CommentaryNOVEMBER 2018 KAVANAUGH AND THE ASSAULT ON MEN BY CHRISTINE ROSEN
THE SHAME OF THE ANTI- DEFAMATION LEAGUE SETH MANDEL Commentary
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November 2018 Cover.indd 2 10/15/18 1:44 PM EDITOR’S COMMENTARY Soros Losers
JOHN PODHORETZ
OR DECADES NOW, we have been told by lib- Richard Cohen was at low ebb even for him: “What erals that criticism of Israel should not prima you have is not anti-Semitism with intent, but anti- F facie be considered anti-Semitic or even be used Semitism nonetheless.” as evidence of anti-Semitism. Indeed, Jewish voices Soros has come under vicious attack in Central on the left like J Street even suggest that speaking out and Eastern Europe by rising nationalists, and 20 against Israel is a core Jewish value—that it is to be years ago he was the focus of anti-Semitic ire in Ma- seen as fulfilling God’s commandment through the laysia for a hedge-fund play that tanked that nation’s prophet Isaiah that the Jewish people serve as a light currency. He was born and raised in Hungary and unto the nations. survived the Holocaust by hiding as a Christian and It is true that criticizing Israel does not make the scrounging, doing what he had to do to survive. He did critic an anti-Semite. It is anti-Semitism that makes so and became a billionaire many times over. After the someone an anti-Semite—by which I mean offering a Cold War, he became a supporter of democratic voices criticism of the Jewish state, or Jewry, or an individual in Hungary and elsewhere. Jew on grounds that are not applied equally to any He also became a player in American politics other nation, people, or individual on earth. Neither and has, it is said, invested more than $300 million is it anti-Semitism to criticize an individual Jew for over the past 20 years in liberal and leftist causes. In a actions and behaviors that have nothing to do with his 2004 book, Byron York detailed the $30 million Soros Judaism. In such a case, to claim that the criticism is contributed to prevent the reelection of George W. anti-Semitic is to use the charge of anti-Semitism as a Bush. And what Trump said in his tweet was true— shield to protect that individual from criticism that is some of those activists in the Senate halls were indeed perfectly standard and appropriate. employees and volunteers of organizations funded This is what happened in October with George by Soros, including the two women who confronted Soros, the left-wing activist and philanthropist. As Senator Flake in that elevator. the battle to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme But even had it not been true, there is nothing Court was reaching its apex, Senator Jeff Flake was remotely anti-Semitic about calling out Soros in conjunc- confronted in an elevator by activists demanding he tion with a coordinated and staged series of protests in listen to their complaints. Donald Trump issued the the most contested ideological and partisan moment following tweet: “The very rude elevator screamers are of 2018. He is to be commended for putting his money paid professionals only looking to make Senators look where his mouth is. But just as Soros’s generosity should bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the profession- not give him a free pass when it comes to the ideas and ally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. causes he promotes, neither should his own life his- These are not signs made in the basement from love!” tory and peoplehood serve as weapons in the hands of Trump’s invocation of Soros’s name here im- others who wish to render criticisms of his causes null mediately set off a barrage of complaints alleging the and void—or who want to score a cheap political point tweet was anti-Semitic. In a piece that begins by stat- against a president who has generously provided his crit- ing Trump was no anti-Semite, the Washington Post’s ics more than enough ready ammunition. q
Commentary 1
Columns.indd 1 10/15/18 2:42 PM November 2018 Vol. 146 : No. 4
Articles
Christine Kavanaugh and the Assault on Men 12 Rosen
Seth The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League 17 Mandel How its new executive director is betraying the organization’s purpose.
Chloé Simone Whiteness Is Blackness, 26 Valdary and Blackness Is Whiteness Believing otherwise corrodes us, corrodes freedom, and corrodes the world we live in.
Daniel Europe’s Civilizationalist Parties 30 Pipes Don’t shun the populists; work with and learn from them.
Elliot Can We Eat Kosher Bacon? 35 Cosgrove A question from 1949 rises anew.
Politics & Ideas
Abigail Ivy-Covered Dystopia 39 Shrier The Diversity Delusion, by Heather Mac Donald
Columns.indd 2 10/15/18 2:42 PM
Politics & Ideas
Kevin D. A Hollow Man 42 Williamson Reagan, by Bob Spitz
Elliot Crazy Brash Asians 44 Kaufman The Souls of Yellow Folk, by Wesley Yang
Nicholas ID Canard 46 Clairmont The Lies That Bind, by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Oliver Not So Fascist 48 Traldi How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley
Culture & Civilization
Terry The Swinging Star 51 Teachout Why is Bing Crosby forgotten?
Monthly Commentaries
Editor’s Commentary Washington Commentary 1 John Podhoretz Andrew Ferguson 8 Soros Losers Prufrock on the Potomac
Reader Commentary Jewish Commentary 4 Letters Meir Y. Soloveichik 10 on the September issue Jimmy Carter: The Sunday-School Years
Media Commentary Matthew Continetti 56 The New Yorker’s Shocking Dereliction
Columns.indd 3 10/15/18 2:01 PM READER COMMENTARY
The Future of NATO
To the Editor: majority of such alliances did not Hal Brands and Peter Feaver write: HAD A THOUGHT after reading survive the test of time once the E AGREE THAT when an I Hal Brands and Peter Feaver’s their raisons d’être disappeared. W alliance’s original raison article on NATO (“Can NATO Sur- Once the primary power of an d’être disappears, it puts a strain vive and Thrive?” September). Like alliance revaluates its national- on the alliance. Some prominent Luigi Pirandello’s absurd play Six security priorities after a league’s academic theorists predicted the Characters in Search of an Author, bonds weaken, disintegration is collapse of the Soviet Union would NATO is a 29-member alliance in usually inevitable. On that note, strain NATO to the breaking point search of a mission in a fragmented I leave you with the words of Sir in the early 1990s. That did not world order at the start of a new Edward Grey: “An understanding happen, obviously. The academic century. is perhaps better than an alliance, theorists forgot what Erol Araf has As Pericles observed, collective which may stereotype arrange- also forgotten: that alliances can security alliances suffer from fa- ments which cannot be regarded as choose to adapt and develop new tigue and disband once the threat permanent in view of the changing missions that give vitality to their that engendered the formation of circumstances from day to day.” partnership. That is precisely what the group dissipates. A study of Erol Araf NATO has done over the past 25 the military alliances from the War Pierrefonds, Quebec years. And today, the original rai- of the League of Cambrai in 1508 son d’être does not seem so dis- to the present would show that a 1 tant any longer, given the obvious
4 November 2018
Columns.indd 4 10/15/18 1:19 PM challenge posed by a revisionist Russia. In our article, we explored another kind of shock to the alli- ance, one that could prove more fatal: the possibility that the major power at the center of the coalition loses interest in maintaining the alliance. We shall see whether that November 2018 Vol. 146 : No. 4 may require adjustments beyond what the other allies can muster. John Podhoretz, Editor Abe Greenwald, Senior Editor 1 Noah C. Rothman, Associate Editor � Carol Moskot, Publisher Kejda Gjermani, Digital Publisher Israeli Leah Rahmani, Publishing Associate � Statehood Ilya Leyzerzon, Business Director Stephanie Roberts, Business Manager � To the Editor: N READING Matthew Conti- Sohrab Ahmari, Senior Writer Inetti’s column about Israel’s new Terry Teachout, Critic-at-Large statehood law (“The Misrepresen- � tation of Israel’s Democracy,” Sep- Board of Directors tember), it occurred to me that Daniel R. Benson, Chairman there is one key point to bear in Meredith Berkman, Paul J. Isaac, mind. Those of the law’s provisions Michael J. Leffell, Jay P. Lefkowitz, that assert explicit law merely reiterate existing law, while those Steven Price, Gary L. Rosenthal, provisions that are new are more Michael W. Schwartz, Paul E. Singer in the nature of resolutions than explicit statements of law. The law says: “The exercise of To send us a letter to the editor: [email protected] the right to national self-deter- We will edit letters for length and content. mination in the State of Israel is To make a tax-deductible donation: [email protected] unique to the Jewish People.” This For advertising inquiries: [email protected] is forceful in tone, but it lacks any For customer service: [email protected] kind of legal specificity. Consider this quote from the law: “The State views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and Commentary (ISSN 0010-2601) is published monthly (except for a combined July/ shall act to encourage and promote August issue) by Commentary, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization. Editorial and business offices: 561 Seventh Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY, 10018. Telephone: (212) 891-1400. Fax: (212) its establishment and strengthen- 891-6700. Customer Service: [email protected] or (212) 891-1400. ing.” This does not create any legal Subscriptions: One year $45, two years $79, three years $109, USA only. To subscribe please go presumption of a Jewish land claim to www.commentarymagazine.com/subscribe-digital-print. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, over a conflicting claim from a non- and additional mailing offices. Subscribers will receive electronic announcements of forthcoming issues. Single copy: U.S. is $5.95; Canada is $7.00. All back issues are available in electronic Jew—even though the tone of the form at commentarymagazine.com. Postmaster: Send address changes to Commentary, P.O. Box sentence implies such a presump- 420235, Palm Coast, FL, 32142. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by a stamped, tion. Finally, there’s this: “The exer- self-addressed envelope. Letters intended for publication may be edited. Indexed in Reader’s Guide, cise of the right to national self-de- Book Review Digest, and elsewhere. U.S. Newsstand Distribution by COMAG Marketing Group, 155 Village Blvd, Princeton, NJ, 08540. Printed in the USA. Commentary was established in termination in the State of Israel is 1945 by the American Jewish Committee, which was the magazine’s publisher through 2006 and continues to support its role as an independent journal of thought and opinion. Copyright © 2017 by Commentary, Inc.; all rights reserved under International and Pan American Copyright Conventions.
Columns.indd 5 10/15/18 1:19 PM unique to the Jewish People.” This That said, however, it remains to of the Carter administration men- might seem discriminatory, since be seen how the Israeli courts will tioned. There is no reference to Israel classifies its citizens under interpret it. any of the foreign-policy issues three nationalities: Jew, Arab, and David Kessler that were important to CDM and Other. However, it is not clear what London, England to Commentary during Carter’s this provision means in practice. term in office—the successes, such The law is part reassertion of as Camp David and the Egypt- existing law and part wish list. 1 Israel Peace Treaty; the struggle to deal with an aggressive Soviet Union, with both soft power (hu- man rights) and hard power (the military buildup and tough re- sponse to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) on which President Reagan built; or the failures, such The Carter as Iran, which I candidly describe. Stuart E. Eizenstat Washington, D.C. Presidency 1 Fred Siegel writes: To the Editor: who missed my lengthy, vivid N HIS massive book, Stuart E. HILE I DO not usually com- discussion of the midterm conven- IEizenstat devotes all of a half W ment on reviews of my tion in Chapter 28, under a clearly sentence to Jerry Brown’s impact book, President Carter: The White marked subchapter “Sail Against on the 1976 presidential primary House Years, I do so for the review the Wind” (pages 829–831), in and the Carter presidency. Brown by Fred Siegel (“Less Mush from which I mention that Senator Ted is mentioned again only once, the Wimp,” September), because Kennedy’s speech there on Decem- briefly. The then 38-year-old Cali- it contains material factual mis- ber 9, 1978, with me on the podium, fornian, then in his first stint as statements. I have long read Com- was the opening gun to his even- California’s governor, entered the mentary and know that you prize tual challenge to President Carter race too late to win. Nonethe- accuracy; and Norman Podhoretz, in his reelection bid. I describe less he defeated Carter in several a previous editor of Commentary, how having to follow Senator Ken- late contests. Brown, like another is a significant figure in my book, nedy’s rousing speech made me Carter rival, George Wallace, was a but this is not even discussed. feel like “a pinch-hitter fresh from master at mocking the pretenses of The reviewer incorrectly states the minors batting right after Ted “experts.” George Wallace’s biogra- that my book “bypasses the 1976 Williams hit a grand slam.” pher Marshall Frady described the primaries” when Carter defeated I am also confounded that the Californian, the first to call for a both Jerry Brown, then governor review fails to mention the impor- “leaner life-style,” as having “shad- of California, and George Wallace. tant meeting of January 31, 1980, owed the Carter presidency.” Cart- In fact, I discuss this at length as in the White House, between Presi- er’s political adviser Pat Cadell saw part of 12 pages devoted to the 1976 dent Carter and the leadership Brown, who had been described as primaries in the chapter entitled of the Coalition for a Democratic the “thinking man’s George Wal- “The 1976 Campaign.” Likewise, Majority (CDM), including Nor- lace,” as the biggest threat to the Mr. Siegel states that “Strangely, man Podhoretz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Georgian’s renomination. for such an extended and com- Ben Wattenberg, and others to Although Brown ran again in prehensive tome, President Carter “avert the leftward drift of Demo- 1980, it was Ted Kennedy who most misses one of the salient events of cratic foreign policy.” Several of the threatened Carter’s renomina- the 1970s—the 1978 Democratic attendees eventually worked for tion. Mr. Eizenstat does a good job Party midterm monvention (since Ronald Reagan. of describing the powerful effect of abolished).” It is your reviewer Nor are other salient features Ted Kennedy’s stem-winder speech
6 Letters : November 2018
Columns.indd 6 10/15/18 1:19 PM at the now defunct midterm con- that Carter had at least nominally much more than a matter of a vention held in 1978. But he misses run on against Gerald Ford. The single speech. the opportunity to describe the platform had called for a labor-law When the midterm convention context of Kennedy’s speech. reform that would have made it ended, Hedrick Smith, writing on The Democratic Socialists of easier for unions to organize. This the front page of the New York America, once known as DSOC, the was an urgent matter for labor, Times, declared that the message Democratic Socialist Organizing which was losing members dai- of the convention was that there Committee, are today experienc- ly. But Carter was lukewarm on was a schism in the Democratic ing their second “flowering” as the idea, prompting Harrington Party. Using Kennedy as his ve- an organization. In the 1970s, led admirer Doug Fraser, president of hicle, Harrington seemed to be on by the writer, journalist, intellec- the UAW (United Auto Workers), his way to making the Democrats tual Michael Harrington, DSOC to quip that business was “waging an openly left-wing party. “Social- scooped up the remnants of the a one-sided class war.” But led by ism,” reported Business Week in so-called New Left that had swal- Michael Harrington, who had good 1979, was “no longer a dirty word” lowed its once revolutionary pride ties to both Ted Kennedy and left- for trade unionists. Still, Carter and turned to electoral politics. wing labor leaders, Fraser and held his ground, Kennedy merci- More important, the unions such the president of the machinists, fully self-destructed, and Reagan as AFSCME that had supported DSOC member William Winpis- saved the day. McGovern had side by side with inger, used the midterm conven- DSOC played a substantial role in tion to maximum advantage. They writing the 1976 Democratic Party showed their clout, and their will- 1 program; this was the platform ingness to lead a class war. It was
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Commentary 7
Columns.indd 7 10/15/18 1:19 PM WASHINGTON COMMENTARY Prufrock on the Potomac
ANDREW FERGUSON
ANY YEARS AFTER he had served as Presi- never been much distracted by ideology. This suited dent Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman the political era he lived through and contributed to. A MAdams sat for an interview with a presi- nominal Republican, he inherited his party affiliation dential historian, who asked his opinion of various of- from his father, a small businessman in the Bronx, who ficials who had served in Ike’s administration. Finally, in turn was a follower of Thomas Dewey, the New York the historian had worked his way down the organi- governor and two-time presidential nominee, and the zational chart and asked, “What about Steve Hess?” patron saint of liberal Republicanism in the 1940s Not known for his social graces, Adams replied: “Now and ’50s. For the past 46 years, between interludes of you’re really scraping the barrel.” government service, Hess has been a senior fellow at It is fitting that Stephen Hess himself tells that the Brookings Institution, a Democratic think tank. story, in his charming new memoir of his 60 years He still calls himself a liberal Republican, a creature as in politics and government. Hess knows the value of rare as a Jackalope. self-deprecation. As the title of his memoir says, he is Hess came to politics through academia. A a “Bit Player.” Washingtonians like Hess are absolutely mentor in his graduate program at Johns Hopkins indispensable to the operation of the capital, for better University was called to write speeches for President and worse, but they are found beavering away at the Eisenhower halfway through his second term. With a edges of the spotlight; if they do get called to appear passion for politics and no interest in a professor’s ca- as a major player, it is usually a brief turn, without reer, Hess was happy to tag along. He is especially good expectations of stardom. A bit player is Washington’s at capturing the daily life of the midlevel White House version of Prufrock—not a prince but “an attendant staffer. He conveys the general headiness the bit player lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene succumbs to, with the preposterously large offices in or two, advise the prince…deferential, glad to be of use, the Executive Office Building, the perks and occasional politic, cautious, and meticulous.” freebies, the encounters, however fleeting, with figures Or as Hess himself describes his career in Wash- more important than the bit player: a cabinet officer, ington: “making friends, doing favors, being helpful, a famous author, a movie star (the film noir actor and not getting into trouble.” You’ll find such functionaries director Robert Montgomery was a frequent visitor to in both parties, of course, and true to the type, Hess has Ike’s White House). The differences between then and now are striking, too. Eisenhower’s staff was minus- Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of the Weekly cule by today’s gargantuan standard; the dining room Standard and the author of Land of Lincoln and Crazy where most of them ate held no more than three dozen U. people. The level of security is simply unimaginable. “I
