For the last month, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been all over the internet with his conspiratorial, antisemitic tirades. Most recently, he went on Alex Jones’ InfoWars show with White Nationalist Nick Fuentes and said things like, “I love Nazis” and “I see good things about Hitler.”
What a great convo. I especially loved that they found points to debate. I personally don't agree with Bret Stephens that Trump and Tucker Carlson opened the gates to antisemitism. Great Replacement theory, and "Demographics is Destiny" nonsense was openly promoted by the left for decades. The right merely took notice and called these people out. Eli Lake makes a much stronger case that the leftist gatekeepers ruined their own credibility by calling everything, including all opposition to rampant illegal immigration "white supremacy". One of these preceded the other. Trump was a symptom of rampant anti-institutionalism. The left robs terms of their potency with nonstop boys crying wolf. Kmele brings up the proliferation of leftist hate hoaxes. The hysterical leftist desire for hate crimes was fulfilled by an army of Jussie Smollets. Many conspiracy theories converge around antisemitism but we can't place all the blame on the right. The left has mastered calling everything a conspiracy, until we have proof, like the Twitter Files and Shadowbanning. We are supposed to reject the appeal of Illuminati nonsense but the general structure of an elite cabal controlling the world looks alot like the Woke Tech Cartels colluding to control what is seen on the internet.
A few years ago, The NYT featured the most prominent people in corporations and institutions, with photos, to demonstrate how white people dominate elite positions. Instead, someone on the internet went and put the star of David on all the pictures of photos with Jewish sounding surnames to demonstrate how actually it’s Jewish people dominating these positions. I had a bad feeling about what was to come after seeing that.
It reminded me of something I learned when my kids started school. They had a program where teachers rewarded students for good behavior, especially students with challenging behaviors. Some parents were complaining about the message it sent to kids then a parent explained the program isn’t for the kids. It’s for the adults. It keeps the adult engaging positively with challenging children and this is what helps to stop bullying, that kids will feel they have permission to bully a child that adults don’t like and ultimately this gives the child permission to bully anyone they don’t like.
I think our social justice/CRT movement has done just that. Now it’s ok to group white people, men together and make assumptions, and denigrate them based on this grouping. The gatekeeper adults have given permission for one type of prejudice which is giving permission for all types of prejudice.
This was an excellent conversation-thought provoking and riveting. I never knew what each person was going to say and found myself surprised by a lot of it. Everyone was great but my heart is with Kmele. Once you grasp what he’s saying it’s hard not to be deeply frustrated by what is and what it could be.
So happy for the last two comments of this podcast. I was getting disheartened. This group and that group need to ally… aren’t allies for war? Ally against whom?
Grateful to hear Kmele call for finding other ways of connecting than categorizing us into groups. I don’t want to fight anyone, I can usually find something I enjoy talking about with most people I meet.
Bari, in other articles, has noted the wisdom of talking to people with whom one deeply disagrees. Unfortunately she draws the line at Trump talking to antisemites.
In this respect, Bari seems afflicted by the same malaise that has been corroding liberalism for the past 30 years: the view that racism, sexism, antisemitism, etc are such reprehensible ideas that the people who hold them must be incorrigible. As such, they must be made pariahs, censored, de-platformed, shadow banned, etc.. Moreover, to meet with or talk with these folks isn’t just a waste of time, it’s actually dangerous because it would “legitimize” or “mainstream” their views, or give these views “oxygen” and allow them to spread.
First of all, those arguments are laziness, masquerating as virtue. Calling someone a racist is easy but it doesn’t make them stop being racist. Preventing somebody from speaking their bad ideas doesn’t make them stop believing those bad ideas. Second of all, shaming and shunning these people actually allows their numbers to grow. Obviously, these people and their ideas do not disappear when we de-platform them or suspend them from Twitter. They go elsewhere, and they gather an audience, who, unfortunately are now deprived of the benefit of any counter arguments or better ideas. And because of our unwillingness to engage, their numbers are not diminished, they grow unchecked.
As counterintuitive as it seems, Bari should have stood up for Donald Trump‘s meeting with those two lunatics (Kanye and Fuentes). Not because she believes what they believe, but because she believes that talking with people with whom you disagree is is the only way to counter their ideas, and the spread of their ideas.
