Antisemitism is a GOP Growth Opportunity in Minority Communities

When Marjorie Taylor Greene found herself approvingly quoting Nation of Islam conspiracy theories and noting the "common ground" between the GOP and the NoI, many laughed. Others pointed out that the synergy should not surprise: there really is a lot of common ground between the two. Conspiratorial antisemites should flock together. It is hardly a surprise that Louis Farrakhan has had his share of praise for Donald Trump; nor should it shock that one of Trump's most prominent Black advisors, Omarosa Manigault, tried to do outreach connected the Trump administration to Farrakhan. When one looks at the younger generation of "Blexit" style Black conservative leaders who are exciting the contemporary Republican Party, antisemitism is often part and parcel of their appeal. Omarosa was one example. Candace Owens -- she of the infamous apologia for Hitler -- is another. Mark Robinson, the new Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina and a rising star in the state GOP, has the Jewish community in a near-panic after a bevy of antisemitic (and otherwise bigoted remarks) which he has not retracted -- the most blatant being the claim that the movie Black Panther was the project of an "agnostic Jew" whose sole agenda was "to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets." Similar trends have been observed among Latinos in Miami -- a crucial "battleground" community whose unexpectedly shift back to the right in 2016 and 2020 has kept that state in the Republican column.

An underappreciated reality is this: antisemitism is one of the most obvious avenues for the GOP to make inroads in communities of color. To be sure, this is all relative -- we're talking about how to move from 10% of the Black vote to 15% of the vote; the vast majority of Black Americans are not antisemitic and are not going to be swayed over to the GOP side of the ledger by antisemitic appeals. Still, the Hirsh/Royden paper measuring antisemitic attitudes in the American population specifically found a massive spike among young conservatives, and specifically young conservatives of color (Latinos and African-American). I've joked that this finding has "something for everyone" partaking in the debates over where antisemitism is most threatening (the left is happy it can blame the right, and the right is happy it can blame Black people). But their finding really does have significant implications for where the "low hanging fruit" is for Republicans trying to bolster their vote share in minority communities, and it is very likely the GOP will start explicitly chasing that vote sooner rather than later.  

The obvious truth about someone like Louis Farrakhan is that he is a conservative figure and his ideology is far more harmonious with the right than the left. The same is true for others in the Black community who share Farrakhan's broader outlook. This obvious truth has been obscured, partially by the idiosyncratic reasons that Farrakhan and his NoI have connections to some on the progressive left, partially because the brand of conservatism he represents (deep mistrust of public institutions, xenophobic fear of contamination by "outsiders", conspiratorial ravings about the true powers governing society), when racialized through a Black perspective, often present White people and America as the "institutions" or "outsiders" or "powers" that are indicted. But on the latter, particularly, as the GOP has gotten increasingly comfortable with overt and often violent anti-government rhetoric, there are more and more opportunities for overlap here. Railing against "the CIA" or "the FBI" or "the banks" or the "globalists" -- those words will sound very similar coming out of either camp, and will likewise resonate similarly no matter who is speaking them. Marjorie Taylor Greene is doing nothing more than recognizing what was already before her eyes. And to the extent that attacks on "Whites" seems to be an insurmountable hurdle, well, redirecting those attacks onto the Jews is a prime opportunity for "compromise" that can satisfy both parties (Eric Ward's seminal "skin in the game" article expressly identified this in exploring how he, as a Black man, could enter far-right spaces -- the presumed common ground and foundation for alliance that could unify Black Americans and the far-right was explicitly that of antisemitism).

Again, Farrakhan is not representative here -- this post is not about how the GOP will win majorities of the Black community. I'm just saying that, however large this sector is in the Black community, it is a sector that is ripe for  As the GOP gets more explicitly captured by folks like Marjorie Taylor Green, these commonalities are going to become more apparent and become more tempting to leverage. And anyone who thinks that genuine concern or fair-feeling for Jews is going to stop Republican strategists from pushing that button is out to lunch. It is, simply put, too tempting a target. The overlap is already present, the votes are there to be had, and the Republican Party has no scruples to speak of when it comes to converting hateful rabble-rousing into electoral success.