8 November 2018
Columns.indd 8 10/15/18 1:19 PM spent two years innocently walking through the White ture”: The beloved and inept Washington Post car- House without ever having to show identification.” toonist always depicted Nixon popping out of a gutter, Hess can testify to the serendipity and the acci- with a diabolical scowl and perpetual five o’clock dental nature both of great events and of presidential shadow. Come to think of it, this is still the view that utterance. President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address most Americans have of Nixon. Hess knows better. contained the deathless warning about a “military- After Nixon’s loss in 1960, Hess wrote speeches and industrial complex.” The phrase was concocted by one articles for him and found him “excessively generous, of Hess’s colleagues, a military aide, who explained often splitting large fees.” Nixon admired writers, and its origins like so: “You know, you get to the end of a his reading was broad and deep. One of Hess’s most sentence and you don’t know how to end it up and this curious Nixon stories involves Earl Mazo, a New York word comes to you and you write it in and that’s the Herald Tribune reporter. After the 1960 election, Mazo way it fits and that’s the way it came out.” For liberals, published a series of articles documenting the voter the “military-industrial complex” was precursor to the fraud in Chicago and Texas that lifted John Kennedy more recent “Deep State,” the phrase with which right- to the White House. Before the newspaper series was wingers prefer to frighten themselves. through, Nixon summoned Mazo and implored him to A bit player’s life has its small pleasures. He is cease and desist, for patriotic reasons. Mazo told Hess: often witness to events of the kind that shake the capi- “Continent-by-continent, [Nixon] enumerated poten- tal and may even have lasting consequences, though in tial international crises that could be dealt with only time they are forgotten by everyone but scholars and by the President of a united country.” The schemer political obsessives. Hess tells the story of a notorious who earned the nickname Tricky Dick would suffer his remark Eisenhower made during Richard Nixon’s enemies’ dirty tricks for the good of the country. The campaign to succeed him in 1960. At his weekly press more we know of Nixon, the less we’ll understand him. conference, the president was asked about his vice Nixon brought three speechwriters to the White president’s contributions to his administration. “If you House with him—a liberal, a centrist, and a conserva- give me a week, I might think of one,” Eisenhower said. tive—to capture his shifting moods and political direc- The insult dogged Nixon for the rest of the campaign— tion. Hess instead chose to work as an aide to Nixon’s indeed, for the rest of his career. Hess says he considers domestic policy czar, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the it “the most devastating blow to Nixon’s [unsuccessful] liberal-turned-neoconservative-turned-liberal who campaign.” later served three eventful terms as a United States So why did Ike do it? Hess was puzzled then and senator from New York. One of Hess’s aides was Chris- still is. The day after the press conference, as the politi- topher DeMuth, later to gain fame as the reviver of the cal damage spread, Hess asked John Eisenhower, the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the president’s son and a fellow staffer, what the president nation’s foremost student of the federal bureaucracy. could possibly have been thinking. Eisenhower fils Another was Richard Blumenthal, nowadays the left- gave him a strained and implausible explanation. Ike, wing senator from Connecticut. Even if it doesn’t hap- he said, was eager to wind up the press conference pen often, there’s no rule against a bit player moving and intended to imply only that he would answer up in the world. the question when he met with reporters again in a Hess, for his part, was satisfied with his periph- week’s time. Hess is skeptical. “The simple answer,” he eral position. The primary mood of his memoir is writes, “was that the president had made a mean and contentment. He has lived a useful and pleasant life thoughtless comment about the man who had been among interesting and like-minded people in a beauti- his loyal vice president for eight years.” The occasional ful and welcoming city. Contentment would seem to be pettiness aside, Hess’s view of his first great boss is a less common disposition in 21st-century Washing- glowing: “a genial, shrewd, optimistic, confident prod- ton. We have fewer Prufrocks and many more agitators uct of small-town Middle America.” No man is hero to intent on marshaling the resources of the government his valet, says the proverb, but you couldn’t prove it by to remake the rest of us in their own image. The ef- Washington bit players. They’re seldom cynical about fect is an atmosphere of perpetual disquiet. I wonder the great figures they labor to make great. how many young Washingtonians will care about the Nixon lost in 1960, of course, but he lived to run events and personages Hess writes about with such wit again and win. Hess was with him—one of only four and style. They should buy a copy of Bit Player anyway. staffers from Eisenhower’s White House to return Reading it, they might discover a modesty, a disposi- with Nixon in 1969. When he first met Nixon, in 1961, tion toward the privilege of living here, that will make Hess still carried in his head “the Herblock carica- their lives—and ours—less troublesome.q
Commentary 9
Columns.indd 9 10/15/18 1:19 PM JEWISH COMMENTARY
Jimmy Carter: The Sunday-School Years
MEIR Y. SOLOVEICHIK
S PRESIDENT, Jimmy Carter considered him- reveal more than political ineptitude. The subject of self uniquely destined to address the issue of his first class was the tale of Jesus driving the mon- A Israel and the Middle East: not because of his eylenders from the temple. The press soon reported political skill or diplomatic experience, but because of that the president had informed his students that this the time that he spent teaching Sunday school. “I had story was “a turning point” in Christ’s life. “He had taught the Bible ever since I was eighteen years old,” he directly challenged in a fatal way the existing church, explained. “And exactly half of all my lessons have been and there was no possible way for the Jewish leaders from the Hebrew text, and the other half from the New to avoid the challenge. So they decided to kill Jesus.” Testament. So I knew history; I knew the background; Anguished religious leaders involved in interfaith and I had a strong religious motivation to try to bring engagement wrote the White House to object to this peace to what I call the Holy Land.” simplistic gloss on a subject that has inspired persecu- So reports Stuart Eizenstat in his book Presi- tion, and murder, of Jews for centuries. dent Carter: The White House Years. The memoir is by Eizenstat reports that even after this catastro- a former senior White House aide who admires the phe, Carter was not content “with avoiding further administration that he served, which is why his criti- damage from this high-wire exercise.” He soon spoke cisms of Carter are all the more remarkable. Eizenstat at a Sunday-school class again; and, with an AP re- particularly targets Carter’s decision to continue to porter in attendance, told those assembled that Jesus, teach Sunday school after assuming office. In these in proclaiming himself the Messiah, was aware that he classes, in the presence of reporters, Carter made was risking death “as quickly as [it] could be arranged public statements about the Bible that revealed, for by the Jewish leaders, who were very powerful.” Ei- Eisenstat, a “lack of political sensitivity [that] was zenstat, himself apoplectic, was immediately flooded sometimes breathtaking.” by complaints from both Christian and Jewish leaders Yet the tale of Carter’s Sunday-school lessons asking him “why Carter approached the question of the Jews’ role in Jesus’s death twice.” Meir Y. Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Eizenstat’s book allows us to understand how Shearith Israel in New York City and the director of episodes such as these reveal how Carter’s own insen- the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at sitivity to the Jewish historical experience, and his un- Yeshiva University. derstanding of the Bible, colored his attitude toward
10 November 2018
Columns.indd 10 10/15/18 1:19 PM matters pertaining to the Middle East. The president Jews the fact that American Christian support for Is- harbored a deep dislike for Menachem Begin, “with all rael is by no means inevitable. Tens of millions of them his obduracy and legalisms,” and did not sufficiently still love and support the Jewish state, but Nicholson understand the “history of oppression” in Begin’s own warns that this is not at all guaranteed to endure in life. Eizenstat further writes that Carter saw American the next generation. Nicholson notes that, influenced Jewish leaders and Israel “through the filter of the by the fashionable nature of progressive issues and Bible, more the New than the Old Testament.” by biblical criticism, many young evangelicals are Reading Eizenstat’s book, I felt enormous relief, predisposed to embrace the Palestinian narrative of not only that Carter was not reelected, but also that so Israeli oppression. many millions of deeply religious Christians in America For Christians to remain dedicated to Israel, feel differently about Israel and the Jewish people. argues Nicholson, scriptural study is insufficient. Chris- Carter’s fellow Christians are no tians must visit the country itself: less steeped in the New Testament “The best education on Israel comes than he; they too have spent years Carter’s story should from visiting the land, meeting in Sunday school, and they too see impress on Jews the fact its people, and witnessing its day- the Middle East “through the filter that American Christian to-day life, in all its complexity, of the Bible.” To paraphrase Eizen- firsthand.” Nicholson has gone on stat, the rootedness in what they support for Israel is by to found the Philos project, which call the Old Testament is profound no means inevitable. is dedicated to educating Christians and abiding, and for them the New about the Middle East. Its Passages could be seen only through the filter Tens of millions of them program brings young Christians to of the Old. I have had the opportu- still love and support the Holy Land so that they can expe- nity to meet Christians such as these rience what it calls “the modern-day all over the country. As a friend of the Jewish state, but miracle that is Israel.” These future mine, the young evangelical leader Nicholson warns that this Christian leaders emerge with a Robert Nicholson, has noted in an is not at all guaranteed deeper understanding of the rich- article in Mosaic, their support for ness of Israeli society, the lives of Israel firmly rests on the Bible as the to endure in the next Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the “embodiment of God’s everlasting generation. Nicholson Middle East, as well as a deeper un- covenant with the people Israel.” derstanding of how their own tale is This rootedness in Hebraic notes that, influenced by rooted in the Jewish story. texts, Nicholson further explains, the fashionable nature of As I read President Carter, I plays a key role in the way these progressive issues and by wondered how Carter’s career and Christians understand not only policies might have been different Christian texts but history itself. biblical criticism, many if he had been able to travel to Isra- God, they know, promised Abra- young evangelicals are el, as a young Christian, with some- ham that “I will bless those that one like my friend Rob. I have spent bless thee and curse those that predisposed to embrace enough time in religious schools to curse thee.” And, looking back at the Palestinian narrative know that a deep understanding of the Jewish people’s historic en- scripture and texts does not neces- emies, “they note that all, to a one, of Israeli oppression. sarily enhance political instincts, have met their doom.” They know and that no amount of biblical as well that “the Bible predicts the engagement, or travel to the Holy destined journey of that people from catastrophic ex- Land, could have made him as skilled at politics as ile to miraculous return.” Israel, for these Christians, Reagan. Yet a Passages program might have done won- reminds them that these scriptural ideas “are not ab- ders for Carter. It might have made him more sensitive stract concepts open to interpretation; they are living to the Jewish story and more aware of the miracle that facts that entail spiritual, social, and political obliga- is modern Israel. And if we believe—as many Jews and tions in real time.” Christians do—that God blesses those who bless Abra- At the same time, Eizenstat’s description of ham’s people, then God may have chosen to bless even Carter’s Christianity, and the impact that it had on someone as politically inept as Carter with continued his own attitudes, should be a clarion call to all who political success. After all, both the Bible and modern care about the future. Carter’s story should impress on Israel remind us to believe in miracles.q
Commentary 11
Columns.indd 11 10/15/18 1:19 PM KAVANAUGH AND THE ASSAULT ON MEN
BY CHRISTINE ROSEN
N EARLY OCTOBER, in the midst of Others pointed out that Trump had been happy to extraordinarily hostile Senate confir- presume guilt when the alleged offenders were young mation hearings for Supreme Court black men accused of raping a jogger in Central Park nominee Brett Kavanaugh featuring rather than a privileged white guy who could tap a keg unsubstantiated claims that Kavana- and get into Yale. ugh had drugged and raped numer- Whatever Trump may have said in 1989 in ex- ous women, Donald Trump stood on pressing a “view” supported by confessions from the the South Lawn of the White House accused and long-standing convictions, he’s not wrong and told reporters, “It is a very scary now. One year into the #MeToo movement, men are ex- time for young men in America, pected to stand by as “allies” who #BelieveWomen and when you can be guilty of something #BelieveSurvivors and are not to defend themselves or you may not be guilty of.” other men against evidence-free accusations or even The scorn was immediate. extreme expressions of misandry. They are definitely “What a terrifying time to be a son,” snarked Washing- not supposed to do what Kavanaugh did: offer a full- ton Post humorist Alexandra Petri in a column mock- throated and angry rebuttal to the charges lodged ing the idea that men could ever be falsely accused. against him. As the activist group TimesUp announced on IChristine Rosen, who writes our “Social Com- Twitter when calling for Kavanaugh’s withdrawal: mentary” column, is managing editor of the Weekly “The tide has turned. This chapter in our history book Standard. will not be the story of men who believed men, that’s
12 November 2018
Rosen.indd 12 10/15/18 1:21 PM KAVANAUGH AND THE ASSAULT ON MEN
old news. It will be the story of an avalanche of women late that Kavanaugh’s own mother might believe his who spoke truths and seized our power.” accusers. Elected officials went low, too. The most forth- To call the rhetoric that surrounded Kavanaugh’s right of them was Hawaii’s Senator Mazie Hirono, confirmation extreme would be an understatement. who told reporters, “I just want to say to the men of Consider a Washington Post opinion piece by retired this country: Just shut up and step up. Do the right history professor Victoria Brown, in which she sar- thing for a change. … Not only do women like Dr. castically thanks “good men” for “not raping us” and Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, declares that we are in the midst of a “gender war.” but they need to be believed. They need to be be- She explains that after her (clearly long-suffering) lieved.” Hirono later went on television to argue that husband did something innocuous that triggered her the presumption of innocence didn’t really apply in anger, she “announced that I hate all men and wish Kavanaugh’s case because of his conservative judicial all men were dead.” She goes on to rage against “the philosophy. pathetic impotence of nice men’s plan to rebuild the Writing in Elle, Emma Rosenblum (a mother of wreckage by listening to women” and says women who two boys) agonized over the question of “When do good don’t agree with her are “in the deepest denial.” For boys become bad men?”—apparently assuming most Brown, evidently, men have no place in the national do. “I see someone like Brett Kavanaugh—sputtering, conversation and no right to speak privately to their denying, entitled, angry—and I wonder how to guide wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters until they con- my babies toward kindness instead of abuse, grateful- form to her demands for their behavior. “Good men ness instead of take, take, take.” She went on to specu- have not once organized their own mass movement
Commentary 13
Rosen.indd 13 10/15/18 1:21 PM to change themselves and their sons or to attack the ifesto stated. They should “give up their male privi- mean-spirited, teasing, punching thing that passes for leges and support women’s liberation in the interest of male culture,” she writes. “Not once. Bastards.” our humanity and their own.” Kavanaugh was confirmed and now sits on the This document, now nearly a half-century old, is high court, but the tenor of the debate surrounding surprisingly relevant to the debate that erupted over Ka- the process that put him there revealed that the cul- vanaugh’s nomination. “The most slanderous evasion tural mainstream has now fully embraced two key of all is that women can oppress men,” the manifesto ideas about men that were once relegated to the radi- observes, remarking on “the tendency of men to see any cal feminist fringe: legitimate challenge to their privilege as persecution.” As for the basis of women’s grievances, the manifesto reads 1) Maleness itself is a disease requiring treat- like an early draft of #BelieveAllWomen’s embrace of ment or elimination. feelings over facts: “We regard our personal experience, 2) Masculinity itself has produced a “rape cul- and our feelings about that experience, as the basis for ture” and violent patriarchy that will stop at an analysis of our common situation. We cannot rely on nothing to maintain power. existing ideologies as they are all products of male su- premacist culture. We question every generalization and The wide acceptance of these ideas will have par- accept none that are not confirmed by our experience. … lous long-lasting consequences for the country. In fighting for our liberation we will always take the side Feminist theorists have long squabbled about of women against their oppressors.”
