As of this week, I, a 65-year-old life- long democrat, have left the party. As Hussein said, they have fed us to the mob. That includes Jews, like Pritzker and Rahm Emanuel. We, as American Jews are now homeless. Well, maybe not: there is Israel.
No argument from me. It's something I'm strongly considering. I also worry that Vance/Rubio will sell us out. But I'm keeping an open mind. For now, I'm an Independent, whatever the hell that means (certainly not Bernie Sanders.) We'll see where I am in the November elections.
My mother, who practically got Obama elected, accuses me of abandoning the family by becoming a one-issue voter. I told her, yes, I am a one-issue voter because, as Hussein beautifully points out here, that one issue encompasses an entire worldview.
It's a fair question and I am more aligned with Peter. I am older than him, had been active in partisan politics -- Dems for a while, Reps for a while. My issues and values haven't changed a lot, but the parties keep changing their stands. Politicians aren't principled. I don't like being used by any party or be too aligned. Here in CA, where Dems always win, I can be more effective being neutral and supporting and helping local candidates that support my issues, especially fighting the growing Jew hate fest around here. It doesn't help that too many local Republican candidates here are old leftovers who are chosen just to lose. The CA-GOP is a mess.
A sobering and depressing thought, because the R's in NY State (apart from a few decent local pols) are pathetic. This gives you an idea of their general intellectual level. I don't take this seriously as a threat. It's more an indication of the kind of loser who gets involved in R party politics.
That was a very different Republican party. Then again, there are really no Lincolns anywhere in American politics. If there are, they're probably trying to make a living on Substack.
They are Christian Nationalists who will eviscerate everything about you is why. There is now no safe place for anti extremists. It's not just Jews but also Black people. This is not just Third Worldism but an odd whitening of global politics. One still does not see support for the victims of genocide in Sudan, Congo, etc. just the Mideast, USA, Europe. It is not just about anti-colonialism but the death of liberal democracy and its replacement by an autocratic new socialism.
Not the one you asked, but personally, since my field has been heavily affected by DOGE and other Trump budgeting moves, I can never vote for the party that chose to try to destroy our careers.
I did the opposite. I was a Republican at some point, then independent for many years. I signed up as a Democrat with only one goal: to vote against the most insane progressives and Islamomarxists in the primaries. There are still more or less reasonable people even in my very blue areas. It is my duty to support them and help them not feel alone on the island.
—A worldview is the structure within which all positions are generated, the logic that determines which sentences can be spoken and which cannot, and when you concede the worldview, you have not bought peace on the other questions. You have conceded the very logic by which all the other questions will be decided.
AMEN! This is the perfect description of how this has played out so far and how it will play out going forward.
All this was obvious and inevitable if we realize that the major sundering event in re The Jewish Question was not 10/7 but 10/8.
That the Hamas Nova massacre marked the greatest outpouring of social joy in America maybe since VJ Day in 1945 (maybe the killing of Bin Laden comes close?), and that this grotesque celebration was greeted by either silence or empty words by all our most lauded institutions and supposed "leaders", told us all we needed to know about our present and future: the liberal order has rotted, our universities are filled with professors and students (foreign or otherwise) who want to destroy what they could never build, that our liberal classes (profs, journalists, politicians etc) have no chests and no ability to say NO to their angry children (shades of Dostoevsky's "Demons"), have no principles that can't be bartered for cash and/or votes, live in a constant trembling neurotic fear of ever contradicting a campus zealot and finding themselves stranded on the Wrong Side of History, and that all their weepy speeches about Never Again! and Nazi hatred were a Potemkin charade that could be torn down once the Jews became an impediment to their careers and social lives.
And worst of all: it was obvious that this small taste of Jewish blood had only made the pit bulls of "Anti-Zionism" thirsty for more and that they won't be satisfied until they get a pound of flesh from the evil Zionist entity (or some other Jew will do fine).
