only combat through education because unlike China and Russia the free world does not seek to police people's thoughts. But racist and ant-Semitic statements and actions are what we concentrate on fighting. When we read, hear, or see an action that is racist or anti-Semitic then it is our individual obligation to speak up and do what we can to prevent repetitions.
I thank you Ross Douthat for your opinion piece.
4
I guess that some find this column interesting, but it barely makes sense to me. Trump came from Iraq and the financial crises of G.W. Bush. That alone is nonsense. Trump primarily came initially from the pandering of racism that started with Nixon and has been continued, with only small respites, by the Republican Party ever since then. He continues with one after another statement that has only a tangential relationship with reality until everything has to be thrown out. Nor is there anything particularly novel about today. Extremism is always a danger, and the difference today is that it has succeeded because of thinkers like Douthat.
6
I guess socialism is a radical idea, as it doesn't seem to qualify for xenophobia.
The number of rich democracies that do not incorporate some socialism is zero. This makes me both happy and relieved.
The possibility of a rich democracy that does not incorporate some socialism is also zero. It saddens me that Mr. Douthat seems to be both oblivious and impervious to this obvious truth.
Dan Kravitz
4
The homicidal head of Hezbollah had it exactly right: In 1948, the existential threat to Jews increased exponentially.
Anti-Zionism is a convenient cover for anti-Semitism. The distributive, stealth nature of anti-Semitism vs the concentrated, manifest nature of the Jewish homeland is a recipe for holocaustic efficiency.
Obama actualized the threat. The Iran nuclear deal is anti-Zionist by definition and anti-Semitic in deed.
But Trump isn't an anti-Zionist anti-Semite. So what is he doing? Either he believes, like Obama—wrongly—that he is all-knowing, or this dance in Syria is a head fake.
For Israel's sake—and the world's—it had better be the latter.
2
Mr. Douthat twice refers to liberals as paranoia's or paranoid. I am sorry, but paranoia is what defines the far right, not the left. It is remnant of evolution, thus unconscious, automatic "thinking" because conservatives were born this way. You can't blame them for that, but is should be recognized by everyone that it is the root cause that differentiates conservatives from everyone else on the political spectrum. The most common symptom is the sense that everyone is out to get you. If you apply that single symptom to Trump's actions and statements, you will realize that everyone is out to get him. There are literally no exceptions. Everything he says and does are the direct result of his paranoia. So let's be sure we give credit where credit is due here.
3
I've worked in academia for 45 years. For the last 28 years, I've worked for an institution with Episcopal roots. Since my first day, I've dealt with anti-Semitism from both the Right and the Left. The Right engages in anti-Semitism by omission, while the Left, by commission. As well, the balance has shifted: In the beginning, the Right was far more guilty of bias, while today, it has become more or less 50-50 between both sides.
My sympathies are with the Left, but I don't put up with any "bull" from that side of the political equation. While I don't believe that opposition to the current Israeli government's policies can be called anti-Semitic per se, many of my colleagues who describe themselves as "anti-Zionist" have repeatedly crossed the line -- I'm not naive. Those colleagues have driven a wedge into the Left on my campus; and much of what they say is, shamefully, not clearly distinguishable from the the old-school Christian anti-Semitic tropes of yesteryear. But, I don't think Douthat has the standing, and the perspective to comment on the problem.
9
@Raphael
How do you feel about the expression of the newly-elected Democrat Rep. Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar, D.-Minn. On the campaign trail. she was vague. After she was elected, she confirmed that she was a supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott:
"Omar, on the campaign trail, was asked about the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. She gave vague answers about how BDS undermined the two-state solution. With the election behind us, she was much more forthcoming, making it clear she likes the movement, finds it morally fine, but simply disagrees with its tactics.
Her campaign said this week, "Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”
Here's the truth about Trump, the wall, and the 'crisis' at the border
Make no mistake: The vast majority of Muslims are anti-Israel. It's not a tiny minority that want Israel wiped out.
6
Wow! So our holier than thou democracy hating 1% has finally revealed its sure to succeed strategy for defying the majority will and interest! As indicated here, it began decades ago with the 1%'s ability to discredit/slander anyone who dared to disagree with our greedy self interested elite's views and "leadership" by branding us common citizens as either a racist on the right or a anti Semitic on Left or the Right. And now those same 1% "moral authority" deep staters have conjured up literally dozens of additional identity groups that they can claim to heroically represent to deny the popular will and interest on literary any issue by saying that what the democratic majority wants is somehow 'discriminatory' or 'threatening' or 'disturbing' to ANY 3 person group with a website.
4
"Why have the Democrats managed to keep the cranks at bay more successfully than the G.O.P.? Because the party’s elite has mostly kept the trust of the party’s base."
Except for the nearly half the Democrat/Independent electorate that - unexpectedly given a choice - devoted passionate energies and money to a progressive liberal far to the left of the "party elite."
"[Mostly kept" their "trust." Feh!
1
Douthat loses credibility with each succeeding column. He simply cannot bring himself to critique the Republican/Conservative/Far Right entanglement with what Karl Barth called "the powers of Darkness" without twisting himself into an ideological/political pretzel in order to find some kind of analog on the other side of the political spectrum.
When one has to go pretzel in order to come up with an opposing analog, the usual result is what we find in this column: A False Equivalence.
Douthat would do well to train his sights on his own side of the political spectrum and keep them there. Those who are turning the lights off in America are, at the moment, living on that side of the divide.
17
There you go again, making a moral equivalence in order to dilute the opprobrium which rightly belongs to your party which has used bigotry for electoral purpose, even before Nixon's Southern strategy and Lee Atwater's Willie Horton ad. For readers who might possibly be bamboozled, the women's march is nowhere a part of the Democratic Party, unlike Steven King who introduced an electrified wall in 2006 and has been sought for endorsement by the likes of Mitt Romney. Now that the GOP is dead and the Trump party is in the government they don't really need to hide their racism.
10
Too right, Kiwi. Thanks.
1
I think the author would have done better to have written specifically about the rise of antisemitism among the far-left rather than compare it to right-wing racism, as that seems to be all readers can focus on. Granted, even a conversation purely about antisemitism would still likely result in a chorus of comparisons to Trump's constituents, as we live in an era where all moral predicaments are set against the standard of Donald Trump.
There's a lot of talk here in the comments about how anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism, and while that is certainly true, it's also worth considering how a number of antisemites masquerade their prejudice by saying that they're only criticizing Israel, rather than Jews themselves, the same way that racists try to get away with their prejudice by saying "I can't be racist because I have friends who are black."
Genuine anti-Zionists are usually very careful and articulate with why they oppose Israel's current actions, and most seem to believe that the two-state solution can be achieved if changes are made. Then there are many people who call themselves anti-Zionists who neither know nor care much about Palestine (or the Middle East at large) outside of it's conflict with Israel, nor do they say much about theology or the history of the region. In this case, I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that there is a deeper, and much less respectable, reason for their disdain.
12
"Where did Donald Trump come from, ultimately? From the presidency of George W. Bush, in which establishment-Republican blunders gave us the Iraq debacle and the financial crisis."
Hard to know where to begin calling out the absurdity of this claim. I seem to recall there was another president, after W, whose presence in the White House seemed to bother a lot of the people who later supported DJT. I wonder what it was, that was so different about W's successor, that might have driven a certain segment of the population to eventually support the birther-in-chief's presidential bid? I have a strong sense it had nothing to do with policy disagreements, but maybe that's just me.
7
Our major problem is we have too many politicians that ignore "inconvenient" parts of our founding documents and some of the advice given by some of the "founders".
We have many interpreting the Second Amendment as "The people have no right to regulate a militia on one person."
Every year the Senate has a reading of George Washington's "Farewell Address" and every year a very, very small minority of Senators show up to listen to it. Maybe it's because they don't like how they have formed factions, something that Washington warned:
"They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community..."
5
Not supporting the policies of Israel's right-wing Likud party is not anti-Semitism. That is like saying that not supporting the policies of the US's right-wing GOP is anti-Americanism.
And holding up "socialism" as a bogeyman without mentioning the specific policies that you're concerned about is meaningless. Do you mean socialism as practiced by Canada, Norway, Sweden or Venezuela? There is a difference!
259
@Heather
You are correct that there are different forms of socialism: Canada, Norway, and Sweden are capitalistic nations with generous social safety nets.
11
@Heather
Thank you from a Zionist who would vote against Likud if I were an Israeli citizen.
9
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.
Please read pamphlets and books written in opposition to Zionism in the 1930-1950 by Jews. They predicted the current situation in Israel and the Middle East.
My mother worked as a library assistant at a synagogue in Manhattan where she cataloged those works. It is located on the corner of 5th and E. 65th.
143
@Brad
"Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism."
As the Mr. Douthat said, the difference can get blurry "real quick,"
12
@Brad
Before the State of Israel existed, that is true. But todays anti-Zionism would dismantle the world’s only Jewish state, turning its Israel born citizens into refugees (not to mention that many Israelis born in other countries would be in mortal danger if they tried to return to their countries of birth, especially in the Middle East.)
If that’s not anti-Semitism, I don’t know what is.
15
It is if it is motivated by Judeophobia or has the intent OR the effect of harming only or primarily Jewish people.
An modest example of this on the "Left" was anti-war demonstrators, like members of Answer, in San Francisco and elsewhere chanting "Jews are dogs" in Arabic.
5
I usually enjoy Ross Douthat's principled conservative takes on political, cultural and religious issues. But not today: Ross's cheap shot at Michael Moore was truly offensive, falsely linking Moore to antisemitism, and deeming his reasonable European social democracy stance a paranoid worldview.
164
@John Cowan
Yep -- and the similar implications about AOC. And the dismissal of suspicion of Putin as paranoia.
12
I, for one, haven't the faintest idea what "populism" means.
2
“But it’s possible that this is changing, with the Women’s March’s eccentric leadership as a leading indicator, and that a more left-wing, populist, anti-establishment Democratic Party — a party reshaped by Ocasio-Cortezan energy, shall we say — will become increasingly influenced by paranoias and bigotries that bubble up on the far left.”
I wish people in the media would stop conflating the FDR-style economic progressivism of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with the SJW-style cultural progressivism of people like the Women’s March leaders. These are two highly distinct movements. Granted, people in the first camp (e.g., Bernie Sanders) are not openly opposed to the illiberal ideas and tactics of the second camp. But there is no question that Sanders and his ilk represent the leading alternative to what has rightly been called the “regressive left.” (That’s why the regressive leftists hate Sanders and love Hillary Clinton, even though Sanders is vastly more progressive than Clinton on virtually every issue.)
3
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism," says Mr. Douthat. I would add, "especially when the current Israeli government is so corrupt and punitive." Bibi Netanyhu is the Trump of the Middle East. Support for the decimated Palestinians in Gaza does not an anti-semite make.
11
At least Ross acknowledges that with the Democrats and the left, that anti semitism is nowhere near the scale of racism in the GOP. What he leaves out is outside the overt racism of Trump and King (and supporters who love it), is the way the GOP has gained and kept power via racism. The Southern Strategy that got them the south was based on catering to the rage of southern segregationists; the GOP got blue collar votes in places like the northeast because they blamed the loss of blue collar jobs in the rust belt on 'affirmative action', claiming it took things rightfully away from whites (the loss of jobs meanwhile was foreign competition and outsourcing); the GOP tough on crime campaigns were overtly or subtly based on fear of minority crime, they talked about the murder rate and death rate in the inner city, and came up with laws that targeted minorities more harshly then whites for the same crime (coke versus crack); and the whole anti government screed was based in part that government was supporting lazy welfare recipients (who of course were mostly minority by implication of the GOP); the anti ACA furor wasn't about socialized medicine, it was in people who believed that it gave gold plated medical care to 'freeloaders' (thanks, nod nod wink wink, to Obama of course supporting 'his people'), while having 'real americans' have to pay through the nose. The GOP not only didn't discourage racism, it encouraged it indirectly to feed into the racism many of its base harbor
8
The Democrats are "vulnerable" to paranoias and bigotries? The entire period between the 2016 Convention and the present has been an exercise in stoking the worst kind of xenophobia, the kind directed at a nation with nuclear weapons, and all for banal domestic politics. It terms of danger to the planet, it is far worse than a few fringe elements on either side.
4
Good column since it got me to research a bit more into what exactly is the controversy over the accusations about the group's anti-Semitism. Great.
Now the bad with the column, and the part I don't get. Why is this women's group being compared to groups that advocate for the election of anti-Semites and white supremacists? Are women who participate in the marches electing Democrats because they are anti-Semitic? Are there a bunch of stealth anti-Semitic Democrats that we don't know about?
How is this equivalent to having ELECTED officials as part of the GOP making racist, bigoted comments that the GOP is resistant to condemn?
8
Republican's false equivalencies are getting old and cliche.
No Ross, the right and the left are not equivalent in their bigotry. There is no comparison, and attempting to make a connection between the two is extremely disingenuous.
11
Douthat writes,
"The challenge is to figure out how to quarantine those kinds of hatreds and also represent your voters...."
But perhaps he, like many NY Times columnists has lost sight of the Freedom of Speech that was presumably enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
Having seen their ancestors murder each other over slight differences in religious doctrine and then go to church to hear the Sermon on the Mount extolled in which a major point is turning the other cheek, they tried to make possible a society in which divergent points of view wouhe meld be tolerated and even listened to. And ultimately rejected if found faulty.
In accordance with those principles, we should embrace the right of David Duke to publish his writings, but also our own right to criticize..
In such a world, we would embrace Steve King's right to discuss the meaning of "white nationalism" and whether it constitutes racism or not. We would be far less inclined to judge, more inclined to listen.
And listening is what is needed now. The government is shut down, because neither party will listen to members of the other party.
The word "racism" has been used too often. Ross Douthat like most liberals wants to blame Donald Trump for loss of decorum.
But maybe it is better to stop calling other people names ourselves. Maybe it is better that NY Times pundits start exhibiting the traits which are lacking in Trump's view of the world.
In a better world, differences of viewpoint would be cherished.
1
The Arabs are STILL trying to win the war they started in 1948....and lost.
But what these Arabs failed to achieve militarily in 1948, 1967, 1973 etc, they have been attempting to achieve via propaganda and manipulation of both the United Nations and the western media...staging violent events for the cameras with the intention that their youthful ‘martyrs’ will play on the sympathies of the international community. The Muslim-dominated UN, its agencies, and the western media have fallen for it lock stock and barrel, as they routinely demonize Israel for what any other country would consider their rightful defense against terrorists and aggressors.
There’s a heavy price to pay for perpetrating endless war against a sovereign nation...and Arabs identifying as Palestinian are not exempt.
12
@Shenoa: well, they have definitely managed to win that war on college campuses in the US and across Europe, which are nearly all anti-Jewish centers today, that promote anti-Zionism and make Jewish students and teachers feel uncomfortable and unwanted, and afraid to speak out.
BTW: Palestinians have always HAD a homeland -- a few miles away! -- it's called "Jordan".
4
Where on earth is Mr. Douthat getting the notion that the left is anti-semitic? This is a fantasy. But it is a logical construct which is necessary for him to somehow equate the racism of the right with something similar, although imaginary, on the left.
We cannot deny that the left is anti-Israeli. As a left leaning Democrat I have always found this particularly frustrating and disturbing, because I support Israel, don't agree in the slightest with that leftist viewpoint and believe that these Democrats are not only wrong but misguided. However I also know that it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It has everything to do with them focusing on the plight of the Palestinians and completely ignoring the legitimate concerns of Israelis due to what they see as an imbalance of power. I completely disagree. We can argue about that point - but I know that the basis of that bias is not bigotry - it has nothing to do with Israelis being Jewish, it's simply a disagreement with Israeli policies. There is no equivalency. Maybe what Mr. Douthat is trying to say is that "there are fine people on both sides."
11
Those attacking the author's critique of the left are emulating the conservative defense of nationalism. Identification with or support for Farrakhan among some of leaders of the woman"s march reflects a willingness to look away from the blatant antisemitism he expresses. It is analogous to ignoring Donald Trump"s venality because the economy is thriving.
12
I thought Sean Hannity wrote this column. Ross, every single Republican president since Nixon permitted their consultants to use racist dog whistles. Racism, or at least toleration of racism, has been a staple of Republican electoral strategy since 1964 and remains so to this day.
By contrast, Democrats, like Republicans, have anti-Semites among the unelected fellow travelers. But, not even Sean Hannity could gin up an argument that Antisemitism has been a staple of the Democratic Party electoral strategy.
Given how different are the problems faced by each party, the solutions will not be similar. The GOP could start by not intentionally using racism as a central part of its electoral strategy. The Democrats, by contrast, should continue to not nominate Farrakhan or Corbyn, as their presidential candidate.
10
I read a lot of papers from American students in PHD who use french words because it gives them power ( it looks good ) but they don't understand the meaning and often even use it a contrario.One good exemple is a famous scholar and university professor who used several times in his books the phrase " Noblesse oblige " meaning that the ( French ) Nobility ( or the French in general, it is in their culture ) oblige others to succomb to their elitist desires and privileges. When " Noblesse oblige " means literally that being of the nobiuity obliges you to behave with dignity, compassion, justice ,etc...Privilege has its duties. Exactly the contrary. i could cite several other exemples of misuse of French linguistics in the English language. "En ventre sa mere ".
4
Semitic peoples include, or did include, people who consider themselves Jews, though there is no Jewish people because Judaism is a religion. Semitic peoples include these Afro-Asiastic language groups Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic. Ergo, "anti-Semitism" is not a term applicable to "Jews."
Now, xenophobia is xenophobia, applicable to and any person or people who express antipathy or enmity of others. It's time to stop trying to talk about "racism" and "anti-Semitism" as though the peoples who are popularly referred to as "Jews" are different from other ethnic groups and are different from other Semites. They are not!
3
Opposition to Israel's treatment of Palestinians isn't anti-Semitism, but Douthat is too shallow of a thinker to grasp the distinction.
8
You didn't print my comment so I'll try again. The real anti-Semites are on the right, as in the neo-Nazis who chanted "Jews will not replace us" at Charltottesville. Those of us on the left who criticize Israel's continued occupation and theft of Palestinian land are not anti-Semitic but anti-Zionist. A big difference. But right-wing apologists for Israel, along with Bibi Netanyahu and the pro-settler parties in his coalition, like to conflate the two so they can smear their critics and supporters of the BDS movement.
11
@Christy
Anti-Zionism as opposition to Netanyahu or the pro-settlement movement is not anti-Semitism. But he BDS movement is a vehicle for discrimination against millions of Jews, simply because they are Israelis, regardless of their views. The BDS movement goes beyond anti-Zionism, and qualifies as anti-Semitism.
11
The fact that so many commentators are so quick to dismiss the existence of anti-semitism is troubling.
Anti-semitism exists. On the Left and the Right. It is indoctrinated in children from a young age and is perpetuated and repeated on a daily basis from people of all stripes--even by other minority groups.
And it is definitely not a "false equivalence" to say that both anti-semitism and racism are wrong and both should be condemned. That is not false equivalence but rather what we call "moral consistency".
11
Oh, Ross and the rest of the right wing are in a desperate place lately and this is his latest broadside. Let's make Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite to smear him so he can't be elected PM. What's next Douthat? Will you start calling AOC an anti-Semite to try and gin up opposition to her or have you already done that I've just missed.
Look, the right wing has had a nice long run (over 40 years) and now the country and the world are in tatters with an insane man in the White House. Wealth and income inequality are making all of us poorer and more insecure and eventually there will be a reckoning. JC, Bernie Sanders and AOC are just the tip of the spear but make no mistake change is coming.
6
@lzolatrov: I have not heard anything anti-semitic from Ocasio-Cortez, so I reserve judgement on her. But her COLLEAGUE and buddy, Rashida Tlaib is an openly anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli politician who hide her Jew-hatred during her campaign but openly "came out" after being elected, and draping herself in the Palestinian flag and saying she would now be a VOICE for Palestinians. She also lied about supporting BDS.
3
Fascinating analysis, thank you. So Mr. Douthat is basically saying that most voters are sheep/lemmings without critical thinking skills, and given the right formula with the correct tweaking can be maneuvered into voting against their self interests?
Two other things:
First, he assumes that populism (read: "racism, xenophobia, jingoism") is the dominant thing for the foreseeable future in much of the world. That's a big leap, there are already signs it is waning in some parts.
Second, he comes very close to falling into the "false equivalency" trap ("the extreme left is equally as bad as the extreme right"). Fortunately, he doesn't quite go there completely. It's important to note that disapproving of the Israeli government of the Palestinians is not "anti-semitism" or even "anti-Zionism".
As well, as has been pointed out in a number of articles and OpEds in the Times, there's a growing schism between the parts of American Jewish community and the Israeli one. Are these Americans "anti-semitic"?
2
Talk about a false equivalency.
No examples exist of any recent Democratic candidates for any national office (or even any statewide office) making anti-Semitic comments or stoking anti-Jewish sentiment. The fact that Douthat had to go outside the U.S. to find an anti-Semitic example on the left is telling--no such examples exist in the U.S. or in elected Democrats.
Republican candidates and office holders, on the other hand, routinely make racist (and anti-Semitic) comments, before even getting to the essentially ubiquitous dog whistles coming from the right. To some extent the entire modern Republican party is built on the "Southern Strategy" and using race-baiting to drive turnout and encourage working class whites to vote against their economic interests to shore up an economic elite with tax cuts and deregulation.
Are there fringe viewpoints on the left that you can find if you look hard enough that say offensive things? Of course. But to try to pretend that there is any sort of equivalency is dishonest at best.
Actual conservatism is a legitimate political philosophy and a worthy voice in American political discourse. The current Republican party is not.
6
Are not both Palestinians and Jews Semites?
4
@Greg H.
Indeed. But the term "antisemitism" in common usage, has always be used in reference to people and policies that are hostile to Jews.
2
More and more of late do I hear the riposte of, “what about racism and antisemitism on the left?” Then, invariably the first example is that of Minister Farrakhan’s unrepentant anti-Semitic diatribes. Farrakhan says a lot of crazy things, however, he has positively, “touched,” many in the African American community. That is why he has acceptance in certain liberal circles, not for his antisemitism. Many arguments may be debated as to whether any embrace of this man is acceptable and they would all probably be valid. Further, he is no influencer in any party. Another canard, not mentioned in this article is the notion that liberals want to hold people of color down and that they basically take advantage of particularly African Americans lack of sophistication in terms of political comprehension. When we look at our electorate and see a 42% approval rating of Trump as POTUS, sophistication of those voters are clearly more questionable then most others.
The embrace and depth of racism and antisemitism on the right would be of the rock of Gibraltar opposite a canary on a seesaw and would truly take many more characters than I am allotted to even fairly broach this subject.
4
Since Douthat, as usual, isn't bringing up any worthwhile new ideas, or even attempting to make a critically reasoned argument:
How do we feel about Ted Cruz' new facial hair? Does it give Teddy the same "gravitas" as Ross' does?
5
Farrakhan Shmarrakan. Wasn’t he from the 1960s? Who even listens to this has-been about anything? I’m surprised to hear he’s still alive...that’s how relevant he and his opinions are to this liberal.
To me, the Women’s March is about women (and I don’t give a fig about whose definition of woman we follow.) It’s not about tiny religious groups with millennia of axes to grind, not about old irrelevant dudes trying to make everything about themselves. It’s not about drama-prone factions and their tedious philosophical hair splitting, or columnists hyperventilating about nothing. Most of us don’t care about any of these things. Fine if you do. Enjoy.
All I care about is showing a certain political party and people of a certain sensibility that we women will kick their hind quarters, take names, and take their political offices when they mess with us. That is all. The rest is noise and easily tuned out.
6
Are we supposed to think you're stuck in the middle?
That is not flying with anybody.
For every left-wing anti-Semite I've met -in NY and out of NY - there are at least 10,000 right-wing Anti-Semites.
You need to get out more, Ross.
15
Partisan equivocation aside... As a Jewish progressive, I would like to know why many of our Democratic leaders are so hesitant to broach the issue of Israeli foreign policy with a little common sense?
I know that this is an incredibly complex issue, fraught with historical and religious quandaries. But when did it become necessary to treat discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a zero-sum game; where any mention of sympathy for Palestinians is treated as anti-Zionist, and vice versa?
9
"Cordons sanitaires" - I like that. In fact I like that so much I could remind Ross that if the Republican Party had a slate of super delegates in their primary system, similar to what the Democrats had to deny Mr. Sanders their nomination - their Mr. Trump may never have happened. The party elders would never have supported him and their refusal would have come too late for Trump to have organized a third party.
1
An old Trump argument: both sides are wrong. Good timing to diffuse condemnation of Steve King, and at the same time excuse repression of Palestinians. Dishonest logic.
6
"a party reshaped by Ocasio-Cortezan energy.." !? Is Cortezan supposed to be pronounced the same as courtesan?
When you decide to make up words, give it some thought.
Ocasio-Cortezian, fine. "a party reshaped by Ocasio-Cortez's energy", equally fine. Cortezan? No no no. Unless you already did give it thought, in which case you should be fired.
8
There are 193 countries in the world today (including 50 Muslim-majority countries) the internal affairs of which are of marginal concern to Americans and Europeans....that is, with the exception of Israel. There is today an obsessive hysteria over anything and everything ‘Israel’....Israel’s duly elected government, their majority and minority citizenry, their laws, their right to self-defense, their economy, their immigration policies...and on and on, ad infinitum.
It’s astonishing. No other country in the world is scrutinized, censured, condemned, and denounced as is Israel...day in and day out...and not only by the media and left-leaning governments, but by individuals who’ve never set foot in Israel, who have no understanding of the facts, who know next to nothing about Israel’s history (both ancient and contemporary), and who rely on mendacious, ahistorical narratives to form the basis of their endless opinions.
Let’s call it what it is: Antisemitism
13
@Shenoa
When Russia invaded and illegally took possession of portions of Ukraine, it got international condemnation and sanctions.
When Iraq invaded and illegally took possession of portions of Kuwait, an international coalition rose up to fight it.
When Turkey sent armed forces into neighboring countries to repress minorities, the U.S. used its military its military to protect those being attacked.