IN SOME WAYS, KAVANAUGH WAS THE PERFECT FOIL for female rage: Nominated by Trump (strike one), he fit the stereotype of the worst sort of beer-bro prep-school guy (strike two); and his choice of friends and drinking buddies in high school didn’t help (strike three).
how much to implicate all men in women’s oppres- Such rhetoric remained largely out of the na- sion. Judith Kegan Gardiner described in her essay on tional conversation in the decades after the Redstock- “Men, Masculinities, and Feminist Theories” how such ings issued their manifesto. And when it did start to theories “hope to develop effective ways to improve creep in (particularly on college campuses), it did not women’s conditions, sometimes by making women go unchallenged—notably by scholars such as Christi- more similar to men as they are now, sometimes by na Hoff Sommers, whose 2000 book The War Against making men more similar to women as they are now, Boys noted the many harms such blanket generaliza- sometimes by validating women’s traditional charac- tions about boys have caused. But in recent years, with teristics, sometimes by working toward the abolition metastasizing claims of a growing “rape culture” on or minimizing of the categories of gender altogether, college campuses, and with the revival of questions but all simultaneously transforming ideologies and in- about due process and women’s truth claims when it stitutions, including the family, religion, corporations, comes to accusations of assault, it has become not only and the state.” acceptable but even necessary in some circles to talk The 1969 “Redstockings Manifesto,” an influ- in sweeping generalizations about men in a way that ential treatise written by a group of radical feminists, would never be tolerated when talking about women. made this claim: “All men receive economic, sexual, The picture feminist critics paint of contem- and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All porary masculinity isn’t pretty. After Trump was men have oppressed women.” This “fact” justified a elected, sociologist Michael Kimmel, who has writ- range of radical acts on behalf of women. “We do not ten a dozen books about masculinity and is a self- need to change ourselves but to change men,” the man- identified feminist, used the phrase “aggrieved en-
14 Kavanaugh and the Assault on Men : November 2018
Rosen.indd 14 10/15/18 1:21 PM titlement” to describe the male Trump supporters he female leader, brutal masculinity won,” writes Rebecca interviewed for his book Angry White Male. This new Traister in her new book, Good and Mad. toxic male sensibility, he argued, stemmed from a Unlike Kavanaugh’s flashes of anger, however, misguided belief that “benefits to which you believed this kind of anger is righteous. “Women’s anger spurs yourself entitled have been snatched away from you creativity and drives innovation in politics and social by unseen forces larger and more powerful.” He con- change, and it always has,” Traister argues. “We must cludes, “The era of unquestioned and unchallenged come to recognize our own rage as valid, as rational, male entitlement is over.” and as not what we are told it is: ugly, hysterical, mar- The issues around what men are entitled to and ginal, laughable.” masculinity’s place in contemporary culture also oc- Indicting other women is also a component of cupy critics on the right. Lacking traditional rituals to the righteous anger. Traister calls out white women help boys become men (and amid the decline of civi- who support nonfeminist “policies and parties that lizing, stabilizing institutions such as traditional dat- protect the economic and political status of the men on ing culture and marriage), young men in particular whom they depend,” in another iteration of the tired are adrift, the argument goes. Pop philosophers such trope of female false consciousness. “White Women, as Jordan Peterson have stepped up to fill the void, of- Come Get Your people,” was the headline for an op- fering their proposals for reconciling masculinity in a ed by the Democratic consultant Alexis Grenell in the feminist age. New York Times, evidently because 53 percent of white Their advice is useful up to a point (stand up women voted for Trump (who nominated Kavanaugh)
straight, make your bed, stop wallowing in self-pity and anyone with a uterus who would dare support Ka- and videogames) and its vast popularity speaks to the vanaugh is to be considered a “gender traitor.” Grenell hunger for guidance that so many men have. But as is a white woman herself, but because she is progres- we saw during the Kavanaugh hearings, these quasi- sive and hates Trump, she is not tarnished by that philosophical efforts to craft a respectable masculin- group’s supposed sins. This is also why Senator Susan ity fail utterly in the face of an explosive charge like Collins was called a “rape apologist” when she cast her rape, when the feelings-over-facts testimonial style vote to confirm Kavanaugh. holds sway over public opinion and even over the pro- Women’s anger is also invoked to justify eliding cedures of many institutions (from Silicon Valley to traditional methods of fact-gathering and verification; the Senate). an accusation is enough, and the assumption is that all It’s also not an effective response to the angry women will believe other women. “Today, every woman tone of our tribal politics. TimesUp isn’t just an elabo- in America was Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s co-witness,” rate branding campaign; it’s an apt description of a a tweet from TimesUp stated. “We believe you. We are swath of feminist women who believe they’ve waited with you. #BelieveSurvivors.” In a public statement de- long enough and played by men’s rules long enough— manding that Kavanaugh withdraw his nomination, and now it’s time to get angry and, in some cases, get the organization doubled down on the idea that an ac- revenge. In other words: Women are angry; men should cusation should be taken as proof enough of male tur- step aside. Trump’s election was the last straw. He em- pitude: “A man accused of multiple instances of sexual bodied everything they hate, and yet he still managed violence cannot have decision-making power over the to defeat Hillary Clinton. “Over the threat of a potential lives of American women for decades to come.”
Commentary 15
Rosen.indd 15 10/15/18 1:21 PM Suddenly, accusations of pro-Israel Americans enforcing loyalty to Israel’s Likud party popped up in magazines such as Time, the Nation, and the American Prospect.
anti-Semitism through the ages but of the resurgent decision to invade Iraq). Western European capitals anti-Semitism of the 21st century. One sees the Jew as defied George W. Bush; Jerusalem didn’t. Conspira- unwanted foreigner, the despoiler of white bloodlines. cism spread quickly among Democrats seeking to dele- The other holds the Jew responsible, from afar, for the gitimize the war. Conspiracy theories usually end up world’s ills. Today, the Israeli has been substituted for pointing the finger at the Jews. the Jew like a clumsy search-and-replace macro in Mi- This is where the two pillars of anti-Semitism crosoft Word. When nations go to war, the conspiracy meet and join forces. The nationalists see the hand of theorists often blame not Jewish financiers but ma- the Jew in sending “real” Americans to fight global bat- nipulative Israelis, and the censorial Jew is now the tles that have nothing to do with them. The ideological blacklisting Zionist. descendants of Henry Ford point to the foreign Jew as Both pillars of anti-Semitism exist all along the the rabble-rouser. Patrick J. Buchanan’s line about “the partisan spectrum, but the nationalist pillar is, both Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the in ideology and practice, more closely associated with United States” was dusted off and given new promi- the right, and the “Protocols” pillar with the left. This nence and mainstream juice by two leading academ- has rarely posed much of a challenge to groups like ics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. In a shoddy the ADL, which found itself able to criticize both. Like essay, which was then expanded into an even shod- every organization, the ADL had its blind spots, but it dier book, Walt and Mearsheimer blamed “the Israel never had an obstructed view of its own raison d’être— Lobby” for using Jewish money to control American until the summer of 2015. politicians on behalf of Israel. It was an important mo- That was when Jonathan Greenblatt succeeded ment in American history, because it covered the old longtime ADL director Abe Foxman. Greenblatt is a calumny with Harvard ivy. man of the left in the purest sense, and one who holds Abraham Foxman saw it. In a 2007 book, The partisan politics paramount. In the years leading up Deadliest Lies, he explained that many in the public to his hire, the American left’s relationship with world would take “the authors’ impressive credentials as a Jewry had begun a steady decline. This decline was ex- guarantee of quality.” Walt and Mearsheimer argued ploited and exacerbated by President Barack Obama— that “the Israel lobby” had provoked a crisis that, for for whose administration Greenblatt worked before its kind, had never been faced before: “This situation taking over the ADL. It is unclear whether the ADL’s has no equal in American political history. Why has the reputation can survive Greenblatt’s stewardship. United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state?” ROM 1988 TO 2001, the Gallup Poll found that Foxman took pains to say he had no idea whether sympathy for Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians the duo were anti-Semites—what was in their hearts F didn’t vary greatly between Republicans and wasn’t the point. But when it came to judging what Democrats. The gap was nearly nonexistent around they wrote, Foxman dropped the hammer: “Walt and 9/11. But the attacks, and the War on Terror that fol- Mearsheimer sound all the same notes—not with the lowed, proved to be a political earthquake. Republicans crudity we’d encounter from spokespeople for neo-Na- broadly identified Israel as a natural ally in the same zi groups like the National Alliance, but with a subtlety fight. Many Democrats weren’t so sure. The partisan and pseudoscholarly style that makes their poison all gap on the “sympathy” question is now nearly 40 points, the more dangerous.” with Democrats now under the 50 percent mark when Walt and Mearsheimer helped launder this into it comes to supporting Israel against its existential foe. leftist discourse with their taunting references to “a The Iraq War, in particular, exacerbated the small band of neo-conservatives” many of whom “had growing divide. Opposition to so-called American mili- close ties to Israel’s Likud party.” This gave the old tarism was now a driving force in left-wing politics— dual-loyalty canard an added dimension. The left ate and Israel was considered a partner in that militarism it up, and not just in the academy; suddenly accusa- (even though Israel’s leaders were unnerved by the tions of pro-Israel Americans enforcing loyalty to Is-
18 The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League : November 2018
Mandel.indd 18 10/15/18 1:22 PM N SOME WAYS, Kavanaugh was the perfect foil eration of parents raising gender-neutral “theybies,” for female rage: Nominated by Trump (strike one), (rather than boys or girls). Although only a tiny frac- I he fit the stereotype of the worst sort of beer-bro tion of all parents, they are conducting an experi- prep-school guy (strike two); and his choice of friends ment in child-rearing that tells us as much about our and drinking buddies in high school didn’t help (strike cultural moment as Kavanaugh’s hearings did. Their three). child-rearing philosophy is as much about stamping But something unexpected happened on the out “toxic masculinity” as it is about signaling their way to his character assassination: Kavanaugh de- supposedly enlightened agnosticism about gender. fended himself and was defended by others, including (Shulamith Firestone, one of the authors of the “Red- many women. Where feminists wanted women to see stockings Manifesto,” argued for just such gender- themselves in the seat Christine Blasey Ford occupied, neutral child-rearing practices in a key radical femi- many instead saw their sons or husbands or brothers nist text, The Dialectic of Sex.) sitting in the chair where Kavanaugh sat. Theirs is not an effort to raise boys into men who And they should have, and they still should. can integrate into a kinder, gentler future economy of For what the Kavanaugh nomination did was bring helping professions and easily expressed feelings. It is the Star-Chamber-driven transformation of gender an effort to overcome maleness itself. And it is an ad- norms into broader view. For several years now on mission of failure, because when boys fail to grow into many college campuses, regrettable sex has been an civilized men, everyone suffers, just as they do when actionable offense that can get young men expelled women are denied equal opportunity. The answer without anything remotely resembling due process. isn’t reeducation in radical feminist notions of men’s Consider the ways in which the logic of the pre- innately violent natures. It’s raising boys and girls to sumption of innocence has already been thoroughly treat one another with respect and to uphold gender- warped. The feminist website Jezebel used an “inves- free values such as the presumption of innocence and tigation” into the dating habits of a progressive male due process and equal opportunity. Civil society relies reporter to argue that the next arena for combat is on due process not only because it’s an objective good the so-called gray areas. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (though it is). Everyone should embrace both due pro- writes, “The public sympathy for these men and eager- cess and the presumption of innocence because every- ness for their redemption is a depressing yet familiar one might need these themselves one day, regardless iteration of what we’ve always known: that alleged of his or her gender. abusers are, in all contexts, held by default to be inno- There’s a saying of radical feminist poet Audre cent until proven guilty.” Lord that activists on the left often invoke when they Instead, she argues, we should be guided by are attempting to justify norm-breaking and change feminist philosopher Kate Manne’s notion of “the sex by any means necessary: “The master’s tools will never he takes,” which she describes as “not, according to dismantle the master’s house.” It’s the logic behind the the law, rape or sexual assault. It does not rise to the progressive left’s attacks on the electoral college, the scrutiny of a judge and jury. It does not meet the legal Senate, and now the Supreme Court as illegitimate in- definitions of sexual assault or rape. Its boundaries, stitutions. It’s the logic that claims the accused should shapeless and shifting, treat consent as something not be allowed to defend himself because some men to be extracted, transforming sex into a commodity are rapists or that it’s fine to hurl the most devastat- to be taken, rather than freely exchanged. Rarely can ing charges with no evidence because “it’s just a job that sex be labeled explicitly as coercion because it interview,” not a criminal trial. It’s the logic that might conceals itself beneath a legalistic definition of sexual garner short-term victories but at the expense of long- assault, treating consent as a binary, a simple ‘yes’ or term civility and justice. ‘no.’” The #MeToo movement has brought to light the This is the logic that has given rise to the Or- horrific abuses of many men, and it has sparked long- wellian phrase “speak your truth” and the assumption overdue and crucial conversations about consent and that personal, powerful, emotional testimony is tanta- power. And while it’s true that not all radical ideas that mount to provable fact. become mainstream are harmful, it’s not true that all What radical feminist theorists have long been radical ideas bend the arc of history toward progress. arguing—that there is no such thing as true consent It would be a shame if a movement with the potential because of patriarchy and that all women are poten- to sort through some deeply troubling and stubborn tial victims of men—has reached full flower. aspects of human nature instead embraced misandry Consider the new practice by a younger gen- and power-seeking. The shame is upon us.q
16 Kavanaugh and the Assault on Men : November 2018
Rosen.indd 16 10/15/18 1:21 PM The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League How its new executive director is betraying the organization’s purpose By Seth Mandel
HE BURGEONING HATE aimed at perintendent, was framed in what became America’s Jewish immigrants at the beginning blood-libel story for budding white supremacists. of the 20th century was the driving Frank was abducted from prison in 1915 and lynched. force behind the 1913 formation of Before he was killed, Frank’s sentence was commuted the Anti-Defamation League. Ac- by Georgia’s governor due in large measure to the cording to its original charter—as argumentation and lobbying of the ADL and associ- laid out by its sponsoring organiza- ated civil-rights organizations. The horror of Frank’s tion, B’nai Brith, the largest Jewish communal group demise did not vitiate the lesson that organizing and in the T United States—the ADL’s “immediate object” solidarity with other minority groups were the key to was “to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience, political success in protecting Jews. and if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of In 1920, under the banner “The International the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem,” Henry Ford’s justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to Dearborn Independent began serializing excerpts of put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination the most infamous of all conspiracies: The Protocols against, and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” of the Elders of Zion. Having inspired pogroms two Countering organized hate movements was, decades earlier when first published in Russia, and practically from the start, at the center of the ADL’s coming on the heels of the Leo Frank case and the re- mission. The seminal case was that of Mary Phagan, emergence of the KKK, Ford’s actions sent a shiver up a teenaged factory laborer in Atlanta, who was found the spine of the Jewish community. A seven-year cam- murdered in 1913. Leo Frank, the factory’s Jewish su- paign of pressure, helped by Ford’s mounting financial troubles, succeeded in getting Ford to stop the series Seth Mandel, formerly an assistant editor at Com- and apologize. mentary and op-ed editor of the New York Post, is now The cases of Leo Frank and Henry Ford still the editor of the Washington Examiner Magazine. resonate, representing the twin pillars not only of
Commentary 17
Mandel.indd 17 10/15/18 1:22 PM The ADL has embraced liberalism as a form of religion in itself. In 2016, the organization called opposition to abortion a ‘right- wing assault on religious diversity in reproductive freedom.’