Modern liberals, as they are the house-trained poodles of the managerial state, are absolutely no match for the pit bulls of "Anti-Zionism" and it will be somewhat fun to watch them get mauled by their rage-addled children and the Islamo-Left alliance that they've been subsidizing, supporting and importing—their capitulation and humiliation has only just begun—but of course the plan has always been to throw the Jews into the volcano first. That's always the plan as long as Jews have existed!
Rawr! I find myself reading a comment, and I think, this is a clear, funny, scathingly honest mind, and I look to see who wrote this comment: Clever Pseudonym. Again! Thank you!
You’ve written so many pieces that I often want to share, but this one feels especially important with the elections coming up. I’d really love to share it more widely. Would you consider opening it up so others can read it too? I completely understand and respect the value of paid subscriptions, and I don’t want to take away from the support your readers give you, so deservedly. I just think this particular essay could spark conversations that reach beyond the people who already follow your work.
Three great examples - another great piece of writing. I feel the same degree - maybe moreso - of terror for what I can see coming, as I am in my 50s, can still think critically and identify historical and political patterns.
I think the US is approaching a tipping point where the Democratic Party may actually fracture by the next election. The Republican Party is right behind with the far right groyper movement. Let’s hope a political realignment happens where the sane and silent center finds its power.
The groypers were just simply birchers 70 years ago. Buckley and Reagan managed to keep them in their hidey holes til the internet allowed them to hide behind masks again.
Calling for an end to military aid is a centrist position that is in no way comparable to politicians talking up the genocide blood libel. On the other hand, the recent suggestions by people like Harris that Nethanyahu manipulated Trump into the Iran war are definitely antisemitic, building on the Elders of Zions puppet master narrative.
Problems in politics and culture that cannot be solved always come down to worldview. It's the source of conflict--who gets to define reality. It's also why the saying 'first they come for the Jews, then....' still has relevance.
Fantastic essay. Progressives have simultaneously learned that they control the Democratic Party and that Schumer, Pelosi, Obama, etc. are weak and irrelevant.
The DNC's capitulation on Israel is dangerous but not surprising. It's difficult to pinpoint when this shift began, but one can point at any number of things that illustrate the mess we're in: the 2016 election / Trump-Russia, covid lab leak theory, 2024 election, DEI / trans, Venuzuela / Iran, celebrating politcal violence).
This move to the far-left will further alienate former allies and would-be voters, and there is seemingly no turning back. I'm not sure what frightens me more, a Vance-Rubio or AOC-Jayapal win in 2028.
I agree with the analysis of anti Zionism being a worldview not a policy position, but unfortunately the only way for democrats to disempower the anti Zionist wing is for Israel to have a new government that takes real steps to rein in religious nationalism and the settler movement. That wouldn’t eliminate anti Zionism of course, but it would give mainstream Democratic Party leaders a lot more ability to attack and marginalize the anti Zionist wing. They literally have nothing to work with.
Democrats should have shut down their extremists and disassociated from the DSA when the DSA abandoned the principles of its founder Michael Harrington, Zionism and anti communism, after his death.
This is nothing to do with who leads Israel. That’s a red herring.
Yes Israelis choose their leaders but those choices have consequences. If you choose extremists like Ben Gvir an Smotrich and put them in real positions of power, if you offer no political solution except continued war, if you let settlers run wild in the West Bank, you are going to alienate broad segments of the American population, including most liberal Zionists — a lot of whom are democrats. That gives the DSA a lot of room to grow and make converts. You do the opposite, it becomes easier for mainstream Democrats to maintain their support for Israel without putting themselves in electoral jeopardy.
As for Michael Harrington, he died in 1989. At the time, the notion that any socialist party could have mainstream electoral success in America, certainly at the level of Sanders or Mamdani, was a joke. There was nothing to “disassociate” from. Do you know why the DSA has taken off? Because for all of its virtues, capitalism is a rough system and since 2008 it hasn’t been working well for many people. You have extreme wealth inequality, high prices and not great health care. Is it any wonder people feeling left out are turning to socialism? People become socialists for those reasons, but unfortunately they get indoctrinated with post colonial, anti western, anti Zionist garbage. The way to stop it is for mainstream political parties to exercise more control over capitalism, make the system more fair, and give the DSA less reason to exist.