These are just a few recent examples over the last few years. The list can go on and on. When you invade and occupy your neighbor's territory, and repress the population living there, the world tends to notice and respond.
So Israel seems to be getting treated better than average, not worse?
5
Please don't conflate anti-semitism with anti-zionism or even being anti Netanyahu.
7
The left thinks that they are impermeable to racism and hatred.
The left anti-Semitism proves this wrong.
9
@john In my experience the left believes that we all, if we are honest, find signs of racism and other stupid biases in ourselves, which we should try to overcome, especially if we are part of the majority (as opposed to members of an oppressed group). And I think that occasionally leftists forget this and are too quick to judge others. What's really troubling, however, is that the right often acts as if it sees no real problem with racism.
The decade I spent as one of the directors of a psychiatric hospital convinced me that the conspiratorial mentality and the inevitable blame its possessors inflict on others is not a disorder limited to one side of the political spectrum.
The treatment of the problem is the same both in the inpatient milieu and in society as a whole - deny the version of reality offered by the afflicted and exclude them from the larger community if they threaten its well-bring.
2
As a leftist, I agree with Ross that the left can't afford not to have an honest discussion about Israel. Unfortunately, It's almost impossible to do so in the current political climate. This is because any time a leftist offers up a critique of Israeli policy, they are instantly accused of being an anti-semite. As long as the pro-Israel contingent here in the US and in Israel proper insist on conflating criticism of the state of Israel with outright anti-semitism, there cannot be honest discourse.
I won't pretend that there is no anti-semitism on the left, and I think we can all agree that there is plenty on the right as well. But we all need to acknowledge the fact that when we equate fair critique of Israel with hate speech, no one wins. Israel and its allies will only alienate the rest of the world with this strategy,
10
Don't blame supporters of Israel for that conflation. A study in Europe found that people holding anti-Israel views were 13 times more likely to also hold anti-semitic views.
9
@Greg
Too often, what the left offers up is not criticism of a specific Israeli policy, action or leadership, but criticism that a Jewish state should exist at all. There is a difference.
6
"...since as you may have noticed Trump is still the President..."
Wot? Still President? I understood the bloke had retired and that Mr. Jared was sitting in the big chair....
Are you sure?
2
Conservatives like Douthat are assigning real power to the left. Don’t be fooled.
Yes, bigots will sneak into the exchanges, and an efficient political movement may have to “quarantine” them. But the power asymmetry between movements that back the Palestinians, or labor movements, or women’s rights, and those that serve the agenda of the rich and powerful, is huge.
All that the denizens of the right mindset can summon up to counter the left is fear. Fear of being verbally policed (horrors). Smears that any communal politics will bring on Soviet-style socialism.
We all need to police our own movements against demagoguery. But rest assured citizens that you are not threatened by the left. You can fill a cocktail napkin with all the number of people who’ve been injured or killed by antifas or socialists in America. It would take a notebook to make the list using the right.
The only critique the left deserves is one of hypocrisy, and that always happens when comfortable people try to take the side of the afflicted. It comes with the territory and does not belittle its cause.
3
I don't understand why Ross and others see anti-Semitism as only a Democrat problem. David Duke hates Jews; is he a Democrat? I know older evangelicals who LOVE Israel but still tell Jew jokes. Members of the far Right often complain about Jewish control of the media and Hollywood. So how do you explain this being a Left problem only?
6
@Richard horn
Correction: "Telling Jew jokes" is no more indicative of anti-Semitism as telling Polish jokes is indicative of anti-Polish feelings. Otherwise Jewish and Polish comics would be unemployable.
Get, or borrow, a life.
Pointing out ("complaining about" ?) the dominant presence of Jewish geniuses in the media and Hollywood is normally called reporting facts.
3
Zionism is a political movement that, when it is separated from all of the philosophical, quasi-historical, and emotional justifications (all political movements do this), is reduced to simple colonialism uniquely imposed to right wrongs committed against one group by imposing yet more wrongdoing on another. It is not anti-Semitism to oppose Zionism; rather it is just a recognition of the fact that most of the evil perpetrated on this world by mankind is because one group thinks it has a god-given right to take away another group's resources.
In typically verbose fashion this is just the same old Douthat trying to establish false equivalency between a political position that many hold in the Democratic party with the deep festering moral rot within his own.
6
This is the most reductive form of bothsidesism and what feels like another example of willful ignorance from a conservative trying to justify their own party's slide into alternative facts, racism, and authoritarian tendencies.
10
It's just downright delusional to think that anti-semitism is primarily a left-wing problem, Jeremy Corbyn's actions notwithstanding. Douthat's false equivalency here is palpable. Left-wing "extremists" want Israel to curtail activities that make a two-state peace plan impossible. Right wing extremists think cabals of Jews secretly control the world through control of international banking, and there's still an uncomfortably large number of right-wingers who think open racism and/or violence against Jews is the answer.
8
As long as Republicans need the votes of bigots, there will not be any sustained effort to evict them from the party. The infection of racism and anger has become so deep and pervasive that its coded into party policy and mantras. Take for example, "personal responsibility" - a stinging sound bite aimed at the brown people for "trying to mooch off government" instead of getting an education, a job, and to stop complaining.
(BTW, I cite this particular Republican mantra because of an irony in the party's obsession with voter suppression:
Stop obstructing our country's citizens from exercising their "personal responsibility" to vote. )
4
The influence of the argument here is out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, obviously. The importance is understanding that supporting Palestine does not make you an antisemitic. The conflict goes further than Jewish vs. Islam. Claiming that not being a supporter of Israel makes you an antisemite is only a method of Israel keeping up the argument whilst they continue to occupy land illegally. Fear mongering liberals into thinking they are hating upon people based on identity is desolating for those who are inflicted by it all.
3
As usual the left is bad as the right. We need to be in the center. Ocasio-Cortez is bad, because she wants to increase taxes on the rich. Corbyn is anti-Semitic, blah, blah, blah. Stop this nonsense.
2
No one would accuse Nazi Germany of being leftist. You are propagating a very dangerous lie accusing the left of being antisemitic. And there really is no difference between antisemitism and racism. I would like to remind you that the Inquisition was also about converting Muslims to Christianity. And Spain still struggles with antisemitism - it was a racist policy disguised as Christian morality. You may know how to write and this is how you got a job at New York Times, but that does not mean your column has merit. Louis Ferrakhan is not leftist - boy you got that one wrong.
5
If there is an prime example of dishonest false equivalency, this would be it. The only stark examples of anti-semitism are in fact coming from the same racists on the right Ross admits to. Remember Charleston? FYI, some of the leading anti-Zionists include American jews. As for "blurry", can you give us just one example?
4
Extreme reaction to Israeli policy is a Democrat problem, but the bigger ones are #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and political correctness. When you add up all of these movements they are detrimental to to the future of the Democrat party.
It will also help if Washington politicians are less beholden by AIPAC and powerful lobbies. Vehement disagreement with Israel doesn't make one Anti-Semite
Finally, Mr. Douthat should be the last person to lecture liberals on any issues. He is there not to help, but to justify Republicans' history of bigotry and selfishness.
1
What’s with slandering Michael Moore as an antisemite?
6
I don't think the torch-carrying fascists yelling "the jews will not replace us" were a product of the left. That's America's home-grown radical right wing and they're supporters of Trump. Every last one.
6
So: keep an eye on Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, and Ocasio-Cortez because they, through the guilt by association
argument that runs through this piece, are, or could be, maybe,
what, equatable with Anti-Semites? Things are scary enough
without a the pointed spraying of the sort of faulty syllogisms that underly the bigotries the writer of this piece bases his judgements on. Runaway, reckless, partisan, divisive pseudo logic.
5
Oh please, stop with the idiot false equivalence. The right-wing is at its core fundamentally racist, in its policies, in its expressions. And has been for decades. It's undying commitment to incessant voter suppression is one example. It's endless policies of discrimination against marginalized peoples is another. Meanwhile there are some anti-Semites around, but they have nothing to do with the Left, and no better than a trivial influence over its policies. To conflate the two as though they are equally problematic is an insult to one's intelligence. Shame on Mr. Douthat.
7
Resistance "grifters"? What a tool. What a joke.
One woman has ties to Farrakhan and you create this false equivalency with the Charlottesville crowd?
How do you sleep at night?
6
It is not racist to think that no religion or race of people are divinely entitled to certain plots of land. People of all races and religions should be welcomed as citizens in any nation.
4
Can anyone explain to me why Republicans are so obsessed with AOC? Bernie Sanders has been saying the same kinds of things for a long time and he's not the only one. So is it because she's young, pretty, female, or not white? Why is she the bogeyman?
8
I have met many anti-Semites. I have never met one in this country who did not identified with the Republican party. Here in the U.S. most racists and bigots who belong to a political party, belong to the GOP.
Ross managed to find a fringe group of people on the left who he believes are anti-Semitic. Of course, many of these people are, or are sympathetic to, Arabic people. Most Arabic people are Semitic.
I think that the Democratic party can deal with a small fringe group with tribalist tendencies. He needs to spend more time worrying about his party that's leadership openly endorses thee KKK and Neo-Nazis from their seats of power.
5
All the talk about conflating and none about evading. Everyone conveniently ignores the vile, venomous rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan that would be considered hate speech by any standard and gives a pass to the Democratic luminaries who cozy up to him for a photo op and refuse to denounce him. If you took his words and attributed them to anyone on the right, it would be front-page news all day, every day. With rare exceptions, no one in the MSM will denounce his enablers. How can you tacitly condone hate speech or turn a blind eye to Farrakhan's sympathizers on the the left and still call yourself a liberal?
7
Douthat is not trying to educate us, he is trying to undermine what he simple-mindedly calls 'the left.'
Very few people, including very few women, are anti-semitic in the way that Steve King and Donald Trump are racist.
So this is another case of false equivalency.
Donald Trump is a threat to the country and the world. Farrakhan is a nobody except to a very small number of people. (And, it goes without saying, Farrakhan is not a leader of the 'left.')
Douthat, please use your soapbox to try to straighten up the mess that is the 'right wing,' and stop trying to educate us about the evils of the 'left.'
7
Dear Mr. Douthat. So you think the Left's anti antisemitism is less of a problem than racism on the right? Really? Where were you during the 1930s and 1940s? Not to mention all throughout history? The rabid antisemitism in the Women's March movement is extremely disturbing to me, a woman. So much so that I will vote Republican in just about every election. Yours, ML
2
Hmm. Isn't the man who committed the Tree of Life massacre a right wing extremist? Douthat's disingenuousness is amazing at times.
8
@K. Norris: he was a nut, but he was also a virulent ANTI-TRUMP HATER. He was not a supporter of the President in any way. I think it is a mistake to look at mass shooters and try to politicize them; they are almost all mentally ill.
1
‘Zionism’ is simply the realization of the right to self-determination of a people...upon their own historic, indigenous ground.
‘Anti-Zionism’ is, indeed Antisemitism.
11
" Bigot " is a French word from the 3rd century the Gauls used to mock the Normands who constantly were saying : " By God ".
1
The vast majority of people who oppose the worst actions of the Netanyahu government are not anti-Semitic, no matter what right-wingers imagine. The evangelicals who support Israel because they want to see the area destroyed in Armageddon are far more likely to be anti-Semitic.
6
Ugh! More false equivalence.
As for accusing the "left" of anti-Semitism, that is almost entirely a carefully crafted myth. For example, English PR for the party of power have manufactured a false accusation against Jeremy Corbyn, which on closer examination breaks down.
The "left" people I know are the opposite of anti-Semite.
Accusing the tolerant of bigotry, and the compassionate of socialism, is an overworn credo of wealth and power, intended to preserve privilege.
The fact is, most people simply aren't getting their share, while the greedy gobblers at the top need justification for their inhumanity which in many cases crosses over into psychopathic territory.
Taking advantage requires a cover story. Encouraging the blaming of victims, racism, and exclusion is hardly Christian.
Those who call themselves Christians should study the Gospels and check their selfishness and hatred at the door.
3
Another distinction of the 'far-left' is that we are anti-war, unlike the 'middle' neocons and neoliberals. Reign us in, yes. Our economy relies on it, doesn't it?
1
Douthat's remarks about anti-Semitism are bizarre, its connection to the political left in the U.S. tenuous at best. We see much, much more of it on the other side, where the white nationalists and white supremacists reside (and check out the anti-Semitic tirades against Soros, Bloomberg, and Steyer by Wayne LaPierre and Oliver North, the CEO and president of the very pro-Republican Party NRA). Even with Corbyn, his main beef is with Israel's policies and actions regarding Palestine. He detests Israel's right-wing parties, the settlements, etc. That's a mile from traditional anti-Semitism, and in no way should be put on a par with the political right's genuine racism in the U.S. and elsewhere. This is not the first time Douthat, who is plenty smart enough to know better, has created a false equivalence as a premise for his argument.
6
@Greg Weis
"Even with Corbyn, his main beef is with Israel's policies and actions regarding Palestine."
Corbyn's actions, words and associations have led many to believe otherwise, including the vast majority of British Jews and many others. The Corbyn example should serve as a warning for the Democratic party.
1
An accurate analysis of data points is impossible if the data is subjected to too much normalization. Any alaysis becomes skewed and can literally make asymmetric data points symmetric and vice versa. Mr. Douthat’s opinion is too much normalization.
Assertions of potential bigotry and apparent paranoia on the left are compared to definite bigotry and politically sanctioned conservative media conspiracy theories on the right. False equivalence, Mr. Douthat.
Try as you must to equalize the bad and immoral and corrupt reflected in the conservative movement culminating in the election of a cruel, sadistic, malicious, vengeful President. The facts and evidence, though, cannot be skewed the way you want.
2
Wow, Mr. Douthat. Your op-ed is a breathtaking example of false-equivalence.
6
Do I understand you are implying that groups such as JVP (Jewish Voices for Peace) are included with the leftist anti-semites? I would rather see analysis from NYT of the votes for/against SB1. I believe that is the story to cover right now. There are good reasons why Israel deserves closer scrutiny. Do you consider all of the approvers of UN 2442 to be anti-semitic, also?
1
Yes, the left has had its problems with anti-Semitism all the way back to the 1960s. But these have been fringe sentiments represented by fringe figures like Farrakhan. The right's racism has been its mainstream appeal since LBJ signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and Richard Nixon leaped at the obvious opportunity to appeal to racism, which he called the Southern Strategy. It worked, too, so well that Ronald Reagan (who it's all the rage to extol as an example of bygone Republican decency) made an infamous campaign stop at Philadelphia, Mississippi near the site where four civil rights workers were murdered and said "I believe in states' rights." In short, anti-Semitism has been the left's nasty little vice, but racism has been worn by the GOP like a badge of honor, and it still is.
6
Douthat writes: "Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism...." That's right and that means that supporters of Israel shouldn't assume anti-Semitism every time someone criticizes Israel.
One can fairly ask whether theocratic tendencies for governance are compatible with democracy, regardless of whether those theocratic tendencies come from a Christian America, an Islamic republic, or a Jewish state. Theocratic governance inevitably favors the faithful over the non-believers.
For the sake of preserving democracy around the world, let's keep religion out of politics. I'm not convinced Israel is doing that.
3
OK Democrats, you're not allowed to ever criticize Israel, even as most American Jews disagree with Netanyahu, his fundamentalist supporters and his policies.
Understand?
Another straw man argument from the king of equivalency.
9
Ross, nice job of fomenting division on the left under cover of warning about it.
4
What does he see when he looks in the mirror?
1
This would all make so much sense, if only you ignore the alt-right, Christian militias, the Tea Party, and other right-wing cauldrons of deep, dangerous anti-Semitism. But catchy title, Ross!
8
Douthat gets one thing right: there is a growing disgust within the "liberal" camp for Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. The parade of pretexts for why it's appropriate for a nation like ours, founded on the ideals of freedom, justice and equality, to provide the bullets for enforcing the subjugation of the Palestinians is wearing a bit thin. After half a century of ghettoizing these people, and in the case of Gaza, the ghetto is a squalid prison camp, is it really anti-semitism to say, genug! (That's Yiddish for, enough!)
6
@Marek Edelman
Just came back from Israel.Never want to live there too many things i don't like.Israelis want peace very little anger at Palestinians Gaza would not be a ghetto if people there would accept the right of Jews to live in peace.Great many of the people who talk about rights of Palestinians hoping to destroy Israel.Jews are driven out of France by anti-semitic French citizens.I wish Israel was there in the 1940's maybe my family would have survived.L'Hayim (that's to life in Yiddish)
2
Anti-Zionism is anti-semitism. Neither is the same as being vehimently opposed to Netenyahoo & his government, which is shared by many Jews. Anti Zionism is identical to opposition to the right of the Jews to have their own country, as opposed to being shuttled from country to country at the whim of others, making anti-semitism inevitable.
9
“...a party reshaped by OCASIO-CORTEZAN energy” My God, Douthat! I thought you were better than this, but I was wrong. Shame.
9
“Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick, and the Israel debate is the place where rhetorical poison seems most likely to infect left-wing politics”
Let’s be blunt. Nobody in the mainstream ever turns this around and points out that our unwavering support of Israel blurs into anti Palestinian racism. In fact, any discussion of Israeli human rights violations almost invariably turns into a discussion of how far one can go in criticism of Israel before it becomes antisemitic. So Palestinians are oppressed by Israel, we support the Israelis, and yet one never hears anyone ask about whether we do this because subconsciously we don’t think Palestinians have basic human rights. They simply don’t matter that much.
5
No mention of the BDS movement...It's not just percolating, it's already boiling over in the blue states. Antifa, Black Lives Matters, Occupy Now and MeToo# are all social justice movements on the Left that are tearing us apart.
White supremacism has been, and should continue to be ostracized. The major push, it seems to me, has been coming from the other side for the last decade. When do we draw a cordone sanitare around all that--and still keep the best of what these (now hard) left movements offer? That's the real question.
4
@Kingston Cole A "cordon sanitaire " does no go around but from one safe place to an endangered one.
Please if you use a foreign word, know what it means.
When the umbilical cordon goes around a baby that is a vital danger.
@JPH
Definition of cordon sanitaire:
A protective barrier (as of buffer states) against a potentially aggressive nation or a dangerous influence (such as an ideology)
First Known Use of cordon sanitaire in the meaning defined above, 1920
History and Etymology for cordon sanitaire:
Borrowed from French, literally, "sanitary cordon," originally in reference to a line of military posts or other barriers enclosing a community stricken by an infectious disease.
@Jack be Quick You are wrong. A cordon sanitaire is a French word . It means a ';conduit " by which both parties in a war agree to create a conduit by which injured people can be evacuated and food and "sanitary " supplies can be delivered the other way to innocent civilian trapped . Same meaning as "cordon ombilical ".Please if you want to use French words know their meaning.
A cordon is by no way a barrier .
Thanks for your false equivalency. Wanting arab-israelis to have the same rights as jewish israelis is not anti-semetic. Try again.
4
@Rob: if you mean "Arab citizens of Israel"….they absolutely have every right of any citizen of Israel, including the right to vote, own property, conduct business, run for public office, serve in the Israeli military and so on.
20% of the population of Israel is Arabic, mostly Muslims but some Arab Christians.
These are the Arabs that accept the State of Israel and leave there peacefully.
Israel also has Christians, other Muslim sects and a major Ba'hai community in Haifa. All living peacefully with one another.
Your statement is factually incorrect.
3
Racists on the right, Anti-Semites on both sides but a lot more violent on the right. There, fixed your headline for you.
4
Mr. Douthat seems to have forgotten the great amount of anti-semitism on the Right.
6
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick"
That is your opinion. Perhaps it is based upon your experience with other conservatives. I have not personally run into any Liberals who were unable to grasp their mind around the concept that Judaism and people who subscribe to the Jewish faith are not equivalent to Israel and its policies.
It is possible that you confuse sympathies towards Palestinians with anti-Semitism. However, having concern for Palestinians does not preclude having concerns for Jews. It is possible to want each side to have a fair outcome; and acknowledge that defining "fair" is hard to do.
I think you are missing the part your party plays in adding to the chaos by framing everything as a black or white situation. There are many shades of gray along the spectrum, and there is no easy solution. Once you accept this you can actually start to have meaningful debate.
2
The antisemitism (disguised by anti-zionism) of the liberal left is deep-rooted and surfaced in reaction to Trump's perceived pro-Israel stance.
The shame is not in opposing Trump with passion, but following the likes of Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, Spike Lee and now Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is what turns me totally off the liberal left. There are many reasons to be suspicious of the extremes in the Republican Party, but if Democrats do not distance themselves of their own extremes, they have no chance in 2020.
There also is much justified criticism of Trump and justified doubt of his competence as President, but when it comes to racism I fear the liberal left way more than Trump.
5
@Harry
You haven't been paying attention, Harry. The vast number of racists in this country are old white Republican men. Left-wing racists are straw men put up by them. trump is defined by his racism. If you fear racism, you'd fear that. If you fear non-whites, then you're Trump's boy.
5
@wcdevins
Disagree. While the republican party harbors many bigots, there are also many bigots on the left, and we should condemn them just as we condemn Trump.
3
@Little Donnie
Disagree all you want, Little Donnie, it doesn't make it so. Big Donnie and the GOP have been weaponizing bigotry for decades. That is where the problem lies - in the systemic, deliberate bigotry of the conservative right.
4
my progressive friends are quick to rant about racism on the right, but ignore anti-semites on the left, almost completely. Intellectual honesty is lacking, in some circle.
9
I don't think what you're describing on the left is antisemitism as it's traditionally defined or thought of, which contains a subhuman/inferior race perspective. Rather it's an age old prejudice leveled at many groups who do well, reinforced by the perception,usually false, that it's on someone else's back.
1
This false equivalency presented here is even beyond what I thought Mr. Douthat could create.
5
Articles like this make it crystal clear that the right has no real interest in cleaning up bigotry in their ranks. The immediate attempt to equate actual racist politicians who the Republican party supported and allow to form policy (and, you know, be elected to the presidency) with "left" movements and fringe characters like Farrakhan is whataboutism at its worse - and an obvious attempt to take the spotlight off of the deeply rooted racism at the heart of the Republican party.
This racism goes even deeper than Donald Trump and Steve King. It is sewn into your political ideology, your political messaging, your gerrymandering, your voter suppression. This is not coming from some outsider element, it is coming from the party that currently controls the White House, the Senate, and (for all intents and purposes) the Supreme Court. To compare that threat with a fringe figure with no influence on the Democratic party and a few ostensible leaders of a wide and varied social justice movement is simply insulting to our intelligence.
Good try, Mr. Douthat. But maybe you should spend a little more time examining why your ideological side is so quick to avoid self-reflection in this area.
4
Oh boy. False equivalence on steroids.
6
Are you accusing Michael Moore of anti-semitism? Or of trafficking in nut-ball conspiracy theories? Some examples please.
3
It is very hard to take Ross' critiques of political strategy seriously when he produces such an intellectually lazy and inflammatory article. This click-bait feels like a convoluted justification for his own behavior over the years, which has not been critical or leery of hate groups that were clearly developing in the GOP. Its easy to use Trump and Steve Smith as scapegoats now that right realizes the racist, hateful dog they've been whistling to all these years is off the leash.
To point to the left and exclaim antisemitism is mind boggling. Ross, "Jews Will Not Replace" was literally a rallying cry of white, right wingers in Charlottesville, not the left wing counterprotesters. These neo-nazis didn’t just materialize out of thin air post 2016 election. If it scares you how similar they are to you visually and politically, then maybe its time for some repenting rather propagating the “Both sides do it!” excuse. While you may call out bigotry from the right/Trump now and then, this piece is a reminder that at the end of the day you are willing to add to the misinformation that’s out there in order to get clicks and abdicate yourself of moral responsibility.
4
This is a bad take Ross.
1
There’s little difference between the Left and the Right when it comes to Antisemitism....they’re equally despicable. This time around, however, the Antisemitism of the Left...who march behind the mendacious flag of ‘anti-Zionism’ and cheerlead on behalf of Palestinian terrorists.... is more insidious and dangerous.
And yes, even Leftist Jews can be guilty of Antisemitism.
7
Strange argument given that the Nazi propaganda in on the right side of the spectrum and criticism of right wing Israeli policies are on the left.
1
I admit that I don't hang on the guy's every word, but when did Micheal Moore get thrown in with the Anti-Semites?
2
I would have preferred that a column describing today's ideologies have this (longer) headline, which I think more accurately sums up today's situation:
"On the right, a few bad apples, one of whom was elected president, have spoiled the bunch; on the left, there are bad some apples, but it is still an ideology of tolerance, which could be their problem, disturbingly enough."
1
The impossible pill to swallow is that American Jews are Jewish in name only.
Ironically I've been told hundreds of times, by orthodox in Israel and supremely liberal Jews in Brooklyn, that I'm not "actually" Jewish because my mother is Christian. My bar mitzvah and confirmation mean nothing since I can never wash away that original sin
(Even after going to a Mikvah! The irony...)
Every leftist, especially including Jews, who say that anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism are effectively saying that Judaism is only acceptable when it is cowed, weakened and un-threatening.
I'm not even going to get into the fact that 70% of the Torah and 100% of the Nevi'im are written about the land of Israel.
Our religion is literally built on a blood and soil paean to the land of Israel.
Maybe I'll never be Jewish enough for some people, but I'm clear-eyed in understanding that you simply can not have Judaism without Israel.
We spent 1800 years hoping and praying for it back, now that we have it Jews are just going to let their raison d'etre not be defended because the American bourgeoisie finds it distasteful? Please.
13
Your generalizations about extremism "crackpots" on both sides is simply an extension of the core principals of both parties. When Republicans dwell in "alternate facts", science denial and propaganda that isn't challenged by the core & add to that absent oversight of Trump - Democrats embrace realism that is rejected by the GOP. This glaring difference in Democrats leaning toward science and factual debate don't promote an environment that is more accepting of "crack pots".
It's not perfect but it's more thoughtful and more inclusive.
5
Re: "Without wishing liberalism well, I also hope it doesn’t come to that."
This pathetic statement by Mr. Douthat summarizes what's most wrong with America today: The notion that politics is all about contest -- about "winning," and that for some to "win," others must "lose." This indicates a disturbing lack of respect and appreciation for America's founding principles.