The only way to fight bigotry is to actually and authentically engage with the person whose ideas you detest. And if they’re a public person it needs to be public engagement. A real conversation about what they think and why they think it.
And if you’re tempted to claim that approach is a waste of time, because these people are incorrigible, please consider the case of of Daryl Davis, a black blues musician who spent 30 years meeting with - and befriending- members of the Ku Klux Klan - to astonishing effect. His courage changed minds and indeed countless lives. We should all strive to be so brave.
I'm really uncomfortable with panel's comfortable use of the word "overrepresentation" with respect to Jews in X, Y & Z industries or careers. How can that NOT be viewed in a biased, racist, and yes, antisemitic light? For whatever reason, though many studies have been done over the centuries, Jews seem to have an affinity and an ability to excel in the arts: music performance, music composition, painting, literature, playwriting, theatre, and the movie industry. It's just a fact, but not a nefarious fact...nor something that requires an apology from Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Isaac Stern, Barbara Streisand, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Benny Goodwin, Kirk & Michael Douglas, etc...etc. ...etc. They were (are) among the best at what they did (do), as judged by the masses. But, Jews are scrutinized and bashed for this apparently untoward ability to "overrepresent" themselves in certain industries. But, it would be considered racist, or met with an eye-roll of the obvious, if you mentioned that 73.2% of NBA players are black., or that 57.5% of NFL players are African-American, and that THAT might represent an "overrepresentation" in these lucrative professional sports. Professional sports teams are composed of the best players...what's there to argue about? Yet, because "underrepresentation" is also a word, there's an awful lot of noise made about the (apparently racist) fact that there are only 3 head coaches in the NFL, though 32 teams exist.
Bret Stephen is correct saying that Kanye isn't a victim of "cancel culture"...he's being punished for his repetitive, unapologetic acts of hate speech against a minority group. West has been spewing vile antisemitic tropes to his social media acolytes for far longer than the longest bipolar episode would last. A person can be BOTH mentally ill and a rabid hater of Jews…which is the reality of Kayne’s case in my humble opinion.
In the New York-metropolitan area, which has the largest population of Jews outside of Israel (over 2 million), antisemitic hate crimes are reaching elevated levels that are unprecedented, the data being compiled in real time by law enforcement officials and agencies like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Kanye is adding fuel to the fire, and should be held accountable for his high profile rants…especially if his hate speech spurs somebody to commit a hate crime against a Jew or Jews. If Kanye were white, and attached to white supremacist group rooted antisemitic narratives, he would have been canceled without a second thought. West's blackness, his international fame, and his secondary shield of mental illness, is providing cover for his convoluted, ignorance-based, but REAL hatred of Jews. Losing his corporate partners and sponsors was justifiable...and good business.
I think that Eli is maybe making a mistake in talking about the absurdity about the whole "black neo-nazi hiring the most prominent white supremacist in America, who happens to be hispanic" thing.
I think it's fairly clear that we aren't on the way to something like what Russia under Putin has become, but I think that Russia under Putin is nonetheless sort of instructive when we think about this because Russia under Putin has become something of the apogee of post-modern politics and the costs thereof—Putin is the "crusader for Christian Civilisation" whose two closest allies are the Islamic theocracy of Iran and the antitheistic CCP and one of whose most important military commanders is Ramzan Kadyrov a muslim. He's waging a war to "de-Nazify" Ukraine (which has a Jewish president), all the while his most important military commander, Yevgeni Prigozhin is a guy who is covered in Nazi tattoos who named his merc outfit after Richard Wagner because Wagner was an antisemite and Hitler's favourite composer, and antisemitic filth is now common fare on Russian state media. He's also "crusading" against a "satanist" government in Ukraine, a country where regular church attendance is higher and abortion rates are lower than in Russia.
None of those things are remarkable, but they start to illustrate the way that Russia has become a place where, to borrow the title of Peter Pomeratsev's excellent book, "nothing is true and everything is possible". The results of which are on full display and are illustrative of the dangers of post-modern politics. So yes, to bring it back home, I think that Kanye is an absurd figure and that Fuentes is also an absurd figure and that they hopefully will just end up as a bizarre cultural footnote, but, we are living in a country where it often feels as though the rhetorical élan belongs to the post-modern political movements—both on the left and on the right. I am hopeful, but I am also deeply, deeply concerned.