What is This Strange Feeling of Hope I Have?

I've written a lot about Corbyn, and Corbynism, and the deeply toxic impact it's had on British (and particularly progressive British) Jewish life. There's so many depressing or negative emotions associated with that whole state of affairs, and I have to think over the course of the past few years I've articulated all of them in one form or another.

But one thing I don't think I've ever written -- but which I've felt for awhile now -- is my sense of inspiration.

Because as terrible as Corbynism has been for progressive Jews in the UK -- they haven't taken it lying down. They've rallied, they've organized, they've refused to be cowed. And they've won serious victories -- the adoption of the full IHRA definition being just one example. Yes, there are many -- many -- Labour activists who are still quite publicly and viscerally hostile to Jewish activity. But it's also the case that there are many Labour politicians who have boldly and uncompromisingly stood with the Jewish community -- obviously Jewish figures like Luciana Berger, but also prominent non-Jewish members like Sadiq Khan.

Faced with an emergent antisemitic tide in Labour, UK Jews dug in their heels and fought back. And if you compare the genuine resistance to antisemitism that we're seeing inside Labour to, say, the utter capitulation to racism that's characterized the contemporary Republican Party in the face of Trumpism, there's no question that the left comes out looking much better -- not because we've won the battle (or anything close to it), but because there actually is a battle. It hasn't been a steamroller, and we've given as good as we've got.

I'm inspired because in the UK there are far fewer Jews, who are far less interlaced in political and social life, than in the US. So if they can do it there, we can do it here. Yes, there's antisemitism on the left in America. But the Jewish community hasn't slunk away, and we haven't even stepped back from our posts as a core progressive constituency (79% of Jews voted blue in the midterms -- that's more lopsided than pretty much any other group save African-Americans).

If you're worried about the influence of Louis Farrakhan on the left, go ahead and do that -- but also be cognizant of the fact that, as much as certain figures in the movement have been utter failures on that issue, there's been a sustained, powerful firewall of progressive activists who have stepped up to the plate and who are -- again -- giving at least as well as we're getting. If this is a fight, then we're fighting -- and on Farrakhan-related questions, I dare say we're winning pretty decisively.

There's a fantasy in which the Democratic Party saw a group of left-wing activists hostile to Jews and immediately tossed us overboard, and then there's the reality where the Democratic Party has been remarkably robust in listening to Jewish concerns and holding the line against attempts to exclude us from the movement. It's not the case that antisemitism doesn't exist in the Democratic Party, but neither is it the case that when it manifests it riots unchecked. Jews speak out, and when we do it matters.

And here the comparison to the Republican Party couldn't be starker. I don't know if the RJC has even tried to object to, say, Soros conspiracy mongering by Republican officials -- but if it has, it's barely been a speedbump. You want to talk about a political movement which is scarcely even trying to fight antisemitism in its own ranks -- there's your mark.

Bizarrely, sometimes it seems like conservatives get more credit because Jews are so marginal in their movement that there are no "fights" about antisemitism at all -- if the Republican Party wants to run conspiracy theories about the globalist Jews corrupting the volk, nobody on the inside could stop them and nobody on the inside really tries to stop them. The progressive movement has visible friction precisely because there's resistance to internalized antisemitism that is virtually non-existent in conservatism. What sometimes seems like comparative placidity in the conservative ranks is a mirage -- it disguises an utterly routed state.

So I'm feeling weirdly good right now. Are there efforts within the left to marginalize Jews? Yes. But are Jews going to simply roll over and concede to them? Not bloody likely. And the most heartening part is -- experience has taught me that we won't be fighting alone, and we won't be fighting in futility. This is a battle we can win.

Pain in the Roundup

I have recurrent knee pain, that flares up apparently randomly and can be so debilitating that at its crest I can't even walk. It usually comes and goes over the course of a day or two (the "unable to walk" part might last a few hours, though less if I take some painkillers and/or wear my knee brace).

I also was recently diagnosed as borderline asthmatic. I actually have an inhaler, though I've used it probably less than a half dozen times in my life.

Anyway, last night, at around 3 in the morning, both the asthma and the excruciating knee pain hit at the exact same time: I couldn't breathe, and I could barely hobble my way into the bathroom to get some Aleve.