"The Democratic leadership believes it is making a concession to some moral constituency, but it is, in fact, making it to a rival power formation within the party’s own institutional base. This is surrender." One side of the coalition thinks its gaining because they get to be satisfied for taking a "higher" moral ground (the self-generated and constantly projected moral "high ground" of the left- its engine and idol), when in fact as you say its capitulating on their Principled ground. The obscenity is frank. They may decive themselves but others can see. Its willful self-deception right? Dont we have some sense of our self-betray? I wonder if this concession is the same of Land for Peace? The logic being, if we agree to feel guilty and sympathetic upon being shamed for not being so, on a moral ground which feels more like intimidation than introspection, then we in turn may gain over another in the same way, using the same "moral high ground" to gain in power and influence etc. This is the currency I've sensed being traded around on college campuses. Hyaenas praying on each other to be lions of an ant hill.
I agree wholeheartedly with your general gist of the argument: Antizionism and Antisemitism are not "positions" one can cynically embrace+use, because they develop their own redemptive and destructive agenda.
But i think two of the three historical examples do not serve too well, and the third - while very good - needs an addition.
1. Unless you meant the Communist Parties of Germany+Austria+(lesser degree) France, who were directed from Moscow and made "concessions" to Antisemitic sentiments in the working class esp. mid-1920s, your argument about the "Socialist" parties does not really work.
In Germany and Austria, the "Socialist" parties were the Social Democratic Parties.
Those parties were not "ideal" on the question of Antisemitism, but especially at the end of Weimar Germany the SPD (also the Austrian SocDems in the early 1930s) were the only remaining parlamentarian force that maintained all three of the follonwing:
A clear commitment against political Antisemitism, against totalitarian ideologies, and for unconditional civil equality of the Jews.
in France, it was the SFIO and later, in the 1930s, the FP. The FP - in a unity movement with the Communists even - repeatedly had a Jew elected as President of France, Leon Blum. Blum was the primary target of nationalist+fascist French Antisemitism, and also accused of being a bourgeois puppet by Moscow-directed Communists.
The Socialist/SocDem parties were the most anti-Antisemitic political powers of Continental Europe before WW2, and i don't think your argument needs this revisionist perspective to work for today.
2. Corbyn is not a member of the Labour party anymore. Instead, he now is part of a repeatedly splintering Islamogauchist fringe. Of course, there has been damage to the Labour party, but the current Prime Minister of England is a Labour politician among whose main committments before the election was a break with Corbynist Antizionism. This commitment was used by Starmer and his allies even before the election to *purge* open Corbynism from the party.
So even if you criticize Starmer's positions on Israel, he kind of proves that such an Antizionist slide can, in real politics, be opposed.
3. The example of Algeria is very good, because it deals more with ideology and Antizionism than with political leadership and domestic Antisemitism.
But then we can still better fit this example to the American context:
While the Algeria War helped spread dangerous Third-Worldism in the French Left, it did not happen - as in your first example especially - as a reaction to Antisemitic domestic pressures, but as ramifications of a war that, as you said, provoked legitimate reactions.
I don't equalize the Algeria War with the Gaza War, but maybe there is more to Rahm Emmanuel's statement about the Iron Dome, that has to do with the alignment of Israel's perennial government with the GOP, and sentiment among non-Antizionist democratic voters about the war in Gaza, than merely with a calculated deal with the radical Antisemites from the left.
on the interwar socialist parties, you're substantially correct and i sacrificed accurancy for compression but thank god for internet pedantry. The SPD and the austrian social democrats were the most consistently anti-antisemitic parliamentary forces on the continent and Blum's Popular Front was the same story in France. but the argument i was making that a liberal establishment quietly concedes on the jewish question to manage a radical flank applies more accurately to the broader liberal-conservative center of interwar politics and the communist parties under Moscow's direction. They mostly did not make the trade i described. but i would note that the pattern of treating the jewish question as the expendable item in a coalition under pressure did operate in the interwar period, through the catholic parties, the liberal center, and the non-socialist establishments that made exactly this calculation. the analogy to the present democratic establishment, which is a center-liberal formation and not a socialist one, may in fact be tighter.