I think it's essential for us to take serious the fact that a post-modern, "politics as æsthetics" world is absolutely the sort of thing that facilitates a black neo-nazi palling around with an hispanic white supremacist. If Hitler ceases to be a real, historical figure, and the Shoah a real, historical event, the danger for Jews is fairly clear. Antisemitism is the original conspiracy theory. A post-truth politics is one in which conspiracy theories inevitably flourish. Conspiratorial thinking almost inevitably returns to the mother of all conspiracy theories—that the Jews are pernicious figures who secretly control, well, everything, and are responsible for all violence and death, back at very least to Christ's Crucifixion.
Maybe this is all hysteria and our grandchildren will be surprised to hear that there was ever a moment when this country seemed to be anything other than the greatest home the Jewish people have ever known, save only Israel, but I'm not sure that it is, and I'm not sure that Eli was grappling with that.
I really appreciate the frank and honest discussion, but there were a few comments that seem to assume a conclusion that is not clear to me. For instance, Brett Stevens said that using the term “globalist” is a dog whistle for Jews. I don’t understand why that is the case and no one challenged him on that. Can someone help me understand this better?
This was most interesting and useful to me. I've just begun to publish in my own modest corner of Substack a series of articles about antisemitism in America today. The first in the series, now up, is a brief historical sketch of antisemitism in this country:
Toward the end I remark: "Nowadays we hear a lot of talk about the various threats to 'our democracy.' Whether democracy can survive at all in a country that tolerates a species of bigotry with a demonstrated record of violence and mass murder is the question of the moment." Though my limited understanding (not being a Jew) probably led me into various errors and oversimplifications, I think I got that much right.
Incidentally, in my article I mentioned the case of Leo Frank. I didn't realize, however, that he was wrongfully convicted.
What a great convo. I especially loved that they found points to debate. I personally don't agree with Bret Stephens that Trump and Tucker Carlson opened the gates to antisemitism. Great Replacement theory, and "Demographics is Destiny" nonsense was openly promoted by the left for decades. The right merely took notice and called these people out. Eli Lake makes a much stronger case that the leftist gatekeepers ruined their own credibility by calling everything, including all opposition to rampant illegal immigration "white supremacy". One of these preceded the other. Trump was a symptom of rampant anti-institutionalism. The left robs terms of their potency with nonstop boys crying wolf. Kmele brings up the proliferation of leftist hate hoaxes. The hysterical leftist desire for hate crimes was fulfilled by an army of Jussie Smollets. Many conspiracy theories converge around antisemitism but we can't place all the blame on the right. The left has mastered calling everything a conspiracy, until we have proof, like the Twitter Files and Shadowbanning. We are supposed to reject the appeal of Illuminati nonsense but the general structure of an elite cabal controlling the world looks alot like the Woke Tech Cartels colluding to control what is seen on the internet.
A few years ago, The NYT featured the most prominent people in corporations and institutions, with photos, to demonstrate how white people dominate elite positions. Instead, someone on the internet went and put the star of David on all the pictures of photos with Jewish sounding surnames to demonstrate how actually it’s Jewish people dominating these positions. I had a bad feeling about what was to come after seeing that.
It reminded me of something I learned when my kids started school. They had a program where teachers rewarded students for good behavior, especially students with challenging behaviors. Some parents were complaining about the message it sent to kids then a parent explained the program isn’t for the kids. It’s for the adults. It keeps the adult engaging positively with challenging children and this is what helps to stop bullying, that kids will feel they have permission to bully a child that adults don’t like and ultimately this gives the child permission to bully anyone they don’t like.
I think our social justice/CRT movement has done just that. Now it’s ok to group white people, men together and make assumptions, and denigrate them based on this grouping. The gatekeeper adults have given permission for one type of prejudice which is giving permission for all types of prejudice.
This was an excellent conversation-thought provoking and riveting. I never knew what each person was going to say and found myself surprised by a lot of it. Everyone was great but my heart is with Kmele. Once you grasp what he’s saying it’s hard not to be deeply frustrated by what is and what it could be.
Thanks for the great podcast!