Long story short, I slept three hours last night and am a bit cranky. So you get a roundup.

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The women's wave isn't just an American thing: The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on Arab women running for office in Israel.

Antisemitism and the birth of Jewish Studies.

The RNCC has cut an ad for Jim Hagedorn (running for Congress in southern Minnesota -- the district my in-laws live in, as it happens) claiming his opponent is "owned" by George Soros. Subtle. Meanwhile, Rep. Matt Gaetz also posted a wild conspiracy theory (later boosted by the President) accusing Soros of giving money to members of a migrant "caravan" so they would "storm the border [at] election time."

Also on Soros, Spencer Ackerman provides a good history about how a Soros-like figure has virtually always played a central role in antisemitic social movements.

This was published prior to the Israeli Supreme Court ruling allowing Lara Alqasem into Israel to study, but it overlays with the point I made in my column: Israeli academics have (correctly) interpreted the government's attempt to keep Alqasem out as a "declaration of war" against them.

Newt Gingrich calls for the expulsion of all Muslims who "believe in Sharia" from America. But, if I can channel Trump v. Hawaii, we can hardly call this sort of thing "rank religious bigotry" based on nothing more than the fact that it obviously is.

Nylah Burton has a good column up on the weaponization of Louis Farrakhan against Blacks (and particularly Black Jews). I might have more to say on this, but I think the core points -- which in no way are apologias for Farrakhan's despicable bigotry -- are good.

Post- (and Pre-)National Roundup

No, this isn't about Tillerson (or Goldstein, or McEntee ... goodness, this was a hell of a morning). I delivered the lecture on Nationalism in our Political Theory class today -- which went fine, except that I also have to teach a section on Nationalism tomorrow and now I've used up all my knowledge on the subject. Time for many rounds of my old standbys -- "say more on that", "well, what do you think?", and of course "break off into small groups to discuss."

Anyway, roundup time!

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Advances in turbine technology are making wind power a real player in electricity market -- and not grading on the "renewable energy" curve either.

A powerful story on a UC-Berkeley student living in an unheated trailer with no sewage hookup .... that he's about to be evicted from. This is an extreme story, but it gets to why I get very defensive when Berkeley students are attacked in the media as supposedly epitomizing careless, unserious millennial frivolity. Many of the students here are coming from places and backgrounds where they're well aware of what it means to be attending UC-Berkeley, and are behaving accordingly under conditions that God willing I'll never come close to. When they're lazily stereotyped as aimless hippie stoners, it disrespects them, their work ethic, their talent, and their perseverance.

U. Penn. Law Professor Tobias Barrington Wolff on his colleague, Amy Wax, whom he persuasively argues has converted into the academic equivalent of an Ann Coulter provocateur. This passage is also generally applicable:

What academic freedom does not provide, however, is a free pass entitling faculty who say inflammatory things to escape denunciation or to engage in toxic behavior without consequence. Invoking academic freedom to delegitimize sharp criticism or to claim impunity for improper conduct is a misuse of that principle.

Many people have seen Adam Serwer's excellent commentary on Tamika Mallory's relationship with Louis Farrakhan (a sterling example, incidentally, of how to explain the NoI's appeal to certain segments of the Black community without washing away it's hideously bigoted track record), but Stacey Aviva Flint is another good addition to the list of Black Jews whose opinions you should read on this matter.

Gretchen Rachel Hammond -- the half-Indian Jewish transwoman best known for breaking the story of the Chicago Dyke March expelling Jewish marchers and then being fired from her own newspaper for covering the story -- has a powerful piece detailing her experience and her "divorce" from the trans community in its wake. It is a poignant, cutting, and often very sad piece -- not the least because, for all her fulminations against "intersectionality", the concept in its original manifestation would be very well suited to articulating the sort of marginalization and exclusion Hammond details (one would not be off the mark in summarizing Hammond's experience as one of being "split at the root" -- Adrienne Rich's felicitous phrase which has often been approvingly quoted in the intersectionalist literature).