On Corbyn and labor (or labour?) you are right on some of the facts but not on the conclusion and I simply won't waste time on pedantry here. Even on its own terms, the starmer recovery didn't actually happen and the decolonial rubbish that corbynism introduced into british labor politics now fully migrated into the unions, the activist base, the younger generation, etc.
on Algeria, I think its the best anaolgy of the three actually. the french left's turn against the algerian war was also driven by an agreeable moral position. So even if we grant the Dems, which I don't, the objection to the Gaza war on moral merit, the political ramification of such concessions to the decolonial anti-Zionist left will be disastrous.
It’s interesting to compare the situation in the US, with its two-party system, with that of other Western countries, like Australia and the UK, which have a parliamentary system. In Australia and the UK, the woke mobs vote Green, giving Labor/Labour in position to maintain a centre-left identity. In the US, the electoral system gives this mob in position to blackmail the Dems.
I had previously felt that the parliamentary system led to ineffective governments as it required horse trading among groups that were really at odds with each other and at times no stable government could form at all. Watching what is happening here in the
US I'm not so sure the parliamentary system isn't better.
I have always tried to convince people to pick a side as having large numbers of independents results in both parties moving to the extremes. While candidates will campaign in a national or purple state election as a center left or center right politician, once elected , they go to their respective corners each of which is dominated by the most radical elements of the party. This has demonstrated itself to be very unhealthy and has driven more and more people to become independents which is just the opposite of what is needed. We are headed for trouble unless one of the parties can legitimately pick up a large number of independents who join as members and have a voice in selecting candidates.
I live in CA which is for the most part a one party state. Here, getting through the Dem Central Committee gauntlet to become a candidate sponsored by the party requires taking some very radical positions. And very few sane Republicans want to go up against the Democratic machine which includes the media. Just sticking your head up to donate to Republicans can lead to backlash for a business. I suspect this is the same reason that NY fails to field competent Republicans as was pointed out above. .
It may be the combination of the electoral system and ideological voting. The US used to have much less ideological parties, with lots of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. People would vote for individual politicians, who were members of national parties, but had their own independent views. But now they vote for national parties, and select Senators and Congressmen by how well they represent the party on national issues.
I really like the Australian system, with compulsory and preferential voting. This both encourages major parties to fight over the centre, and makes it possible for independents to emerge (since there is no risk of losing your vote in backing an independent).
As of this week, I, a 65-year-old life- long democrat, have left the party. As Hussein said, they have fed us to the mob. That includes Jews, like Pritzker and Rahm Emanuel. We, as American Jews are now homeless. Well, maybe not: there is Israel.
Honest question, why not the Republican party? I'm not asking this to start a silly argument. I'm honestly curious.
No argument from me. It's something I'm strongly considering. I also worry that Vance/Rubio will sell us out. But I'm keeping an open mind. For now, I'm an Independent, whatever the hell that means (certainly not Bernie Sanders.) We'll see where I am in the November elections.
My mother, who practically got Obama elected, accuses me of abandoning the family by becoming a one-issue voter. I told her, yes, I am a one-issue voter because, as Hussein beautifully points out here, that one issue encompasses an entire worldview.
Vance won't sell Israel out. He's already sold himself out to Tucker et al.
Rubio -- for hard headed reasons that I won't go into here, he's the guy, or his wing of the Republican party is.
They are the *only* option if you care about the future of the US. (I believe that Israel-hate is a fig leaf for America-hate).
Can't help you with your Mom but I think things will become clear even to her in coming months. Be gentle with her.
Rubio is the only good thing the Trump admin has going for it!
Rubio for President.
you will most decidedly be sold out. The Christian Nationalism seeks your conversion or demise, and they aren't joking. That is NOT an answer.