So happy for the last two comments of this podcast. I was getting disheartened. This group and that group need to ally… aren’t allies for war? Ally against whom?
Grateful to hear Kmele call for finding other ways of connecting than categorizing us into groups. I don’t want to fight anyone, I can usually find something I enjoy talking about with most people I meet.
Bari, in other articles, has noted the wisdom of talking to people with whom one deeply disagrees. Unfortunately she draws the line at Trump talking to antisemites.
In this respect, Bari seems afflicted by the same malaise that has been corroding liberalism for the past 30 years: the view that racism, sexism, antisemitism, etc are such reprehensible ideas that the people who hold them must be incorrigible. As such, they must be made pariahs, censored, de-platformed, shadow banned, etc.. Moreover, to meet with or talk with these folks isn’t just a waste of time, it’s actually dangerous because it would “legitimize” or “mainstream” their views, or give these views “oxygen” and allow them to spread.
First of all, those arguments are laziness, masquerating as virtue. Calling someone a racist is easy but it doesn’t make them stop being racist. Preventing somebody from speaking their bad ideas doesn’t make them stop believing those bad ideas. Second of all, shaming and shunning these people actually allows their numbers to grow. Obviously, these people and their ideas do not disappear when we de-platform them or suspend them from Twitter. They go elsewhere, and they gather an audience, who, unfortunately are now deprived of the benefit of any counter arguments or better ideas. And because of our unwillingness to engage, their numbers are not diminished, they grow unchecked.
As counterintuitive as it seems, Bari should have stood up for Donald Trump‘s meeting with those two lunatics (Kanye and Fuentes). Not because she believes what they believe, but because she believes that talking with people with whom you disagree is is the only way to counter their ideas, and the spread of their ideas.
The only way to fight bigotry is to actually and authentically engage with the person whose ideas you detest. And if they’re a public person it needs to be public engagement. A real conversation about what they think and why they think it.
And if you’re tempted to claim that approach is a waste of time, because these people are incorrigible, please consider the case of of Daryl Davis, a black blues musician who spent 30 years meeting with - and befriending- members of the Ku Klux Klan - to astonishing effect. His courage changed minds and indeed countless lives. We should all strive to be so brave.
I'm really uncomfortable with panel's comfortable use of the word "overrepresentation" with respect to Jews in X, Y & Z industries or careers. How can that NOT be viewed in a biased, racist, and yes, antisemitic light? For whatever reason, though many studies have been done over the centuries, Jews seem to have an affinity and an ability to excel in the arts: music performance, music composition, painting, literature, playwriting, theatre, and the movie industry. It's just a fact, but not a nefarious fact...nor something that requires an apology from Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Isaac Stern, Barbara Streisand, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Benny Goodwin, Kirk & Michael Douglas, etc...etc. ...etc. They were (are) among the best at what they did (do), as judged by the masses. But, Jews are scrutinized and bashed for this apparently untoward ability to "overrepresent" themselves in certain industries. But, it would be considered racist, or met with an eye-roll of the obvious, if you mentioned that 73.2% of NBA players are black., or that 57.5% of NFL players are African-American, and that THAT might represent an "overrepresentation" in these lucrative professional sports. Professional sports teams are composed of the best players...what's there to argue about? Yet, because "underrepresentation" is also a word, there's an awful lot of noise made about the (apparently racist) fact that there are only 3 head coaches in the NFL, though 32 teams exist.
Is there no tgif today?
Bret Stephen is correct saying that Kanye isn't a victim of "cancel culture"...he's being punished for his repetitive, unapologetic acts of hate speech against a minority group. West has been spewing vile antisemitic tropes to his social media acolytes for far longer than the longest bipolar episode would last. A person can be BOTH mentally ill and a rabid hater of Jews…which is the reality of Kayne’s case in my humble opinion.
In the New York-metropolitan area, which has the largest population of Jews outside of Israel (over 2 million), antisemitic hate crimes are reaching elevated levels that are unprecedented, the data being compiled in real time by law enforcement officials and agencies like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Kanye is adding fuel to the fire, and should be held accountable for his high profile rants…especially if his hate speech spurs somebody to commit a hate crime against a Jew or Jews. If Kanye were white, and attached to white supremacist group rooted antisemitic narratives, he would have been canceled without a second thought. West's blackness, his international fame, and his secondary shield of mental illness, is providing cover for his convoluted, ignorance-based, but REAL hatred of Jews. Losing his corporate partners and sponsors was justifiable...and good business.