It's the nature of politics to create social tensions, especially in a pluralistic society like ours. That's why we should ALL wish both liberalism AND conservatism well, always. With a healthy Left and a healthy Right, many excesses on both sides are reined in, and tensions play out mostly in the "Middle." This dynamic favors and strengthens democracy. It's made America prosperous and powerful.
Mr. Douthat's implied wish for a less-healthy Left probably is based on the assumption that a less-healthy Left means a healthier Right. But if that's his thinking, he's dead wrong. Without a healthy Left, what's to keep us in the Middle? NOTHING, and we can expect a new, shifted political dynamic that plays out somewhere between Right and Fascism. Does Mr. Douthat think that sparring with fascists would be preferable to sparring with liberals?
I'm a liberal and a Democrat. I wish conservatism and the Republican Party WELL.
2
@RR
In re: your last sentence. You are truly an outlier.
Not sure "flirtations" with white supremacy is quite the right phrase to describe Steve King. I believe he is in full-on embrace of white supremacy.
5
So there is no difference between anti-Zionism & anti-Semitic ? Come on Ross,your education is better than that. Plus you love using words like right & left, but not reactionary? The problem with Isreal is it is not a democracy. No one can call it a democracy . At best it is the separate but not equal. So in American terms , citizenry is based on a religion. So Isreal is mired in history somewhere around the Inquisition. It lacks freedom of religion, promotes suppression of freedom of speech of non-Jews, & is promoting territorial expansionism. Isreal is on its way to becoming Germany in the year 1936. This is criticism of Isreal. This criticism of Isreal has been going on in the US since 1948. Over 14,000 American Rabbi's in 1948 criticized Isreal for its exclusionary constitution . They understood that if all people are not free ,that being exclusionary just supports the prejudice that culminated in the Holocaust ,would just repeat itself. Prejudice is stronger than any weapon. It is the reason we have weapons. Doesn't matter whether there is a right or left ,that you so focus on . You should focus more on the 7 deadly sins (I assume you are familiar with ), than things that act as a wedge. You fear socialism too much. Socialism is simply finding commonalities among people in the broadest sense. We again are at the cusp of survival.
4
I'll keep this short. Democrats and "liberals" taking advice from Ross Douthat is a mistake we mustn't make. For him to comment about how & what the Democrats and the left is or should be doing is a joke. Better he take his Republican cronies to task for allowing the rise of Fox News (Limbaugh, Coulter & Ingraham, among others) to become the publicity arm of the party. That's where his focus should be. If Ross knew anything about the Democrats he would understand why there is no Jeremy Corbyn in the party. We do not tolerate that type of behavior from our leaders. And to be fooled by the sudden after election admonishment of Steve King is a mistake. We must be very wary of Republicans who now say, "Look at us. Ain't no racists here." Sorry. I guess i didn't keep as short as i said i would.
6
What? Did Farrakhan organize Occupy? Was he Bernie's campaign adviser? Did he start Indivisible? The protests at the airports? Was the Green New Deal his idea? Protection for transgender individuals (i'm guessing not)? Has he even read the Women's March Principles over which he gets mentioned? I'd be surprised.
3
There's a huge difference between the GOP's supine fealty to the leader of the Republican party, a man currently sitting in the White House, and the Democratic party's relationship to the "eccentric leadership" of the Women's March.
4
It is demanded of anyone running for any office to keep repeating "BLM," and never but never adding "and other lives matter, too." Else, they will be libeled for life as ...
If that is not racism, tell us: What is?
6
Repeat after me, Mr Douthat:
Anti-Zionism is NOT anti-Semitism.
Anti-Zionism is NOT anti-Semitism.
Anti-Zionism is NOT anti-Semitism.
5
@Sholom
Anti-Zionism most certainly IS Antisemitism.
Anti-Zionism most certainly IS Antisemitism.
Anti-Zionism most certainly IS Antisemitism.
7
@Sholom
If you work to destroy Israel you are.Think about it Shalom
7
Look at Israel's latest new highway with a wall separating Palestinians from settlers in yet another land grab. It is an apartheid highway. Being for the rights of all people, including Palestinians is not anti-Semitic. Trying to slur those who seek equality for everyone is a tactic that is getting old and will not cover up wrongs.
7
"I say “mostly” because the shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton did create a power vacuum in which more crankish figures — from various Resistance grifters to the Women’s March’s Farrakhan–friendly organizers — have gained prominence. But still, nothing like the prominence now enjoyed by grifters on the right.
Hmmm....Hillary Clinton won the popular vote...Trump is president because of the electoral college...not what I'd call a shocking defeat.
7
President Trump thinks White Supremacists are some "Very fine people." So don't forget about Anti-Semites on the right.
2
Anti-semitism on the left????
"Jews will not replace us" was not chanted by Women's Marchers in Charlottesville.
9
Is Douthat insinuating that Michael Moore is an anti-Semite? Where's the evidence?
Corbyn, of course; Farrakhan, of course; Tamika Mallory, of course. But I've always thought of Moore as philo-Semitic.
4
Calling opposition to the aggression of Israeli acquisitive militarism anti-Semitic is an outright lie. The racist right encompasses Israeli nationalists, members of the All-Ukrainian Union, and American neoconservatives and neoliberals. Using lies to describe advocates for oppressed people like the Palestinians enables demagogues to appeal to the native instincts of nationalists in every country, including the US.
3
One thing I’ll agree with, I’m tired of anti-semitism from the right and left, but Jews have been scapegoated for thousands of years so why stop now? On the right, when you either openly hate Jews, or you support Israel only because it fulfills your prophesy and brings you closer to the”end days” you’re only supporting Jews as a means to an end for yourself. This destroys my soul. On the left, when you vilify Israel and don’t support the right for a Jewish state to exist and call it an Apartheid state you tear my heart out. I have relatives in Israel and I’m concerned about their well being. I also know that as a Jew I would always have a place in Israel when the next holocaust comes. So, no, pardon me for not trusting in the right or left to ensure the safety of Israel and the Jewish people.
7
Steve King has been in Congress for 15 years. Al Sharpton and Michael Moore have a combined zero years in congress.
5
Why is everybody just accepting populism as the inevitable wave of the future all of the sudden? I understand that there are some good reasons why an alien observing our species might predict that, but doesn't the term as it's used here imply a certain suspension of populace's disbelief for the sake of a figurehead? If millions of people are reading your work, why not reinforce the importance of critical thinking and honesty and integrity in both politicians and the populace?
It's like we're consciously accepting that from here on out we're going to be easily persuaded...?
The Democrats are already vulnerable to paranoias of the center, like the obsessive fixation on Vladimir Putin’s puppeteering whenever populism wins another victory --
Mr. Douthat, do you truly not understand that weakening the EU and the dismantlement of NATO are the greatest dreams of KGB officer and President Vladimir Putin? So it doesn't bother you at all after top-secret meetings with that fine KGB officer, our fine president increasingly advocates the dissolution of NATO? Mere coincidence? Sure.
3
Ross, your colleague David Brooks, just wrote about the dangers of adopting binary thinking in which people are categorized as good or evil, and giving random people the power to destroy lives without any process. I would love to see him and others who share his political bent apply that to people like Louis Farrakhan (I'm not even sure why Michael Moore is even mentioned) - not to condone any anti-semitism on his part, but to understand why there are other parts of his broader message that people find appealing, and not to simply condemn by association.
My observation is that many people have a zero tolerance policy for objectionable views from their enemies, considerably more to objectionable views from their friends.
I find it embarrassing and shameful to witness Israel's right-wing gov't cravenly aligning itself with an amoral and corrupt President, simply because they can take advantage of his lack of interest in human rights, indifference to the plight of refugees, and dislike of muslims.
It is even more outrageous when you consider that his America first, business interests before democratic values policy, coupled with his clear preference for Nordic looking people were all features of the anti-semitic, Nazi-sympathetic thinking in Hitler era. I think it is no great stretch to say that Donald Trump, had he been alive in that era, would have admired Hitler's Germany, much as he admires other dictators today.
4
The election of Hillary Clinton might have in fact broken the "cordon sanitaire."
As for the Women's March, it was problematic from the beginning when the decision was made to prominently feature a male rapist masquerading as a woman. But I question whether comments made by organizers in private are relevant, and I definitely don't think their "ties" to Farrakhan are relevant because that's guilt by association and had nothing to do with the March.
3
If the Democratic Party were a coherent organization, this debate might make sense. Instead, we have "the left," a term so slippery that almost anything can be attached to it. Given human nature's affinity for focusing on stories of individual humans rather than statistics, we can expect "the left" to be associated with various outliers forever. Since the problem will never be fixed, it's not worth spending a lot of effort trying to fix it. For each faction of "the left," just make your opposition to anti-Semitism known and move on.
2
Sorry Ross, was it “fringe” liberals who infamously chanted, “Jews will not replace us”?
This is a fine piece of whataboutism.
10
@Ludwig Van What an ironic comment!
Whataboutism is understood to refer to the act of deflecting a criticism by saying "others are bad too".
Douthat isn't doing that at all. He's saying liberals actually have an anti-semitism problem.
What's ironic is that your comment itself constitutes full fledged "whataboutism".
You are essentially saying "ignore liberal anti-semitism because far right wing conservatives are anti-semitic too".
3
At least in this country, I just do not get the sense that antisemitism is a problem on the same scale as racism on the right. And to suggest that the right is free of antisemitism is also absurd.
Once again, we see the press straining the limits of credulity to appear objective. Instead we end up with false equivalency i.e. "both sides do it."
No!
Racism and antisemitism pervades the modern GOP. Steve King is just the idiot who is too dumb to stick with the tried and true dog-whistle of the GOP.
To get a sense of how infected the GOP is with racist ideology, one need look no further than the actual policies it is putting in place:
(1) immigrant ban
(2) voter suppression of minorities
(3) citizenship questions on the census to intimidate.
It extends all the way down to the state and local level.
The trivial actions taken against Steve King are the equivalent of sticking a finger in the dyke to hold back the flood.
Trump very well may be the GOP's best hope for reform - Trump appears to be on a course to destroy the GOP so that the GOP can be saved.
There are many good people in the GOP but with every day that passes without those good people standing up against Trump, they lose credibility. We need a healthy and viable GOP in this country as a counterweight. We do not need Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter, dictating fringe policies from the far right.
7
False equivalence. A few misguided comments about Jews cannot be equated with the full-on racism of the right wing. If Douthat really wants to see anti-semitism, he should show up at a Trump rally. Ask the people there about Jews and step back as the stream of anti-semitic comments come spewing out.
Notice also that the misguided comments about Jews were immediately and vigorously denounced by just about everyone on the left. You cannot say the same about the racism (including anti-semitism) on the right. There, the embers of racism are always kept going by right-wing radio and Fox News, just waiting to flare up around election time.
I know Douthat is grasping to keep the "both sides do it" fig leaf in place. Ross, you can be better than this.
10
Feels a little whataboutism to me. The actions of a seated GOP politician are not equal to leaders of the Women's March "ties to Louis Farrakhan." Yes, the author is indeed equating the actions of a US elected official to some civilian leaders of one group's ties to another civilian.
The Women's March is one splinter of the Left (who do not and *should not* speak for the entire Left). Steve King is a seated Iowa Congressman in the American House of Representatives, who officially represents his constituents and our country. There's a big difference.
5
Fascinating how in Ross World, anti-Semitism is an affliction of "the Left." Really? When my dad, first in his chemistry Ph.D. class, started looking for jobs in the 1950's, most major chemicals companies wouldn't hire him because his last name "sounded Jewish." There weren't a lot of Democratic CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in those days. Just sayin'.
In Ross World, Jews and politically-conservative Catholics have apparently always been friends, right back to the Inquisition. But then there's the real world. The "Alt Right" world, where anti-Semitism is an article of faith.
Minor oversight?
8
@alexander hamilton And which newspaper regularly published classified job ads with the proviso, "Christian wanted." And which newspaper's Jewish publisher deliberately buried the story about the Holocaust in the 1940's? And subsequently apologized for it. The left's criticism of Israel is frequently so inaccurate and so one-sided that I suspect that it may not simply be based on sympathy for the oppressed. We Jews are delusional if we think that bigotry resides in only one spot on the political spectrum.
5
Warren and others like to include talk in their stump speeches about how the "system is fixed". There is a group on the left who hears that and assumes you mean that a cabal of Jewish bankers makes all of the important decisions in the world, controls the economy, and hopes to re-enslave black people in some versions of the conspiracy. If you talk about how "the system is fixed" rather than talk about specific laws and specific circumstances, you are feeding those conspiracy theories. Those are code words and dog whistles to the radical left as much as when Trump talks about "those people"; the far right doesn't need to be told he means non-whites. Pandering to conspiracy theorists gets attention and primary votes. It is up to the party to loudly tell our candidates that this behavior is not acceptable. Let's start with eliminating vague references to "fixed systems".
3
I'm very troubled by the headline here - "Racists to the Right, Anti-Semites to the Left" - which Mr. Douthat may or may not have come up with himself. First of all, it sets up a kind of equivalency that bears little relationship to reality. Secondly, it seems to locate all antisemitism on the Left, which is a highly irresponsible notion to put forward.
I've lived for almost 30 years on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and during that time I've been privy to - and a participant in - quite a few conversations about Israel. (I've also made a couple of films about the Holocaust in particular and antisemitism in general that have been very well received by leaders of the Jewish community.)
In this neighborhood, the vast majority of Jews are liberal. When the subject of Israel comes up, sometimes so too does the subject of Palestine. It's true that Upper West Side Jews are often quite critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, even while being adamant about Israel's right to its existence as a Jewish state.
This kind of talk repeatedly gets branded as "antisemitic" by professional pundits on the Right. This is the most grotesque kind of distortion, akin to charging any American who is a vocal critic of certain of our government's policies with being anti-patriotic or a Commie (or a Socialist, Mr. Douthat).
Consider the thugs in Charlottesville chanting "Jews-Will Not-Replace Us!" They are the real and present antisemites, and they live and breathe fire on the Right.
12
This column is a new high water mark for disingenuous argument. The Women's March is not equivalent to a Democratic party apparatus. It neither sets policy nor policy agendas. Trying to equate the importance of a grassroots group to an incumbent Congressman long supported by the caucus is absurd. For that matter, who in the GOP abandoned Roy Moore? He lost by a little over 20,000 votes, slightly less than the margin of write-ins. Mr. Douthat's claim that this would be "partial" abandonment is semantic nonsense. It was also grotesque to tar AOC with the theoretical "paranoias and bigotries" that "may appear" in the Democratic party were the far left to gain more power. The weasel language of the sentence provides enough air cover for Mr. Douthat to deny that implication, but the reader understands his meaning. I feel sympathetic embarrassment for you, sir. Please aspire to a higher standard.
5
The important lesson here that Ross seems to miss is that Liberals are prepared to tackle their problems despite the political cost. Remember how they kicked Senator Franken to the curb? They are tackling problems as they happen. Republicans on the other hand ignored Steve King's open racism for 14 years and only slapped him on the wrists once the election was over and there was zero consequences to them for doing so.
This is the false equivalence of the Ross Douthat's of the world. Do not be suckered by it.
6
The sins of the left go far beyond Farrakhan's anti-semitism; he is an unabashed racist.
But if we define racism as a willingness to visit blatant racial discrimination on individuals, is that not express leftist policy? We see it at Harvard; we see it in NYC schools. Indeed, we see it anywhere where people obsess about "diversity" and care more about the composition of the group than they do about individual rights or individual merit.
Heck, a Hollywood type stands up and promises to expressly discriminate on the basis of sex, and she's cheered on the left!!
The "cordons sanitaires" should abide by simple rules: NO consideration of group will be (generally) considered acceptable, except for things like rest room signs related to sex. NO official consideration of irrelevant considerations. And those who advocate for same -- say, by running for office expressly on the basis of ethnicity or sex -- should be reviled and shunned.
Put simply, the very concept of a "women's march" should be inherently suspect, as it is openly sexist. And the standards need to be the same for everyone; if King is reviled for "white nationalism", that has to apply with equal force to people who advocate for the same thing for other races.
The left is all about "paranoias and bigotries"; see e.g. "privilege". Would AOC be even a political footnote but for her sex and ethnicity, as she's utterly unqualified for the job?
As long as the left obsesses over group, the problem will persist.
8
For crying out loud...must I read another case of bothsideism! Douthat, hard as you may try there is absolutely no comparison between the right and the left in terms of racism, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism to name a few.
There is a critical mass in this country of 25 to 30 percent who are afraid of change and people who look different. These folks cling to their bibles, guns, and anti scientific thinking. They think the Marlboro Man was real and that global warming is a hoax.
If you think people who object to Israel's recent declaration of being a Jewish state is anti-semetic then I guess we see the world completely different.
Who takes Farrakhan seriously? And no doubt AL Sharpton has made mistakes in the past for which he has apologized. But, your party is a serious virus for the rest of humankind and needs to be defeated. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me one conservative policy that has helped the world? Just one...waiting...still waiting. No one can because there isn't one.
And before you say capitalism re read the Wealth of Nations and you will find that Smith was far removed from conservatism.
So, please enough already with the comparisons between left and right. There aren't any.
7
@b When did Sharpton apologize for Tawana and to those police who lives were forever changed? Citation please.
3
@greatnfi
Tawana Brawley apparently lied to him and he believed her. He got bad intel and acted on it. Sort of like George W Bush. Once W apologizes for taking us into war on false pretenses, I'll start worrying about Sharpton.
2
Enough with the constant straining to look for false equivalencies. The issue with the Women’s March is being addressed, but the right has done nothing to rein in their bigots. The only reason Mitt and others are shocked-shocked!- to learn that Steve King is a hate-filled bigot is because the newly-in-charge House Dems were going to move to censure him so the GOP figured they better try to get ahead of it. Trump has said far worse and his words have had much greater impact than King’s, but don’t hold your breath waiting to hear anyone denouncing him. And as I write this, there are stories that Mother Pence is working for a school which discriminated against all gay, bi and trans people.
Stop kidding yourself Ross. Since the southern strategy, the GOP has been home to racists of all variety. And, for the people who vote for them including you, this is not a deal-breaker.
5
The bigger picture is that we in the U.S. live under an increasingly fascist government since Citizens United. And, as Victor Klemperer and many others have observed, Zionism is fascism. Fascism subsumes freedom of expression, but in the U.S. under Trump climate change, chemical pollution and environmental risks in general are ignored and denigrated in the interests of the corporate state. Netanyahu, like Trump, holds on to power, as all fascists have, by constantly stoking fear of "the other."
We fought the fascists in Germany and Italy in WWII, but fascism only grew in the U.S. since then, while our corporate government insisted the real threat was communism. Our real focus must be on maintaining the freedom to dissent through a free and open media, and to recognize the threat of media controlled by corporate interests.
1
Everything French is usable and disposable at will.
1
False equivalence. Also Farakhan is as right wing as you can get (bowtie, extreme religiosity, and bowtie are clues here), except for his skin color.
But hey, nice try at tarring both sides with same brush. Do the Spanish Inquisition next, please! Or Galileo, I bet he was asking for it.
4
On the one hand this, and on the other hand that?
Yeah right.
To Mr. Douthat, the republicans running toward Trump because he represents their core value of ensuring ethnic supremacy, and democrats running away from an effete march with people who are likely antisemitic, seem exactly the same. And he wisely cautions us, and tut tuts, in the worst form of school-marmery. This shameful article should be called out and the author rubbished.
For it is not pure, unmitigated nihilism of republicans that will destroy this great republic; because they must have ethnic nationalism or else.
It is the false equivalence from prophets with zero skin in the game who will bring about our doom. Thank you for taking a giant step in that direct Mr. Douthat. And what I mean is, thanks for nothing.
2
Re: "....even as the United States has already elected a birther to the presidency."
Euphemisms are unacceptable, Mr. Douthat. The United States elected a RACIST to the presidency.
3
I enjoy Ross Douthat writings, but sometimes I feel he goes a bit far in being a bit "even" in blaming the left when attacking the right. Anti Semitics populate the right FAR more than the left. That is one reason I left the Republican and Libertarian parties.
The left tends to isolate and contain anti Semites in its ranks, from what I have seen, while the right gives seems to elevate them to power within the ranks. Best to attack the overt threat of the right as their failure to clean the party of evil has resulted in an overt racist attaining the Oval office.
2
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick, . . " As the father of a Jewish daughter and son-in-law who leans left, I take this personally. The author does the blurring in his article somehow, for example, forgetting about the "white" supremacist right. Is he intellectually lazy or intentionally blurring a crucial distinction in an important debate. Surely we readers deserve better.
As for a"return to socialism," socialism is another undefined term tossed out as a curse. What does the author include in this term? Social security? Medical care for all? A progressive tax code that seeks to cover national expenditures and cover our debts? I'm all ears.
I am sad that the Women's march has split and lost support. Arguing in the abstract about who is more disadvantaged is an energy-sapping exercise that can, if not managed, lead to self-destruction.
371
@Andrew Seager There's a big difference between "arguing in the abstract about who is more disadvantaged", which is an odd motive to attribute to the women of mixed ethnicities and religious backgrounds who decided to participate in a Women's March geared to representing all women, and taking a stand on behalf of truth, justice and liberty - which were supposed to be the ideals of the March in the first place - when clear instances of bigotry against your own community surface. We should never confuse fighting racism with racism, and some of the apologists for the anti-semitic words and actions of some members of the Women's March have come dangerously close to doing this. Taking a stand on behalf of what is right will always be unpopular with some. Good; that means it's doing just the job it should - the job the Women's March should have set out to do: standing up for those who need it in as brave and principled a way as possible, without self-righteousness, but without, too, the moral confusion that mistakes setting appropriate boundaries for an act of aggression.
19
@Andrew Seager I am not sure that most of the practitioners of the aforementioned racist actions and speech generally make as fine a distinction as you are trying to make. While there is a legitimate use of the term Anti-Zionism, it is mostly use as a dog whistle for Antisemitism in polite conversation. It is a lot lot racists not wanting to use the "N" word, but finding other ways to say the same thing.
21
@LaughingBuddah Yes! Exactly - thank you!
8
Douthat is repeating the lie of the Christian right: that to criticize Israel's abuse of Palestine is to be anti-semitic. No, it is not. To criticize the current Israeli administration's practices and policies toward Palestinians is to be anti-authoritarian, and pro-human rights.
1
@Joanne Butler And of course the Palestinians sending missiles into Israel and calling for its destruction is not anti Semitic, just anti Zionist. Yea, sure.
6
@greatnfi
Maybe if your land had been taken from you you'd empathize a bit more. A religious democracy is an oxymoron. In trying to preserve their religious state Israel will cease to be a democracy. Under Bibi it is already happening. Under Trump it is happening here. Without American money Israel collapses tomorrow, so I'd be careful who I insult if you want Israel to continue.
@wcdevins
The Jews are an ethnic group who have the right to self-determinism in their state established by UN vote. Some practice Judaism, just as many Britons belong to the Anglican Church. Israeli Christians, Muslims, Druze and Bahai have full religious rights in Israel.
My ancestors land in Ireland was taken from them while they refused to give up their Catholic faith. That’s why I empathize with Israel (NOT the Likud government,)
2
This article misses the target.
Antisemetic thought on the left is excused when it comes from identity groups with greivances.
Intersectional grifters and bullies have been using race and religion as cover to make money and gain power, just like Trump.
We should dump these bullies on the curb, just like Trump.
It has little similarity to old school racists in the republican party, who have been legislating bigotry for decades.
3
I don’t often agree with Douthat but for this column I would exclaim - Well done Ross.
2
Mr. Douthat is seriously disingenuous when he tries to equate the fringes on the left with the fringes on the right. First off, today's Republican Party is run by the fringe and the vast majority of those in official positions - including the President - either openly or tacitly are part of the fringe.
Let us also not forget, that today's Israel - largely controlled by its own fringe of rabbis and rightwing politicians have done their best to destroy all claims to moral sympathy by their treatment of the Palestinians. Those who suffered through the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto have all but duplicated such horrors on the Gaza Strip.
As an American Jew who considers the survival of Israel of and the defeat of anti-Semitism (along with all forms of bigotry) paramount importance, I can be against the leadership of Israel and the religious extremists while also against anti-Semitism.
3
Just more GOP SOP from Republican Party man Douthat:
False equivalence? Check!
Republicans may (fill in the blank), but Democrats are much worse? Check.
Laughable references to the mythical grass roots of the rigidly top-down controlled right? Check!
People on the Left who work hard and achieve, something that used to be considered admirable in America, denigrated as elites? Check!
Trump as a recent development in the Republican Party, not the result of decades of shedding the thin veneer of honesty, human decency or patriotism that began in earnest with the Reagan campaign? Check!
Mindlessly use the modified “Newt Gingrich List of Nasty Epithets” against everyone on the Left? Check!
Douthat, the self-professed Superior Christian, should try a little honesty for once if he wants to be taken seriously by intelligent, informed people.
1
This is a crazy, sloppy and ill-informed comparison. The Women's March leadership has clearly disavowed anti-semitism, Rabbis are speaking up in their defense, Jewish groups are working closely with them to address the issue and come to joint strategies -- how does this even compare? You can have an opinion they still aren't doing enough, but you can't simply ignore the facts. Do you your homework and don't take up valuable media space until you do! Its important to get it right.
3
@cathy Clearly disavowed anti-semitism? That's rich; can you explain where this clear disavowal appears (and explain how it doesn't correspond to simply the strong assertion that whatever they do it couldn't be anti-semitism because that would make them racists)?
Yes you can find some myopic rabbis more concerned with their home amongst the "progressives" than they are about their home amongst the Jews. Idiots can be found in all religions, all professions, and all movements. Rarely are they also the leaders--as they are in the Women's march movement.
4
Who would be more likely to feel the effects of bigotry - an American jew or an American black? Not even close - these aren't equivalent.
1
Despite Douthat's rather half-hearted effort to draw distinctions, this piece reeks of false equivalency. Nothing, repeat, nothing challenges racism in the arena of hateful behavior that exemplifies one of the several triumphs of nurture over nature. In fact, non-political anti-Semitism is a subset of racism. I keep thinking of the riveting lyric in Cabaret - "If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all."