There is a very good chance you're right, but as of this moment, the left is worse. Can't believe I'm saying that, but it's true. Listen to Havig Retig-Gur interviewing Hussein yesterday: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ask-haviv-anything/id1794590850?i=1000766630969
It's a fair question and I am more aligned with Peter. I am older than him, had been active in partisan politics -- Dems for a while, Reps for a while. My issues and values haven't changed a lot, but the parties keep changing their stands. Politicians aren't principled. I don't like being used by any party or be too aligned. Here in CA, where Dems always win, I can be more effective being neutral and supporting and helping local candidates that support my issues, especially fighting the growing Jew hate fest around here. It doesn't help that too many local Republican candidates here are old leftovers who are chosen just to lose. The CA-GOP is a mess.
So is NY state’s R party. Absolute morons.
My daughter is in NY. The R's in NY are geniuses in comparison to our losers. Steve Hilton is trying... not sure how much the party is supporting him.
A sobering and depressing thought, because the R's in NY State (apart from a few decent local pols) are pathetic. This gives you an idea of their general intellectual level. I don't take this seriously as a threat. It's more an indication of the kind of loser who gets involved in R party politics.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/17/new-york-state-young-republicans-is-done-for-now-after-racist-group-chat-00613576
And Illinois/Chicago: Born to lose.
Ironic. (Lincoln.)
That was a very different Republican party. Then again, there are really no Lincolns anywhere in American politics. If there are, they're probably trying to make a living on Substack.
They are Christian Nationalists who will eviscerate everything about you is why. There is now no safe place for anti extremists. It's not just Jews but also Black people. This is not just Third Worldism but an odd whitening of global politics. One still does not see support for the victims of genocide in Sudan, Congo, etc. just the Mideast, USA, Europe. It is not just about anti-colonialism but the death of liberal democracy and its replacement by an autocratic new socialism.
More and more Black people realize that progressives view them as a tool, as long as they play along with the progressive ideology.
Really perceptive.
Not the one you asked, but personally, since my field has been heavily affected by DOGE and other Trump budgeting moves, I can never vote for the party that chose to try to destroy our careers.
That’s a healthy way of approaching it @THG: I have to admit I DO feel alone on an island at times—except in my Substack community.
You’re not alone.
I did the opposite. I was a Republican at some point, then independent for many years. I signed up as a Democrat with only one goal: to vote against the most insane progressives and Islamomarxists in the primaries. There are still more or less reasonable people even in my very blue areas. It is my duty to support them and help them not feel alone on the island.
—A worldview is the structure within which all positions are generated, the logic that determines which sentences can be spoken and which cannot, and when you concede the worldview, you have not bought peace on the other questions. You have conceded the very logic by which all the other questions will be decided.
AMEN! This is the perfect description of how this has played out so far and how it will play out going forward.
All this was obvious and inevitable if we realize that the major sundering event in re The Jewish Question was not 10/7 but 10/8.
That the Hamas Nova massacre marked the greatest outpouring of social joy in America maybe since VJ Day in 1945 (maybe the killing of Bin Laden comes close?), and that this grotesque celebration was greeted by either silence or empty words by all our most lauded institutions and supposed "leaders", told us all we needed to know about our present and future: the liberal order has rotted, our universities are filled with professors and students (foreign or otherwise) who want to destroy what they could never build, that our liberal classes (profs, journalists, politicians etc) have no chests and no ability to say NO to their angry children (shades of Dostoevsky's "Demons"), have no principles that can't be bartered for cash and/or votes, live in a constant trembling neurotic fear of ever contradicting a campus zealot and finding themselves stranded on the Wrong Side of History, and that all their weepy speeches about Never Again! and Nazi hatred were a Potemkin charade that could be torn down once the Jews became an impediment to their careers and social lives.
And worst of all: it was obvious that this small taste of Jewish blood had only made the pit bulls of "Anti-Zionism" thirsty for more and that they won't be satisfied until they get a pound of flesh from the evil Zionist entity (or some other Jew will do fine).