rael’s Likud party popped up in Time, the Nation, and Jonathan Greenblatt left the administration that en- the American Prospect. And it echoed an argument al- abled this bigotry to take the helm of the Anti-Defama- ready being made by Greenblatt’s future boss: Barack tion League. Obama. Greenblatt took three hallmarks of Team Obama Conventional wisdom hails Obama’s 2002 with him when he left: a belief that liberalism and speech against war in Iraq, when he was an Illinois modern morality were synonymous; an obsession with state senator, as prophetic and wise. Obama thought Benjamin Netanyahu; and a rivalrous antagonism to- this himself—he rerecorded audio for it for a 2007 ad. ward anyone to his right who called out anti-Semitism. The speech, however, was an ugly mishmash of con- The liberalism part of that isn’t unique to Green- spiracy theories straight from the fever swamps. He blatt—the ADL has long supported abortion rights, attacked Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, two high- which is not a “Jewish issue” in any way. But there are profile neoconservative Jews who were most certainly two puzzling aspects to Greenblatt’s behavior. First, not the primary drivers of the invasion, as bloodthirsty he makes it personal. Immediately after Trump an- warmongers. Then he said Karl Rove pushed the war nounced he would nominate to the Supreme Court to distract the country from “a rise in the poverty rate.” Brett Kavanaugh, Greenblatt went on the attack, When Obama moved into the White House, he tweeting that Kavanaugh’s record “does not reflect the showed a surprising Nixon-like conspiracism streak demonstrated independence and commitment to fair when it came to American Jewry. He was consumed treatment for all that is necessary to merit a seat on our with negative feelings for Jewish Republican mega- nation’s highest court.” donor Sheldon Adelson: In August 2014, Haaretz re- Slandering a respected judge is so far beneath ported that “each step or statement made by Netan- the ADL that Greenblatt’s behavior should’ve been a yahu is a-priori examined by the White House to see if gut check for the group’s leadership. Additionally, as it helps the Republicans or if Sheldon Adelson might Jonathan Tobin pointed out at National Review, “the be behind it.” In January 2015, the president accused group’s haste showed that it had planned to oppose fellow Democrats who were undecided on his Iran deal anyone nominated by Trump,” thereby making a leap of being bought off by donors. An editorial in Tablet into blind partisanship. called it “the kind of naked appeal to bigotry and prej- The second difference is an overt hostility to re- udice that would be familiar in the politics of the pre- ligious liberty—an absolutely dangerous gamble for civil rights era South.” a Jewish-rights group. It isn’t merely that Greenblatt It would get far worse that summer, Greenblatt’s publicly lamented June’s Supreme Court ruling in fa- last in the Obama administration (he took over for Fox- vor of a Christian baker’s First Amendment rights. It’s man in late July 2015). In August, Obama went after also the way the organization has embraced liberalism the monied lobbyists buying off politicians and said as a form of religion in itself. Thus the ADL in 2016 that those who sided against him on this were siding called opposition to abortion a “right-wing assault on against America, while also calling back to the Iraq religious diversity in reproductive freedom,” an Or- War. Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev, as sympathetic an ear as wellian mangling of language and faith. the president could hope for, recoiled: “Obama may Greenblatt’s antipathy toward the elected Israeli have also sent some shivers down the spines of many government is perhaps even more out of character. In Jewish leaders and activists by reopening old scars and 2016, Netanyahu confronted the Palestinian demand reviving past traumas.” The following month, the New that no Jews remain in a future Palestinian state, calling York Times picked up the baton, listing the members of it “ethnic cleansing.” This is quite literally the definition Congress and where they stood on the Iran deal—and of the phrase. But Greenblatt—again, it bears repeating, color-coded the Jewish lawmakers in yellow. as the director of the Anti-Defamation League—took A Rubicon was crossed. And just at the moment a long swing at Netanyahu with a full column in For- that one of the twin pillars of American anti-Semitism eign Policy magazine. Greenblatt wrote: “Like the term was being laundered through the Democratic Party, ‘genocide,’ the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ should be restrict-
Commentary 19
Mandel.indd 19 10/15/18 1:22 PM The problem is that Greenblatt sees right-wing bigotry as a crucial element of conservative ideology, while viewing any such transgressions on the left as isolated anomalies.
ed to actually describing the atrocity it suggests—rather ocrat on the knuckles and claim partisan evenhand- than distorted to suit political ends.” edness. But the larger problem is that Greenblatt sees This is nonsensical, but it’s worth pointing out right-wing bigotry as a crucial element of conservative the hypocrisy here as well. In late July, Greenblatt ideology, while viewing any such transgressions on the tweeted out an ADL video of two Holocaust survivors left as isolated anomalies. But the mainstream Demo- describing the trauma of being separated from their cratic Party’s overt embrace of its left flank, which families by the Nazis. Greenblatt’s point was to draw a is the source of the nation’s most explicit anti-Israel parallel to the Trump administration’s policy of sepa- rhetoric and ideas, has made such assumptions naive rating migrant children from the adults who had car- to the point of professional malpractice for someone ried them across the border. Greenblatt tweeted: “Mir- like Greenblatt. iam & Astrid were separated from their parents during the Holocaust. They know the trauma this causes. EITH ELLISON WAS PROBABLY thrilled 38,000+ people signed the petition we delivered to @ when Foxman left his post. The deputy chair DHSgov & @TheJusticeDept demanding an end to K of the Democratic National Committee and zero tolerance & to reunite families they tore apart.” Minnesota congressman, who is leaving Congress As the Jewish activist Noah Pollak responded to and trying instead to become state attorney general, Greenblatt: “ADL spent decades successfully shaming had a famous run-in with Greenblatt’s predecessor in people who appropriated the Holocaust to serve con- 2007 after Ellison compared then President George temporary political agendas,” yet it is now a “leading W. Bush’s response to 9/11 to Nazi Germany. Foxman’s perpetrator” of this trope. In this case, the analogy is ADL called Ellison out. Ellison agreed to put out a not only false, it is dangerously irresponsible, tying the statement walking back his comments. When Ellison president of the United States explicitly to Hitler—all dragged his feet, Foxman released a statement slam- after kicking sand at the Israeli prime minister for cor- ming Ellison, who became furious because he had lost rectly calling a policy of the expulsion of all Jews from his chance to control the story. a state “ethnic cleansing.” Ellison has long been dogged by his past affili- This pathological distaste for Netanyahu has ation with Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, having proved problematic for the supposed anti-Semitism even defended the openly anti-Semitic Farrakhan well watchdog. On May 1, Netanyahu gave a televised pre- before he entered Congress. Ellison insisted that he sentation of Iranian deception regarding its nuclear had left Farrakhan behind. But in February, the Wall program, thanks to intel gleaned from a mind-bog- Street Journal revealed a Jew-baiting twofer: In 2013, gling Mossad operation in which agents broke into Ellison had dined with Farrakhan at a dinner hosted secret vaults in Tehran, evaded detection, and fled the by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in New York. country with “some 50,000 pages and 163 compact Greenblatt was silent for days. When he was finally discs” covering “years of work on atomic weapons, pressured to make a statement, he denounced Farra- warhead designs and production plans,” according to khan…but never mentioned Ellison. the New York Times. It wasn’t Greenblatt’s first swing-and-a-miss on Tommy Vietor, Obama’s National Security Coun- Ellison. In 2016, after the presidential election, the cil spokesman, went so far as to accuse the Jewish Democratic National Committee held its election for state of fabricating intelligence to satisfy its bloodlust, its new chair. Ellison threw his hat in the ring and won tweeting that “Trump is now cooking up intel with the backing of Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York the Israelis to push us closer to a conflict with Iran. A Democrat and incoming party Senate leader. State- scandal hiding in plain sight.” These horrifying words, ments by Ellison about Israel, however, placed the con- retweeted nearly 2,500 times, would have been met gressman yet again in conflict with the Jewish commu- with thunder by Foxman’s ADL. Greenblatt’s ADL re- nity. On a trip to Hebron, he posted a photo of a sign mained silent. And the poison spreads. calling Israel an apartheid state and he called on Israel Every so often, Greenblatt’s ADL will rap a Dem- to lift its blockade of the Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
20 The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League : November 2018
Mandel.indd 20 10/15/18 1:22 PM Greenblatt’s defenders like to point to the occasional times he’s managed to criticize a non-Republican for anti-Semitism, but such criticism usually comes after indefensible silence.
Pressure mounted for Greenblatt to say something. He ing the forest. His ADL has compiled a guide to right- did. He defended Ellison as a friend to Israel and insin- wing hate, “From Alt-Right to Alt-Lite: Naming the uated that his pro-Israel critics were motivated by rac- Hate,” as well as a running tab of “extremist candi- ism and anti-Muslim bigotry. Then a tape surfaced of dates” for state or national office. All are Republicans. Ellison accusing Israel of controlling American foreign Greenblatt’s defenders like to point to the oc- policy, and Greenblatt, egg squarely on face, walked casional times he’s managed to criticize a non-Repub- back his support. lican for anti-Semitism, but such criticism usually This ridiculous dance has become a hallmark comes after indefensible silence. The larger point is of Greenblatt’s mismanagement of the ADL. Progres- that under Greenblatt, the ADL paints a picture of the sive activist Linda Sarsour catapulted to liberal fame political right’s extremists as connected. But instances by organizing and chairing the Women’s March, a of left-wing extremism aren’t given the same treat- national feminist protest movement in response to ment; they are depicted as isolated incidents, not dots Trump’s 2016 victory. But Sarsour has long practiced to be connected. Meanwhile, Ellison is the DNC’s No. 2; the politics of anti-Jewish hate: She signed a state- Sarsour helped the campaign of New York Mayor Bill ment declaring Zionism to be racism, declared that de Blasio and then ran the Women’s March; and a slew “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” embraced Pales- of prominent Democrats have been kicking the Jewish tinian terrorist Rasmeah Odeh, and claimed that anti- community in the teeth. Semitism is “not systemic.” She was invited last year The party’s newest rising star is Alexandria Oc- to give the commencement address at the City Uni- asio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of versity of New York’s School of Public Health. CUNY America who parroted Hamas talking points to accuse came under criticism for the choice—a public univer- Israelis of being butchers and occupiers of “Palestine.” sity (in New York of all places) bringing in a hatemon- The leading candidate for Ellison’s congressional seat ger for its commencement ceremony raised plenty of is Ilhan Omar, who accused Israel of “evil doings” in eyebrows. Gaza. In Michigan, Democrats are about to send to When Greenblatt finally commented on the Congress Rashida Tlaib, an avowed supporter of a one- commencement matter, his statement was both ab- state solution (i.e., the destruction of the Jewish state) surd and irrelevant: “Despite our deep opposition and a “mentor” to Sarsour (in the latter’s character- to Sarsour’s views on Israel, we believe that she has ization). The Democratic nominee for a House seat in a First Amendment right to offer those views.” Well, Pennsylvania, Scott Wallace, led a fund that shoveled sure—no one claimed Sarsour didn’t have a right to money at groups that support the anti-Israel Boycott, speak out loud. But the key fact remained that Sar- Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS). A Demo- sour opposes the very existence of the Jewish state. All cratic congressional nominee in Virginia, Leslie Cock- Greenblatt could muster was “opposition” to what he burn, has been a notorious anti-Israel conspiracy theo- meekly characterized as her “views on Israel.” rist going back nearly three decades. It’s a pattern with Greenblatt. In July 2016, Dem- An even more virulent anti-Israel candidate, Mal ocratic Representative Hank Johnson called Jews who Hyman, nearly won a Democratic primary in South live beyond Israel’s Green Line “termites.” The ADL Carolina. Maria Estrada, a Democrat vying for a Cali- responded in milquetoast fashion by calling John- fornia Assembly seat, has made a habit of blatantly son’s choice of words “offensive and unhelpful.” When anti-Semitic Facebook posts and praises Farrakhan. An- the organization got the pushback it deserved for let- other fan of Farrakhan’s is Representative Danny Davis, ting bald anti-Semitism pass with a mere finger wag, a Democrat from Illinois. And when Andre Carson, a Greenblatt eventually wrote a long post for the ADL’s Democratic congressman from Indiana, was criticized website that was only slightly less mealy-mouthed, and for his association with Farrakhan, he demanded that which endeavored to add “context” to Johnson’s dehu- his American Jewish critics denounce Netanyahu. manization of Jews. Meanwhile, the deep and abiding hostility Jews If Greenblatt is missing the trees, he’s also miss- face on liberal campuses across the country is shaping
Commentary 21
Mandel.indd 21 10/15/18 1:22 PM American leftism is increasingly organized by the principles of ‘intersectionality,’ used generally to refer to the ways in which different forms of discrimination can overlap.
the next generation of left-wing politicians, activists, young and mostly “cruising toward House seats this and business leaders. And while Greenblatt certainly fall.” Democrats, according to the Times, “are testing condemns anti-Semitism on campus, he is like a man the boundaries” of discourse on Israel—and Democrat- who feels a drizzle and insists it’s just a few drops of ic leadership and veterans of the Obama White House rain even as the storm clouds gather overhead and are silent or egging them on. block out the sun. The socialists aren’t the only strand of the new Past ADL directors going back before Foxman left with anti-Semitism in its DNA. American leftism is would have had no trouble connecting the dots. The increasingly organized by the principles of “intersec- ADL could very easily have done the work and figured tionality,” used generally to refer to the ways in which out, for example, that Jeremy Corbyn, the viciously un- different forms of discrimination can overlap. The repentant anti-Semitic leader of the Labour Party who result is essentially a sort of “pyramid of oppression” could very well be Britain’s next prime minister, isn’t that seeks to prioritize minority issues in order of the just a problem for our cousins across the pond. A La- groups’ level of marginalization. The left sees Jews as bour Party member who worked with Ocasio-Cortez’s white (in contrast to the way blood-and-soil national- campaign, Max Crema, told LabourList that Corbyn ists of the right view them) and Zionists as supporters serves as “an inspiration to the American left,” so much of “white” colonial oppression. In the intersectionality so that Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign echoed Corbyn’s fa- hierarchy, protecting Jews from others simply doesn’t vorite slogan, “For the Many.” Crema’s comments were rate, while protecting others from Jews is a common amplified on Twitter by a Europe-based editor from theme. the American socialist magazine Jacobin. Last year, Greenblatt should know this firsthand. In April, Crema was a press officer at a conference of the Demo- police arrested two black men in a Starbucks for no cratic Socialists of America at which the DSA passed apparent reason other than that their presence made a resolution endorsing the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest- whoever called the cops uncomfortable. Starbucks ment, and Sanctions movement. The leader of Amer- apologized and said it would be providing anti-bias ica’s socialist resurgence, Bernie Sanders, has praised training to all employees. The ADL was announced as Corbyn and compared himself to him. one of the partners in this effort. Yet Sarsour and her As if it needed to be said, Democratic Party chair- Women’s March co-chairwoman Tamika Mallory— man Tom Perez told radio host Bill Press in July that who had professed support for Louis Farrakhan—ob- Ocasio-Cortez “represents the future of our party.” jected, calling the ADL “anti-Palestinian.” It’s hard to argue with that. The incentive for In the new left, governed by intersectionality, a supporting the Jewish state among new Democratic century-old civil-rights group is considered too Jewish candidates seems to be evaporating. “Progressive for comfort. Democrats increasingly criticize Israel, and could reap To be clear, then, anti-Semitism is an integral political rewards,” blared a July headline in ABC News. part of the various ideologies underpinning American Chuck Schumer is now his party’s floor leader in the leftism in 2018. Greenblatt adamantly refuses to con- Senate. But he has been unwilling or unable to do any- front this, an unconscionable abdication of his respon- thing about this trend. He even backed Ellison’s bid for sibilities. DNC chairman. ABC correctly notes that “during the 2016 presi- N A PIECE FOR Tablet, the journalist Paul Berger dential campaign, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders con- noted that Foxman seemed increasingly uncom- demned Israel, arguably clearing a path for Demo- Ifortable with Greenblatt’s partisanship. In March cratic candidates to break with party tradition and 2017, Foxman knocked the obsessive way Trump’s crit- criticize the U.S. ally.” In early October, the New York ics twisted themselves into logic pretzels in blaming Times checked in on how the anti-Israel insurgents the president for every anti-Semitic act. “The whole were doing. Quite well, it turned out. This “cluster issue has become a political football and that doesn’t of activist Democrats,” the Times reports, are mostly serve us,” he told the Forward.