1
Let's get one thing out of the way first: The manner in which Hillary Clinton was nominated did more to damage voter faith in Democratic leadership than the vacuum created after her defeat. Most people were happy to see the Clinton family laid low. Their presence has been far too influential for far too long.
Speaking as an independent, Hillary's defeat was not especially shocking either. As most party avoidant observers were saying all along: "If anyone can lose the 2016 election, it's Hillary Clinton." Admittedly, sometimes you hate being right.
That said, I don't think the left should have a debate about Zionism. The left should have a debate about Israel. However, we should check the word "Zionist" at the door. The terms "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism" are simply too confused at this point to properly address the actual underlying conversation.
Zionism isn't even specifically Jewish. I live around Mormons. There is a very strong following of Christian Zionists within that religion. Why do you think Zion National Park is called Zion? The origin has nothing to do with modern Israel. You can actually object to Zionism without discussing Judaism at all.
What we're really talking about is different ideas concerning religious nationalism in Israel. That's how we should frame the debate. Anyone throwing around "Anti-Zionism" is therefore necessarily dog whistling to a constituency we don't want to encourage. That's how I would approach the conversation.
3
This editorial reeks of Enlightened Centrism and false equivalency, two bedfellows who always manage to find a middle ground no matter how insane that middle ground may be.
1
You vastly overestimate the number of Democrats who care, one way or another, about Israel. The racial diversity of the Democratic base means that there are many Democrats who have no particular ties or affinity (either positive or negative) towards Israel. Why should an Asian woman in the Bronx or a Hispanic guy from Los Angeles care about Israel?
3
The left has long been anti-Semitic, and American Jews have finally realized this, to some extent. Still, they will support the left as they seem to always do. And, it will not even matter to them that there are two Muslim women just elected to the house and one has been shown to be grossly anti-Semitic. She will try to pull as many other house members along with her. AOC is one of them. And, how will the house deal with that? It will not. Pelosi already made her deal with the devil to get the support of AOC and her two Muslim compatriots. Did AOC say recently " Free Palestine." That means, in reality, no more Israel. I wonder when American Jews will truly wake up to the exteme danger of the American left and its gaining influence in the Democratic party.
5
Intellectually dishonest, false equivalence claptrap. In other words, what passes for an "intellectually honest" conservative these days.
1
False equivalence to the fore.
2
I'm confused, Mr. Douthat. Am I now to think, after reading your column naming the left as anti-semites, that the skinhead National Socialists marching in Charlottesville chanting "Jews will not replace us" actually left-wing socialists?
Am I also to believe the decades long anti-Semitic attack on George Soros was the work of the left?
4
Thanks Ross, your article is a breath of fresh air, and is on the money.You are judged by the company we keep.Associating with Farrakhan,says it all. The Democrat Party is led by Perez & Ellison, Ellison is openly Anti Semitic, & Perez is guilty by association.
75% of American Jews voted for Hillary & Democrats. I can understand, as I am guilty of voting Democrat myself.We are in difficult position as to what poison to take. I have decided to support the Party that supports Israel, let me be clear I am for a Two State solution, & disappointed by Netanyahu’s policies.I strongly believe that Jews of all people, should not suppress another people.Having said that, It is clear to me that Trump , because of the influence of his Son In Law, is a much better bet than Then a Party that is run by DBS radicals & associated with the likes of Farrakhan & others like him.
Yes Republicans have within their ranks their own Jew Haters, but they don’t have the Control of the Republican Party, as shown by their action against King.Whereas, the leaders of the Democrat Party have not come out against the DBS, and are afraid to speak out against the likes of Farrakhan. & his followers, like Ellison who is second in Command of the Democrat Party.
Dear Fellow Jewish Americans, you don’t have to love Israel, but you have to admit we have to have life insurance, which is what Israel is, It’s the only place that will welcome us with open arms.
3
My question for Ross who recently regaled us with his sorrow for the loss of the WASP ideal in America is where do you place yourself in this?
Ross should be nominated for a Pulitzer in the category of ............ Whataboutism and False Equivalency.
The Republican's have elected a birther as President that said there were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville thus bestowing the Presidential seal upon some of those that chanted "Jews will not replace us". Steve King proudly proclaims himself a white nationalist and meets with far right Austria Freedom Party whose leader had former ties to Neo-nazi groups. Where is the comparable elected Democrat?
1
I would argue in some was the anti-Semiitism on the left at this historical moment is more dangerous than the racism on the right because the anti-Semitic left tries to mask their anti-Semitism in "high minded" philosophical or moral arguments. For example, the common refrains of "I'm not an anti-Semite - I just really really hate everything about Israel." Or from the Women's March heads - completely rewriting Jewish history to now recast Jews as white people with European origin who as white people are priviliged and part of white supremacy. The latter that is increasing on the left in popularity is grotesque given Jews history of being treated as a vulgar "other" and that Ashkenazi Jews are a genetically identifiable group tracing their genetic origins to the middle east. When I hear these arguments to dehumanize Jews with new philosophies it reminds me of the early 1900s arguments from the right about Jewish nefariousness and non-personhood. Except now it's the left. And to the commenters who say they don't have power on the left. Wrong. Corbyn is quite powerful. And we have two new Congresswomen with a history of saying offensive things about Jews.
5
The effort by Douthat to conflate endemic Republican and conservative racism with progressives' misgivings about Israel is incredibly disingenuous. As was pulling in Corbyn in an article about America. Frankly, the assertion of any meaningful amount of anti-semitism from the American left is laughable and asinine, and the very fact that he brought up Corbyn in this article proves the point.
1
After reading and listening to Mr. Douthat, it’s clear that he is a master of upscale whataboutism.
The Women's March was clearly anti-Semitic.
3
Matti Friedman's article in today's Times gives liberals a wise springboard from which to counter discussions about anti-Zionism.
4
The percentage of anti-Semites in the Democratic Party is no higher - probably lower - than in the Republican Party. Without a doubt, American Jews - by wide margins - prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
Are they ignorant, or are they onto something?
1
Here we have another false equivalence column.
2
The fate of the Palestinians at the hands of the right wing government of Israel is a genocide in slow motion.
The effect of Putin on our election continues with Trump and does not look to end any time soon.
The Republican base now belongs to the elites, and the elites themselves are the cranks.
Other than that ,Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show?
1
If by antisemitism you mean opposition to the current policies of the state of Israel and support for the right of Palestinians to a homeland and national self determination then I am antisemitic.
1
That is not what it means and no sane Israel supporter would ever say that any criticism of Israel is equivalent to being anti semitic BUT to assume that many of those who ARE critical of Israel are NOT anti semitic is just as bad.
3
It’s hilarious in a pathetic way to see Progressives flip out whenever their AntiSemitism is called out. They can’t even hold a Woman’s march because the politics are so infected.
2
What a perplexing article title to encounter in the NYT. Racists to the Right, Anti-Semites to Left? Really? Did you here about that event in Charlottesville in 2017 (Jews. Will not. Replace us.")? The Soros memes? Or the ensuing massacre in Pittsburgh? I could go on...there are so many examples to choose from. It is pretty clear that both Racists and Anti-Semites are to the Right. That would include Steve King, who should know that antisemitism is part and parcel of white supremacy and one of the many reasons why it is offensive.
2
The usual whataboutist tripe from Douthat, this time evidently ignoring the fact that over 70% of the Jewish vote goes to Democrats, and Jewish members of congress overwhelmingly swing left. What's more, to suggest that anti-semitism comes from the left is risible in the extreme. While certainly there are nasty little leftist monsters that voice their bigotry, the "fine people" with tiki torches dressed in khaki were chanting their antisemitic slogans en masse in the streets of Charleston - and for days were blithely ignored by many Republicans, including you know who. Name one leading liberal who did not condemn antisemitism in the strongest terms when it reared up in the ranks.
Selective poppycock, Douthat, poppycock and twaddle!
3
As a left wing Jew, I have always had a problem with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and annexation of the West Bank. So do a lot of Israelis. That doesn’t make me a neo Nazi. No, the neo Nazis is the US are the extreme right wing and everyone knows it.
2
Defenders of Corbyn are either willfully blind or unaware of his behaviors.
How bout this - Jeremy Corbyn has (1) described the constitutionally genocidal Hamas as his “friends", (2) appeared on stage with inveterate anti-Semites and holocaust deniers, (3) defended a mural that depicted hooknosed bankers running the world, (4) attended a wreath-laying ceremony that celebrated the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre and (5) called Zionists people who "don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, don’t understand English irony either,” and who "I think need two lessons, which we can help them with".
Obviously anybody talking about blacks that same way would be declared a racist immediately. What are Corbyn's defenders' excuses?
6
Sadly, many of the leaders of the women's march seem to traffic in the most odious anti-semitism, not just anti-Israel sentiment.
Paying tribute to Farrakhan, who has called Jews pigs and dogs is supporting anti-semitism, plain and simple. If you invoke haters, don't expect the support of fair-minded people who rightly reject racist, religious and ethnic bigotry.
3
15%~20% of the Right are deplorable racists.
1.5%~2% of the Left are deplorable anti-Semites.
See the difference there ?
2
Donald gained his popularity by being a racist Birther. This is because of our black president. His presidency happened because his supporters wanted to make America White Again.
Democrats on the other hand are trying to be truly liberal. They want equal rights for all, including the Palestinians. Being a Jew I have always hated all of this, but I blame the thousands of years of anti-semitism in Europe for the state of Israel. The Nazis of Germany and the hatred of Jews in Europe caused Israel to happen in the first place. It doesn't help the Palestinians. I'm for a two state solution.
Republicans who support Trump are supporting a racist. Plain and simple to see.
1
Stop conflating Judaism and Zionism
2
Do people here know what a "cordon sanitaire " is ?
And the meaning and origin of "bigot " ?
About the same intellectual level as "hamberders " ...
Why do NYT columnists insist on a slippery slope between criticism of the policies of the Netanyahu government and anti-semitism? Why is it that I have to read an Israeli newspaper to find a just assessment of Netanyahu that, apparently, a NYT columnist like Douhat or Bari Weiss would deem anti-Semitic? Here is the opening of the opinion piece from Haaretz that I am thinking of: “For Trump and Netanyahu both, the cult of personality is wearing off, like cheap plating revealing inferior metal, faulty construction, and material fatigue.”
Yes, Farrakhan is an anti-Semite, but no, Michael Moore is not, and it's a pity their names are thrown together in this article. After a perfunctory distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, Ross floats too easily into conflating them. Yet only a fringe on the crazy left espouse real leftist anti-Semitism, a mix based on class voodoo and a single anthropological speculation by Marx in the 1800s.
He should also mention that the USSR was one of the original sponsors of the state of Israel and pro-Zionist, even as it was led by the notorious anti-Semite Josef Stalin.
4
Ross, please look up the term "false equivalency." You might see a photo of yourself.
Do you recall the mass shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue several months ago? Do you recall that it was a right-wing fascist obsessed with the role the synagogue played in resettling refugees?
Such temerity you have.
6
The shooter who murdered 11 jews in a synagogue was a right-wing nutjob who subscribed to the same type of xenophobic views as Trump, King, and - translated to the British context - UKIP. But Douthat is talking about “anti-semitism on the left.”
At this point, Douthat’s attempt at false equivalence isn’t just silly. It is vile. It is providing moral cover for neo-Nazi and KKK types by suggesting the hate is spread evenly on the left and right. It’s saying “oh sure they’re bad but hey look at the other side is just as bad.”
6
Another "False Equivalency" article from Ross, Ho hum....
1
When was the last time a leftist shot up or defaced a synagogue, Ross?
8
Antisemitism has always been independent of left & right. But, both exist & always will. There are just different myths driving it. Many on the right, Jews are seen as the hidden masters of the world, dedicated to their downfall. Others see us as less than their "master race" & a threat to weaken their blood. On the left, particularly among African-Americans, it is ironically not uncommon to see Jews as part of the white ruling class, part of the structure that created & benefited from the slave trade. They also see in their inner cities that many of the landlords & store owners were Jewish. They see this as Jews profiting off of & exploiting blacks. They don't realize that the ghetto communities they live in were previously Jewish ghettos & there were still remnants of the older Jewish Community still owning properties. Some on the political left see the Jews, ever since the UN Partition of 1947 created Israel, as a surrogate for everything they don't like about the United States. Sympathy was forgotten for the Holocaust & Israel is now seen as a symbol of the first world for the sin of winning the 1948 war against 5 major Arab countries & the Palestinian Arabs became symbols of the third world the US (& its surrogate) oppresses. The truth behind this myth goes back a century & is unacceptable & unbelievable to most people. Today's Middle East split happened when Jews accepted the two-state UN resolution & Muslims rejected it. That was 70 years ago, & the myths have grown.
7
"Jews will not replace us" was the chant at the unite the right rally in Charlottesville. It was not called the unite the left rally.
7
I guess Mr. Douthat needs a reminder that the fascists, i.e., those on the right, marching in Charlottesville were chanting, "Jews will not replace us!"
4
This column is a great example of false equivalence.
2
When was the last time a "leftist" shot up a synagogue? How about a synagogue in Pittsburgh?
Yeah false equivalency.
Also being anti-Zionist is not the same as being anti-Semite.
6
too picky to point out that anti-semitism is also loudly present on the right, as displayed by the hateful words those torch-holding supremacists in Charlottesville chanted?
1
Seriously Ross?
It seems that Mr. Douthat has missed a few facts, such as a certain adherence from the far right to the "Golden T" that is the current adopted standard on the G.O.P.
How has he missed the Neo-Nazi love for his parties leader, and their at best lukewarm responses to date?
For almost forty years Republicans have blown the racist dog whistles to attract, and then pandered to, the intolerant, I've missed any signs of the Democrats attempting to embrace them.
For one so willing to wrap oneself in investment of righteousness, it's strange your inability to distinguish between a mote, and a beam, so very often.
3
Author, who has written good, informative articles on domestic affairs confounds birtherism, raising questions about where Obama was born, perfectly legitimate, since Arnold Schwarzengger, who would have like to run for the highest of office in the land but realized he could not because he was not US born.If someone asked me whether I was a team mate of Terry Terrebonne in late 1950's and early 1960's at Tulane because I tutored him and his team mates so they could pass an astronomy class, I would say negative. All I did was tutor them. Obama's birthplace , religion should never have been a problem for anyone, and who cared if he were born a Muslim or born in Kenya or not, but to raise the issue does not make 1 a racist! Anti Semitism is the worst kind of virulent hatred, and has, historically had tragic consequences. Read Daniel Goldhagen's magistertial work about Hitler's willing executioners! Moreover, contrast the encomiums on the senatorial career of Robert Bryd, Dem. from West Virginia, former Ku Klux Clan leader by major figures of the Dem. Party like BIDEN who called him, not senator but a leader, and Barack Obama who said no one in the Senate was held in higher esteem than Sen. Byrd,with the abuse visited upon Rep. King. Do not recall King was ever a member of the KKK, defended segregation Jim Crow or the denial of the franchise to anyone, black or white!King defended our Anglo Norman ancestors and their collective contribution to our civilization, "c'est tout!"
1
The distinction between anti-semitism and anti-zionism is not "blurry". Rather, it's it's Jews who make Zion an article of faith who intentionally coalesce the two.
What's therefore 'left' is to say that Jews are free to follow their own faith in absence of referencing a 'homeland'.
In this regard, the author is up to his old Humpty-Dumpty tricks: "Leftism is what i say that it is at the time that I say it--and the NYT givesme such a platform in the interest of presenting a fair and balanced editorial page."
1
Ah yes, socialism must be cordoned off and snuffed out along with it's racism, populism and ant-Semitism brethren. Those liberal democracies of Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. are dangerous reminders of what can happen when public health care, education, transport, and environmentalism take hold.
3
How clever: redefine resistance to Netanyahu’s corruption and the fascist behavior of the Israeli right wing as “Anti-Semitism”, and voilà: yet another specious false-equivalency narrative...and by the way: “Establishment Republicans” as characterized by the second Bush administration were never ‘centrists’, by any reasonable definition of the word...
1
This is always the right wing and Republican response to their failures and flaws and obvious tolerance for bigotry: distort the facts and create a mirror image faux problem on the left and then associate it with the Democratic party. See the right wing response to police shootings of unarmed black man. What about Chicago they say?
Anyway, what is the evidence of this anti-Semitism? A link to an article in a news source I have never heard of about some people I have never heard of who don't like Donald Trump who blame the slave trade on Jews. Huh? And by the way, I see that you danced around the issue but being against Israeli policies like settlements in the occupied territories or a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is not anti-Semitic.
1
Mr. Douthat, so many misassumptions and false equivalencies though many cleverly veiled. Let’s just take this one from your current provocations. “Where did Donald Trump come from, ultimately? From the presidency of George W. Bush.” No, he ultimately came from a long history of Republican, now long-tested and proven false, governing theories that most recently emanated from Ronald Reagan. Reagan for all his kindness and gentleness set the Republicans and this nation on this course of Trumpian disaster. The over-played, out of touch with the modern world “rugged individualism” and “go it alone” attitude of the wild west days that Reagan perpetuated led us here. His antigovernment (he disguised it as small government) screed led to this Trumpian, enemy of the people (governing institutions, media, FBI, etc.) dystopia. Reagan was simply cleverer about destroying the respectability of governance/government (that is true governance as in by the people, for the people – not Reagan’s view of government as the big, bad wolf). Trump is simply a self-serving buffoon trying to destroy everything except what benefits him and his.
2
Thank you for this post. I have been saying since the very beginning that not only is Trump just a run of the mill modern Republican, he best represents end stage Reaganism. The only thing that I disagreed with was when you called Reagan “kind.” Reagan was a cruel man who reveled in the misery of those who didn’t look like him or ran in his economic circles, he just had the ability to hide his evil nature under a veneer of genteelness.
Ross, if I may call you Ross. I always am a little bit skeptical of those on the right giving advice to those on the left about how to succeed. I do believe you would love the left to fail and fail miserably. You imply the equivalency of the King fiasco with anti-Semitism on the left as demonstrated by the exit of support of the Women's march, but then correct your self periodically through the article as indeed not an equivalency at all, but.....damage done. I can only think that with this strategy you seek to downplay the importance of the King situation by a "both sides" argument followed by the sage advice "you guys on the left better be careful". I love "The Argument" where both side weight in. While I do not doubt some good will, this "primer" for Democratic Party is a bit too much. Please also advise your own party with same zeal and good will, and then we can attempt to interpret and balance the advice given and take from that advice the messages that will indeed bring us all closer together. I would welcome more focus on the positives that bind us and less on the "negatives" that continue to divide us.
3
Feminism is not "the left." The actual left has a long history of trying to hijack the movement in the service of men. The NYC march organizers are just the latest example.
1
Mr. Douthat, your disdain for "the left" and desire to make it easier for others to hate shows through a bit in this piece. There is no threat of anti-Semitism becoming a central tenet of the left the way racism has seemingly done on the right and it boggles the mind for you to even present this as intellectually honest.
The Israel-Palestine issue is a huge concern. It is a challenge to protect our Israeli friends when they behave anti-democratically. It is difficult to not favor them when they are under constant threat, both on an individual level and on an existential level as a state. The difficulty of sorting through that mess should not be confused with being anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic.
1
I'm rather bored with the right wing's claim that supporting affordable education and health care is radical extremism. They will, of course, base their political appeals on the false equivalence between their own extremism and anything to the left of it. It's all the've got.
Also, while Douthat pays superficial lip service to the idea that opposing Israel's brutalities does not equal anti-semitism, you'd never know from the rest of his column.
3
The difference gets blurry very quickly. I would like to see your evidence for that. I support Israel's right to exist with it capital in Jerusalem but some current governments of its behavior and policies are deplorable. You also overlook the vicious Jewish anti-Muslim sentiment in the US, Pam Geller, and in Israel Some policies are necessary but others just deem designed to wear people down and daily belittle them, Access to water and a daily cumbersome ability to move don't seem to stop Hezbollah but do make peoples lives miserable. I do not think people who want to boycott investments in the occupied West Bank is any worse that the behavior of those in Israel that dismiss the rights of Palestinians to lands in the entire West Bank. how many of Nathanyahu's supporters believe Israel should make the lives of Palestinians so harsh and hopeless they want or have to leave.
There is a conceptual distinction between anti-Semitism and and anti-Zionism. Judaism is a universal religion going back almost 6,000 years. Zionism is a 19th century nationalistic ideology. There is nothing blurry or vague about this distinction. It is not like the distinction between being bald and not bald.
More and more people who identify as Jews in the United States are becoming anti-Zionist. How else can you explain the rise and expansion of such groups as JVP, Jewish Voice for Peace.
Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. So is Angela Davis. It is important to keep emphasizing this distinction, because so many pundits blur it.
1
W gave us Trump? No. There were 8 long years of successful governance and prosperity in between; the two are barely related. Trump voters weren't even thinking about W in the primaries, let alone rejecting him. (some demanded to know why Obama wasn't in the Oval Office on 9/11) Trump is a result of: Racism, racism, racism, and the failure of both parties to stand up to the naked emperor of the Gordon Gecko-style capitalism of Reagan's 80's and the entire working class finally realizing that they have been utterly and completely sold down the river. Some good ideas in here but too much standard-for-Times-oped-false-equivalence.
1
“Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick, and the Israel debate is the place where rhetorical poison seems most likely to infect left-wing politics.”
And what would a Catholic know about any of this, exactly? All of the individuals that I’ve ever encountered who seemed readily prone to anti-Semitic violence were on the ‘right’ side of the political spectrum.
An awkward conversation about the history of religion is far more preferable to me than a group whose intolerance is grounded in the firm conviction not to know anything.
The Left thanks him for is well-intended suggestions, as always.
Republicans are in denial. They are protecting a traitor. They continue to use Kremlin 'whataboutism' techniques in order to deflect the conversation. This article is a great example. Thanks Ross!
1
So sad to see responses that are self promotional, attacking writer for exposing what needs to be said. And the dismissal of the disturbing facts, such as the the treatment of Jewish women participating in the women’s march by self imposing opportunists. The attackers are not true feminists or liberals, but publicly and boastfully embrace and endorse a racist and promote his views and expose their own. It is very clear how the problem is even worse than what the article aired. There is little to no acknowledgement, that I see, of the historic contribution Jews made to the civil rights movement through their legal representation and community/individual activism, their commitment to their true beliefs in equality for women and minorities. It’s appalling that individuals and groups who benefitted, now denounce them. I hope others wake up to the contortionists who hijack liberalism and promote a non-inclusive agenda, and whose sway could infiltrate the party and upend what the Democrats and Jews historically and traditionally represented to each other and to the country. One can have their identity and be proud of it, but the difference between liberalism, tolerance and intolerance is that with true liberalism there is room and respect for everyone and everyone’s contributions as long as it doesn’t involve or purvey hate, or marginalizing and tearing down others. If we abandon these principles, there is no difference between the left and the right, and no path forward for all.
3
I am becoming bored with the false equivalency columns Ross and David. if Republicans build a a billion dollar plane that can't fly it is a good try, but find out a social welfare program that fell short and it becomes a scandal.
2
How is Michael Moore considered anti-semitic?
From what I've read, it's right wing extremists attempting to label him as such. Have I missed something legitimate?
There's quite a difference between calling out Netanyahu's unjust policies and being anti-semite.
Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan are fringe elements, two of a handful on the left. To gain perspective on Mr. Douhat's comparison, let's contrast them to just some of the right wing bigots who have a national presence: David Duke/Steve Bannon/Steve King/Gavin McInnes/Milo Yiannopoulos/Mike Cernovich/Richard Spencer/Jeff Sessions/Steve Miller/Jim Hoft/Matt Drudge/Ann Coulter/Janine Piro and almost anyone on Fox except Shepard Smith & Chris Wallace.
2
This article is premised on yet another ridiculous conservative false equivalency. The difference between the left and right could not be more stark with regard to bigotry. Of course there is bigotry and racism among a few fringe elements and individuals on the left. But these have become central features of the right. The Republican Party, since Reagan, has used racism and bigotry (e.g. homophobia) to cling to power, culminating in the horrific, unthinkable result of a white supemacist as our president.
A critique of Israel is NOT anti-Semitic.
A call for justice for Palestinians is not anti-Semitic.
A recognition of some of the historic tensions between Jews and African-Americans, especially in the inner cities of the 1950s and 1960s, is not anti-Semitic.
2
I don't know how to respond to an article that totally lacks the ability to tell us how populism works and that it the intricacies of political philosophy seldom intrude in the discussion. I read Haaretz everyday and the right wing of Israeli politics is very bit as anti Semitic as Jeremy Corbyn or Orban's Hungary. It is The Guardian where I first read about the primary Senatorial debate of Iowa's Republicans and whether Whitaker or Ernst who could claim to be more adamant in disqualifying non Christians from the bench.
There are still caveats stopping Jews from moving into certain towns. I suspect Louis Farrakhan does not fit nicely on the right left axis of American politics.
When William F. Buckley jr removed the John Birch Society from the Republican Party it was not because they were racists it was because they were anti Catholic and Buckley would continue to support apartheid, Jim Crow and housing caveats in Gentile only Connecticut.
In 1896 when William Jennings Bryan a socialist, led his Democratic coalition it was his Democratic Party that was the home of the racists , anti Semites and anti Catholics who wore a mantle of real Christians.
It is more than a century since Ambrose Bierce wrote his Devil's Dictionary that defined populist. It is more than a century since Twain wrote his essay about the universality of anti Semitism and over half a century since Tom Lehrer sang National Brotherhood Week.
The OTHER wears many masks to suit the political mood.
1
Am I the only one irritated by Ross’ never-ending advice for “liberals” whilst his own ilk have crashed and burned American politics bringing decency, morality and the rule of law down with them?
Ross is very smart. He writes well. I always read his column and even agree now and then with his viewpoints. I just wish he would focus more on the plank in conservatives’ own eyes and not the splinters in ours! No matter how much or how fairly he blames liberal policies for bringing about the 2016 election debacle, conservatives need to own the monster they created. And if I belonged to the party responsible for such an obscenity as currently resides in the White House, I would pare down my attention to some serious navel gazing and write with fury and passion about how to fix it. Even conservative never-Trumpers need to own their past complicit behaviors, such as their silence during the birther disgrace. An entire political party and conservative movement hitched their wagon to a man without a conscience or a soul for opportunistic reasons involving money, power and control.
