In the most recent issue of Jewish Currents, the editors of the magazine have a piece entitled “How Not To Fight Antisemitism.” I understand it’s generating some controversy and my initial reaction to it was also negative, but I read it more carefully and found that it actually made some good points. I hadn’t planned on responding to the article at length, but yesterday a few things banging around on Twitter, including a segment from
Short step from the "Judeo-Bolshevism" of old to modern accusations of "Cultural Marxism". Seeded by nuts in the Lyndon LaRouche right, now it's not unusual for mainstream rightwing figures to talk about the insidious, far-fetched influences of The Frankfurt School.
Really great. You've asked online what folks like best about The Blog, and I thought this was a pretty neat example of why I appreciate it: taking up discourse that's pervasive but not reckoned with, and then taking the reader through a serious explanation of what might otherwise be taken as a rhetorical dispute ("This is anti-semitism!" No it's not!"). I'd actually be interested in an even deeper dive into the connections between deployments of "Wokeness," "Cancel Culture," and anti-semitism/racism (perhaps particularly as it pertains to the same characters' -- Tucker, Lindsay, and Hawley -- misrepresentation/scapegoating of "Critical Race Theory."
Great post. Do you see the same structure of antisemitism at play in the QAnon stuff? It seems different from what Tucker Carlson or the "anti-wokes" are up to, but maybe it's just a more deranged version.
Starting with the 'Tea Party', I often sense in writers and speakers a lack of focus born of not saying 'The Jews'—not because they were necessarily anti-Semitic (though some certainly seemed so) but because their focal substitutes just don't have the fundamental power.
Short step from the "Judeo-Bolshevism" of old to modern accusations of "Cultural Marxism". Seeded by nuts in the Lyndon LaRouche right, now it's not unusual for mainstream rightwing figures to talk about the insidious, far-fetched influences of The Frankfurt School.
Really great. You've asked online what folks like best about The Blog, and I thought this was a pretty neat example of why I appreciate it: taking up discourse that's pervasive but not reckoned with, and then taking the reader through a serious explanation of what might otherwise be taken as a rhetorical dispute ("This is anti-semitism!" No it's not!"). I'd actually be interested in an even deeper dive into the connections between deployments of "Wokeness," "Cancel Culture," and anti-semitism/racism (perhaps particularly as it pertains to the same characters' -- Tucker, Lindsay, and Hawley -- misrepresentation/scapegoating of "Critical Race Theory."
Great post. Do you see the same structure of antisemitism at play in the QAnon stuff? It seems different from what Tucker Carlson or the "anti-wokes" are up to, but maybe it's just a more deranged version.
Starting with the 'Tea Party', I often sense in writers and speakers a lack of focus born of not saying 'The Jews'—not because they were necessarily anti-Semitic (though some certainly seemed so) but because their focal substitutes just don't have the fundamental power.
Superb piece