22 The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League : November 2018
Mandel.indd 22 10/15/18 1:22 PM Turning anti-Semitism into a purely partisan cudgel takes an existential threat to the Jewish people and flattens it, sapping the Jewish community of its credibility.
Greenblatt responded by effectively saying that complaints against ZOA dating back to 2007.” Foxman, now running a center for the study of anti- He wanted the Presidents Conference to muzzle Semitism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New criticism of those who said the ADL was losing its way. York, didn’t know what he was talking about: “When ZOA’s complaint was far more serious. It alleged you are dealing, as I am, with individuals and families that after a 2016 panel discussion on BDS at the United and communities who are affected by these issues … Nations, Greenblatt was so angry about criticism of his it affects you. And that’s a lot different than when you ADL that he physically accosted the ZOA’s Liz Berney. are sitting in a museum. I also have something at my She told JTA that Greenblatt “came up to my right side, fingertips, which is the data.” put his arm around my back, grabbed me with his left But Foxman was undeniably correct: Turning hand on my left shoulder. He starts pushing me with anti-Semitism into a purely partisan cudgel takes an the force of his arm down the hall. I was trying to get existential threat to the Jewish people and flattens it, away from him, and he was restraining me.” Berney sapping the Jewish community of its credibility when said Greenblatt brought her to the Iraqi and Syrian making the accusation and of its ability to build coali- missions and yelled that they—not ADL—were the real tions across political and religious lines. enemy. Greenblatt and the ADL unequivocally denied Foxman wasn’t trying to pick a fight with Green- the allegation, though JTA spoke to six people to whom blatt, but he did highlight one of Greenblatt’s glaring Berney related the story right after it happened. weakness: He plays to his base and alienates all but his Then there’s the case of the Canary Mission, a fellow partisans. pro-Israel campus group whose name-and-shame ap- Indeed, one gets the sense that Foxman hoped proach to anti-Semites has brought it into conflict with one lesson of Trump’s victory would be the futility of other pro-Israel groups who say its tactics are merely spurning such broad coalitions. A month after the elec- encouraging BDS groups to carry out some of their tion, Foxman, in an emotional speech honoring the work in secret. When a group of pro-Israel students at Hidden Child Foundation, said, “I don’t care how you the University of Michigan wrote an op-ed on the ten- feel politically: To compare a candidate for the presi- sion between these groups, the ADL thanked the “@ dency of the United States of America, because you umich student leaders for exposing Canary Mission’s don’t like him, to Hitler is Holocaust trivialization.” Islamophobic & racist rhetoric.” Unable to provide a This, while not directed at Greenblatt, nonethe- single instance of the Canary Mission’s supposed Is- less highlighted the second of Greenblatt’s glaring lamophobia and racist rhetoric, ADL walked it back: weaknesses: his historical ignorance, which leaves “It was wrong to apply those labels to a group working, him flailing to accurately describe political outrages, like us, to counter anti-Semitism on campus,” a spokes- because he has such a shallow grasp of the subject man told JTA. No kidding. at hand—the way anti-Semitism mutates in order to I had my own surreal run-in with Greenblatt thrive in each new time and place. This just so hap- over his fondness for using his organization as a tool of pens to be the raison d’être of the organization Green- his personal retribution. blatt runs. In April 2017, then White House Press Secretary Indeed, Greenblatt sees institutional memory Sean Spicer, in an attempt to defend his boss’s appro- itself as an obstacle. In May, the Conference of Presi- priately harsh response to Syrian butcher Bashar al- dents of Major American Jewish Organizations con- Assad’s use of chemical weapons, made a boneheaded vened a panel to hear complaints by three member comment to the effect of: Not even Hitler did that. groups: the ADL, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Spicer apologized, but Greenblatt wouldn’t let up and and the Zionist Organization of America. ADL and sent an incredibly condescending and obnoxious letter HIAS brought complaints about the ZOA’s criticism signaling that the ADL was treating Spicer’s comment of their work. According to the Jewish Telegraphic as borderline Holocaust denial. On Twitter, I took a Agency (JTA), Greenblatt “submitted to the Presidents swing at Greenblatt for it. Conference a six-page letter and an Excel sheet with 36 Apparently I hit a nerve. I began getting a series
Commentary 23
Mandel.indd 23 10/15/18 1:22 PM That a prospective CEO would treat an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism as a playground for tech-bro chatter was confirmation that Greenblatt wasn’t qualified.
of prefab form tweets from ADL officers and others. It As childish and superficial as this “branding and was immediately recognizable as an amateurish rapid- millennials” plan for an ADL makeover was, it offers a response campaign in which the ADL sent word out window into the failures of the new, “cool” Anti-Defa- to supporters to attack me and offered sample tweets mation League. After all, the generation gap on issues they could use. Indeed, the minions ADL brass sicced directly tied to anti-Semitism—such as Israel and so- on me had merely copied and pasted the suggested cialism—means you will often have to choose between tweets so that many contained not only the same word- flattering millennial sensibilities and combating anti- ing but the same typo. For good measure, the ADL’s Semitism. sample tweet called me “#FakeNews.” Haaretz summed up the latest Pew poll on Israel The ADL attempted to deny the harassment in January: “While 56 percent of Americans over the campaign it ordered against me, but Paul Berger ob- age of 65 say they support Israel more than the Pales- tained the internal communication from an official tinians, the same is true for only 32 percent of those ADL messaging system proving it. between the ages of 18 and 29. Within that age group, Here was an organization that had been focusing 23 percent say they sympathize more with the Pales- on tracking and exposing coordinated social-media tinians, and 19 percent sympathize with neither side harassment campaigns against Jewish journalists … or have no opinion.” caught coordinating a social-media harassment cam- And here’s Gallup in August on socialism: paign against a Jewish journalist. “Americans aged 18 to 29 are as positive about so- Combine the penchant for bridge-burning and a cialism (51 percent) as they are about capitalism (45 flash-bulb anger, and you have a CEO who seems to re- percent). This represents a 12-point decline in young gard the Jewish establishment around him with great adults’ positive views of capitalism in just the past two suspicion. It’s a deeply poisonous modus operandi that years and a marked shift since 2010, when 68 percent virtually guarantees the Jewish community will have viewed it positively. … For those 50 and older, twice as an establishment against itself for Greenblatt’s tenure many currently have a positive view of capitalism as at the ADL. of socialism.” Perhaps that’s by design. Greenblatt seems ea- The integration of the two into mainstream ger to replace the existing American-Jewish establish- Democratic Party politics is not a theoretical mat- ment with one far more hostile to its values. According ter—refer back to the aforementioned Ocasio-Cortez, to Tablet, when an ADL-hired headhunting firm con- Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Democrats’ praise of Cor- tacted Greenblatt about the opening, “he thought he byn, etc. Or watch the fusion in action: The confirma- was vastly unqualified. He had barely any experience tion of the judge Greenblatt came out so hard against, in civil rights and no experience as a Jewish commu- Brett Kavanaugh, saw a protest in Washington at nal leader.” which Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was Greenblatt thought the firm was simply mining introduced glowingly by Linda Sarsour. It’s a mutual- him for ideas someone else would use. He spoke to admiration society: Last year in Time magazine, the them anyway. Greenblatt says he told them: “The next senator extolled the “courage” of “extraordinary wom- CEO of ADL, I thought, should be thinking about so- en”—Sarsour, Mallory, and two of their colleagues. cial and tech and innovation and earned income and If this is Greenblatt’s idea of “branding,” it’s brand and global and millennials.” understandable that those who want to fight anti- This should have been the reddest of red flags. Semitism but who have been abandoned by Green- That a prospective CEO would treat an organization blatt—college students, political conservatives, stri- dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism as a playground dent pro-Israel advocates—would look to fill the gap. for tech-bro chatter was confirmation that Greenblatt And it’s certainly reasonable for the existing Jewish was right: He wasn’t qualified. He wanted to treat the establishment to be alarmed at the wrecking-ball rev- Anti-Defamation League as a cross between McDon- olutionary who wants to replace it with one that finds ald’s and The Trump Organization. the very idea of criticizing anti-Semitism outrageous.
24 The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League : November 2018
Mandel.indd 24 10/15/18 1:22 PM Greenblatt’s partisanship is toxic. And his hostility toward religious freedom represents a historically ignorant tempting of fate for the leader of a Jewish institution.
Greenblatt appears to see himself as a “disruptor,” dia wave treated as a new and terrifying crisis. the Silicon Valley self-designation that supposed rebels The ADL, which boasts that it “has been a pio- wear with pride. At a speech on philanthropy in Israel neer in confronting cyberhate” since 1985, was re- in 2017, he boasted of his work at the Obama White vealed to be living in a partisan bubble. It convened a House, where he led the Office of Social Innovation and study, released in October 2016, to get to the bottom of instituted “outcome-based payments, civic hackathons, the anti-Semitic cyber targeting. It turned out that my and hybrid value chains.” His efforts “catalyzed new wife was one of the 10 most-harassed Jewish journal- public-private partnerships that facilitated the flow of ists during the election. Significantly, the top target— large-scale capital on long-standing problems.” by a mile—was the conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, When he segued into his new responsibilities as who received nearly 40 percent of the hate tweets. head of the Anti-Defamation League, he didn’t leave Conservative Jewish journalists were the ones most in his inner Elon Musk behind: “The question that ani- need of a group like the ADL—and they continue to be mates me every day is, How can I apply what I learned least served by it. in business and government to the social sector, how can I infuse our work with innovation and impact?” AN A GREENBLATT-LED Anti-Defamation He warned: “We have crossed a threshold that League be saved? The ADL has an admirable is less about the micro-economics of individual labor C history of self-correction. In 1913, the anti-Se- markets and more about the meta-economics of our mitic portrayals of Jews in educational materials and common humanity. Facing planetary challenges like newswriting were the focus of the ADL’s work. Then accelerating climate change, shrinking water and food the new organization decided to push for legislation access, and widening income gaps, we urgently need to outlaw the hateful or false depiction of “the Jew” new response strategies.” on stage and screen and to lobby for state boards of You almost expect Greenblatt to announce how censorship—and in this case was forced to pull back. to prevent cemetery vandalism using blockchain. A commendably self-critical history of the ADL pub- Good luck solving climate change by catalyzing part- lished in 1965 by B’nai B’rith notes that “the League nerships of civic hackathons that address the meta- later realized that its proposed cure was worse than economics of our common humanity, I guess. But the the disease.” In 1962, the ADL expressed its distaste Anti-Defamation League isn’t the vehicle for it. for a New York showing of The Merchant of Venice but And it is apparently the vehicle for the study of was careful to state that it opposed censoring the play: anti-Semitic outburst against journalists only when “In its search for methods to protect the Jew, it found the journalists share Greenblatt’s ideological pre- its most potent weapon in the democratic ideals of sumptions. During the 2016 Republican presidential the American society as a whole. These ideals it serves primaries, a combination of alt-right agitators and steadily, and in so doing it protects and enhances the Russian trolls began making life online hellish for status of American Jewry.” conservative opponents of Trump. Writers and pun- But for a ship to turn around in this way, its cap- dits would be tweeted pictures of their faces imposed tain must be ready to steer in a new direction. Green- on a Jew locked in a gas chamber with Donald Trump blatt’s attack-the-messenger philosophy is discourag- about to push the button, or some other explicit Nazi ing. His tetchy, defensive attitude is his way of ensuring threat. Soon the harassment moved off Twitter. My he will not learn from mistakes but instead double family was doxxed by a neo-Nazi site. My wife, Betha- down on them. His resentment of the Jewish communal ny Mandel, started getting phone calls of recordings of figures who came before him is petty and petulant. His Hitler speeches. This became a common occurrence, partisanship is toxic. And his hostility toward religious but groups like the ADL seemed to notice only when freedom represents a historically ignorant tempting of Trump won the nomination and the harassers turned fate for the leader of a Jewish institution. Perhaps this their attention to liberal journalists like Julia Ioffe. won’t all lead to disaster. But if we should be so lucky, it Then, and only then, was the anti-Semitic social-me- will be in spite of Jonathan Greenblatt.q
Commentary 25
Mandel.indd 25 10/15/18 1:22 PM Whiteness Is Blackness, and Blackness Is Whiteness Believing otherwise corrodes us, corrodes freedom, and corrodes the world we live in By Chloé Simone Valdary
“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended.” —James Baldwin
S A SIX-YEAR-OLD attending some of my first grade homework assignments, a testa- Langston Hughes Elementary ment to my teacher’s insistence on introducing us to School in New Orleans, I had the very best of our people’s power to express the tired to engage with the writings of struggles and abiding resilience of the human spirit. Maya Angelou, the poems of This artistic impulse to express and create was drilled writers who lived during the into our collective psyche by P.E. teachers and choir Harlem Renaissance, and the leaders alike who gave this to us because we were not stories of former slaves and abolitionists who were only black students needing to remember our past but forerunnersA to the leaders in the civil-rights move- also attendees of a school with a legendary namesake ment. Parsing and unpacking these writings were and we needed to understand and take seriously the idea of freedom. Chloé Simone Valdary is a brand ambassador This freedom was sacrosanct, a product of our at Jerusalem U, a digital media company based in black experience and a rejection of any idea that tried Jerusalem. to confine our being black to one particular label or
26 November 2018