Yes, yes! Ross clearly is vocal now and then about his frequent disdain for Trump’s actions. But please, Ross, from the inside of conservatism looking out, can you really spare so much time and effort scripting liberal behavior when your own brand desperately needs emergency attention?
492
@Joanna Stasia
The New York Times has a largely liberal audience. Douthat knows this, and so he writes columns about things he thinks liberals need to hear. If he spent all of his time criticizing conservatives, he'd just be preaching to the choir. He knows full well that the kind of conservatives who's minds need to be changed don't go anywhere near his columns, while open-minded liberals of good conscience regularly do because they appreciate the perspective that he brings. He writes columns for the people who read them.
36
@Joanna Stasia Very good points. Bret Stephens writes far more relevant and honest columns about the mess Conservative Republicans have made.
15
@Joanna Stasia I kind of like his stuff. I've always found the "advice to conservatives" from, say, Roger Cohen, Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, Frank Bruni, Gail Collins, Nick Khristof, Charles Blow, David Brooks more than a little annoying.
So, the left gets advice from one conservative columnist. Conservatives get force-fed you get advice from a stable of libs. Get over it.
4
"Where did European populism come from, ultimately? From the misgovernment of the eurozone by respectable centrists.'
Really? Hard for us to see that here in the US. What I saw was a Euro response to the 2008 economic crisis that was based on cutbacks to government, tight money, forced austerity, and blame throwing. That is the economic approach of conservatism, not populism or liberalism, and it was a failure.
Interesting article and depicts the current strong role of identify politics that is ultimately anti-democratic.
But I would disagree that this started with George W. Trace it back to Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich: the triumvirate of anti-big government rhetoric and champions of trickle-down economics. They were incredible successful in turning the middle class against the government’s role in keeping the playing field economically level for those not in the top economic tier.
On the international front, this ascent of the crazy right happened just as the Cold War ended and all the stability, in terms of clearly defined realms of influence, came down with the Berlin Wall.
The left may be over-steering but that may get us back onto a safe lane.
J Rosen
1
There is a contrast between extremism on the left and right. Since the 1960's, the Democrats have included a broad range of out of the mainstream views, confirming the quote attributed to Will Rogers " "I don't belong to an organized party--I'm a Democrat." With notable exceptions, like the 1968 Convention, the Democratic party leadership has been able to steer towards the middle of the road while keeping the more fringe elements in the tent.
But the situation has evolved (maybe devolved) for both parties - as centrists have aged out or have been forced out. Where are the Scoop Jackson(s) or Sam Nunn(s) for the Democrats or the Northeast Republicans. Lamentably no more.
This may make for interesting speechifying and feeding the 24 hour news beast but it leaves many potential voters without a home in either party.
1
There may be a potential for the political parties to morph into two large governing moderate-centrist parties with at least two loose coalitions of extremist groups which can be reshaped and reformed by the larger, wealthier parties to rule.
Taking advantage of what used to be called single-issue voting pols may be able, through social media to take on a temporarily more concrete form. Venn-diagramming will reveal overlapping opportunities for the tech savvy.
Chaotic for old schoolers, this seems to me a likely possibility.
irt's 2019 - why do we still refuse to evolve, actually believing that we have a choice to remain stuck in whatever century from the past we admire?
Thank you for writing this important piece and for your spot on analysis. The Right’s problems are very much out in the open and the subject of columns like this everyday across the country. More light needs to be cast the emerging left - a cauldron of anti-Semitism, identity politics, First Amendment relativism and diminished regard for many of the traditions and institutions that made us the exceptional country we are today, the one that people of color the world over aspire to.
One of the great ironies of the Left has been the importance of Jews in birthing and building its constituent parts, from organized labor to the NAACP, and now comes a new generation bent on fratricide and patricide.
6
@Ed Fontleroy
Just to be clear. The NAACP was created in 1909 by the Black civil rights activist and scholar W.E.B. DuBois and Moorefield Storey, a white lawyer, along with Ida B. Wells, Mary White Ovington and others in response to the 1908 Race Riots in Springfield, Ill. and the continued practice of Black lynchings in the American south. And while the importance of Jews in the progressive activist movements cannot be denied, they were not founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...”
Another example of a conservative columnist telling us that the left is just as bad as the right, one of the favorite arguments and defenses used by Fox News.
I hope you are not suggesting that opposition to the corrupt Netanyahu and many right wing policies of the Israeli government equals “anti-Semitism.”
14
Have you seen the new T-shirt that says "Better Russian than Democrat"? And as for "anti-Zionism" it is not yet a federal crime to oppose the anti-Gentile policies of Israel.
8
I did not read this article.
Douthat’s ‘whataboutism’ writes itself.
Each of his articles is a contrived apologia for Trump.
9
@strangerq
You say you didn't read it? And yet, you comment?
Ah, the polemical style of the modern progressive.
2
What do you think the root cause of bigotry is, Ross?
I think you'll need to cure politics of religion, because it always comes down to who is God's more favorite pet goldfish among the religious when the bowl gets too crowded.
6
@Steve Bolger
I like thinking of Kevin Kline as God in the scene where he tortured Kkkkken in “A Fish Called Wanda”, it makes your analogy so fitting.
Perhaps this is an awkward question for the Times, but would you please compare the actual anti-semitic actions of the US progressives versus those of the state of Israel? And, please don't forget that there are more semitic people than there are Jewish people.
8
Not just the line between anti-zionism and anti-semitism gets blurred in this piece. A lot of lines are blurry and it ain’t nuance that’s the problem. This column should have been more than spell-checked.
6
Ross Douthat uses the old variant of "what about" to smear those on the left with the label of anti-Semitic. Being in favor of a fair deal for the Palestinians and being against the tainted, indictment pending Netanyahu doesn't mean you are an anti-Semite.
Maybe Ross should take a closer look at the Catholic Church. There is plenty there for him to focus his righteous indignation on. Ross, time to "tend your own garden."
9
'a party reshaped by Ocasio-Cortezan energy, shall we say '
Ross, were you making a funny? 'Cortezan' spelled differently implied, perchance?
5
Trump’s pernicious qualities have enabled the racists to the right and allowed the left to be dramatically influenced by people who have infected liberal thought with anti-Semitism and other prejudices. Can anyone seriously argue that Farrakhan, the darling of Linda Sansour and other pseudo liberals, who is openly against gays, Jews, and the melding of the races is liberal? The extreme left is no better than the extreme right. Hot water burns. Cold water freezes. I like a comfortable bath.
5
Oh Ross,
Why don't you just wish Liberalism well. Sheesh. Your last five or six columns have voted Democrat even if you won't. . . . especially the one previous to this one. You've as good as admitted the damage your "conservatism" has done to working families and children.
This last is the most important. I suspect your only barrier to becoming a Dem is the abortion issue. But what of all the children who suffer and die due to lack of healthcare? Or the two income trap? Around whose neck shall we hang THAT millstone, eh?
6
Ross works so hard to come up with equivalences between Republicans and Democrats but he only ends up looking foolish.
9
Ross, as one of those centrist or "establishment" types or whatever the term du jour is today, I take umbrage at your claim that we have failed. Though you'd never know it if your reading began and ended with the Gray Lady, the Democrats won so many gerrymandered hostile districts by running pragmatic candidates who are traditional liberals and not publicity hound "socialists".
However, while I can't like your conservatism, I do enjoy how you provoke the hard left. They are out in pricked and wounded force to assert their purity ("False equivalence because we're pure in heart and mind and never acquiesced to Antisemitism. We never heard of Al Sharpton or Farrakhan. Who are they?"). Yes, there is an Israel hating problem devolving into Jew hating in this country and it is not limited to the far right sad to say.
2
Claptrap!
I am an 80 year old Jew. I have seen plenty of antisemitism in my life. I know what it looks like. I grew up in a DuPont company town in a time when DuPont did not hire Jews. I lived thru the horrors of Hitler and saw them uncovered after the war. I have had relatives hounded to death by HUAC and other relatives that were important to the founding of Israel.
Throughout this time, right on up to the present moment, it has been clear which of our two parties were home to the antisemites. And it has only gotten worse.
I ask you Mr. Douthat how many Republican presidential candidates were Jews? The "far left" Democrats had a candidate who was not only a Jew, but spoke with a Brooklyn accent! How many Jews on the SCOTUS were appointed by Republicans? What did our Republican President have to say about the terrorists in Charlottesvile who shouted "Jews will not replace us!"?
To seize on a tiny part part, not only of the Democratic party, but even of the left wing of the party as antisemetic is simply an example of malicious false equivalence.
And let's get one thing straight. It is not only possible to be against the government of Israel and not be antisemitic, but to not even be against Zionism. Many of us believe that the policies of of the Netanyahu government are simply bad for the state of Israel, that the settlements are a cancer on the body of the state, that the horrific occupation is a stain upon its honor.
Methinks Ross has a hidden agenda.
23
@Len Charlap
Bravo, Len!
2
@Len Charlap, You have stated my thoughts perfectly, thank you for your clarity!
2
Racism to the right, ant-semitism to the right. Who said “The Jews will note replace us”? Not Jeremy Corbin.
5
The Al Sharpton's arise when endemic racism leaves non-whites in powerless, abused, voiceless positions. The Michael Moore's arise when political and corporate power grabs harm average Americans and leave them voiceless. And Antisemitism from the Left? Are you blaming this on Einstein's letter? The much stronger case is that Conservative and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism is destroying the dream of what modern Judaism was set to achieve until they lost control to the anti-Semite Jews.
3
What a disgraceful deflection. The right has built their message around racist dogwhistles for the past 50+ years. To pretend that there is any equivalent on the left is an absolute joke. Furthermore, criticizing the perpetual human rights violations of Israel is not anti-semitism.
5
Since when did Michael Moore become an anti-Semite, and since when is it an "obsession fixation" to worry and be angry about Putin and his coordinated disinformation campaign clearly directed to help get elected a man who happily champions autocracy?
6
@Jason - yes. Wasn't it Michael Moore who warned us years ago about the Saudis?
2
“Why have the Democrats managed to keep the cranks at bay more successfully than the G.O.P.? ” Because there are far fewer cranks in the Democratic Party. Just take a look at the polls that show 50% and more Republicans who believe Obama was born in Kenya. There are many other polling questions to which Republican voters give really disturbing, not to say crackpot answers.
I doubt Democratic voters who were polled would show any support at all for anti-semitic views— unlike GOP voters have given—in regard to Jews controlling the media and banking.
Not that the Green Party is anti-semitic, but it is the home for anti-vaxers, 911 Inside-jobbers and actual fringy-types that the vast majority of Democrats abhor.
Ross Douthat loves to imagine a party of wild-eyed leftist Radicals lead by AOC— storming the ramparts, while they trample Nancy Pelosi and send Chuck Schumer to a re-education camp as if they were the re-encarnation of the Khmer Rouge. What a bunch of hysterical nonsense over new Democrats who would like to copy Canada’s health care system.
3
Another Douthat false equivalency.
4
So let me see if I understand this correctly...anyone who doesn't support Netanyahu's continued building on disputed lands is an anti-Semite? Do I have that right?
6
Progressives have no problem calling out hateful speech/behaviors by conservatives. Is it truly that hard to say that the anti-semitism of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is unacceptable?
4
How is opposition to Israel’s settlements and Israel’s oppression of Palestinians “paranoid” and “antisemitic”?
Maybe its “paranoid” to equate opposition to Israeli government policy with “antisemitism”.
4
You finally concede that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Using this globally-fraught imbroglio to try to tar the women's movement is a new low, illustrating false equivalence at its stupidest.
4
It would appear that we have a false equivalence from Ross Douthat. Only one of these bigots is an elected official whose political identity is effectively indistinguishable from that of his party.
I'll let you guess which one.
5
What a gusher of false equivalences! I think I missed the story where the Democrats made Louis Farrakhan the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and elected Alice Walker to House Whip! In real life, anti-Semites and extremists have no power or standing in the Democratic party, while racists and xenophobic demagogues prosper at the highest level in the Republican Party.
3
The only points I would to these excellent rebuttals to Mr. Douthat are:
1. Louis Farrakhan is not part of "the left," as it exists within the Democratic Party.
2. Those who chanted "Jews will not replace us" at Charlottesville were right wing neo-Nazis.
3. Finding fault with Israeli foreign policy or its treatment of Palestinians is not anti-Semitism.
4, Mr. Douthat sounds like President Trump, except that he finds "bad"people on both sides.
This is the worst, THE WORST, column I have ever read in your newspaper.
6
Nonsense false equivalency and “whataboutism” (I know Mr. Douthat is obsessed with forcing every thing under the sun into one “ism” or another, so made sure to use one so he would understand).
The Republican Party has risen to its modern form on the back of the Southern Strategy, regularly moves to disenfranchise voters of color to preserve their own minority power, and has numerous elected officials, including the President, who make openly racist remarks and enact racist policy.
The Democrats have — what? Some leaders of the Women’s March with ties to Farrakhan? Of yes, totally equivalent and worth writing a whole piece about. Sure, Reform Judaism is often jokingly called “the Democratic Party at prayer” and many, if not most, Republican supporters of Israel want Jews in the Holy Land because it is a precondition of the Rapture or Second Coming, which includes the (forced) Conversion of the Jews — but by all means the Democrats are the anti-Semites.
Sure, of the 28 current Jewish members of the House of Representatives 26 are Democrats and 2 are Republicans and in the Senate all eight Jewish Senators are Democrats, but the Democrats are just a hotbed of anti-Semitism all the same. Our subscription dollars are wasted on a column like this.
A challenge to Mr. Douthat — write something that isn’t nonsense on the face of it, doesn’t need to make its arguments by first defining some intellectual tradition, and doesn’t contain the letters “ism” anywhere in the piece.
5
This is barely worth reading. We on the left don't elevate the prejudice to high office with our vote. You needn't worry about that Ross. What you should worry about is the fascist wing of your own party. We might annoy you and others with our demands for PC culture, but one of ours didn't just murder elderly Jews at Synagogue a few months back. That was a right wing extremist and fascist upset that his hero Trump wasn't doing enough to hurt poor Latinos coming to America for a new life.
How about you write about that.
3
Ross, what a disingenuious title and byline: "Racists to the Right, Anti-Semites to the Left, ...In a populist age, can party establishments sideline bigots?"
Remind us who the anti-Semites are on the left chanting "Jews will not replace us!" at racist rallies of the right?
3
I am seeing anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism an awful lot from liberals/Democrats. Hatred of Jews is a poison of the Left.
If the people who come out so feverishly against Israel would also be as concerned about Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran ect and their human rights violations and warmongering that would be one thing. But they don't, and they hide their fervent hatred of Jews by their high minded objection to Israel and it's policies.
4
@JAGh
Just for the record. It is entirely possible to oppose Israeli politics along with its disgraceful policy of building Settlements on Palestinian lands -- and not be anti-Semitic.
In fact, there are many Jews and Israelis who also object to this practice and with good reason.
"When I look at the West Bank as an Israeli, I see 2.5 million Palestinian civilians living under military rule, with all the misery that entails. " Maybe Israel should make them all Israeli citizens? The above quote is from another op ed columnist today.
4
Anti-semitism is not just the purview of the Left. Attacks against Jews have always been number one on the FBI's list of "Racial Hatred Attacks" for many years - and those numbers are always increasing. It's just that now with both Trump in office with his Charlottesville comments about Neo Nazis being good people and Democratic members of Congress like lhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib - who are openly anti-semitic....the United States is starting to look like Germany 1933 - more and more everyday.
4
What a farcical analogy Mr. Douhat. It is as if you were commenting on your neighbor's unkempt lawn while your children set fire to your house. A better column to write would have been why do so many White Supremacists feel welcome at the GOP.
3
I believe that Palestinians are human beings and deserve the protections, freedoms and dignity that come along with that. To a sizable portion of this country, that makes me an anti-semite. So yes, please do make the distinction between anti-Zionist and anti-semite, because one is a person who wishes to see apartheid toppled, while the other is a bigot.
5
Racists on the right are in congress, in the White House, hourly on FOX News. They lead a party with racist tendencies, that uses racial bullhorns.
The left’s anti-semites have zero power.
3
Douthat is constitutionally unable to criticize the right without throwing in some straw man criticism of the left.
2
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick..."
What a shabby attempt to say anti-Zionism really is anti-Semitism. Every time Israel comes under criticism for how it treats Palestinians, it trots out the tired, old claim of anti-Semitism. Israel kills thousands while bombing Gaza and the civilized world complains? A new outbreak of anti-Semitism! Illegal Israeli squatters terrorizing Palestinians in the Occupied West while Israeli forces idly stand by and do nothing? Yet another outbreak of anti-Semitism!
Israel cries out that the Palestinians refuse to use non-violent means to protest Israel's actions. Where are the Palestinian Ghandis, Israel's supporters ask. And yet the entirely non-violent Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement is immediately denounced as exterminationist anti-Semitism.
Spare us. That dog don't hunt no more. We don't need our intelligence insulted.
3
As long as criticizing Israel's policies will be seen as antisemitism, there will be antisemitism.
3
"Anti-Semitism of the left" is a fake meme, created in an effort to create a false equivalency between the thickly populated racist wing of the American right and the anti-racist American left.
Bogus spin.
1
More false equivenlence from the conseratives!
1
Need to remind you who it was in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us” and who it was who fought against them.
1
Pathetic attempt to lump critics of Israel's policies in with organized racism.
1
While Douthat hopes that his "cordon sanitaire" doesn't dismiss debate and isolate voters, it seems that it already has.
I am old enough to remember and agree with the rightful condemnations of Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitic remarks when he was a spokes person for the Nation of Islam sixty years ago.
But here we are, fully two, nearly three generations later still asking "are you now or have you ever been, affiliated with, in agreement with, in a march or rally with or even silent about Louis Farrakhan?"
Yes, there is anti-Semitism on the liberal, center and right of American society. And yes, we must be vigilant and ready to push back whenever it occurs.
But I can't recall white political leaders being given the same litmus test about racism.
Do we ever ask whether any white politician's in Louisiana voted for David Duke? He did receive 43% of the vote.
Do we ever ask GOP members to disavow Reagan's presidential kick off speech a few miles from the murder site of three civil right workers, where he extolled the virtues of 'states rights'?
Do we ask white politicians whether they voted against removing the anti-miscegenation clauses in the state constitutions of Alabama and South Carolina?
One of the best ways to advance principles of equality is through equity. This means that we engage in our politics in a principled way.
Endlessly resurrecting the "Farrakhan test" is neither necessary nor principled. We can, and many of us have found ways to do much better.
1
Mr. Douthat attempts to claim a similarity between Steve King and the Women's March. Absurd!
The problem with member-of-congress King is that he's a powerful person and has repeatedly abused that power in a racist manner.
The problem with the Women's March is not the march, it's not the leaders of the march, it's the ties of some of the leaders to Farrakhan who is not himself powerful but who might be able to influence powerful people.
King is a problem.
The Women's March is four steps away from a problem: march to leaders to Farrakhan to powerful people.
How would Mr. Douthat react if I noted that he was fine, but we should treat him like Steve King because his sister's teacher's boyfriend had racist views?
3
So yet another pundit telling the Democrats not to get serious, but to trust them. All the while the republicans grow more racist and dangerous. As to Israel, we just want them to make the deal, and if cutting our subsidy propping them up is necessary to convince them to do so, well do it. The current state is more than unsustainable.
2
Including socialism in the same category as xenophobia and racism diminishes the credibility of this column.
Socialism is a dog whistle used by the right wing to describe any idea that interferes with their takeover of the economy. When the capitalists squeeze the common people too much, the so-called socialists step in to correct the balance.
Racism and xenophobia belong on the fringes. Branding a person or an idea as a socialist forces legitimate ideas to the fringes, which is the intent of the far right. The roads, the post office, the police, and public education could be called socialist. As one time, so were trade unions and the minimum wage.
So-called socialism is a necessary countervailing force to unfettered capitalism. It does not deserve to be lumped in with xenophobia and racism.
Consider the possibility that placing socialism in the "cordon sanitaire" is what weakened the cordon enough to let the xenophobia and racism slip through the cracks.
5
@mlbex
This is one of the best comments here.
The author conflates AOC and socialism with the fringe bigots in the women's March and elsewhere.
This is the party that called Obama and Clinton socialists.
"...and the grass-roots left can be as amenable to conspiracy theories as the grass-roots right."
Sure. Like climate change, assault weapons, public education, healthcare for all Americans. We're all a bunch of tinfoil hatters, Ross!
3
Let's face it, these aren't parallel issues. The Republican party at this point is defined by its racism. The President is a racist, and his cabinet is filled with them as well.
The Democratic party has some anti-Semites within it, but they're condemned and marginalized. Farrakhan is a terrible human being, and I loath Sharpton as well, for sticking by the clearly false Brawley accusations.
1
I think Ross is having a crisis. He sees that the Democrats do a better job of reining in hateful extremes. Instead of asking what Republicans can learn from Democrats he desperately tries to claim that both sides are equally bad - except they are not. The Left may be imperfect, but the Right can still learn from it.
It's long past time to ask yourself, Ross, "Are we the baddies?" The KKK and the Neo-Nazis are not voting for Democrats.
5
A giant word salad trying to draw false equivalence between Republicans (they of the racist president, racist congressmen (plural) and racist base) and Democrats does not a convincing column make.
2
Just because "populism" wins a victory doesn't mean that Mr. Trump isn't a sociopath nor that he hasn't and isn't committing treason.
2
Are we not confusing anti-Zionism and anti-semitism? Being opposed to or not wishing to support Netanyahu and his policies has nothing to do with both honoring and having a fondness for the Jewish community in our own country. Many of them do not approve of Netanyahu either.
3
Louis Farrakhan is also a homophobe and a misogynist. His positions and attitudes often align themselves very nicely with those of Ross. Which is maybe why Ross said nothing about that here.
1
Anti-semitism is not a problem of the left. It is a problem of the right. It does exist on the left, but is not the big issue you make it. You're engaging in false equivalency here.
2
Douthat loves to deal in these false equivalences between the right and the left. His Republican party has been a power center for white racists for at least 50 years. Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Steve King, etc. Concentrate on that for one day, at least.
1
Perhaps Mr. Bruni should watch the footage of a Trump campaign rally in Phoenix, the summer before the election. Hundreds of people were screaming, "Jews will not replace us!", to the adoring cheers of thousands in the crowd. I watched this on TV, and at that point, I knew that my assumptions about my fellow Americans were all wrong.
Fast forward to Charlottesville, and a repeat performance. Then move onto the mass murder at the Pittsburgh temple, Tree of Life, by an avowed Trump supporter.
Anti-semitism on the Left? After these incidents, our family (Jewish) had an outpouring of sympathy and concern, from people of all religions and ethnic backgrounds. And to a person, they were all from folks on the Left. Not one single Trump supporter came forward to express the slightest concern, and they know us.
Our local synagogues in the Phoenix area now all have security detail. And this is not because of any imaginary threats on the Left. It is required because we have a president condoning anti-Semitic acts of violence against our people. And his words are having an effect.
I am sick and tired of the false equivalence. I haven't yet seen one column call out the racism, the religious bigotry of "average citizens" on the Right, in this paper. And even Mr. Douthat's column attempts to shift responsibility for anti-Semitism from where it truly lies -- on the Right. And this is why these horrific acts will keep happening, because people like the Pittsburgh shooter still have cover.
3
So the left is obsessed with documented interference with US elections possibly abetted by a sitting president, while the right, including Ross Douthat, is obsessed with a freshman congresswoman who danced in college.
Now that's an equivalency I can live with.
3
The strain of defending the indefensible is beginning to tell on those who support Republicans. Arriving at a "both sides" argument by comparing the current GOP's dominance by its lunatics to Michael Moore, Louis Farrakhan and some straw man socialist nonsense is a mental trip only the dedicated deluded would even attempt.
2
I can't decide if this piece suffers more from "whataboutism" or false equivalencies.
3
I have two problems with this column.
The first is that I believe the intolerance shown by both the left and the right is not different. It is the same - a strong disapproval of those "not like us".
The second is that I don't accept that criticism of the current government of Israel in respect to its progressive occupation of the west bank is "anti semitism". I will accept that it is "anti-colonialism" since what is happening is the expansion of the state of Israel into the remaining Palestinian lands. Yitzhak Rabin would have recognized exactly what is happening - and should be revered for trying to preserve a democratic Israel that did not depend on deprivation of Palestinian civil rights. For his views, he was assassinated by a religious zealot.
3
A thoughtful column, but one that presents a confused description of Trump as a populist (a term I wish pundits would drop until they define it clearly). Except on immigration, where the president's xenophobia appears genuine, Trump bears little resemblance to the original populists, who challenged the industrial magnates and their dominance of American politics in the 1890s.
Trump's tax cut would have enraged those advocates of the income tax, as would his hostility to any form of government regulation of the economy. His shameless exploitation of the presidency to enrich himself further would not have surprised them, because that kind of behavior conformed to their conception of capitalists as corrupters of democracy.
Trump may annoy some Republicans because he scorns the subterfuge that enabled them to deny the racism and homophobia that lay just beneath the surface of their campaign slogans. This dispute within the GOP family, however, does not deprive Trump of his claim to a share of the Reagan legacy. He may resemble the crazy uncle that most families try to confine in the attic, but no birther movement can deny him his rightful place in the pantheon of Republican notables.
2
Ross writes, " Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick ..."
Anti-Semitism is either horrible or it's not. It is horrible This makes that statement a terrible slander against those who protest the the vicious wrongs committed against the Palestinian people. If there is any truth to "... the difference can get blurry quick ..." it this that the slanderous charge of anti-Semitism is leveled so "quickly" against critics of Israel's crimes against Palestinians.
4
This warning of an emergence of populist antisemitism on the left and the comparison of it to the bigotry on the right is utterly spurious. It seems again an attempt to level the balances by saying "Yes, the Republicans have a minor racism problem; but look: so do fringe elements among the Democrats".