Three Black Jews on the Women's March and Farrakhan

All three of these columns are excellent. I'm just linking to them here so they're in a convenient spot (and hopefully give them a bit more attention -- not just for the present controversy but as important voices generally in the Jewish community).

Nylah Burton

Ben Faulding

Elad Nehorai [UPDATE: While Elad is a JOC, he isn't Black. My bad. And while that shouldn't stop you from reading his piece, feel free to swap in Adam Serwer or Stacey Aviva Flint].

Give them all a read.

Danny Davis' Primary Opponent Tackles His Farrakhan Love

Many of you are no doubt aware of the recent controversy where a Women's March leader was cozying up to Louis Farrakhan (you can read my take on it here in Haaretz, or a complimenting one I wrote on this blog). After a lot of foot-dragging, the Women's March leadership has finally issued a statement that says Farrakhan's antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia are not aligned with their values. Does it suffice? This thread gives a taste of my and others' reactions.

But sadly, the Women's March isn't the only progressive entity that just got caught playing footsie with Farrakhan.

Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) told the Daily Caller (sidenote: who on his staff was dumb enough to let him speak to the Daily Caller?) that Farrakhan was an "outstanding human being", then said he was misquoted, then re-reversed course to say "I don’t have no problems with Farrakhan ... The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question."

Davis actually has a Democratic primary challenger this year in Anthony Clark, and I guess it's not surprising that he'd be the main political figure to jump on this (Davis' colleagues in the Democratic caucus have kept quiet). But while beating an ousting an entrenched incumbent is always hard, it's revealing that Clark thinks that snuggling up to Farrakhan is a valid attack point in a Democratic primary in a plurality-Black district.

(Both Clark and Davis sit on the left-edge of the Democratic Party; Clark's primary pitch is that Davis has become too enmeshed in the establishment and has stopped actually working for the progressive reforms he claims to support).

UPDATE: J Street, which had previously endorsed Davis, is reaching out to his office for comment and may "reconsider" its endorsement.

On the Women's March and Farrakhan

A Women's March leader, Tamika Mallory, attended a speech by Louis Farrakhan, notorious for antisemitic bigotry (which manifested itself in the speech). When called out on it, Mallory doubled-down with a remark ("If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!") that was less of a antisemitic dogwhistle than a bullhorn.

For the most part, the response of the other Women's March leaders has been to defiantly have her back (here's a particularly terrible intercession from Linda Sarsour). At the same time, there's been virtually no public justification as to why the rather obvious antisemitism of Farrakhan should be excused. There's been no effort to defend the things he says about Jews, no attempt to argue that his perspective on Jews is in fact in bounds.

This oddity -- defiant refusal to concede any ground on the antisemitism count, coupled with no attempt to actually rationalize the antisemitic content -- demands explanation. My hypothesis is this:

Leftists don't like thinking about antisemitism in their own ranks. At the same time, they'd never admit this is so. Fortunately, most antisemitism controversies that implicate the left relate to Israel in some fashion, and so they can respond with their favorite chestnut: "criticism of Israel isn't antisemitic." On face, this response assures the audience that they do care about antisemitism (the "real" antisemitism), but that the case at hand doesn't count as such (that it never seems to count as such is suspicious in its own right. But leave that aside.).

But Farrakhan's antisemitism isn't really tied to Israel. Which means that the stand-by response won't work. And these leftists are left flummoxed, because they don't really have another thought on antisemitism beyond "criticism of Israel isn't." Forced into a situation where it seems necessary to say something else, they find themselves at a loss. Suddenly, they can't play their get-out-of-talking-about-antisemitism-free card.

And this is revealing. If the problem really was Israel, the Farrakhan case shouldn't present any difficulty. But if the problem is that these leftists just don't want to have to reckon with antisemitism in their community (and Israel is a convenient but ultimately epiphenomenal factor), then Farrakhan presents a huge problem.

We're getting an excellent peek into who falls into which category here.

Manhood and M3

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a great post up (boy is that ever redundant) on the long simmering discontent many young Blacks have felt for the Jesse Jackson model of civil rights advocacy. He notes that many Whites have been surprised to see this view coming out of the Black community. And I think he gets at the reason why (albeit obliquely). The center-to-right critique of Jesse Jackson is that it is "whiny"; that it is too demanding of Whites and not focused enough on what Blacks can do for themselves. And wouldn't you know it, but the main Black alternative to that style of politics makes that very same pitch: it also indicts Black leaders whose focus on appealing to Whites is emasculating and, as Coates puts it, "another form of shuffling."