Modern liberals, as they are the house-trained poodles of the managerial state, are absolutely no match for the pit bulls of "Anti-Zionism" and it will be somewhat fun to watch them get mauled by their rage-addled children and the Islamo-Left alliance that they've been subsidizing, supporting and importing—their capitulation and humiliation has only just begun—but of course the plan has always been to throw the Jews into the volcano first. That's always the plan as long as Jews have existed!
Rawr! I find myself reading a comment, and I think, this is a clear, funny, scathingly honest mind, and I look to see who wrote this comment: Clever Pseudonym. Again! Thank you!
Thanks so much!
All praise to Hussein.
The best Substack I subscribe to!
same, by far
Well said! And a perfect corollary to Hussein's piece, putting a sharp point on future expectations, when they materialize.
Thanks! (for appreciating my sharp points, however grim ;))
💯
Hi Hussein,
You’ve written so many pieces that I often want to share, but this one feels especially important with the elections coming up. I’d really love to share it more widely. Would you consider opening it up so others can read it too? I completely understand and respect the value of paid subscriptions, and I don’t want to take away from the support your readers give you, so deservedly. I just think this particular essay could spark conversations that reach beyond the people who already follow your work.
Done.
Thank you
Three great examples - another great piece of writing. I feel the same degree - maybe moreso - of terror for what I can see coming, as I am in my 50s, can still think critically and identify historical and political patterns.
I think the US is approaching a tipping point where the Democratic Party may actually fracture by the next election. The Republican Party is right behind with the far right groyper movement. Let’s hope a political realignment happens where the sane and silent center finds its power.
The groypers were just simply birchers 70 years ago. Buckley and Reagan managed to keep them in their hidey holes til the internet allowed them to hide behind masks again.
Except that the Democratic leadership is veering en-masse towards the anti-Israel position.
MAGA Republicans are over 90% with President Trump on Iran, as seen in 11 recent polls:
https://www.batya-us.com/p/ignore-the-influencers-11-polls-show
Calling for an end to military aid is a centrist position that is in no way comparable to politicians talking up the genocide blood libel. On the other hand, the recent suggestions by people like Harris that Nethanyahu manipulated Trump into the Iran war are definitely antisemitic, building on the Elders of Zions puppet master narrative.
Problems in politics and culture that cannot be solved always come down to worldview. It's the source of conflict--who gets to define reality. It's also why the saying 'first they come for the Jews, then....' still has relevance.
Why do I feel the need to cry after reading this?
Keep an eye on Michigan electoral politics. The long time alliance between liberal Jews and the Democrats there is worthless. https://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/ml-elrick/2026/04/21/michigan-democrat-endorsement-convention-stevens-el-sayed-gilchrist/89699958007/
Fantastic essay. Progressives have simultaneously learned that they control the Democratic Party and that Schumer, Pelosi, Obama, etc. are weak and irrelevant.
The DNC's capitulation on Israel is dangerous but not surprising. It's difficult to pinpoint when this shift began, but one can point at any number of things that illustrate the mess we're in: the 2016 election / Trump-Russia, covid lab leak theory, 2024 election, DEI / trans, Venuzuela / Iran, celebrating politcal violence).
This move to the far-left will further alienate former allies and would-be voters, and there is seemingly no turning back. I'm not sure what frightens me more, a Vance-Rubio or AOC-Jayapal win in 2028.
I agree with the analysis of anti Zionism being a worldview not a policy position, but unfortunately the only way for democrats to disempower the anti Zionist wing is for Israel to have a new government that takes real steps to rein in religious nationalism and the settler movement. That wouldn’t eliminate anti Zionism of course, but it would give mainstream Democratic Party leaders a lot more ability to attack and marginalize the anti Zionist wing. They literally have nothing to work with.
Israelis choose their leaders.
Democrats should have shut down their extremists and disassociated from the DSA when the DSA abandoned the principles of its founder Michael Harrington, Zionism and anti communism, after his death.
This is nothing to do with who leads Israel. That’s a red herring.