While technically true, that comparison fails miserably when one considers the proportion of the problem on the right. For a substantial percentage of the Republican party, far from being a "fringe" tenet, bigotry has been a fundamental (but tacit) principle throughout my entire life. It's not a small percentage! The 35% that have crawled out from whichever rock they were under have always been the defenders (if not perpetrators) of racism, xenophobia and sexism.
By contrast, a few Farrakhan supporters at a women's march does not constitute the same danger. Nor does it pose a threat that requires an extraordinary cordoning-off. The left, at least in my lifetime, has always been clear that its raison d'etre is to counter that type of small-mindedness. And left-wing anti-Zionism is, we are quite clear, not to be conflated with antisemitism. The debate on foreign policy towards Israel is likely to be subject of fair hearing only on the left-- not on the right, where it has been taken up by Christian fundamentalists.
5
To call Clinton's defeat "shocking" and Bush's pushes blundering is the sign of a good mind going bad.
Douthat is possessed by the Realm of Large Ideas, and has a heckuva time sharing his Hyper-Large Reactions with his readers, forcing us as he does to wonder what in the world.
I'm all for wishing well liberalism and conservatism and hoping they able to find the balance point of resolution. It's the midpoint, stupids. The Midpoint....
1
This is false equivalence reminiscent of the handling of Trump/Clinton in 2016.
Racism, bigotry and xenophobia is the platform of the Right/GOP currently. The presence of Farrakhan supporters among the Women's March personnel etc. is trivial by comparison and does not represent the Left.
1
I think the sentence mentioning anti-Semitism followed by one mentioning Michael Moore were poorly written suggesting a connection that doesn't exist and which I presume was unintended after careful rereading
1
"For Democrats this dilemma is likely to play out over foreign policy, and especially policy toward Israel. Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick...Democrats would prefer not to have debates about Israel at all, just as most establishment Republicans circa 2013 hoped to stop debating immigration."
Anyone who circulates in Democratic circles has long seen the tendency to expand and refine the exclusionary do-not-talk lists, just as Republicans have to scold people like King for talking about the obvious-yet-secret planks of the Party's platform.
I think the Democrats have been better at it, which partly explains why Donald Trump is President. The idea that ignoring something makes it go away is tempting, but hopeless.
1
This article is the epitome of false equivalency.
The current climate, if you read the NYT and a few others, is of extreme racism here in the US. And a few readers will ALWAYS point out that the World hates and discriminates against Jews, even though they are The Chosen Ones, and the World owes them for it's basic existence. The truth is, The USA is the best place to live in the world. More people want to come here than anywhere else in the world. Racism? You can find racism anywhere you look. But it is far less in the US than the NYT keeps posting about. Yet, The American Dream is still there, how many immigrant owned businesses are here? If you really want it, and are willing to work for it, it is attainable. No matter what color your skin is.
1
For this old liberal Jew, the difference between criticism of the current Israeli regime (which is NOT anti-Zionism) and anti-Semitism is crystal clear, and has nothing to do with left-wing politics; it is the difference between the untrustworthy evangelical Christianity's support for said regime and anti-Semitism that is murky, and has everything to do with right-wing politics.
1
If I may rebut, point-by-point...
"On the right,… Steve King… On the left,… this weekend’s Women’s March…"
The words and actions of a Congressperson over an entire career, with the full support of an entire political party, cannot be reasonably compared to an annual march being held for just the third time.
"The push against King is an attempt to redraw a line effaced by Donald Trump’s race-baiting…"
This is clearly false, and the author even explicitly acknowledges that later in the piece.
"…before anti-Semitism migrates from the left-wing fringe…"
Anti-Semitism doesn't come from either side of the political spectrum, it comes from ignorance.
"…like the obsessive fixation on Vladimir Putin’s puppeteering..."
With all the evidence, the author still insists there's nothing there.
"…But the G.O.P. feared the possibility of a Trump third-party run too much to take a stand or draw a line…"
This claim is laughable.
"…By trying to simply bury the 'America First!' ideas that Pat Buchanan ran on in the 1990s…"
In what way?
"Where did Donald Trump come from, ultimately? From the presidency of George W. Bush, in which establishment-Republican blunders gave us the Iraq debacle and the financial crisis…"
Just… no. Poll after poll, study after study, has shown that Trump's margin of victory was due exclusively to racial resentment.
Let us all bury our heads in the sand as we declare another false equivalency.
"Without wishing liberalism well..." Oh for corn's sake, Ross.
"But for a party whose base is clearly less sympathetic toward Israel than Democratic elders in D.C., repressing the debate would be a mistake — because then anti-Zionism is more likely to percolate below the party’s surface and then bubble up as bigotry."
It's not about 'sympathy.' It is about holding Israel responsible for its actions. It's what Israeli sympathizers have in common with Trump: anyone who raises questions or offers harsh critique is an enemy.
As a political strategy it has failed both. As a moral or ethical approach to finding peace and justice it also fails. Tragically.
Anyone who opposes the Shoah of the Palestinians being committed by Israel is now an "anti-Semite", according to Mr. Douthat. Well, I must be an "anti-Semite" by Douthat's definition. No, learning about the Holocaust of the Jews made me cry as a young person, and my father risked his life during WWII to fight fascism. However, I oppose Netanyahu's Final Solution for Palestinians, Mr. Douthat (I see you are okay with it). The 1945 Warsaw ghetto is now located in the occupied East Bank and in Gaza.
1
Anti-Semitism IS NOT Anti-Zionist. Anti-Semitism demonizes a whole population based on their cultural heritage. Anti-Zionism criticizes behavior related to the creation of a state. Anti-Semitism is racism and must be condemned.
1
Opposition to Israel's policies could indeed become a cover for the antisemitic fringe in the US. But what happens if American Jews seek, if not a divorce, at least a separation from Israel?
Thanks for the overly long, painfully drawn out propaganda of false equivalencies.
2
False equivalence Ross... Even while you acknowledge the Republican Party's role in the ascent of Trump, your article reads as a balanced primer for both parties. Why contrive an argument that attempts at fairness when it has been clear the Party of UNfairness has us in the longest standing government shutdown over thanks to a primarily racist agenda!?!
Disappointed and disheartened by your outrageously false equivalencies. Dismissing facts such as the work of so many intelligence sources, and ranting against liberals, who you claim as a group are anti-Israel, is a “selective racism” of sorts. Your opinions need to be read so that comments can inform the reading public of your wrongs.
Comparing actual Congressman like Steve King and Roy Moore to people like Al Sharpton (!), Michael Moore and Louis Farrakhan (!), a name I've not seen in any serious news story about literally anything before this column in nearly 2 decades is one way to go Ross.
Please explain "the eternal return of Michael Moore" to me vis-vis anitisemitism. I thought he had just questioned Israel's politics, which is not antisemitism as charris points out in these comments.
1
Most liberals are against the policies of the Netanyahu government because they support the Jewish people and a sustainable Israel.
3
Racism has been at the core of the GOP for many years: the "southern strategy", Reagan's campaign kickoff in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Willie Horton, Mexican rapists, etc.
Yes, there are anti-Semites on the left. But they are not the leadership of the Democratic party.
"Anti-Semites to the left." Yes, Mr. Douthal, the Anti-Semites are on the left, such as AOC who promotes an anti-Israeli policy
over one favorable to Palestine. AOC has compared the Israeli-Palestine conflict to that of the Holocaust, which it is not, as the Israelis are not rounding up Palestinians, loading them into boxcars, and shipping them off to extermination camps. So, yes, you are correct, the Anti-Semites are on the Left. Thank you for clarifying that point.
2
As long as criticism of Israel is treated as “anti-semitism” then there will be “anti-semitism” because many Americans are sick and tired of propping up the Israeli occupation of Palestine and further having to deal with the huge Israeli influence on US foreign policy. It ultimately is about American sovereignty and to discard criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic cheapens the discussion.
What’s a”Resistance grifter”??
Well I guess if you are a conservative Republican in the time of Trump you have to keep repeating over and over again that somehow the Democrats are just as bad. Well there not. Republicans made a pact with the devil when they embraced the Dixiecrats. They broke, now they own it.
2
Agree with the general thrust of the column.
I would say, however, that the right has an anti-Semitism problem percolating as well. This is caused by its flirtation with the alt-right. Remember the Charlottesville marchers chanting notoriously anti-Semitic slogans.
While pointing out that the left and right have similar problems of their extremist wings, I am glad Douthat recognizes the problem is an order of magnitude more severe with the Republicans. As he notes, there the tiger has leapt the cage. Too often, whether due to defensivenss or willing blindness, the doctrine of false equivalency is used to defend the indefensible.
4
No, the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism need not get "blurry" at all. Not if Jews, among others, recognize that a Jewish-majority Israeli state has no more right to occupy lands outside of its legally-determined borders than does Iraq when it moves to occupy and ultimately arrogate Kuwait. The U.S. and its allies made short work of Saddam Hussein's rapacious behavior in 1991. The fact that the Israelis have been permitted to behave in much the same way says a great deal about the pro-Zionist inclinations at work in the U.S. and elsewhere.
10
"a more left-wing, populist, anti-establishment Democratic Party — a party reshaped by Ocasio-Cortezan energy, shall we say — will become increasingly influenced by paranoias and bigotries that bubble up on the far left."
The term "populist", like the word "reform" means different things to different people. One person's "reform," connoting an improvement, can be another person's "repression." Think of the images conjured up by the term "reformatory."
Using the term "reform" to describe"voter identification" laws intended to harass minority and low income voters, and, achieve voter suppression is the anti-thesis of a "reform" in the positive, societal sense liberals and progressives like to think of it.
So, also, the term populism. Medicare for all, a reinvigorated
regulation of consumer protections, and a progressive tax code that doesn't jeapardize the social safety net are all ideas that could qualify as "populist." Populism in a positive sense.
Polls today would probably give a negative rating to the term "populism." Consider how Republicans have demonized the terms "socialism and "liberal."
So, too, Mr. Douthat has in a left-handed way(I'm left-handed, just saying) spun his writing to pre-label emerging ideas from the Democratic left as "populism" with all its negative connotations.
2
The Democrats have an "obsessive fixation on Vladimir Putin’s puppeteering" because Putin is destabilizing the world, Mr. Douthat, and President Trump is enabling him to do so.
We know that Putin and Russia interfered in our 2016 election.
We know that Trump hasn't punished Putin and Russia for those actions.
We know that the Russians have sowed discord among Americans on social media platforms.
We know that Putin and Russians murder journalists.
We know that Putin wants to eliminate NATO.
We know that Russians used a nerve agent to attack a former Russian agent and his daughter in the suburbs of the UK.
We know that the Russians interfered in the Brexit vote.
We know that Trump has said he wants to pull out of NATO.
We know that Trump wants to end Russian sanctions.
We know that in a speech in 2005 Putin said, “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
We know that all of Trump's actions, since he first announced he was running, have been supportive of Putin and Russia.
Why are you okay with Russia's attacks on our country, Russia's attacks on our allies, and Trump's groveling support of Putin and Russia, Mr. Douthat?
2
Clinton effectively elected "W" Bush, who by his stupidity, elected Obama, who by his actions resulted in Trump. Dem-Rep-Dem-Rep
Ross Douthat, like David Brooks, writes column after column arguing that liberals and lefties bear as much responsibility as does the right for America's problems, including racism, political gridlock, economic inequality, etc. They do not. As conservatives, Douthat and Brooks do not want to admit the plain truth that the right is principally responsible for these problems, and they both perform great rhetorical contortions to fault liberals and the left, rather than acknowledge that conservatism is no longer "a movement of ideas," if it ever was, but has gone off the rails to the right.
12
Douthat raises interesting questions for the Democratic Party but hides from the difficult part of the solution. Democratic elders could provde their committment to progressive pinciples but voting against the Anti-BDS legislation which so obviously contradicts American values. Distancing from Louis Farrakhan is an important step against racism; allowing the BDS movement to express itself is equally important in the other direction.
2
"Republican" and "Democrat" have become four letter words to their non-believers. Each party is and has been more of a coalition than anything else, and has long acted as a safe harbor for its more radical acolytes.
Generally, the parties have been able to keep the most extreme among them more or less in the wings, to some extent tolerating them as a necessary accomplice to freedom of expression and the need for attaining majority status.
Those days, increasingly, appear to be over. To one extent or another, we have lost our sense of comity and reason, and replaced it with verbal daggers and emotion. The fringes of either party have become the loudest, and any pretense to centrism by either party has been construed as weakness by the more extreme among them, who are only too happy to hold up the entire system in order to achieve their goals, regardless of whether or not a majority of their parties or country agree with them.
Those party members more prone to accommodation, compromise and reason rather than unbending litmus tests of purity, live in fear of being "primaried." As a consequence, they tack this way or that toward the fringes to hold onto their own coveted sinecures. They become weak and afraid in the face of fire-breathing political monsters.
Franklin Roosevelt got it right. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," to which I might add, along with a lust for continued power. And as Baron Action said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
“Cordons sanitaires” – that’s impressive. Try to dress up a hatchet job with some intellectual filigree – but it’s still a hatchet job.
It’s a cheap tactic to attempt to deflect the harsh reality of King’s and Trump’s – heck, the Republican Party’s – racism by claiming the Left is racist too. “Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism,” but then Douthat tries to paint it as such by calling it a “kind of hatred.”
As the Right begins to go into a meltdown, Douthat’s writing has become tortured and labyrinthine. He twists himself into verbal and logical contortions - Rube Goldberg structures – where, by the end, the reader has lost the thread of his claim.
He seems to be writing more and more for his real audience: Fox News.
18
I wasn't aware of progressives marching with neo-nazis in Charlottesville.
17
@Greg
But they do march with anti-semites in Washington. That’s the point.
1
Please spare us that that old conservative trope that the Left is anti-Semitic because it believes that Palestinians are human beings.
37
If the left truly believes that ‘Palestinians are human beings’, they would first be blaming Palestinian leadership for failing to better the lives of their own people. They’d be questioning why Palestinian leadership would rather spend money on building tunnels and acquiring military equipment than building schools and hospitals. They’d be questioning why millions of contributed dollars are going towards paying terrorists for killing Jews and continuing to teach their 3 year olds to aspire to martyrdom. But these are not usually the questions being asked from the left. Instead, they only question why Israel continues a ‘brutal occupation’ against the Palestinians.
The same people, who for over 70 years have been attempting, but failing, to annihilate the world’s only Jewish nation. Any fair minded person would be questioning the source of this one sided blame game. Some of it can only be attributed to a certain level of antisemitism, or, if you prefer, treating a Jewish democratic country differently than others.
4
The start of being able to root out racism is to start with zero tolerance and not to compare or debate who is worse.
We should never forget that there were signs in the USA that used to say "No Blacks! No Jews! No dogs!" We should not forget on this coming MLK Day that Jews marched side by side with MLK!
Farrakhan has recently used the same words as Hitler, but the main stream media and others for some reason have not demonized him in the same way as other racists. Some have even cropped photos of him in effort not to show him. Imagine if the same treatment were given to David Duke. Shame on you!
In my opinion Anti-Semites also hide behind their criticism of Israel. If Zionist is the Jewish RIGHT to self determination of their state based on historical, religious, cultural and indigenous rights to a land than denying Jews that right is racism too. 850,000 citizens of Arab nations were expelled in 1948 when Israel became a State. They did not differentiate between a citizens that lived in their country for centuries and Israel. Don't get fooled by those who now suddenly want to differentiate.
I have no problem criticizing Israel LOUDLY when Israel needs to be "called out", but when you look at the behavior of other countries around the world and you choose to jump up and down screaming look at the Jews and only choose to boycott Israel, you are most likely an anti-Semite.
Zero tolerance for racism please! There is no other way!
14
@David K
"850,000 citizens of Arab nations were expelled in 1948 when Israel became a State. They did not differentiate between a citizens that lived in their country for centuries and Israel."
And an almost equal number of Arabs were expelled from lands that became of the state of Israel (before the subsequent Arab of expulsions of Jews I might add). Why no mention of them David?
David Ben Gurion had a homeland. It was called Poland. He had no right for force his Jewish state down the throats of the Arabs who had been living in palestine for centuries before he and his zionist buddies got off their boat from Europe.
@Joe
No mention of them here because I did not want to start the Israeli Palestinian debate. I wanted to point out antisemitism and that comments against Israel are frequently masked racism.
My opinion is that the Palestinian refugee problem exists today because when international law recognized the Jewish right of self determination through the creation of Israel, the Arab states immediately declared war on Israel causing an exodus of people. And since no where in the world is a person of third of fourth generation considered a refugee unless you are Palestinian, there still is an issue today. You should ask why Palestinians have not been given full rights as citizens in the countries which they live.
People becoming refugees as a result of war is much different than a country expelling their own citizens because they practice a certain religion.
My opinion is that there have been centuries of different Empires ruling what is now Israel with migrations of people moving in and out as a result. Its not a surprise that different people struggle or even fight to claim for conflicting rights in the area. And that includes Jews and Palestinians.
Its very valid to point out Israel's bad policies, but the moment you deny Jews their historical rights or rights to self-determination, you are anti-Semitic.
And to repeat, with all that goes on in so many other countries, you are kidding yourself if you don't get it why people jump up and down screaming 'look at the Jews!!"
1
@David K
Jews do not have "historical rights." If the Jews have a right to self determination, then so do the Samaritans and the Druze. What parts of Israel should we partition for those groups whose right to self determination Israel is currently violating?
The reality is that the Palestinians are the real Jews. They are the Jews who never left Israel to wander Europe and the rest of the middle east. They are Jews who converted to Christianity or later Islam while continuously residing on the land only to have interlopers from Europe show up and demand they relinquish their country.
Zionism is colonialism. Ben Gurion had a homeland called Poland. If Zionists truly believe in equality then they will offer the Palestinians equal rights instead of demanding that they recognize Jewish supremacy in the land of Israel for all of time.
I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Most of the anti-semites I run into are on the right. Does he (like too many zealots) mean that, if you don’t give Israel a blank check, you’re anti-semitic?
19
"Where did Donald Trump come from, ultimately? From the presidency of George W. Bush, in which establishment-Republican blunders gave us the Iraq debacle and the financial crisis."
Given enough time and column space, I suppose one could try to connect those dots, but the consensus is that Trump's popularity and ultimate election was a direct response to eight years of the Obama administration and an advertised four-year extension if Hillary Clinton were elected.
While Hillary Clinton, parroting Obama, said "those jobs aren't coming back", Trump was saying "I am going to try to bring those jobs back." Who would you vote for? The "I give up" candidate or the "I'm going to try" candidate. As Trump said to black voters, "What the hell do you have to lose?"
But back to Bush, Iraq, and the financial crisis . . . uh, how does that work again?
4
I'm pretty sure Trump didn't say he'd "try" to bring those jobs back; he said he "would." But despite all his arm twisting of air conditioner manufacturers and trade war sabre rattling, he hasn't. There's a difference between not being excited about what a realist has to say and not being adequately skeptical of something that someone who has no grasp of the situation -- or more likely, who just says whatever he pleases -- has to say.
4
@Brian
Yes, to some it was obvious that Trump should not try. Not so obvious at that time is that under Trump, employment is now at historically high levels.
Irrespective, it’s nice to see you agree that the whole Bush, Iraq, financial crisis statement is gratuitous claptrap.
In the annals of false equivalence, this has got to be the ultimate. It's quite a stretch to compare the decades-long programmatic and thorough-going racism of the Republican party with the occasional random anti-Semite or anti-Semitic sentiments of members of the Democratic party.
16
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick."
As in this column, from start to finish. And in that sentence, for the primary issue on the left is not "Anti-Zionism" but opposition to Israel's treatment of the Palestinans, who are not mentioned once by name by Ross Douthat.
17
We who are cognizent of Palestinian history do not characterize anti-semiticism or anti-zionism as the problems. Neither is as relevant to the tragedy existing now in the Middle East as the fact that post WWII agreements effectively robbed the Palestinians of their lands. When outside funding allowed Jews to purchase Palestinian lands, with the resultant establishment of a Jewish state and the expulsion of existing inhabitants of their properties the seeds were sown for conflict, and since then we have been seeing it. This is the real problem, and until it is solved (but I doubt it will be) tragic conflicts will continue.
5
@J K Griffin
Sir,
You may not see anti-semitism and anti-Zionism as “the problems” but I assure you that the Jews who survived the Holocaust and were left standing after WWII most certainly did. I guess they were cognizant of Jewish history.
2
I am a Jew who has worked on the left for years and can honestly say that I have never seen or heard anti-semitism expressed. BDS, whether you love it or hate it, is not anti-semitism—it is an attempt (misguided or not) to help a suffering people. Whereas elected leaders on the right loudly proclaim racist remarks.
This Whataboutism and false equivalency is intellectually dishonest, Mr Douthat. Really dishonest. It lets the right off the hook—even if you criticize them, by suggesting there is any kind of parallel on the left. Trump says Mexican immigrants are rapists (some are nice people), and White Supremacists are equivalent to anti-fascists. Ocosio-Cortez says... she likes socialism? These are not equivalent. Shame on you for sheltering the right through false equivalencies. Sometimes, one side is on the wrong side of history. I fear you work for that side, sir.
20
Adam, I must agree. I do not see anyone on the left repeating the “Jewish financier” conspiracy theories of the Nazi era. I do see that in the constant right wing conspiracy mongering about George Soros. I do not see people on the left marching while chanting “Jews will not replace us.” I did see that done by those in Charlottesville whom Trump called “fine people.” Douthat is being extremely dishonest in calling out the left for anti-semitism while ignoring many more examples of that on his own side. Shame!
Thus is written the textbook definition of Professor Krugman’s false equivalency.
Mr. Douthat, it is not even close and I am a Jew.
7
This column has so many sharp edges it reads like it came out of rock tumbler too soon. Corbyn's view's on Israel notwithstanding, Anti Semitism is hardly a left wing construct since its major beneficiaries throughout history have been at the pinnacle of the status quo - Henry Ford anyone? Or pick a pope, just about any pope, Mr Douthat. As for Michael Moore - if the columnist has an accusation to level at the film maker, he should level it - not cast sly aspersions of the most obnoxious nature - oh yeah - that's what Trump does. Maybe Trump's tactic of making offensive unfounded accusations is trickling down. Something sure is.
12
Right. I was thinking, “What does any of this have to do with Michael Moore?” Dirty, dirty.
1
"before the party starts getting its own versions of Jeremy Corbyn in positions of real influence."
Wow. Just wow.
Just can't get through a column without unleashing that old-time smear machine, can we?
4
Democrats regularly compare Republicans to Hitler, and talking about the mere potential of a Jeremy Corbyn-like figure is a smear? This is nuts.
2
This column made me think about the fact that in America a person is able to strongly condemn Saudi Arabia which is essentially, because of the location of Mecca and Medina, the homeland of Islam, without being called an Islamophobe while if a person strongly condemns Israel they are typically thought of as being anti semitic.
9
@Hubert Nash
Yes it is very weird when that happens—especially to an entire people who were systematically exterminated by their own supposed countrymen while the rest of the world largely watch. It’s crazy to think these people may get nervous when people want to destroy their homeland. Go figure.
1
I have no idea what Mr. Douthat was saying in his article....'cordons sanitaires' et al......
1
@JMS
Google is an impressive invention. Admittedly, I had to look up the definition of "Cordons Sanitaires" but once I did, the article came into sharp focus regarding the term.
Being critical with the government of Israel does not mean being antisemitic. Many people (from the right or left) do not agree with Netanyahu and the occupation of Palestinians territories. Being critical with Netanyahu government does not mean being antisemitic. In fact there are many jews in Israel (proud of their great culture) that think the same about their president and government
5
@Tess
Being against Netanyahu is not anti-Zionism.
Racists on the right and anti-semites on the left in the U.S.?
It appears both more complicated and simpler than that. More complicated than saying the right is composed of whites out to target anybody not white and that the left is a problem for only Jewish people, and quite simple to understand when we reflect that both the right and left have not really overcome especially tribalism along racial and ethnic lines. Sure the right might be racist along white lines, but these same racists appear not particularly incompatible with strongly right wings in other countries, people of different racial or ethnic background.
As for the left, for all socialism and supposed overcoming of racial and ethnic discrimination, the actuality appears a defense of not only favored racial and ethnic groups but a defense of women and non-heterosexuals. In short, what we have in actuality is constantly shifting balances of power, no real conception of a working political economy beyond racial and ethnic and to lesser degree religious identification. Everybody it appears plays the sly game of being as strongly right wing as possible where they have the numerical and territorial advantage and as strongly left wing as possible where they are at disadvantage, where they are say a minority in a country.
And of course women and gays will lean left because everywhere at disadvantage for one reason or another. Too bad Kissinger can't be young again to write a book about it. Realpolitik all around.
Hilarious, good try Ross! We have a racist bigot as President and Republicans refuse to remove him or even admonish him. Democrats swiftly move to remove anyone even remotely offensive to the party while Republicans take YEARS to do anything about Steve King. Good try Ross, better luck next time!
4
Douthat is more clever than usual today.
He equates a few women who were and are involved in the Women's March and who allegedly made anti semitic remarks and had ties to Farrakhan with the decades long racist,misogynist and xenophobic policies that the entire Republican party has used for decades starting with Reagan.
These policies exploited the anger in the South and among some men over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that made discrimination against minorities and women illegal.
There is no equivalence.
He even admits that but then whispers there are now young, brash women of color new to Congress who just might remake the Democratic party into an anti semitic bastion.
The rest of the article is a demonstration in how to bend the rules logic to sort of make your point.
5
While there are no doubt, some anti-Semites on the left, the majority of them are on the right of the political spectrum, something which Russ Douthat continues to ignore. This type of bothsides-ism is what has brought our once proud Republic to its knees.
When there are bigots on the left they are roundly denounced and discarded. On the right, they are ignored and often lauded for "truth telling". The fact that this false equivalence continues to be perpetuated in the New York Times by a columnist is shameful.