Valdary.indd 26 10/15/18 1:23 PM stereotype. The stakeholders of the Jim Crow system convicted in April for sexual assault? Would they, be- had attempted to do that, believing that we were dev- lieving in consistency, call this “angry black male” syn- ils and that this was what defined “blackness.” They drome? Or would they instead understand the futility believed we were subhuman and so our ability to be and cruelty of reducing an entire community of people anything—avant-garde artists or well-to-do invest- to the behavior of one person in that community sim- ment bankers, charitable or devastating, complex or ply because he shared the same skin color? That this simple —was a rebellion against the old guard’s at- tempt to define us by any Intersectionality’s claim is that human one experience. interaction arises not from an individual’s And yet today, politi- cal commentators and so- behavior but entirely due to the social group cial influencers continue to promote a narrative to which he or she belongs. that eerily repeats that macabre process of categorizing people according to must be asked, still, in 2018 is a tragic reminder of how color in whatever grouping they deem appropriate, far we have to go as a society that dares to call itself as if they and they alone were the arbiters of a group’s “united.” experience. This has been on display ever since Brett Kava- t’s worth asking just how we arrived at this point, naugh’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, a few where passing judgement against individuals weeks after which well-meaning journalists character- Ibased on skin color came in vogue again and is ized his tears and outrage as “angry white male” syn- considered not only fair game but progressive. drome. Following Senator Susan Collins’s 45-minute I suspect that the kernels of the “angry white defense of her decision to vote for him, she too was male” designation as a phenomenon began when in- marred with the brush of “white woman” and accused tersectionality, a postmodernist social theory, began of representing the regressive, backwards system that to be accepted not only in the halls of academia but produced Jim Crow. also in public discourse facilitated by politicians and The litany of pieces echoing these sentiments is pop-cultural elites. astounding. There was Alexis Grenell asking “white In its most basic form, intersectionality is a women [to] come get their people” in the New York theory that posits interlinked and intersecting forms Times and Maureen Dowd, describing Kavanaugh of oppression. For example, a woman of color can ex- as part of a system of “entitled white men acting like perience discrimination for being both a woman and the new minority, howling about things that are be- a person of color; this sounds logical enough, but its ing taken away from them.” (What’s especially ironic deeper claim is that human interaction arises not from about that piece is that she pointed to the behavior of an individual’s behavior but is entirely due to the so- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to support cial group to which he or she belongs. Additionally, all her assertions—a very obviously African-American so-called knowledge is merely the subjective reality of male whose behavior, if we are to believe it consti- one’s group. Knowledge is a construct, not an indepen- tuted entitlement, clearly had nothing to do with being dent thing. Finally, the proponents of intersectionality white.) There was Rebecca Traister, of New York, accus- believe that the only social motive that exists is power. ing Susan Collins of perpetuating a “white capitalist Intersectionality’s most basic definition masks patriarchy”; similarly, when assessing Kavanaugh’s its most sinister effects. It is, as Helen Pluckrose and behavior, Paul Krugman described him as part of an James A. Lindsay write in Aero magazine, an “authori- “angry white male caucus” defined by the “fear of los- tative form of identity-based knowledge that cannot ing traditional privilege.” be disagreed with by anyone outside that group.…[It] These statements are easy to make because argues that prejudice against white people and men is they are attractively simplistic; they help us divide acceptable while prejudice against people of color and the world into simple battle lines of black and white, women is not… [and] attempts to restore a balance what John McWhorter has called an “us vs. the pigs” by ‘evening the score’ a little, particularly thinking paradigm. But what would Dowd and Krugman and historically.” Grenell and Traister make of Bill Cosby, who report- This way of thinking has led to the condemna- edly lashed out and cursed the prosecutor after he was tion of what some refer to as “whiteness,” a pathology
Commentary 27
Valdary.indd 27 10/15/18 1:23 PM that has come to serve as a stand-in for everything color, one can begin to find justifications to do the from exploitation to abuse to colonization to anything same for others, including, one’s own community. If that is bad and malicious in human history. Whiteness “whiteness” is a real thing, then “blackness” is a real is synonymous with evil behavior. Never mind that thing, too—and if one does not conform to Coates’s during our vast and long human history, all races and perception of how one is supposed to behave while be- peoples have practiced forms of brutality against one ing black, then one is acting white. And if being white another to a degree, from the indigenous Samoans is equivalent to arrogance, theft, and exploitation, of Polynesia to the !Kung San of the Kalahari desert then the white male is the literal embodiment of such to the ancient Aztec empire, whose blend of human attributes. If a white man does not believe this is true sacrifice and terrorism made them arguably as brutal or that is fair, then he is simply promoting a reality as the Spanish conquistadores who conquered them, that serves his own power and domination. if not more so. Like a radical religious order purging dissi- dents at the stake, those who believe in the doctrine of destroying “whiteness” Freedom entails the freedom to be view America as a caste system and human: autonomous and engaging are woefully ignorant of the exploi- tive measures they take in service of in free thought. Freedom includes inverting it. Consider Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, who once the ability to be wrong sometimes. stated in a sermon that “white people deserve to die.” Think he has no power But history, which attests to the universality in America? Think again. While it is disturbing that of our awesome and terrible ability to be cruel and three of the four co-founders of the Women’s March compassionate to one another is too much of an incon- were seen gleefully associating with Farrakhan—with venience for those who believe that reality is merely no qualms about the obviously cruel and hateful ideas a social construct, and that whiteness—by which one he has peddled—what’s even more disturbing is that really means white people—is the defining fact of a his ideas have already become mainstream in far-left civilizational force that has historically engaged in spaces. Consider Sarah Jeong, a recent hire at the New acts of totalistic violence and is the only force capable York Times editorial page. Though she kind of, sort of of doing so today. apologized for some of her previous tweets aimed at The acceptance of this theory has led to the trolls, apropos of nothing, she once tweeted: “White acceptance of social ideas that, once taboo, are now people have stopped breeding. You’ll all go extinct mainstream and considered enlightened. Talk of privi- soon. That was my plan all along.” lege led to talk of white privilege, which led to talk of And thus do the acolytes of this new cult grow: whiteness, which has now led to its latest iterations, from the pulpit to the paper, giving worshippers the “angry white male” syndrome and “white women very thing these devout believers claim they want to come get your people” theory—a pathological belief take away from those who do not look like them—so- that any time a white person is politically at odds with cial and political power. intersectionalist orthodoxy, it is in fact because he is white not because he may have legitimate differences HE DANGER BEHIND this sort of thinking of opinion. White people’s very existence is proof of cannot be overstated. The “angry white man” the poison they supposedly spread. T canard essentializes a fundamentally human This way of thinking has influenced some of impulse like anger, or sorrow, or even entitlement, our most popular thinkers, including and perhaps and through this process we end up reducing humans especially Ta-Nehisi Coates, who in May accused the to their skin color—thus taking away their dignity and performer Kanye West of “dying to be white” and justifying their destruction. “championing a kind of freedom—a white freedom, An example of this occurred on social media freedom without consequence, freedom without criti- when Georgetown professor Carol Christine Fair was cism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; [and a] free- suspended from Twitter after she suggested that “en- dom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon titled white men…deserve miserable deaths…while them in the next.” we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine.” Once one begins to make sweeping generaliza- This is the inevitable end of racial essentialism. tions about one group of people because of their skin The caricaturing of white people or black people is
28 Whiteness Is Blackness, and Blackness Is Whiteness: November 2018
Valdary.indd 28 10/15/18 1:23 PM trite and deadly. Gangbanger, thug, intellectual, artist, and Huffington Post often claim to be woke penguides angry, calm, conservative, liberal—all are descriptors for white people as if they are the representatives of all of human beings and none of them defines “blackness” black people. Conservatives such as Candace Owens or “whiteness.” Freedom entails the freedom to be hu- have suggested that being black and liberal is like be- man: autonomous and engaging in free thought. This ing a slave. While these claims are often made not out is the freedom to be good or bad, to state intelligent of spite for black people, those who make them are opinions or uninformed ones, and it is a freedom that plagued by what Doris Lessing described as the “atro- is no more “white” than writing an essay or stealing phy of the imagination that prevents us from seeing money is. Freedom includes the ability to be wrong ourselves in every creature that breathes under the sometimes. To suggest that there is only one or the sun.” In the 21st century, we have yet to discover that other within a human being is to strip him of his depth we are just as selfish and as prejudiced and as fickle as and complexity and, subsequently, to strip ourselves of we accuse one another of being, just as capable of love our own. As James Baldwin wrote in Notes of a Native as we deny one other of being. Son, “in overlooking, denying, evading…complexity — What beats in the heart of the white man also which is nothing more than the disquieting complex- beats in the heart of the black man. It beats in the ity of ourselves—we are diminished and we perish.” heart of Man. This is the point and the central aim of This tendency has been repeated for some time freedom. The “angry white male” canard erodes the now in both right- and left-wing circles. Writers at Vice point and that aim.q
Commentary 29
Valdary.indd 29 10/15/18 1:23 PM As these parties gain in support and power, they open the eyes of the other parties throughout Europe to the challenges related to immigration and Islam.
cent in 2006, 5.7 percent in 2010, and 12.9 percent in up with the civilizationist League in June to form a 2014. It did not sustain this pattern in 2018, winning government. To forestall civilizationist advances, some just 17.6 percent of the vote, but that sufficed to make leftist parties, like Sweden’s Social Democrats, are with it a substantial force in Swedish politics. clenched teeth adopting vaguely anti-immigration poli- No other civilizationist party has grown so cies. The Social Democratic party in Denmark took a mathematically, but votes and survey research sug- leap in this direction when its leader, Mette Frederik- gest that they will gain support. As Geert Wilders, the sen, announced the goal of limiting “the number of leader of a Dutch civilizationist party, notes: “In the non-Western foreigners who can come to Denmark” by Eastern part of Europe, anti-Islamification and anti- setting up reception centers outside Europe, where ap- mass-migration parties see a surge in popular sup- plicants would stay while their application for asylum port. Resistance is growing in the West, as well.” They would be examined; strikingly, if accepted, the asylum have three paths to power. seeker would remain outside Europe, his expenses paid 1) On their own: Civilizationist parties govern for by the Danish taxpayer. More broadly, as the leftist Hungary and Poland. Populations of these two former- political theorist Yascha Mounk argues, “the attempt Warsaw Pact countries, who won their independence to turn countries with monoethnic identities into truly only a generation ago and who watch developments multiethnic nations is a historically unique experi- in Western Europe with dismay, decided to go their ment.” Understandingly, he notes that this “has encoun- own way. Both their prime ministers have explicitly tered some fierce resistance.” rejected illegal Muslim migrants (while keeping the door open to Muslims who abide by the rules). Other S CIVILIZATIONIST PARTIES gain in sup- Eastern European countries have more tentatively port and power, they open the eyes of the gone down this same path. A other parties to the challenges related to im- 2) Joining with legacy conservative parties: As migration and Islam. Conservatives, whose business legacy conservative parties bleed voters to the civiliza- supporters benefit from cheap labor, have tended to tionists, they respond by adopting anti-immigration shy away from these issues. Leftist parties usually and anti-Islamization policies and join forces with the promote immigration and are myopic about Islam-re- civilizationists. So far, this has happened only in Aus- lated problems. Comparing Great Britain and Sweden, tria, where the Austrian People’s Party and the FPÖ the two European countries most flaccid in the face of jointly won 58 percent of the vote and formed a coali- culturally aggressive and criminally violent migrants, tion government in December 2017, but more such col- very clearly shows the role of civilizationist parties. laborations are likely. The former has no such party, so these issues The 2017 Republican presidential candidate in are not addressed; in Rotherham and elsewhere, France moved toward civilizationism and his succes- sex-grooming gangs (really, rape gangs) in UK Mus- sor, Laurent Wauquiez, has continued in the same di- lim communities were allowed to operate for years rection. The nominally conservative party in Sweden, and even decades with the 6Ps averting their eyes. In the Moderates, has started in the hitherto inconceiv- contrast, the Sweden Democrats have so changed the able direction of cooperating with the Sweden Demo- country’s politics that the right and left parliamentary crats. Germany’s Free Democratic Party has moved blocs formed a grand coalition to block them from toward civilizationism. Merkel may still be chancellor wielding influence. While this maneuver worked in of Germany, but some in her government have repu- the short term, the Sweden Democrats’ very existence diated her reckless immigration policy; in particular, has induced policy changes, such as tightening access the interior minister and head of an allied party, Horst for illegal migrants. Seehofer, articulated hardline immigration policies In similar fashion, the former Soviet satellites and even said that Islam does not belong in Germany. are disrupting the legacy NATO members. Viktor Or- 3) Joining with other parties: Italy’s eccentric, an- bán, the prime minister of Hungary, stands out in this archist, more-or-less leftist Five Star Movement teamed regard, with his deep analysis of Europe’s problems
Commentary 33
Pipes.indd 33 10/15/18 1:24 PM Europe’s Civilizationalist Parties Don’t shun the populists; work with and learn from them By Daniel Pipes
S EUROPE RETURNING to the horrors a toehold everywhere from Italy to Finland, raising of the 1930s? In an assessment typical of fears the continent is backpedaling toward the kinds the moment, Max Holleran writes in the of policies that led to catastrophe in the first half of New Republic that “in the past ten years, the 20th century.” Jewish leaders such as Menachem new right-wing political movements have Margolin, head of the European Jewish Association, brought together coalitions of Neo-Nazis sense “a very real threat from populist movements with mainstream free-market conserva- across Europe.” tives, normalizing political ideologies that in the past Germany and Austria, the birthplaces of Nation- rightly I caused alarm.” He sees this trend creating a al Socialism, naturally arouse the most concern, espe- surge in “xenophobic populism.” Writing in Politico, cially after the elections in 2017, when the Alternative Katy O’Donnell agrees: “Nationalist parties now have for Germany (AfD) won 13 percent of the vote and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) won 26 percent. Felix Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes), Klein, Germany’s commissioner to combat anti-Semi- president of the Middle East Forum, has researched tism, says that the AfD “helps make anti-Semitism pre- immigration and Islam in ten European countries sentable again.” Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jew- during the past year. ish Communities of Austria, argues that the FPÖ “has
30 November 2018
Pipes.indd 30 10/15/18 1:24 PM Civilizationalist parties cherish the West’s traditional culture and want to defend it from assault by immigrants aided by the left. They are populist and anti-Islamization.