The problem is the folks making that claim are people like Louis Farrakhan. Which explains the popularity of the Million Man March -- but it also explains why White people couldn't really process it as a true alternative to Jackson. Simply put, White people couldn't handle the fact that they wanted African-Americans to become Black Muslims. So they just told themselves that the Million Man March was another instance of Black whiny pleading, missing the point entirely, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Obama and Farrakhan

Black political leader Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) once made an interesting remark on Louis Farrakhan. Asked to repudiate some idiotic thing that the Nation of Islam leader said, Rangel responded that the statement in question was "garbage", but at the same time, argued that Black Americans should not "have to carry around their last statement refuting Farrakhan." In other words, the facial assumption should not be that Black leaders must positively disassociate themselves from the clergyman. At the very least, some indication of connection or sympathy to the man should be demonstrated first. Henry Farrell argues that "it’s an implicit double standard, under which black politicians have a higher hurdle to jump before they deserve public trust than white ones," and questions why, say, Hillary Clinton isn't subjected to whispers about her anti-Semitism from the media because she met with Billy Graham.

The topic comes up in reference to a Richard Cohen editorially saying that Obama needs to forcefully condemn his pastor and spiritual adviser, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., for giving an award in his magazine to Rev. Farrakhan. As David Bernstein points out, the praise was not in passing or even limited to the arguably positive elements of Farrakhan's agenda; rather, it was quite comprehensive and universal. And Dr. Wright, for his part, is no minor player in Obama's life -- indeed, Obama himself has continually stressed his pastor's role in his personal faith journey and his religious and political commitments.

So while there might be a little Kevin Bacon going on here, I don't think Obama necessarily deserves a pass. For one, while some folks are trying to stretch the chain of connection Obama (as Steve Benen put it, "Obama has a personal 'obligation to speak out' ... because his church’s pastor’s daughter’s magazine said something complementary about Farrakhan."), the link really isn't all that attenuated: Wright himself directly complimented Farrakhan in the following words:

“When Minister Farrakhan speaks, Black America listens,” says the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, likening the Minister’s influence to the E. F. Hutton commercials of old. “Everybody may not agree with him, but they listen…His depth on analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye opening. He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest.

“Minister Farrakhan will be remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African American religious experience,” continues Wright. “His integrity and honesty have secured him a place in history as one of the nation’s most powerful critics. His love for Africa and African American people has made him an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere
about his faith and his purpose.”

And again, Wright is not just Obama's pastor, he's a key member of Obama's circle.

Obama's campaign has already clarified that he disagrees with Wright on this issue. That's good to know, although not particularly surprising -- nobody seriously thought Obama shared Wright's views on Farrakhan. But is that sufficient? I don't know. On the one hand, I'd like a more forceful repudiation, and I don't find the Kevin Bacon defense persuasive here. Here's Obama's statement on the matter:

I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.

The reason I don't quite find this enough is twofold; first, because "not a decision with which I agree" is very tame language, and second, because Trumpet Magazine and Rev. Wright's praise for Farrakhan seemed to explicitly go directly beyond his work on ex-offenders.

On the other hand, it's hard for me to put a finger on what I want beyond the secure knowledge that Obama doesn't believe Farrakhan is a good dude and won't act on the belief that he is, and I already have that. And it's not like media critics are falling over themselves to condemn GOP candidates (outside cranks like Ron Paul), or even other Democratic candidates, for their connections to anti-Semitic religious extremists. Farrell's point about the double-standard remains well taken, and I'm not sure what the practical implications of that should be. And as my TMV co-blogger T-Steel aptly reminds us, anyone who thinks that radical Black nationalism or the Nation of Islam will have any meaningful influence in a hypothetical Obama administration is delusional. So isn't this just a tempest in a teacup?

UPDATE: Ed is more defensive of Obama than I am? Man the barricades, I smell apocalypse.