2
So the point of such a cordon sanitaire is to keep at bay certain ideas that have the potential to metastasize into hate whether it be antisemitism on the left or racism on the right. Funny how you, Mr. Douthat, have demonized left-leaning college students for constructing their own cordon sanitaire against ideas being expressed on campus that could lead to hate and discomfort. I agree those college students were too easily discomforted, but is it only a question of degree? The point of living in a free society is that every idea, no matter how repulsive, is allowed expression so it can be examined and where appropriate, rejected. Had Republicans in Congress wanted to erect their own cordon sanitaire against US Rep. Steve King's white supremacy, they would have done so a lot sooner. No, this is less a cordon sanitaire than a naked attempt to hide from the electorate that what they now rightly fear, has already taken over their party, controls their destiny, and which if the most recent polls are any indication, heralds a day of reckoning November 3, 2020. Cheers.
1
One thought, slightly tangential:
The vast majority of Americans are not at all represented in government.
We're neither racists or anti-Semites. We're not deplorable or elite. We're not confused about gender or angry at our neighbors.
We just want government "...for the People".
5
I'm not the sharpest knife in the dishwasher, but, Mr. Douthat, how does the Democratic Party align with anti-Semitism? Please explain in a future column because you certainly didn't here.
Of more enlightenment to me was your frank admission that the Donald Trump presidency is "a failed presidency, in which the bonds of trust between voters and party leaders are decisively severed." I was rather surprised you mentioned how Barack Obama avoided that; during his tenure, you went out of your way to denigrate and excoriate it as a failed leftist, Socialist experiment. You also candidly admit "birtherism" should have disqualified Trump as a candidate. Your essay would have been shockingly honest had you developed this thought. Let me help you, here.
You made a passing reference to Pat Buchanan. What's the difference, really, between him and H. W., W., and Trump? Toss in Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan--and, yes, Steven King--and you have the populism movement that your snobby elitism looks down upon but, in reality, brings joy to your anti-democratic sensibilities. The great unwashed never counted with you and yours, did they?
I was rather stunned, having thought you more intellectually supple than to conjure up on that old bogeyman, Louis Farrakhan. What you write here insults non-whites and women, the latter especially, for not having the sensibilities to acknowledge a danger right in front of them. If Trump has put the sword to anyone, it's women.
2
I still don’t buy the whole “Trump is a racist” argument. At worst, I don’t think he’s more of a racist than anyone else.
At some point, we’re going to have to make peace with the fact that everyone has some racist thoughts and prejudices, and end the inquisition for everyone in a position of public influence.
Putting America’s interests first does not make Trump a racist.
2
[The Democrats are already vulnerable to paranoias of the center, like the obsessive fixation on Vladimir Putin’s puppeteering whenever populism wins another victory — but that’s a subject for another time.]
Oh no! You don't so easily get away by calling Putin's obvious manipulation of Trump as an "obsessive fixation" and "paranoia" of the Democrats as a subject for another day. No, no, today is just fine for discussing it.
First off, it's not an "obsession" of the Democrats but is of the FBI and has been since 2016 as it has of the the United States Intelligence Community (IC) made up of 16 separate United States government intelligence agencies and a 17th administrative office, that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign policy and national security of the United States. It is the products of that community that Trump has shown no interest in . He's got better sources, apparently.
I appreciate that among your America First! brethren the IC and FBI are among the "deep state" that those folks are so fearful of. They must have been even more agitated when we recently learned that Trump was actually under criminal investigation for being an agent of Russia. In John le Carre parlance Trump could be Karla's "mole".
The fact is, Mr. Douthat, that the Republican party no longer exists except for its America First! wing of the 1930s that supported the Nazi party in every way.
Good luck putting lipstick on that pig.
1
"Why have the Democrats managed to keep the cranks at bay more successfully than the G.O.P.? Because the party’s elite has mostly kept the trust of the party’s base."
That's a swing and a miss, although overall your column was very strong and made some very fair points.
The Democrats manage to keep their "cranks" at bay because there are far fewer of them, and the beliefs that they espouse are not so "dug in" to the overall ethos of the party.
Many if not most inside the GOP share those same beliefs with the "cranks", but put on a show when it suits them (like now with this King dust up) and remind everybody that they're the "party of Lincoln".
Sorry, not buying. The "barricades" that have been erected to keep those kooks out have always been extremely permeable and mostly for show.
Also, generic "bigotry" is a much easier sell than "Anti-Semitism". The Jews in this country have a lot of power and influence, which has been successfully employed over generations to essentially wipe out overt anti-Semitism. It can only exist on the fringes now, and and shape shifts into "Anti-Zionism" as a proxy for it.
But yes, I do see a very fierce battle coming on our left flank, it's not only inevitable, it's here, and it's going to be messy.
"The party establishment could have worked to marginalize or exclude (Trump) from the primary process; the birtherism alone offered grounds enough." Douthat underestimates how far gone the party already was. As I recall, not a single one of that stage full of Republican candidates denounced birtherism. So denouncing racism, as long as it was veiled in the thinnest fabric, was considered politically toxic on the right. Also denouncing birtherism on the grounds that that faith was as stupid as believing the moon is made of cheese, this too wouldn't fly in today's GOP.
1
It’s so predictable. Whenever an African American speaks in support of Farrakhan the right reflexively shrieks “anti-semitism!” and we have to start over again. It’s also effective, because any criticism of Israel is automatically, obviously a hatred of all Jews. Finally, it’s useful for the religious right in the US because they have cleverly co-opted the history of anti-semitism and oppression against Jewish people to convince themselves they’re victims too and to show themselves that “see, see, the left (“left” is code here) is just as bad because they hate Jews.”
All this to keep young leaders like Tamika Mallory down. (It seems to have put Ayanna Pressley on her heels a bit too, because she quoted from The Color Purple.) These women are forbidden from drawing on the 20th century figures they’ve learned to draw from but the religious right can continue to quote the Robertsons and the Falwells with impunity. A double standard, what do you know!
1
The single, unifying belief of the Trump GOP is white nationalism. He boasts of being a proud nationalist. He holds no competencies for the job either intellectually or politically, but he seethes with hatred and lies against people of color, and that alone animates his supporters. Pretending the so-called Left is equally unified by an overriding belief in Antisemitism is the kind of both-sidism navel gazing that makes our media a joke.
1
This article agrees with my long held opinion that there is rampant anti-semitism among the hard left, although I often get blasted for that opinion. Liberals very rarely call these folks out.
2
I wonder where Jared Kushner is?
1
The left has an anti-semitism problem? Remember Trump's last TV ad in the campaign--dark ominous threatening music and language, and video of Hillary Clinton and three Jewish people--George Soros, Janet Yellin, and Lloyd Blankfein. Anti-semitism in America has historically (and continues to be) deeply tied to major parts of the right-wing. Criticizing Israel's policies isn't anti-semitism (arguably not even anti-Zionist), even while some individuals may lapse over the boundary. The Women's March "organizers" simply caught a much larger wave of protest, and now are acting like they are in charge of it. They aren't, and if some of them persist in anti-Semitism, they will be marginalized.
2
I'm sorry. False Equivalency. Miserable try and fail.
2
There is a left opposition to Israel's policy (e.g. J -Street). Is there and equivalent on the right? Or is it simply anything that Israel wants is OK with them?
Are you equating racist, anti-semitic, fascistic groups (all those "good guys on both sides") with the democratic socialism espoused by both Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez?
If so, methinks the equivalence you are trying to create is flawed.
1
Why is it that Republicans can admit that there are some in their party that are racist, but Democrats seem to have a hard time admitting and disavowing themselves from the anti-semitism in their party simply calling it anti-zionism. Saying that Israel does not have a right to exist is anti-semitism.
2
Which Democrat, pray tell, said Israel doesn’t have a right to exist? Be specific, and name names. I’ll wait right here.
To connote or denote that all liberals are anti-Semitic and all conservatives are racists is a bit naive. But then, after reading Douthat's blathering for a while, I have come up with the opinion that he is way to naive for someone who has been exposed to a better education than that. I particularly enjoy his articles on his religious views, he really knows little about that subject, but speaks loudly about it.
As for anti-Semitism, one can be against Israel and its policies and practices but not be anti-Semitic. The word "Semite" is interesting in an of itself. Specifically, it is a language group which includes, of all things, Arabic. Being the old Geezer that I am, I can remember when Anwar Sadat said that he was called anti-Semitic and his response was "how can I be anti-Semitic, I am a Semite."
We all have a tendency to judge another's intellect by how much they agree with the one making the judgement. ∂Doing just that, I think that Douthat is about as dumb as a box of hammers,.
2
I am tired of the false equibvalence narrative.
The GOP and Republicans have been engage in creating policies that disproprotionately harm minorities (Voter suppression and gerrymandering etc) and have been engaging in racialized rhetoric. How long has Steve King served as a Republican congressman? And remind us again about the Jesse Helms "hands" commercial.
Instead of resoundly castigating this policy of stoking racial animus for political gain, we have condemnations that are framed that bigotry is occurring on both sides.
There are bigots in every walk of society...but only one party is preying on the bigotry of the electorate by enacting racialized policies and using coded languages to maintain political power. Only one party is trying to re-institutionalized bigotry by bringing back "the nostalgia of the segregation-Jim Crow-anti-LGBT, fifties"
Are there Democrats enaging in anti-semitic rhetoric and pushing policies that systematically discriminate against Jewish people and their religious institutions?
Are there Democratic congressmen going to Austria and embaracing Neo-nazis? Are Neo-nazis being invited to Democratic-based conferences?
If we can't even state facts about the crisis facing the republican party and conservatives, then we cannot have a true discussion about how to save the GOP.
In end, we need a strong two party system for our democracy to strive. But it starts with being honest .............
3
divide and concur!
Here's the thing . This column is about the mote (Louis Farrakhan) in the Democrats' eye and the beam (white supremacist notions) in the Republicans' eye. If you wrote only about the beam, Ross, would you be drummed out of the "conservative" ranks?
You do know what happens when you lie down with dogs, don't you?.
I’m definitely left of center and have many, many friends, some Jewish, with my worldview. I know not of one who has ever uttered an anti-Semitic comment. On Israel, we are disturbed by the right wing Netanyahu who allows settlements to be built in illegal territory. Like pouring acid in a wound. We are equally disturbed by bombs and mortar lobbed at Israel. We see both as wrong. But none of us would march around with torches screaming Jews will not replace us. The right has the most strident racists AND anti-semites. False equivalency.
4
When Ross Douthat also claims that Democrats are "fixated" on Putin, it reminds me of the Nixon defenders in 1973 who insisted that Democrats were "fixated" on a building in DC called "Watergate".
Ross, Democrats and all Americans become "fixated" when Republican Presidents and their cabinets are corrupt, lying and law-breaking. Trump's and his campaign's knowingly meeting with representatives of Putin during the campaign and knowingly accepting their help broke the law.
Republicans like you get "fixated" on insisting that their leaders should be able to be as corrupt as they want and like you, they lie and claim there is no different between Republican leaders making racist policy and some person with little power on the left who has never been elected to any office saying something anti-Semitic. For shame, Ross. For shame.
People like you are the enablers of both the racism and the anti-Semitism on the right (which doesn't bother you at all because it is on the right).
3
Getting my first Social Security check in March. Thank you Roosevelt and thank you liberals. Medicare's next, paid for my mother's hospice care. Socialism according to St. Reagan.
Just sayin.
Let's see what do I get from Ross's team? climate change that will make life impossible for my grandson, endless wars and corrupt government. But thanks for telling me that the hate in the GOP needs to be confronted with scolding liberals.
As far as antisemitism I believe that it was Ross's team (the fine people) that marched chanting Jews will not replace us.
4
Anti-semites marched in Charlottesville with racists. Remember, "Jews will not replace us"? I think it's convenient for Ross to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism (it's not), just so he can continue his "both sides do it" meme.
4
Wait, there was a Women's March this weekend?
“This is not to say that anti-Semitism or other paranoid worldviews are a new problem on the left, or that the Democratic Party has always handled them effectively.”
Here we go again with the false arguments and misrepresentations. Pointing out the racist and discriminatory acts Israel's Likud-run government commits is NOT tantamount to denying the Holocaust or to white supremacy.
If I criticize any other government in the world for their racist, repressive policies, no one would be so idiotic as to label me as hating all the people who live in that country and those who share their religion or ethnicity.
The UN has condemned - on many occasions - the Israeli government's human rights abuses against Palestinians and its settlement-building in the West Bank. These abuses are what many people are pointing out, and which consistently gets them labelled anti-Semitic by pundits and "experts" in the media.
Many Jews who live in Israel and outside the country oppose their government's policies. Are they anti-Semitic? Probably not. Are there conspiracy theorists on both sides? Yes. Does it help when you conflate legitimate critics of Israel’s racist policies with the Nation of Islam and neo-Nazis? Of course not. Let’s have an intelligent discussion, and stop wasting space with false arguments.
3
False equivalency is one of the methods used by Republican defenders to minimize their appalling self-dealing pandering to whoever and whatever will give them power. Shame to see it so often in the pages of the NYT.
3
As always Mr. Douthat weaves his yarn with either or both of the warp and weft based on his religious belief. Today's sweater features his fellow christian Putin as a non-meddling up front guy and Israel with a Jewish controlled Jerusalem as landing zone for a returning Jesus.
1
Ross, which Democratic presidential candidate got over 60 million votes running on anti-Semitism? Can you name the anti-Semitic lie that corresponds to the birther lie? Does the GOP's fake pearl-clutching over Rep King require you to propound this false equivalence?
2
Well, progress over 40 years.
It used to be "anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism." Now we have the fallback position, well-expressed by Douthat: " Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick... "
In the old days: you're a monster if you're an anti-Zionist.
The new improved version: If you're an anti-Zionist, you're probably a monster. Or at least flirting with it.
Israel has two ultimate weapons: its surfeit of nuclear arms, and the charge of anti-Semitism. The latter is subject to overuse and concomitant symbol depletion.
Examples of overreach of the anti-Semitism charge:
1) "Demonization of Israel". If one says that Israel is in some sense illegitimate, one is an anti-Semite.
But, any informed person knows that the Zionist army drove the ancient population, the Palestinians, out at gunpoint.
Doesn't one find this an illegitimate founding of a country? Something like what Americans did to the Native Americans? Careful: you're flirting with demonizing.
BTW, demonizing other countries is ok: Demonizing Russia is all the rage.
2) "Comparisons with the Nazis." Well, some jerks in Gaza kept firing near-useless rockets from the barbed wire prison toward Israel. The total death count was about 40 Israelis and others in 15 years.
Retaliating, the IDF, in two attacks on Gaza, killed 3500 people, a reprisal rate of 90 to 1.
Is it morally wrong, anti-Semitism, to point out that the Nazis' rate was only 10 to 1?
1
Douthat plays the wooden boy again. Like any criticism of Israel has not been established in the right wing press for decades as 'antisemitism'.
Blind fealty or bust. Right up Ross's Alley.
Oh, please! Are you really trying to say that anti-Semitism is more of a problem on the left than it is on the right? Give me a break. Of all the absurd false equivalencies you, Brooks, and Stephens have tried to draw in the last few years, this may be the most imbecilic.
4
More pablum from Father Douhat. It was the white supremacist right wing racists that were chanting “Jews will not replace us!” ‘Member? It is the right wing hate-asphere including Don Sr. And Jr. that has propagated the anti-Semitic memes of Jewish world conspiracies. ‘Member? Yeah, we remember.
4
Are there any intellectually honest conservative pundits left in this country? Douthat's attempts to smear left-of-center people as anti-Semites is contemptible, and flies in the face of history and current events. Facts are, it's the right wing in this country that has always been more racist and anti-semitic. Fact: It was the right-wing Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville who chanted that the Jews would not replace them. Fact: It was a right-wing fanatic who murdered innocents at a Pittsburgh synagogue. And it is the right-wing evangelicals in this country whose "support'' of Israel is driven by their biblical belief that Israel's destruction will hasten the rapture, in which they will be rewarded and the Jews destroyed.
Douthat surely knows all this. Yet he writes propaganda. He's becoming as morally bankrupt as the Trump administration.
5
The right is both racist and Anti-Semitic and always has been. The left actually built Israel.
3
The left wing are not “anti-semitic”, they’re anti- ethnic cleansing and therefore against the open air prison to which the nation of Israel has confined Palestinians. The undisputed leader of the American left, Bernie Sanders, is Jewish. Nobody on the left has the slightest problem with that. It’s the alt-right who chant “Jews will not replace us” in the streets. They’re the anti-Semitic ones and they’re the racist ones.
3
82% of Jewish-Americans voted democratic in the midterms... I guess you think they’re antisemitic too, right?
Pathetic attempt at false equivalence.
4
Conservatives are so dangerous, behaving in radical ways - shutting down the government, laying prone to Putin and blowing the deficit sky high for supply side economics (wink). The liberals are the only thing that can save our country. Yes, anti-semitism and Israel/Palestinian support has to be hashed out on left, but only one party has brown kids in cages and calls Nazis "fine people". You, wasting one more column on "what the left should do" while the border, airport, FBI, court system and food safety languishes is pathetic. Is there even an ounce of patriotism on the right?
3
Douhat repeats the ugly smear that Jeremy Corbin is an anti-Semite when the truth is that he is only guilty of being a man of integrity who has openly supported Palestinian rights.
3
Did Ross Douthat just call Michael Moore an anti-semite? Without evidence? An inexcusable slur.
3
Omg. Ross can’t name an anti semites on the left besides a few ALREADY on the sidelines, literally outside the building, while racists are in the White House and Republican congressional caucus.
5
Oh Ross. Another attempt at a false equivalence. Really embarrassing.
3
Resistance grifters? Michael Moore a conspiracy crank? Anti-Zionism is not "necessarily" anti-Semitism. Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. Are you shooting for a Fox News slot?
5
Why the cheap shot at AOC? Where's the evidence that she's a bigot, a paranoid or an anti-Semite?
3
The column implies that antisemitism is a problem for the Democrats and not Republicans. I remember marchers in Charlottesville chanting anti Jewish slogans as they marched through the streets with their torches. The right has been hell bent on turning the prominent Jewish philanthropist George Soros into the root of all evil. People of all political stripes dip their toes into the pools of antisemitism when it works for them. With propaganda overwhelming social media this will only get worse as the parties work overtime to manipulate the most gullible of their citizens.
2
The liberals I know, like myself, have serious issue with the Israeli regime. A bigot that does not make us.
2
Strange, I don't remember "Jews will not replace us!" being chanted by Democrats.
3
The Democratic Base members are its elite. We are sure of the fact that the Republican Party is damaging to America's national interest. Oh, let us count the ways. We have been
keeping up with current events for decades.
2
Mr. Douthat is stretching here. He is proposing that there is a left-wing takeover of the Democratic Party that does not want Israel to exist. That would be an extreme position and there is almost zero chance that will happen. Most Democrats simply want peace in the Middle East. Don't try to create a false equivalency with the dangers of right-wing extremism. Right-wing extremism, especially in Europe, is anti-semitic. Mr. Douthat is providing a warning where none is necessary. The current Republican Party is the party of hate, which Mr. Douthat mentions, but he also cannot try to make it seem as if that equivalency exists on the left. It does not.
1
To begin with any fixation on Vladimir Putin's "puppeteering" is well warranted whether it comes from the Democrats or anyone else because that's the way he works, and anyone who's ever lived in the Soviet Sektor or who's familiar with the KGB Handbook will readily tell you so.
But back to racism and anti-Semitism.
There's no doubt that they're both alive and well in America and that's certainly nothing new.
However what is new is the extent to which they've been given free reign not only on the political stage, but the fact that much of it emanates from the White House.
There's no way to play down or avoid the fact that Donald Trump is racist since that was readily proven when he didn't distance himself from the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan when running as a candidate, and later on when tragic events unfolded at Charlottesville.
And it's hardly fair to equate the G.O.P.'s long and proven ties to racism with the "anti-establishment Democratic Party" now being equated in the personage of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, while seeking to forgive Republicans for finally censuring Representative Steve King.
In any case, all racism and anti-Semitism should be soundly and broadly quarantined regardless of where it's coming from.
1
Anti-Israeli statements, over how Palestinians are being treated, should not be equated with anti-Semitism. However, I have no doubt that there is a little of the latter mixed in with the former. One can only hope that the "new-left's" anti-Israel statements are based on a touch of naiveté and will moderate as they gain more real world experience. As much as I am intrigued by AOC, she has accomplished nothing yet, except a political upset of a Dem party regular. Lets see what she can and will do once Congress gets down to actually governing. I wish her well, I hope she doesn't become the poster child for what can be wrong on the Left, I fear thats exactly what the Right will do to her (whether or not she deserves it.) Trumps base/Freedom caucus need to learn that COMPROMISE isn't a dirty word; the same goes for the new Left.
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism."
Anti-Zionism ISN'T anti-Semitism period.
They have nothing to do with one another.
3
Maybe for you. But the disproportionate focus and double standards applied to Israel clearly speak to classic anti-Semitic paranoia about Jews secretly running the media, government, finance, etc.
2
@Max
Huh? Doesn't matter what I or anybody else thinks the article said "necessarily" which implies they can be the same thing which they are not.
Sir, let us back up a bit. I have been a life-long “liberal,” and I can not remember a time when we suppressed any discussion of anti-semitism and/or anti-Zionism. On the contrary. Please do not impugn an entire political party because of a few. Because many support a two-state policy does not reflect bigotry or discrimination against our ally Israel.
The fact remains, however, that the Right, and even more specifically the Christian Right, may have more selfish reasons for their avid support of all things Israel. In other words, our Israeli neighbors are possibly being exploited and used for untoward ideological agendas here in the US.
Indeed, there ARE racists to the Right. And this heinous paradigm is consuming the Republican Party at large. The “Wall,” tearing refugee children away from their parents, placing desperate Brown-skinned individuals in cages and then tents, voter suppression directed toward African Americans and Native Americans. And...support by a cowardly GOP Senate and rabid followers spread throughout our nation of the single-most corrupt and bigoted and amoral president in modern history. Please do not ever again equate the so-called Left with this group. It is beyond insulting.
2
I was a teenager when the word "goy"was introduced to my vocabulary. The tone was translation. Like the Trump sneer, but with something behind it.
You got two sixes Ross. We can all see them. Play. Or fold.
1
You forgot to mention a party that has been using “alternative facts” and denial of science to subvert, with the complete endorsement of its president and party leaders. Not to mention a so called independent cable “news” channel. There is no comparison here. Nice try!
Liberals routinely express outrage that a vendetta against the world’s only Jewish state is not “anti-Semitic,” but an attempt to “improve” Israel, conveniently overlooking that not a single Arab country has a thriving Jewish population, has taken in the Palestinians, etc etc. Regardless of rationalization, the end result is to target Jews. While the bias of the extreme right is apparent and roundly criticized, anti-Semitism is more subtle and, as in the Women’s March, often cloaked by progressives who argue that while there is quacking, there really isn’t a duck.
4
I frankly do not understand this argument. The right is full of true anti-semites. The only reason they embrace Israel, as you well know, is the evangelical obsession with end times and the rapture based on nutty readings of the new testament.
I do not find much anti-semitism on the left. What I do find is a real desire to hold Israel accountable for its behavior in the West Bank, the abandonment of a two state solution for the Palestinians and the drift toward a total theocracy.
That is not anti-semitism nor is it anti-Zionist. It is calling a country to task for its behavior and has nothing to do with anti-semitism.
And remember, Ross, may on the right would just love to have the US become a theocracy too.
1
False equivalency again.
Searching for an excuse for Republican support for King, Trump and the Republican "Southern Solution (court the bigots) Douthat digs up some dirt on one aspect of the Women's March. Opposing the aggressive and belligerent current government in Israel is not anti-Semitism. The Palestinian issue can possibly lead to an out of control war that spreads across the Middle East and beyond.
Swing and a miss, again Mr. Douthat.
1
It’s this kind of equation that can give us a Trump second term.
2
Mr Douthat is trying to lessen the stain of racism on Republicans by the all too familiar refrain that twelve year olds will recognize ‘look the Democrats are doing bad things too’.
1
Expediency and oversimplification is never an answer. I've hoped that you would come around for some time on this but you just knee jerk to a place that makes me distrust the conservative Catholics you say you represent. The point is that your argument is simple and could be made about almost anything. The truth is more complex. "in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." I'm a Democrat and not an Anti-Semite. On the other hand, loyalty to friends and relatives does not equal condoning shooting women medics tending the wounded. The law is the law and it applies to us all as well as our friends and relatives. It wasn't anti-American to protest Mylai or to speak of the early American rules of combat that murdered women and children to Indian people to dishearten the warriors defending their homes and it still isn't. Being moral s not the same as being Anti-Israel or Pro-Israel. The law is the law and we must guard our friends and relatives with love, truth, and morality. Religion and Culture fail when they become expedient.
No one is excusing the shooting of a medic. But where is your outrage for Hamas orchestrating the situation in the first place, sending kids to the border to tear down the fence and throw fire bombs?
1
Criticism of Israel does not equal Anti-Antisemitism.
Period.
To make that assertion is lazy and purposeful and for the life of me I cannot understand why folks continue to do it.
To compare the racists way of the left that has been prevalent and brazen for decades to peoples critique of Israel policy that has displaced and discriminated against Palestinians is really a disservice.
3
Your characterization of the Israel-Palestinian conflict as “discrimination”, with no context, is anti-semitism, period.
1
I find the insistence among some to say any valid criticism of the actions of the state of Israel versus their indigenous refugee-d populations (Palestinians) amounts to anti-semitism, deeply unsettling. It's not helpful to Israel or Jewish people. Please stop doing this.
3
a party reshaped by Ocasio-Cortezan energy, shall we say
Well I doubt anything good will ever be reshaped by Ross Douthat energy, such as it is.
2
The democrat's socialist/social justice wing will in due course become a lead weight for all those who portray themselves as moderates in suburban districts. It's anti-capitalism instincts and desire to attack and stifle dissenting views will leave these red-district democrats in a no-man's land.
1
This article conveniently omits antisemitism on the right which can be found regularly in the anti-George Soros conspiracy theories spead by such fringe forums as Fox News and President Trump. The article also imagines right wing support for Isreal as support for judaism generally, which it is not.
This op ed expresses opinions that need to be said. Thank you.