never distanced itself” from its Nazi past. Merkel responded to a voter worried about uncon- Is this correct? Or does this insurgency reflect a trolled migration with a characteristic rebuke about healthy response by Europeans to protect their way of Europe’s faults and condescending advice about at- life from open immigration and Islamization? tending church services more often. Dimitris Avramo- poulos, the European commissioner for migration, O BEGIN WITH, what to call the phenomenon flatly announced that Europe “cannot and will never under discussion? The parties in question tend be able to stop migration” and proceeded to lecture T to be called far-right, but that is inaccurate, his fellow citizens: “It is naive to think that our soci- for they offer a mixture of rightist policies (focused on eties will remain homogenous and migration-free if culture) and leftist ones (focused on economics). The one erects fences. … We all need to be ready to accept National Rally in France, for example, attracts leftist migration, mobility, and diversity as the new norm.” support by calling for the nation’s banks to be national- Former Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt ar- ized. Indeed, ex-Communists make up a key element gued for more migrants: “I often fly over the Swedish of support; Hénin-Beaumont, which is now among the countryside and I would advise others to do. There are most fervently pro-National Rally towns of France, pre- endless fields and forests. There’s more space than you viously was among the most Communist. might imagine.” Charles Hawley of Der Spiegel claims that “all All of these three, it bears noting, are what pass these parties are, at their core, nationalist,” but this is for conservatives in Europe. Others, like Nicolas Sar- historically incorrect. They are patriotic, not nation- kozy of France and David Cameron of Great Britain, alist; defensive, not aggressive. They root for soccer talked tough but governed soft. Their contemptuous teams, not military victories. They cherish English dismissal of anti-immigration sentiments created an customs, not the British Empire; the bikini, not Ger- opportunity for civilizationist parties through much man bloodlines. They neither hanker for empires nor of Europe. From the venerable FPÖ (founded in 1956) claim national superiority. Nationalism classically to the Netherlands’ new Forum for Democracy (found- concerns power, wealth, and glory; they focus on mo- ed in 2016), they fill an electoral and societal gap. res, traditions, and culture. Though called neo-fascist Civilizationist parties, led by Italy’s League, are or neo-Nazi, these parties put a premium on personal anti-immigration, seeking to control, reduce, and liberty and traditional culture; notions such as “One even reverse the immigration of recent decades, espe- People, One Nation, One Leader” have little attraction cially that of Muslims and Africans. These two groups to them. stand out not because of prejudice (“Islamophobia” or Better to call them “civilizationist,” focusing on racism) but due to their being the least assimilable of their cultural priority, because they feel intense frus- foreigners, an array of problems associated with them, tration at watching their way of life disappear. They such as not working and criminal activity, and a fear cherish Europe’s and the West’s traditional culture that they will impose their ways on Europe. and want to defend it from assault by immigrants Finally, the parties are anti-Islamization. As aided by the left. (The term civilizationist has the ad- Europeans learn about Islamic law (Sharia), they in- ditional benefit of excluding those parties that loathe creasingly focus on its role concerning women’s is- Western civilization, such as Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden sues, such as niqabs and burqas, polygamy, taharrush Dawn.) (sexual assault), honor killings, and female genital Civilizationalist parties are populist, anti-immi- mutilation. Other concerns deal with Muslim atti- gration, and anti-Islamization. Populist means nurs- tudes toward non-Muslims, including Christophobia ing grievances against the system and a suspicion of and Judeophobia, jihadi violence, and the insistence an elite that ignores or denigrates those concerns. that Islam enjoy a privileged status vis-à-vis other re- These are the “6Ps”: police, politicians, press, priests, ligions. professors, and prosecutors. At the height of the mi- Muslims, it bears noting, form a geographical grant tsunami in 2015, German chancellor Angela membrane around Europe, from Senegal to Morocco
Commentary 31
Pipes.indd 31 10/15/18 1:24 PM The civilizationist difficulties with Jews pale in comparison with the left’s rampant anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, especially in Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
to Egypt to Turkey to Chechnya, enabling vast num- mates civilizationist parties and arouses the fiercest bers of potential migrants with relative ease to enter debates, requires special attention. The parties do of- illegally the continent by land or sea. It’s 75 kilometers ten have dubious origins, contain fascistic elements, from Albania to Italy, 60 kilometers from Tunisia to and give off anti-Semitic signals. Jewish leaders in (the tiny island of Pantelleria in) Italy, 14 kilometers Europe, accordingly, condemn the civilizationists and across the Straits of Gibraltar from Morocco to Spain, insist that the State of Israel do the same, even if the 1.6 kilometers from Anatolia to the Greek island of civilizationists are in government and Israel must Samos, fewer than 100 meters across the Evros River deal with them. Ariel Muzicant, honorary president of from Turkey to Greece, and 10 meters from Morocco to the Austrian Jewish community, actually threatened the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Jerusalem were it to stop boycotting the FPÖ: “I will Increasing numbers of would-be migrants are definitely speak out against the government of Israel.” circling around the entry points, in some cases resort- But three points mitigate these concerns: First, ing to violence to force their way in. In 2015, Johannes civilizationist parties generally distance themselves Hahn, the European Union’s enlargement commis- from obsessions with Jews as they mature. Because sioner, estimated that “there are 20 million refugees of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s obstinate anti-Semitism, his waiting at the doorstep of Europe.” That may sound daughter Marine Le Pen actually expelled him in 2015 like a large number, but when one adds economic mi- from the National Rally he had founded in 1972. In grants to the mix, the numbers shoot up still more; Hungary last December, the hitherto openly anti-Se- especially as water shortages drive Middle Easterners mitic Jobbik party renounced its old ways. from their homelands, aspiring migrants might begin Second, civilizationist leaders seek good rela- to approach Europe’s population of 740 million. tions with Israel. They visit, they pay their respects at Yad Vashem, and in some cases (such as the Czech LMOST WITHOUT EXCEPTION, civiliza- president and the Austrian vice-chancellor) they sup- tionist parties suffer from deep problems. port moving their countries’ embassies to Jerusalem. A Mainly staffed by neophytes, they contain Run by the civilizationist party Fidesz, the Hungarian disturbing numbers of cranks: anti-Jewish and anti- government has Europe’s closest relations with Israel. Muslim extremists, racists, power-hungry oddballs, This pattern has been noted in Israel; for example, conspiracy theorists, historical revisionists, and Nazi Gideon Sa’ar of the Likud party calls civilizationist nostalgists. Autocrats run their parties undemocrati- parties “the natural friends of Israel.” cally and seek to dominate parliaments, the judiciary, Finally, whatever the civilizationist difficulties schools, and other key institutions. They harbor anti- with Jews, these pale in comparison with the left’s American resentments and take money from Moscow. rampant anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, especially in These shortcomings usually translate into elec- Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Jeremy Cor- toral weakness, as Europeans resist voting for par- byn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, symbolizes this ties that spew bile and cantankerous ideas. About 60 trend: He calls the murderers of Jews his friends and percent of the German voting public worries about has openly associated with them. As civilizationist lead- Islam and Muslims, polls show, but only one-fifth ers struggle to abandon anti-Semitism, many of their of them voted for AfD. To advance electorally and political opponents are diving headfirst into the filth. achieve their potential, then, civilizationist parties must convince the voters that they can be trusted to N THE SPACE OF 20 YEARS, civilizationist par- govern. Older parties especially, such as the FPÖ, are ties have grown from near irrelevance to become changing, as shown by the perpetual personnel bat- Ian important force in close to half Europe’s tles, party splits, and other drama; however messy countries. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of and off-putting, this process is both necessary and this ascent comes from Sweden, where the Sweden constructive. Democrats have roughly doubled their vote every four Anti-Semitism, the issue that most delegiti- years: 0.4 percent in 1998, 1.3 percent in 2002, 2.9 per-
32 The Civilizationalist Parties : November 2018
Pipes.indd 32 10/15/18 1:24 PM and his ambitions to remake the European Union. ostracizing, and ignoring civilizationist parties in the Hungary in particular and Central Europe in gen- hope they will disappear will fail. Such steps will not eral are acquiring unprecedented influence because stop them from reaching power but will, counterpro- of their stance against immigration and Islamization. ductively, make them more populist and radical. I hope to have established two fundamental The 6Ps should accept civilizationists as legiti- points here. First, that civilizationist parties are ama- mate, work with them, encourage them to slough off teurish, raw, and error-prone, but not dangerous; their extremist elements, help them gain practical experi- advent to power will not return Europe to the “low ence, and guide them to prepare for governance. But it dishonest decade” of the 1930s. Second, that they are is not a one-way street, for civilizationists have some- inexorably growing so that in 20 years or so, they will thing to teach the elites, possessing as they do realistic be widely serving in government and influencing both insights about sustaining traditional ways and main- conservatives and leftists. Rejecting, marginalizing, taining Western civilization. q
34 The Civilizationalist Parties : November 2018
Pipes.indd 34 10/15/18 1:24 PM Can We Eat Kosher Bacon? A question from 1949 rises anew By Elliot Cosgrove
HE OCTOBER 1949 ISSUE OF their gaze on the mysterious, alluring, and altogether Commentary featured a peculiar forbidden delicacy. entry—a strange reflection, almost Rosenfeld leverages the scene to deconstruct all but not quite a short story, that was of the Jewish dietary restrictions and regulations from nestled quietly between one essay Eden onward: milk/meat, kosher/treif, the prayers be- by Franz Rosenzweig and another fore and after eating and otherwise. He describes how by John Dewey. It was called “Adam these rules are meant to guard against not just pro- and Eve on Delancey Street” and was the work of Isaac hibited food, but forbidden sexuality. We desire most Rosenfeld—a T brilliant young writer then considered that which we cannot have, like entry into non-Jewish the equal of his boyhood friend Saul Bellow in talent society—an aspiration signified by a Jew’s voyeuristic and possibility. gaze through a glass window. “Kosher Fry Beef, ‘Jew- The piece drew its inspiration from the initial ish Bacon,’” Rosenfeld writes, “is food in the form of prohibition given by God to Adam when it came to the forbidden, an optical pun on kosher and treif.” eating from the fruit of the tree—the starting point for He describes the crowd standing “in a sexual trance.” all subsequent biblical and rabbinic dietary restric- The trance comes from the forbiddenness, which ex- tions. The setting for Rosenfeld’s story is a Lower East tends from food to, well…: “In the end, it is not merely Side delicatessen surrounded by onlookers who stand the shaigetz and the shiksa who are taboo; the sexual transfixed as they watch, separated by a glass window, object per se is treif; for within the culture it is overlaid “kosher fry beef” coming off the slicing machine. With by the all-nourishing mother, the authoritarian father, delicious literary skill, Rosenfeld describes the over- both under the incest ban.” powering gravitational pull these chunks of kosher The most interesting thing about the piece, how- would-be bacon have on all those so fortunate, or un- ever is not its risqué content—which, by today’s stan- fortunate, like Adam and Eve in the Garden, to cast dards is altogether tame, or, if you will, pareve—but rather the reaction to it in the Jewish world. Angry let- Elliot Cosgrove is rabbi of Park Avenue Syna- ters poured in to the magazine from every corner. M.L. gogue. He received a doctorate from the University of Isaacs, the dean of Yeshiva University, was appalled by Chicago Divinity School. the “indecency” of the article. Samuel Kramer, then
Commentary 35
Cosgrove.indd 35 10/15/18 1:25 PM president of the New York Board of Rabbis, spoke of his sumption. The first “lab hamburger” was served in 2013, “grief and shame” over the “scandalous piece.” Rosen- and a race is underfoot to create the first commercially feld was roundly condemned in the Hebrew and Yid- available product. dish press—for his vulgarity, for his second-rate liter- It is an advancement that has brought about the ary talents, and for being a self-hating Jew.* possibility of something that neither Rosenfeld nor The most vicious attack came from the pulpit Steinberg could have imagined possible—a world with of Park Avenue Synagogue, the shul at which I serve actual kosher bacon. As the rabbinic thinking goes, as senior rabbi. Rabbi Milton Steinberg went into full if meat is defined by way of the slaughtered animal it attack mode. He delivered a scathing sermon against comes from, then cell-based “clean meat” is not meat and Commentary, criticizing its editorial staff’s decision therefore it would not be treif. to publish the piece. Steinberg mimeographed hun- This is not an open-shut case, and I have no idea dreds of copies of his sermon and, with the help of a how this new non-meat meat will taste, but what is clear journalist friend, sent copies out to the national lead- is that we are living through the most significant culi- ership of American Jewry. Still not satisfied, he con- nary transformation for American Jewry since the 1997 tacted the entire membership of Commentary’s then- koshering of the Oreo, and arguably the most significant publisher, the American Jewish Committee. “If you food development for Jewry ever. Not just meat, not just approve of pornography and anti-Semitism peddled pork, but the possibility of a bacon cheeseburger, with under the imprint of the AJC, you may not be inter- all the toppings! And you can hold the guilt! The glass ested in the rest of this letter,” Steinberg wrote. “Please window separating the Jews of Delancey Street and the re-read the Rosenfeld article. It is not only smut, but kosher bacon of their fantasies has been shattered. Go actually anti-Semitism worthy of the best efforts of St- ahead, Adam and Eve—eat that fruit! The forbidden has reicher and Goebbels.” become permitted, the illicit made lawful! A novelist of note himself as well as a scholar, This entire conversation, though prompted by a Steinberg was arguably the dominant voice of Ameri- development in food, is about far more than the dietary can Jewry in his day. And while there were those who choices any one individual or family makes. My assump- countered that freedom of expression was at stake, in tion is that the vast majority of non-Orthodox Ameri- the months that followed, the leadership of the AJC can Jews consume “the other white meat” or, at the would apologize for running the piece and Eliot A. very least, order from what I call “the other side of the Cohen, this magazine’s editor, would offer a grudging menu.” The question I am raising, rather, is philosophi- acknowledgment that he had done wrong (“certainly cal in nature, namely what it means to be a Jew in a there was one anecdote that was in very bad taste”). A time where one can—without hesitation, shame, or mini furor of midcentury American Jewry, all over the guilt—delight in precisely those things that have been thought of kosher bacon. proscribed by Jewish law for millennia, those things That is pretty much where things have stood for that have kept us differentiated as a people through- just shy of 70 years, until an article in the New York out time. Times brought it all back. Nathaniel Popper’s September In retrospect, I think what Steinberg and his con- 30 piece is about the development of something called temporaries understood in 1949 was that they were living through a transformational moment for American Jewry. The If meat is defined by way of the traumas of the Holocaust had yet to slaughtered animal it comes from, be absorbed, the continued survival of the State of Israel was not a given. then cell-based ‘clean meat’ is not meat World Jewry was bruised, battered, and vulnerable in so many ways. As and therefore it would not be treif. for American Jewry, we were shift- ing geographically, economically, “clean meat,” also known as cell-based agriculture. Cells and culturally from the insular, working-class, immi- taken from an animal can now be isolated, put into a so- grant communities of the first half of the century to the lution that mimics blood, and encouraged to replicate. integrated, upwardly mobile, and suburban communi- Still in its infancy, the technology has excited animal- ties of the second half of the century. rights activists and environmentalists delighted at the Rosenfeld’s article touched a nerve because he prospect of lab-grown meat brought to market without * The controversy is well described in Steven J. Zipperstein’s the moral and ecological costs associated with meat con- 2009 book, Rosenfeld’s Lives, published by Yale University Press.
36 Can We Eat Kosher Bacon? : November 2018
Cosgrove.indd 36 10/15/18 1:25 PM said, by way of the tantalizing image of kosher bacon, Jew in America, and if one believes, as I do, that every all that needed to be said about everything that hung human being is created equally in the image of God in balance in his time—and Steinberg knew it better and that Judaism is but one of multiple equally valid than anyone. To give voice to the Jewish desire but in- paths to seek out an unknowable God, then what pre- ability to attain entry into the non-Jewish world; to cisely is the compelling argument for a young person suggest that our dietary restrictions are some sort of to choose to lead a Jewish life? Freudian psychosexual mechanism to inhibit contact with the non-Jew- ish world; to put those thoughts in Jews have gone from being the ‘other,’ print for Jew and non-Jew to read to ‘just another.’ Somewhere along the and by a Jewish author no less; that was what we Jews call a shanda—a way, as noted by many sociologists, shame, a disgrace, a matter to cause scandal. Steinberg reacted as he did Jews have become ‘white people.’ because he somehow understood what was at stake if the ideas that generated Rosen- If there are no external markers differentiating feld’s piece became commonly accepted. us from the world in which we live, then what are the A great deal has changed for American Jewry since internal markers by which our faith and people will 1949. You can track the transformations in all sorts of remain compelling and distinct? If all faith traditions ways—marital choices, economic advancement, educa- are of equal merit, then what exactly is the argument tional achievement, and so on. Boundaries between Jew- for an interfaith couple to create a Jewish home and ish and non-Jewish society have been blurred in a way raise Jewish children, all the more so for a non-Jewish unthinkable to our predecessors. Television is but one partner to convert to Judaism? of a million ways to measure the distance traveled. We Taken as a whole, the challenges of our time are have moved from Bridget Loves Bernie—the short-lived a good thing. It is a blessing to have been born into this 1972 hit sitcom about an interfaith couple canceled due country and this age of unprecedented freedoms. But to protests from both the Jewish and Catholic communi- they are freedoms that come with a challenge, the chal- ties—to our age of Seinfeld, Will and Grace, Friends, and lenge of how to inspire, educate, and support Jews to help New Girl, in which depictions of interfaith relations have them live passion-filled Jewish lives—lives that could, if become so commonplace that they have ceased to be left to their own devices, just as easily tip the other way. transgressive and worthy of comment at all. Ever since the Garden of Eden, men and women Once upon a time, being Jewish was an impedi- have gazed at the fruit of the tree, face-to-face with the ment to professional and social advancement, and one’s possibilities and consequences that come with the de- Jewish roots were spoken of in hushed tones. Jews cision to reach out and eat of that forbidden delicacy. changed our names and our neighborhoods in hopes For the first time in a long time and maybe ever, Jews of fitting in. Not any longer. Jews have gone from being can reach out and grab that fruit without any of the the “other,” to “just another.” Somewhere along the way, consequences of yesteryear—and even more interest- as noted by many sociologists, Jews have become “white ingly, the question of what is and isn’t forbidden, what people.” In this country, if you fill out an application for is and isn’t kosher is in play. college, the fact of your Jewishness never comes up. Be- The flourishing of Jewish life in America will ing a Jew is no longer the distinguishing external mark- always depend on our people’s ability to balance an er it once was. From the First Family right down to our appreciation for the blessings and choices of our lives own families, the most interesting thing to say about with the restraint required in order to remain a dis- being a Jew (or marrying a Jew) is just how uninterest- tinct people. For some, that restraint may manifest ing it has become. Ours is a time when the proverbial itself in keeping kosher; for others, keeping Shabbat; kosher bacon is no longer a fantasy but a reality. for others, Jewish summer camps; and for still others, It is this, our present reality, about which we some combination of those and other particularisms. must be willing to ask all the hard questions. What Jews on Delancey Street in 1949 or on Park Avenue in does it mean to live in a time when there are no bar- 2018 or who knows where in 2087 needed, need, and riers, no stop signs, and maybe not even any speed will continue to need some speed bumps, some stop bumps preventing a Jew from participating fully in signs, and some measure of internal discipline in order non-Jewish life? to live a life of difference and thus make a difference as If one can lead a fully integrated existence as a Jews in our blessed society.q