I think that Eli is maybe making a mistake in talking about the absurdity about the whole "black neo-nazi hiring the most prominent white supremacist in America, who happens to be hispanic" thing.
I think it's fairly clear that we aren't on the way to something like what Russia under Putin has become, but I think that Russia under Putin is nonetheless sort of instructive when we think about this because Russia under Putin has become something of the apogee of post-modern politics and the costs thereof—Putin is the "crusader for Christian Civilisation" whose two closest allies are the Islamic theocracy of Iran and the antitheistic CCP and one of whose most important military commanders is Ramzan Kadyrov a muslim. He's waging a war to "de-Nazify" Ukraine (which has a Jewish president), all the while his most important military commander, Yevgeni Prigozhin is a guy who is covered in Nazi tattoos who named his merc outfit after Richard Wagner because Wagner was an antisemite and Hitler's favourite composer, and antisemitic filth is now common fare on Russian state media. He's also "crusading" against a "satanist" government in Ukraine, a country where regular church attendance is higher and abortion rates are lower than in Russia.
None of those things are remarkable, but they start to illustrate the way that Russia has become a place where, to borrow the title of Peter Pomeratsev's excellent book, "nothing is true and everything is possible". The results of which are on full display and are illustrative of the dangers of post-modern politics. So yes, to bring it back home, I think that Kanye is an absurd figure and that Fuentes is also an absurd figure and that they hopefully will just end up as a bizarre cultural footnote, but, we are living in a country where it often feels as though the rhetorical élan belongs to the post-modern political movements—both on the left and on the right. I am hopeful, but I am also deeply, deeply concerned.
I think it's essential for us to take serious the fact that a post-modern, "politics as æsthetics" world is absolutely the sort of thing that facilitates a black neo-nazi palling around with an hispanic white supremacist. If Hitler ceases to be a real, historical figure, and the Shoah a real, historical event, the danger for Jews is fairly clear. Antisemitism is the original conspiracy theory. A post-truth politics is one in which conspiracy theories inevitably flourish. Conspiratorial thinking almost inevitably returns to the mother of all conspiracy theories—that the Jews are pernicious figures who secretly control, well, everything, and are responsible for all violence and death, back at very least to Christ's Crucifixion.
Maybe this is all hysteria and our grandchildren will be surprised to hear that there was ever a moment when this country seemed to be anything other than the greatest home the Jewish people have ever known, save only Israel, but I'm not sure that it is, and I'm not sure that Eli was grappling with that.
Thanks for a good, challenging conversation.
BTW:
In 1899 5 Catholic Italians were lynched in Mississippi. No one was prosecuted. Read the article.
(Irish Americans were discriminated against.)
https://niafblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/31/italians-lynched-in-tallulah-la-honored-with-historical-marker-at-gravesite/
I really appreciate the frank and honest discussion, but there were a few comments that seem to assume a conclusion that is not clear to me. For instance, Brett Stevens said that using the term “globalist” is a dog whistle for Jews. I don’t understand why that is the case and no one challenged him on that. Can someone help me understand this better?
Your guests were very deep into their conspiracy theories. Anything they didn't like was labeled as another conspiracy theory.
I'm thinking some people see conspiracy in their cornflakes.
Loved this conversation. Couldn’t think of better guests 💙
This was most interesting and useful to me. I've just begun to publish in my own modest corner of Substack a series of articles about antisemitism in America today. The first in the series, now up, is a brief historical sketch of antisemitism in this country:
https://open.substack.com/pub/unwokeindianaag/p/antisemitism-in-america?r=dibcs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Toward the end I remark: "Nowadays we hear a lot of talk about the various threats to 'our democracy.' Whether democracy can survive at all in a country that tolerates a species of bigotry with a demonstrated record of violence and mass murder is the question of the moment." Though my limited understanding (not being a Jew) probably led me into various errors and oversimplifications, I think I got that much right.
Incidentally, in my article I mentioned the case of Leo Frank. I didn't realize, however, that he was wrongfully convicted.