1
This piece is a model straw man argument. Find someone or some movement on the "left" to counter the obvious fascists/racists leanings of the Trump Republican party. Throw in names like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan to prove that, yes, Steven King is a bad man, but the left has their bad men also. The problem, however, with this argument, is both these leftists characters are fringe players---really on the fringe. The GOP establishment on the other hand is heavily populated---e.g. McConnell, Graham---with fringe like thinking and practice. But, let's not take our eye off the ball with fears of an anti-Israel left, let's focus on what to do with a President who has committed treason.
1
This piece fails to acknowledge that anti-semitism is at least as prominent on the right in America as the left. Look at the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, look at Trump’s reaction to neo-nazis in Charlottesville, look at the conspiracy theories around George Soros peddled by Fox News. The right has not only allowed racism to infect their leadership they have allowed anti-semitism to permeate their discourse. The right’s support of Israel and Netanyahu should not paper over the fact that the ‘alt-right’ has committed violence against Jewish people in America. It’s also worth mentioning here that for evangelicals on the right much of their support of Israel is wrapped in a perverse theory about the rapture, rather than any genuine desire to preserve Jewish heritage and culture.
2
Anti-semitism has always existed in the US, but now it is more acceptable and growing in the Democratic party lead by those who no longer have an understanding of the Holocaust or how Israel was created (polls confirm this). They have no appreciation of the facts or reality of the wars that lead to the current situation.
While many of these groups eagerly call out Netanyauh and the far-right Orthodox Jews who embrace wildly unacceptable policies (and they should be called out) they regularly fail to demonize the many, many other nations whose policies are far more abhorrent than Israel's. You don't have to look far into the rest of the MidEast, Africa, Asia, Latin America to find more egregious actions by countries (often ones the US supports).
For now, Democratic leadership is still supportive of Israel because it is the best policy for America and makes sense in context of reality. But, the movement in the party is dangerous and the BDS movement is built on anti-semitism, not simply anti-Israel. Failing to acknowledge that and allowing young leaders push BDS and anti-semitism will lead the Democrats down the rabbit hole - similar to what is happening in England.
2
I believe Douthat is in error here.
The first error is the suggestion that anti-Semitism is more the problem of the left, when the majority of it is in fact a problem on the right.
The second error is in comparing the views of fringe characters who are widely disliked on the left, with the views of established politicians who are fully enfranchised by the right and wield power in some of the highest offices in the land.
Douthat treats us to a somewhat lukewarm acknowledgement that opposition to Israel or its policies is not necessarily anti-Semitism, when the two don't even belong juxtaposed to each other. Most opposition to Israel is in fact not anti-Semitic: to suggest otherwise is a smear tactic frequently deployed by propagandists, which has been used against politicians--Labour party members like Corbyn, for instance--to great effect. It's an easy, low cost alternative to defending Israeli policy with facts.
Let's also not forget the anti-Semites on the right who only "support" Israel because they expect it to fulfill prophecies for them, but can't stand Jews or Judaism.
This is not to say that the left is any more "reasonable" or that there are fewer irrational haters in their ranks; but leftist hate is more cleverly disguised, and is a different creature from that which plagues the right.
Douthat would have done better to address that, instead of trying to ferret out vices on the left which most resemble their right wing counterparts.
Swing and miss.
1
Ross Douthat is demonstrating, in a newspaper often blasted as a liberal mouthpiece, that the Fox News approach of repeating a lie ad infinitum will lead to the myth and then to the agreed upon fact. Fox News did not invent this technique but its eminince in the world of right-wing politics has made it the go-to method of modern conservative political discourse.
If, in discussion, the world is divided into political ideologies, then we know there will be all sorts of prejudice and xenophobia scattered throughout all groups, but contrary to Mr. Douthat's assertion, there is no bastion of anti-Semitism among liberals. This is yet another lazy and naked attempt by someone from the right trying to attach this concept to liberals. We heard it every time President Obama disagreed with Netanyahu and especially when the cemented the successful deal with Iran that fostered peace in the Middle East and actually contained a threat to Israel.
Conservatives must come to reckon with the nastiness and hate within their ranks without this lame act of deflecting and projecting. Until then, acts like censuring Rep. King ring through as what they are, which is the very latest they can take action and the very least they can do to address the problem.
2
(disclaimer: I am an Orthodox Jew)
Unfortunately, some segments of the Black community have conflated Israelis/Jews with American whites, and Palestinians with American Blacks, in an oppressor/underdog narrative. And the Black community is perhaps the largest individual segment in the Democratic party coalition.
The bonds between Blacks and Jews from the Civil Rights era of the 1940s-1960s have largely been forgotten, more so by Blacks than by Jews. Many Jews still see themselves as part of the current civil rights movement, but the Black community seems disinterested in that sort of partnership.
The big issue for American Jews is: how do we convince American Blacks that Jews and Israel are not the enemy ?
2
@G
Disclaimer: i’m A reform Jew.
I agree with you. Your analysis is spot on as identity politics are a big part of the self proclaimed progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
2
Please don't confuse criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. It wasn't the "left" who chanted "the Jews will not defeat us!" It was people described by trump as "good people".
5
Surprisingly, Ross left out the openly anti-Catholic bigotry spoken out loud and on the Congressional record by both of California's Democratic Senators and Hawaii's Democrat as well.
2
An interesting article, but it leaves out two important facts. The very basis of conservative or more correctly Republican success in the United States in the last 50 years has been the acceptance of various levels of racism. It was the basis of the "Southern Strategy" starting with Nixon. How much of the cultural conflicts that have convinced people who economically should be supporting Democrats are racist and how much is racism is something we will never know. In addition you ignore the anti-semitism on the right. It has clearly gone hand and hand with racism. Also keep in mind that you can oppose Israelis policies and not be anti-semitic, you can also support Israel and be an anti semite.
Antisemitism is, unfortunately, an age old disease. It is fostered out of an appeal to ignorance, fear and ontological insecurity on the part of individuals and groups by those who often seek authoritarian power.
Although historically endemic and at times latent, its siren song comes from all sides of the political spectrum, but remains the central theme to right wing extremists, Neo Nazis and white supremacists.
Sadly, there are those within the black community who follow the ideas of Farrakhan, a known anti-Semite, which causes us liberals a great deal of intellectual pain. For blacks, suffered kidnapping, family destruction and enslavement very much in keeping with the historical sufferings of Jewish people and should be standing together with their Jewish comrades in the fight against prejudice and injustice.
However, the mainstream of antisemitism remains to our right and should not be over-equated with the vast majority on the left.
1
It's not just anti-semitism; the rhetoric towards "white women" in certain corners of the activist left is every bit as hostile and vicious as it is towards anyone else.
The tensions in the Women's March is just a preview of how Democratic Party is going to boil over, as it absorbs more middle and upper middle class suburbanites on one hand and the left wing Identity Politics crowd ascends on the other.
1
As one of a considerable number of Jews throughout the world who has no difficulty in separating himself from the concept that Israel represents all of Judaism and therefore Israeli agendas are deeply besmirching admired Jewish traditions, I cannot feel comfortable with the views expressed.
1
You only grazed the fundamental point. Had the Republicans retained control of the House, none of this phony soul searching by the leadership of the long racist and xenophobic “GOP” would be happening.
1
Then, Ross, how do you classify Donald Trump, who has supported the violence of anti-semites after Charlottesville as well as demeaning non-white immigrants? Beware of labelling.
Interesting how French linguistics are being used here and with false meanings. A "cordon sanitaire " is not a "barrier " . A "cordon " is a string by which you can manipulate or hold something at a distance . Or a conduit like in "umbilical cord ".A "cordon sanitaire " is a safe way road by which both parties in a war agree to let the injured be evacuated and sanitary supplies be transported to the innocent civilians . To meditate according to the conflict here in question..."Bigot " is also a French word , probably coming from a derogatory old appelation for the Normands since the 3rd century : those who would say too often " By God " . It is a bit English also then...But it surely defines those who think too much with a religion , not those who despise religious beliefs . Just to clarify ...These days linguistics become so twisted by ignorance and metonymy .
I truly wish that people acted based on a set of core immutable set of beliefs that transcend self-interest. If so, Republicans wouldn't count votes and support Steve King or nearly elect former AL Supreme Ct judge (hard to believe) Roy Moore to the Senate. Democrats & the women's movement wouldn't have destroyed Monica Lewinsky, Democrats would have demanded that Obama condemn Farrakhan and Sharpton. and on and on and on and on... There is a reason that the general public sees the Press (yes - they are full of egos, partisans, male predators, women back stabbers, and editors/owners/and talent that work for ratings instead of truth) and Politicians as some of the lowest members of society. Instead of being shocked, be ashamed.
Antisemitism is, unfortunately, an age old disease. It is fostered out of an appeal to ignorance, fear and ontological insecurity on the part of individuals and groups by those who often seek authoritarian power.
Although historically endemic and at times latent, its siren song comes from all sides of the political spectrum, but remains the central theme to right wing extremists, Neo Nazis and white supremacists.
Sadly, there are those within the black community who follow the ideas of Farrakhan, a known anti-Semite, which causes us liberals a great deal of intellectual pain. For blacks, suffered kidnapping, family destruction and enslavement very much in keeping with the historical sufferings of Jewish people and should be standing together with their Jewish comrades in the fight against prejudice and injustice.
However, the mainstream of antisemitism remains to our right and should not be over-equated with the left.
Cordon sanitaire used twice. Well I did learn what that means. I think you are lost in the the details Mr Douthat.
Amen. Right before our eyes.
On the Right, the Ant-Semites are held in check by te far more numerous Evangelicals, all of whom want Israel to expand to its Biblocal Borders because they think that means Jesus will come back.
Having said that, it would be less than honest to argue that there is no Anti-Semitism on the Left
1
Ross speeds by the essential fallacy of the equivalence he peddles here. "anti zioninsm isn't necessarily anti semitism" he writes and then goes on to ignore the distiction entirely. racism is just racism. zionism has at its core a racial idenity which is exclusive and judiasm does not.
This entire article can be summed up by two words: false equivalence.
1
Agree totally with Mr. Douthat, time for Democrats to stop blaming Putin and start blaming the Party itself and the out of touch and lazy campaign of Hillary Clinton.
1
Mr Brooks, do you have any factual grounds for your attempt to associate Representative Ocasio-Cortez with anti-semitic views, or was that just a drive-by swiping? Because, if it was the latter, you need to make that clear, in print, and apologize for it. (Yes, old-school Socialists had issues with anti-semitism, as did old-school Conservatives. To assume that AOC shares them or would willingly open
the door to such views is a leap which should not be made without concrete reasons.)
1
"Corbyn is an anti-semite" is a pandering smear, pure and simple. No wonder our politics has become so polarised when the Douhats of the world demonize popular politicians. Douhat's attack is plainly consistent with the past practice of our feared far right, and their militarist apologists, when two Kennedys and one King were simply assassinated.
"But still, nothing like the prominence now enjoyed by grifters on the right. "
Umm, yes. Also, there's way more anti-semitism on the right than on the left, as the right is now composed in 2019. And, as others point out below, anti-zionism isn't anti-semitism, and actually the line doesn't get "blurry fast". Especially considering that Palestinians are....semites in many cases. It also ignores how Israel came to be in the first place, and all the mechanisms thereafter. One big reason Israel exists in the first place is Europe and the U.S.'s abiding anti-semitism, generally.
1
The real message behind Mr. Douthat’s column is he’s afraid the Democratic Party might start acting like a Democratic Party. False equivalence practically drips from it. I expect AOC gives him nightmares.
Good.
1
Watching conservatives strain for false equivalencies is always interesting. If the right has a problem with racism, then according to Ross the left has a problem with anti-semitism. I wonder about that. I’m pretty sure those guys with the white shirts and the tiki torches in Charlottesville - the ones chanting “Jews will not replace us” - weren’t marching for some leftist cause like universal healthcare or to celebrate diversity. Maybe anti-semitism isn’t unique to just one side of the political spectrum?
2
When do you write the apology letter for your sophist comments supporting Trump and showing distain for liberal ideas?
2
Douthat use the terms liberal and conservative loosely, even though these terms clearly mean different things to different people, especially when you happen to identify yourself a conservative or liberal. I wish he would identify what he means when he uses these words. To me, a liberal is someone who likes to be open-minded, pursues the truth in the world, rejects biases and prejudices as much as is possible, is sympathetic to the plight of the suffering, recognizes that there is some role for government in promoting the general welfare, admits the need for regulation of political and economic forces that tend to weaken democracy when unregulated, favors equal opportunity and equal treatment for all under the law, and supports the growth of justice and fairness on all levels in society. I believe conservatives view liberals as favoring big government, high taxes, over-regulation, excessive bureaucracy, bailing out the irresponsible, and are elitist and dismissive of conservatives. Liberals tend to view conservatives as favoring big corporations, under-regulation, non-science based policies, racist or prejudicial policies, anti-populist ( though supported by many populists), disingenuous and dissembling. Conservatives seem to view themselves as honest, straightforward, moral, standing up for what's right, better appreciating the limitations of government, and dissed by the liberal press. We need to get beyond these unhelpful constructs and move towards comity for all.
Ross, your comparison of the Women's March and the republican 'show' reaction to Steve King leaves out the fact that no one in the Women's March is an elected official. The elected republicans have the burden of swearing to defend the constitution. The Women's March is a free flowing grass roots group who is trying to convince republicans that they are not defending the constitution or only trying to defend it when their public standing appears jaundiced and its breath is rattling.
1
Why not wish liberalism well? What is it about illiberalism that you so cherish?
4
@AH
Because it’s not liberal any more (in the classical sense). It’s oppressive and intolerant of dissent and free speech.
You lost me when you compared Jeremy Corbyn to Steve King. Utter, ridiculous stupidity. Are you actually paid to write this gibberish and present it as a valid, coherent opinion? The two are not remotely alike. King is a stated white supremacist, Corbyn a clumsy fool who supports Palestine and blunders into offence without realising. And yes, “without realising” is correct - look at his long history fighting prejudice. Does the Labour Party have antisemitic members? Yes. Is Jeremy Corbyn an idiot? Yes. Is Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite? No.
And why, pray, do you not write of antisemitism and Islamophobia in the Tory Party? Because I guarantee you you will find more there, alongside white supremacists and eugenicists. But no need, I know the answer.
5
Why are you blaming anti-Semitism on the left? The worst case of it was the mass murder at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, which seemed to be the work of a right-wing Nazi sympathizer.
9
"The ascent of Trump was the opposite case. The party establishment could have worked to marginalize or exclude him from the primary process; the birtherism alone offered grounds enough. But the G.O.P. feared the possibility of a Trump third-party run too much to take a stand or draw a line "
I'd add that the GOP has for decades bought in to hate speech from within its ranks (i.e., Moore, King, Lee Atwater types since the '80s, etc). Your party has cynically preached fear and hate for 30 years, and Trump is the inevitable result of the success of those sermons. The GOP made Trump inevitable.
9
I think that many people in the United States have become bi-polar. For me, it is not racists versus anti-Semites, it is just racists -- and remember, Jews and Arabs are Semites. The question is whether a person thinks the all people are provided with the tools to improve their social condition and acts accordingly or not.
We must also remember that many Jewish people in the United States worked in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and many of us are still committed to those same goals.
Dissension and diversity of views is advantageous because if provides the opportunity for people to grow, but discussion of diverse views is essential to a thriving movement.
3
"the G.O.P. feared the possibility of a Trump third-party run too much to take a stand or draw a line — and because it didn’t, imagining that he could never win..."
This literally makes no sense. If the Republicans weren't afraid of Trump's losing to Hillary, why would they have been afraid of his forming a third party? Their embrace of him can't be explained away by power politics.
2
Another possible reason the Democratic Party's "cordon sanitaire" hasn't failed is that Democrats are better at governing than Republicans. Maybe Barack Obama didn't "avoid" a failed presidency. Maybe he was, after all, a good president.
12
Democrats, Republicans, and Jews. As Douthat suggests, the Democrats' issue is with the current government of Israel not Jews. On the other hand, the Republicans have chosen to align with the current government in Israel not Jews. That's a distinction that, as Douthat suggests, is often lost on both Democrats and Republicans and on the public. The current Republican administration has also chosen sides in the Sunni-Shiite divide in the middle east, the Sunni side (which is to say alignment with the Saudis against the Iranians). A justification for aligning with the Saudis is that the Shiite Iranians are the enemies of Jews. As if the Sunni Saudis are the Jews' BFF. Not.
7
Interesting....but this is worrying about what the band might play next on the Titanic....after its struck the iceberg.
4
If you think of Zionism as a particular political movement in Israel than Douthat is correct in saying that being anti-Zionist is not the same as being antisemitic.
Opposing the existence of the Jewish State of Israel, however, is just as much antisemitic as opposing the idea of reservations is anti-Native American.
With antisemitism on the rise in the Western world, the idea of depriving Jews of a safe haven where they will be free to practice their religion without fear of retribution is a basic human right.
Of course, the Palestinians have exactly the same human right and that needs to be respected as well. But the idea that Palestinian rights somehow trump (to use a poor term) Jewish rights is antisemitic.
5
@Neil
So saying that Native Americans should be full citizens of the USA, free to live anywhere they want, free to vote as they please, free to enjoy all the freedoms other Americans enjoy, and not be confined to ghettos is anti-Native American?
And if Jews are entitled to a "safe haven" at the expense of innocent third parties, which innocent third parties do the Palestinians get to victimize for their safe haven? You?
1
@Neil "Opposing the Jewish State of Israel" is obviously not anti-Semitic, as the "State of Israel" embodies only one of numerous possible political arrangements under which Jews might live peaceably. How about, for example, a revived David monarchy -- a state ruled by the descendants of King David (or someone claiming such)? Like any monarchy, this would be a state drawing its legitimacy from the charisma of the ruling family, not from the right of the people to self determination. It would not be a "Jewish State" in the sense that Israel is a "Jewish State." Would it be anti-semitic to advocate that?
1
So “Ocasio-Cortezan energy, shall we say — will become increasingly influenced by paranoias and bigotries that bubble up on the far left.”
Seems a bit off to me — I guess Ross is not just a proponent of rigid Catholicism but also is against “government by and for the people”.
Apparently Ross worries that reigning in corporate and billionaire control will unleash anarchy. Well “let them eat cake” indifference also does that.
12
Here's an important and accurate part of the essay: "Where did Donald Trump come from, ultimately? From the presidency of George W. Bush, in which establishment-Republican blunders gave us the Iraq debacle and the financial crisis." And if we ask about government shutdown and the goal of less government, look to saint Ronald Reagan. The rot in the Republican party is deep and longstanding. Let's not forget Reagan's race baiting.
16
What is a centrist like me to do?
I look at Trump and I run in horror to the other direction.
I look at the left-leaning Democrats, where being anti-Israel is nearly a litmus test of progressive ideology, and I run back to the GOP.
The Trumpists and the Ocosio-Cortezeans are dangerous sides of the same coin. Both want to destroy American traditions, institutions, and alliances.
5
Mr. Douthat asks "Where did Trump come from, ultimately?" And he speculates that it was the Bush presidency, Iraq and the financial crisis of 8 years earlier that was responsible. Sadly, as shameful as it is for us to admit, what drove many Trumpers to the polls was their racist loathing at having a black president.
31
@Maryann If that's true, then why was Obama elected twice. Why did so many people who voted for Obama go on to vote for Trump in 2016? Why did 3 million Obama voters stay at home in 2016?
@Charlie Reidy There are a number of reasons why white working class 2012 Obama voters went for Trump in 2016. Both Trump and Obama represented anti-establishment appeal to people who felt that they had been left behind. Trump ran a campaign that explicitly appealed to those harboring racial/ethnic resentment. The percentage of black voters fell about 6% in 2016. Hillary ran a terrible campaign and had negative response not only from the right but also from the left.
This column is filled disturbing false equivalencies and an ill-defined thesis. First, Mr. Douthat pits Trumpian-style populism against socialism as "radical ideas." People don't know the difference between "socialism" found in Scandinavian countries, "communism" in the former Soviet Union, or "maoism" of Chairman Mao in China. It's all just lumped under a scary term of "socialism."
Second, Mr. Douthat cherry picks two examples of anti-semitic leaders sometimes associated with the left, Jeremy Corbyn and Louis Farrakhan. And he throws Al Sharpton and Michael Moore in with this lot, at least stating that they represent "conspiracy theories" on the left.
Let's remember a Trump supporter shot up a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The people shouting "Jews/you will not replace us" in Charlottesville were alt-right Trump supporters. And what does Farrakhan have to do with current politics? Mr. Douthat's false equivalencies are not only wrong, they're dangerous in the same way that claiming "scientists" who dispute climate change are somehow "equal" to the majority of climate scientists warning us about the dangers now.
Yes, conspiracy theories can be found on both the right and left. But make no mistake: there's no equivalence between the conspiracy-fueled, hate-filled danger and insanity of President Trump's populism and any dubious failure of "cordons sanitaires" in the Democratic Party.
11
@jrinsc
Jeremy Corbyn is not anti-Semitic. Not unless you define anti-Semitism as supporting full human rights for the Palestinians.
The entire effort to demonize, slander, and smear Corbyn as anti-Semitic is nothing but a political effort to prevent a British government that views Palestinians as full human beings equal to Israeli Jews.
1
@Garak
How bout this - Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic, if you define anti-semitism as (1) describing the constitutionally genocidal Hamas as his “friends", (2) appearing on stage with inveterate anti-Semites, (3) defending a mural that depicted hooknosed bankers running the world, (4) attending a wreath-laying ceremony that celebrated the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre and (5) calling Zionists people who "don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, don’t understand English irony either,” and who "I think need two lessons, which we can help them with". Anybody talking about blacks that same way would be racist, no?
3
Douthat continues a meme from the right that seeks to tar any criticism of Israel with anti-semiticism. There is much to criticize in Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians without veering into anti-semitism. Leeping to these charges right off the bat is an effort to shut down criticism.
That said, when criticism does cross into anti-semi-semitism, it should be unequivocally condemned.
12
I went to the Women's March in Washington the day after Trump's, smaller than he'd like to believe, inauguration. How right it felt. What has happened to the march appalls me and I hope many others who will also turn their backs and not march. I am grateful to you for calling out President George W. Bush and his presidency. Great guy, terrible president and he has gotten a pass because he's not Trump. Might not wish conservatives well any more than you liberals, but after jumping the rails I hope they get back on the track. And let me also say Jeremy Corbyn in England is a horror show and it makes it that much more difficult for the UK to figure out what to do after yesterday's Brexit vote. Is the world going to heck in a hand basket as Radar O'Riely used to say?
"Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism"
That "necessary" was not necessary. Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. It's as simple as that.
18
@Evan Except when it is. Which is most of the time.
5
@DrD There was a large component of the American Jewish population that was anti-zionist. Please support this "most of the time" claim.
1
People calling this a false equivalence aren’t paying attention. I’m a left of center Democrat, and highly critical of Trump, the alt right, etc. But, it’s pretty easy to tell when someone on the right has crossed the line into white supremacy.
The problem with racism (anti-Asian, anti-white, anti-Jewish) on the left is that it’s insidious and couched within concepts like success, capitalism, globalization, and intersectionality that speak to the idea that life is necessarily a zero sum game with a fixed pie that cannot grow and must be seized and divided equally.
So, to condemn racism on the far left you must by definition criticize the over reaces of identity politics.
4
Charlottesville, Steve Bannon, demonization of George Soros... systematic anti-Semitism is a right-wing feature, just as much as systematic racism has been all along. Finding a link between a couple of leaders of the Women's March and Rev. Farrakhan -- a link expressed nowhere in the message of the march itself -- doesn't "balance" the mainstream Republican policy of disenfranchising Black voters, for instance...
11
The "center cannot hold." Republicans have lost their mind and soul, Democrats have lost their way. Ross, don't forget that there is anti-semitism on the Right and that virus infects conservatism when everything becomes tribal.
I’m disturbed by the false equivalence between Anti-Zionism and a rational critique of Israel’s current political leadership and policies. There is absolutely no similarity between that sort of concern for human rights abuses and Rep. King’s white supremacy. Perhaps the scandal at the women’s march was more comparable, but, in trying to make the crisis seem widespread across the left, Douthat has uncharitably generalized.
8
You wrote: "Anti-Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Semitism, but the difference can get blurry quick". In my opinion this is true but is more an effect of defenders of Israel's deeply conservative government who claim Anti-semitism in any substantive leftist critique of the Israeli government. The author follows this approach by talking about anti-Zionism. Demands for justice and independence for the displaced people of the Gaza Strip is not anti-Zionism non is it Anti-semitism. The author perhaps intensionally brings these loaded terms into the debate to avoid the more substantive issues.
10
Again Ross does the 'both sides' do it meme again but it is getting tiresome because it assumes the 'Left' is as monolithic as the 'Right'.
3
What a ridiculous false equivalence. There may be some figures on the far left with anti semitic sentiment, but I know NO ONE who is liberal and anti semitic in my direct sphere. In fact, many of the people I know who are liberal are Jewish, and anti semitism isn't part of their view. I do, however, know lots of Trump supporters who are anti semitic, racist, sexist and homophobic, or at least willing to ignore the disgusting sentiments the GOP has welcomed as long as it doesn't personally affect them. Ross will continue to make excuses for his party by blaming Democrats for "equivalent" sins. That doesn't make it true. It makes him seem desparate. If your politics don't fit your religion, get some new politics. Oh wait, they do fit. Because Catholicism and most Christianity is as morally bankrupt as the GOP. Sad.
5
Talk about the pot calling all of the other kettles black.
4
At last, every word fails me.
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Ok. Today's GOP elects an openly racist POTUS, openly racist Senators and House members, pursues deeply racist and divisive policies, but the Democrats are just as bad because they talked to Farrakhan, who has never been elected to anything and who's last moments of political relevancy was sometime in the 90s. Good job, Ross!
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Ross, stop thinking that what someone has loathsome as Farrakhan says is equal to what an elected official in our Congress says and what our president says and DOES. Sure the Women's march had its problems, no argument from me. However, the anti-semitism (which is racism in my book) that exists on the left is a teaspoon in the ocean of racism and anti-Jewish that exists on the right. STOP.
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