Yes Israelis choose their leaders but those choices have consequences. If you choose extremists like Ben Gvir an Smotrich and put them in real positions of power, if you offer no political solution except continued war, if you let settlers run wild in the West Bank, you are going to alienate broad segments of the American population, including most liberal Zionists — a lot of whom are democrats. That gives the DSA a lot of room to grow and make converts. You do the opposite, it becomes easier for mainstream Democrats to maintain their support for Israel without putting themselves in electoral jeopardy.
As for Michael Harrington, he died in 1989. At the time, the notion that any socialist party could have mainstream electoral success in America, certainly at the level of Sanders or Mamdani, was a joke. There was nothing to “disassociate” from. Do you know why the DSA has taken off? Because for all of its virtues, capitalism is a rough system and since 2008 it hasn’t been working well for many people. You have extreme wealth inequality, high prices and not great health care. Is it any wonder people feeling left out are turning to socialism? People become socialists for those reasons, but unfortunately they get indoctrinated with post colonial, anti western, anti Zionist garbage. The way to stop it is for mainstream political parties to exercise more control over capitalism, make the system more fair, and give the DSA less reason to exist.
"The Democratic leadership believes it is making a concession to some moral constituency, but it is, in fact, making it to a rival power formation within the party’s own institutional base. This is surrender." One side of the coalition thinks its gaining because they get to be satisfied for taking a "higher" moral ground (the self-generated and constantly projected moral "high ground" of the left- its engine and idol), when in fact as you say its capitulating on their Principled ground. The obscenity is frank. They may decive themselves but others can see. Its willful self-deception right? Dont we have some sense of our self-betray? I wonder if this concession is the same of Land for Peace? The logic being, if we agree to feel guilty and sympathetic upon being shamed for not being so, on a moral ground which feels more like intimidation than introspection, then we in turn may gain over another in the same way, using the same "moral high ground" to gain in power and influence etc. This is the currency I've sensed being traded around on college campuses. Hyaenas praying on each other to be lions of an ant hill.
Tragic but the trajectory was clear
I agree wholeheartedly with your general gist of the argument: Antizionism and Antisemitism are not "positions" one can cynically embrace+use, because they develop their own redemptive and destructive agenda.
But i think two of the three historical examples do not serve too well, and the third - while very good - needs an addition.
1. Unless you meant the Communist Parties of Germany+Austria+(lesser degree) France, who were directed from Moscow and made "concessions" to Antisemitic sentiments in the working class esp. mid-1920s, your argument about the "Socialist" parties does not really work.
In Germany and Austria, the "Socialist" parties were the Social Democratic Parties.
Those parties were not "ideal" on the question of Antisemitism, but especially at the end of Weimar Germany the SPD (also the Austrian SocDems in the early 1930s) were the only remaining parlamentarian force that maintained all three of the follonwing:
A clear commitment against political Antisemitism, against totalitarian ideologies, and for unconditional civil equality of the Jews.
in France, it was the SFIO and later, in the 1930s, the FP. The FP - in a unity movement with the Communists even - repeatedly had a Jew elected as President of France, Leon Blum. Blum was the primary target of nationalist+fascist French Antisemitism, and also accused of being a bourgeois puppet by Moscow-directed Communists.
The Socialist/SocDem parties were the most anti-Antisemitic political powers of Continental Europe before WW2, and i don't think your argument needs this revisionist perspective to work for today.
2. Corbyn is not a member of the Labour party anymore. Instead, he now is part of a repeatedly splintering Islamogauchist fringe. Of course, there has been damage to the Labour party, but the current Prime Minister of England is a Labour politician among whose main committments before the election was a break with Corbynist Antizionism. This commitment was used by Starmer and his allies even before the election to *purge* open Corbynism from the party.
So even if you criticize Starmer's positions on Israel, he kind of proves that such an Antizionist slide can, in real politics, be opposed.
3. The example of Algeria is very good, because it deals more with ideology and Antizionism than with political leadership and domestic Antisemitism.
But then we can still better fit this example to the American context:
While the Algeria War helped spread dangerous Third-Worldism in the French Left, it did not happen - as in your first example especially - as a reaction to Antisemitic domestic pressures, but as ramifications of a war that, as you said, provoked legitimate reactions.
I don't equalize the Algeria War with the Gaza War, but maybe there is more to Rahm Emmanuel's statement about the Iron Dome, that has to do with the alignment of Israel's perennial government with the GOP, and sentiment among non-Antizionist democratic voters about the war in Gaza, than merely with a calculated deal with the radical Antisemites from the left.
on the interwar socialist parties, you're substantially correct and i sacrificed accurancy for compression but thank god for internet pedantry. The SPD and the austrian social democrats were the most consistently anti-antisemitic parliamentary forces on the continent and Blum's Popular Front was the same story in France. but the argument i was making that a liberal establishment quietly concedes on the jewish question to manage a radical flank applies more accurately to the broader liberal-conservative center of interwar politics and the communist parties under Moscow's direction. They mostly did not make the trade i described. but i would note that the pattern of treating the jewish question as the expendable item in a coalition under pressure did operate in the interwar period, through the catholic parties, the liberal center, and the non-socialist establishments that made exactly this calculation. the analogy to the present democratic establishment, which is a center-liberal formation and not a socialist one, may in fact be tighter.
On Corbyn and labor (or labour?) you are right on some of the facts but not on the conclusion and I simply won't waste time on pedantry here. Even on its own terms, the starmer recovery didn't actually happen and the decolonial rubbish that corbynism introduced into british labor politics now fully migrated into the unions, the activist base, the younger generation, etc.
on Algeria, I think its the best anaolgy of the three actually. the french left's turn against the algerian war was also driven by an agreeable moral position. So even if we grant the Dems, which I don't, the objection to the Gaza war on moral merit, the political ramification of such concessions to the decolonial anti-Zionist left will be disastrous.
Agreed on all those points.
The Starmer recovery was not successful on the cultural level, only on that of the political leadership. The former is more consequential, yes.
The political ramification of any inch conceded to the decolonial left, regardless of moral merits, will be disastrous.
For Jews bad. For electoral politics maybe good(?), it will help secure right wing parties in victory? Hopefully.
It’s interesting to compare the situation in the US, with its two-party system, with that of other Western countries, like Australia and the UK, which have a parliamentary system. In Australia and the UK, the woke mobs vote Green, giving Labor/Labour in position to maintain a centre-left identity. In the US, the electoral system gives this mob in position to blackmail the Dems.
I had previously felt that the parliamentary system led to ineffective governments as it required horse trading among groups that were really at odds with each other and at times no stable government could form at all. Watching what is happening here in the
US I'm not so sure the parliamentary system isn't better.
I have always tried to convince people to pick a side as having large numbers of independents results in both parties moving to the extremes. While candidates will campaign in a national or purple state election as a center left or center right politician, once elected , they go to their respective corners each of which is dominated by the most radical elements of the party. This has demonstrated itself to be very unhealthy and has driven more and more people to become independents which is just the opposite of what is needed. We are headed for trouble unless one of the parties can legitimately pick up a large number of independents who join as members and have a voice in selecting candidates.
I live in CA which is for the most part a one party state. Here, getting through the Dem Central Committee gauntlet to become a candidate sponsored by the party requires taking some very radical positions. And very few sane Republicans want to go up against the Democratic machine which includes the media. Just sticking your head up to donate to Republicans can lead to backlash for a business. I suspect this is the same reason that NY fails to field competent Republicans as was pointed out above. .
It may be the combination of the electoral system and ideological voting. The US used to have much less ideological parties, with lots of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. People would vote for individual politicians, who were members of national parties, but had their own independent views. But now they vote for national parties, and select Senators and Congressmen by how well they represent the party on national issues.
I really like the Australian system, with compulsory and preferential voting. This both encourages major parties to fight over the centre, and makes it possible for independents to emerge (since there is no risk of losing your vote in backing an independent).