Commentary 37
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The Diversity Delusion: generation ago, to be taught little accused her of racism, which she How Race and Gender Pandering else than to deplore our values? cleverly terms the “phlogiston of Corrupt the University and If this anxiety afflicts you, then modern liberalism,” since it so Undermine Our Culture perhaps the last thing you should often “can neither be perceived THE BEST OF THE 1960S: THE BEST OF THE 1940S: THE BEST OF THE 1950S: By Heather Mac Donald do is read Heather Mac Donald’s nor measured” but is nonetheless Philip Roth, Norman Podhoretz, George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, Saul Bellow, Daniel Bell, St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages brilliantly argued, meticulously endlessly invoked as an explana- James Baldwin, Thomas Mann, Dwight Macdonald, Robert Warshow, Norman Mailer, Elie Wiesel, Reinhold Niebuhr & more Clement Greenberg & more Ralph Ellison, Lionel Trilling & more researched, and often quite funny tion for every societal discrepancy. Reviewed by Abigail Shrier dissection of the American univer- Campus police kept her safe from a sity, The Diversity Delusion. violent, masked mob clad in black, OST PARENTS I Mac Donald collided head-on but they did not ensure passage for know, not all of with the contemporary campus in those students who had wanted them conserva- April 2017, when she was invited to attend. The administration’s COMMENTARY has no equal. For more than THE COMMENTARY CLASSICS series offers tive, read news to speak at Claremont McKenna sympathy lay squarely with the 60 years, no other journal has been so cen- readers the most important and influen- of American uni- College about her book The War on radicals. In the end, Mac Donald tral to the debates that have transformed tial articles of the past seven decades. Mversities with increasing alarm. Cops. A conservative political com- spoke to an almost empty room, How can we send our teens to the mentator (including for Commen- while protesters outside pounded the intellectual and political life of the Unit- Download the first three volumes to very schools we attended only a tary) and fellow at the Manhattan the windows. To follow Mac Don- ed States, the Jewish people, and the West. your Kindle today. Institute, Mac Donald had dared ald’s propulsive, tightly argued Abigail Shrier is a writer in in her book to criticize Black Lives rendering of the university is to ar- Los Angeles. Matter. For this sin, campus groups rive at the inescapable conclusion
AVAILABLE AT Commentary 39
February 2016 Cover.indd 3 1/14/16 4:07 PM Politics&Ideas.indd 39 10/15/18 1:26 PM that American universities have dozen graduate students at UCLA become a bad joke. Under marched into an education class i and accused professor emeritus HE BEGINS WITH a serious the Val Rust of having created a ra- discussion of the “positively diversity cially hostile environment by cor- S sadistic” harms inflicted by recting his students’ grammar and affirmative action on its beneficia- mantle, college spelling. (Administrators rushed ries, even at California’s schools, to the students’ defense; only which have managed to skirt Cali- administrators Rust’s status as emeritus profes- fornia’s anti-affirmative-action law, have mangled sor saved him from the ax.) Again, Proposition 209, “through fiend- the nominal beneficiaries of this ishly clever compliance with the every aspect of kowtowing suffer most, in Mac letter of the law, while riding universities from Donald’s view: “Any student who roughshod over its spirit.” In 2004, believes that the university is an UCLA law professor Richard Sand- hiring processes ‘unsafe,’ racially hostile environ- er published a groundbreaking to disciplinary ment is unlikely to take full advan- empirical study that showed affir- tage of its resources.” But every stu- mative action in law-school admis- proceedings to dent and professor must suffer in sion actually hurt the chances of curricula in the an environment so forbidding that minority students eventually pass- speech is chilled to permafrost, ing the bar exam. The resulting humanities and making it doubtful that any worthy “mismatch” (the title of Sander’s the sciences. discussion can take root. book) between the preference ben- “Implicit bias”—another con- eficiaries’ academic preparedness cept of dubious empirical valid- and the rigor of the school made it ity—is a scythe dangled over the harder for them to learn the neces- hiring processes to disciplinary necks of department heads lest the sary material. (Sander found that proceedings to curricula in the result of a hiring process not be black students, in Mac Donald’s humanities and even in the sci- deemed sufficiently “diverse.” This, telling, were also “twice as likely to ences. (An introductory chemistry despite the fact that department drop out as whites” and “six times course at Berkeley has as its stated heads are demonstrably stretch- as likely to fail the bar after mul- primary goal “to disrupt ‘the ra- ing to admit minority candidates tiple efforts.”) cialized and gendered construct of at every opportunity. Mac Donald In fact, preference beneficia- scientific brilliance,’ which defines writes: “From 2013 to 2016, medi- ries are often so ill-prepared for ‘good science’ as getting all the cal schools nationally admitted 57 the universities to which they are right answers. The course main- percent of blacks with low MCATs admitted that they flee economics tains instead that ‘all students are of 24 to 26 but only 8 percent of and the more demanding sciences scientifically brilliant.’”) From this whites and 6 percent of Asians for those humanities classes where mayhem, the diversity adminis- with those same low scores.” grievance offers an alluring succor trators are conveniently poised There is also the “campus rape and even an academic major. If to gain the most: Nearly every myth”—the oft-repeated claim by administrators hoped to advance diversity failure is “remedied” by administrators that one-fifth to one- minority students or to encour- hiring more diversity enforcers, quarter of all college girls will be age minorities in STEM subjects, further feathering these sinecures. raped or be the targets of attempted this would seem counterproduc- The sheer number of these officers rape during their time in college. (In tive. But the point of these efforts, is staggering: UC Davis alone has fact, Mac Donald argues persuasive- Mac Donald argues, is for admin- 28 diversity departments, covering ly, very few rapes occur on campus.) istrators to “flatter their own egos, every conceivable racial, sexual, “No crime, much less one as serious so that they can gaze upon their and gender identity. as rape, has a victimization rate ‘diverse’ realm and bask in their With administrators’ encour- remotely approaching 20 percent or noblesse oblige.” agement, charges of campus “mi- 25 percent, even over many years,” Under the diversity mantle, col- croaggressions” proliferate like writes Mac Donald. “The one-in- lege administrators have mangled bacteria and destroy like them, five to one-in-four statistic would every aspect of universities from too. In November 2013, nearly two mean that every year, hundreds of
40 Politics & Ideas : November 2018
Politics&Ideas.indd 40 10/15/18 1:26 PM thousands of young women gradu- interest in extirpating sexual plea- ate who have suffered the most Mac sure from society. Its power and terrifying assault, short of murder, i broad appeal come in asking adults that a woman can experience. Such Donald to take responsibility for the choic- a crime wave would require nothing argues that es they make and insisting they less than a state of emergency—Take honestly examine the consequenc- Back the Night rallies and twenty- conservatives es. One of those choices might be to four-hour hotlines would hardly be partake in a normal dating life in adequate to counter this tsunami of should welcome college, and this might reasonably sexual violence.” the ‘burgeoning include engaging in consensual But as Mac Donald wryly notes, sexual acts with a person you like very few truly believe this. “Highly sex regulations’ very much. Another might be to educated mothers in New York as ‘the only drink oneself into blackout and City pay $200 an hour to prep hope for the best. If Mac Donald their female tots for nursery school upside to the hopes to return to a world where admissions tests, all in the hope whole sordid even petting is something college of winning a spot for their little coeds dare not try, then she will darlings in the Ivy League thirteen situation.’ And it have to dial us back to a point so years later,” she writes. “Yet we are is here that she far before the sexual revolution, it to believe that these ambitious seems doubtful we could get back mothers are deliberately packing steps onto shaky there, even if we wanted to. off their daughters to a hellhole of ground. This quibble notwithstanding, sexual predation.” Mac Donald’s book is an essential One might think that universi- addition to the canon on our cul- ties would encourage abstinence, ture, not only because it elucidates or at least sexual conservatism say, which results in less of a valu- the horrors of the contemporary in the face of this alleged threat. able commodity,” she writes, “there university, but because it provides Instead, they remain spiritedly is no cost to an overregulation- critical insight into the dystopia libertine, encouraging all manner induced decrease in campus sex.” that the left hopes to hand us of sexual experimentation, while No cost to making young people upon its return to power. Janet simultaneously narrowing the ar- so frightened of even welcome Napolitano, the former governor of ray of behaviors that qualify as sexual advances that they resort Arizona and secretary of homeland “consent.” As Mac Donald details, to—what? Xbox and pornography? security, now presides over the even a young woman who asks if Students are unlikely to use all of California university system. She her male partner has a condom, their wakeful hours for the study- has required all deans and depart- announces to her friend that she ing and chaste conversation Mac ment chairs to undergo training to intends to have sex, voluntarily Donald seems to have in mind. overcome their “implicit biases” shows up at his dorm room, and In fact, millennials and mem- toward women and minorities. is a willing participant in the sex bers of Generation Z are having According to this doctrine, all through no coercion or force on the less sex than any previous gen- those outside a protected class are male’s part may be deemed not to eration in 60 years. Pornography a priori guilty of racism. By defini- have consented if she later regrets consumption is on the rise, as is the tion, such bias can neither be gain- the act; one young man in question phenomenon of the “solo sexual”— said nor disproved. Statements as was expelled from Occidental Col- those who prefer masturbation to anodyne as “America is the land of lege in 2013 in exactly this way. sex with others. Against these el- opportunity” or “decisions should Nonetheless, Mac Donald ar- dritch alternatives, a return to nor- be made on the basis of merit” gues that conservatives should mal dating and sexuality would be have already been deemed hostile welcome the “burgeoning sex regu- a positive development in America, microaggressions at the University lations” as “the only upside to the and this seems all but impossible of California. whole sordid situation.” And it is when the thrill of touching a girl Far from the vaunted transmit- here that Mac Donald steps onto you’re dating meets the unholy ter- ter of civilization and science it shaky ground. “Unlike the overreg- ror of being branded a rapist. once was, the American university ulation of natural gas production, Conservatism has no legitimate is now little more than the left’s
Commentary 41
Politics&Ideas.indd 41 10/15/18 1:26 PM glorious fiefdom, where an alter- satisfy. Where the students can’t the 1960s, a story told by Reagan in nate version of the Constitution is tell you why this American democ- his habitual form—the one-liner: “I law of the land—one that affords racy might be worth saving; the didn’t leave the Democratic Party; neither free speech nor due pro- books that provide the answers the Democratic Party left me.” cess nor equal protection under were long ago stripped from their One can see the appeal for Spitz the law. This is a world where all syllabi. Our best hope of restoring of a man such as Reagan, who oper- hiring decisions are made on the sanity to our once-great universi- ated at the intersection of celebrity basis of race. Where distinctions ties lies in freeing ourselves from and politics, making him an almost between men and women are the delusion that diversity is the irresistible subject for a biography. denied by decree. Where alleg- ultimate good in whose honor so Spitz should give some thought to edly aggrieved students shriek many sacrifices must be made, and writing one. outrageous demands, which clue- so many self-interested shamans His book is packaged like a less administrators scramble to anointed.q biography, with a biography’s ti- tle—Reagan: An American Jour- ney—and a biography’s cover, with a black-and-white photograph of Reagan posing cinematically, broad-shouldered in a white T- A Hollow shirt, leaning against a fence un- der a cloudless sky. Reagan is on the book, but Reagan is not in the book—the man simply is not there. Man Instead of a biography, Spitz has written a work of history, or rather Reagan: An American Journey pause in midsentence and audibly a series of works of history, extraor- By Bob Spitz turn over a page of typescript.…For dinarily detailed and sometimes Penguin, 880 pages Michael Reagan, it was the high- interesting accounts of a number school graduation day his father of 20th-century episodes that had Reviewed by greeted him with ‘My name is Ron- Ronald Reagan at their center. Kevin D. Williamson ald Reagan. What’s yours?’…He Some of these are quite good. I trusted [Nancy’s] superior judg- cannot remember having read an ONALD REAGAN is ment of people but hardly ever account of the 1980 primary and inaccurately remem- asked her political advice; he did general-election campaign quite bered as a warm not even consult her about run- so rollicking or engaging. Spitz man,” biographer Ed- ning for the presidency.” has a perdurable interest in and mund Morris wrote Morris’s essay is titled “The Un- tolerance for gossip and back-bit- ‘Rin the New Yorker in 2004, but he knowable,” and now the difficult ing—score-settling among figures was something closer to the oppo- task of trying to know Ronald Rea- who already have been forgotten site—closed, cool, self-contained. gan and to help others to know him by almost everyone outside of “Sooner or later, every would-be has been taken up by Bob Spitz, a the world of political nerdery or intimate (including his four chil- biographer of celebrities including who are on their way toward it— dren, Maureen, Michael, Patti, and Julia Child, the Beatles, and Bob which invests the work with the Ron) discovered that the only hu- Dylan. He is also the author of a character sometimes described as man being Reagan truly cared book about the Woodstock festival. “dishy.” Which is not to say that about (after his mother died) was Which is to say, he is a man who has these data and observations are Nancy. For [Senator Paul] Laxalt, spent many years and much effort trivial; Ronald Reagan was one of disillusionment came when the documenting the middle-ish part the most consequential men of his president called to thank him for of the 20th century from the oppo- time, and within all this he-said/ his campaign help in 1984, only to site side of the cultural divide that she-said (the principal she being separated Ronald Reagan, the erst- Mrs. Reagan), there are bits that Kevin D. Williamson is while New Deal Democrat, from are new and interesting, the sum the roving correspondent at National the increasingly radicalized Demo- of which will contribute meaning- Review. cratic Party that began to emerge in fully toward the project of bringing
42 Politics & Ideas : November 2018
Politics&Ideas.indd 42 10/15/18 1:26 PM the remote Ronald Reagan a little sionable Reagan getting “fired up closer to our understanding. Spitz with a fervent ideology that was If Spitz is incapable of compre- i informing every aspect of his life.” hending President Reagan, it is be- assumes He writes: “Conservative journals cause he does not comprehend why ‘the failure of like National Review, the Freeman, Reagan desired to enter politics in and Human Events fed his groan- the first place or what he hoped to ac- Reaganomics,’ ing prejudice against government complish—which is a severe disabili- bloat and excessive regulations.” ty for the would-be biographer. Spitz meaning that The stupidity of these sentences is has Jonathan Franzen’s problem, the the economic remarkable to see in print. Surely one revealed so plainly in the novel an opposition to bloat in govern- Freedom: He wants to write about record of the ment and a distaste for excessive conservatives and conservatism, but Reagan years regulation is something other than he is unwilling or unable to do the “groaning prejudice,” whatever that work of learning about them. In is not only one participle and noun together hope the same way that Franzen failed of failure but to mean. Spitz goes on to argue in his fiction, Spitz offers up to his on the next page that Reagan “op- readers a risible, cartoonish version one of obvious posed JFK’s beneficence,” though it of Reagan’s thinking, that of a man failure, which is seems unlikely that Reagan would who began with nothing (or worse have opposed it if he had thought than nothing, in the case of Reagan, contrary to the it was beneficence and not some- who was cursed with a deadbeat data. thing else. He repeats the myth that father) and made something of him- Reagan’s “welfare queens” were the self, largely through his own effort. product of his imagination rather And Spitz comes to believe that than actual people involved in ac- bootstraps are the beginning and the gan to reclaim its self-respect; the tual welfare fraud. In fact, Reagan’s end of the story. “His own up-from- Great Society, and Lyndon John- anecdotal Cadillac-driving welfare the-bootstraps story had left him son’s broader agenda, coincided fraudster was named Linda Taylor; with disdain for those who couldn’t with the unpopular misadventure she lived in Chicago, was charged manage the same feat.” in Vietnam, a period during which with fraud, was involved in some Of course that isn’t the case: Rea- the nation grew to doubt itself and kidnappings, and may also have gan was frank about the help he’d when patriotism was held up for been mixed up in a murder. Recent received along the way, and it was ridicule. That the welfare initiatives inspector-general estimates of “im- the New Deal that really brought and the wars were largely separate proper payments” in the Tempo- him to politics. Reagan and those phenomena is immaterial to the rary Assistance to Needy Families around him distinguished between way their respective eras sit on the program run as high as 40 percent, programs designed to provide tem- national mind historically. though many of those improper porary assistance and those that by As Spitz notes, Reagan was not payments are bureaucratic errors design or by bureaucratic inertia much of a historian and was not rather than intentional fraud. became instruments of open-ended inclined toward heavy analytical Worse than Spitz’s shallowness dependency. thinking, but there was a great deal is his mind-reading. He catalogues That distinction in Reagan’s more to his thought than general- Reagan’s purported sins: “His lack mind, and in the minds of many of izing from his own personal expe- of empathy for those in desperate his generation, may not have been rience. He was a dedicated reader financial straits and for AIDS vic- entirely a matter of program design. of the conservative political jour- tims, the supply-side Reaganomics, There are two halves to the welfare- nalism of his time and of libertari- the punitive ‘war on drugs,’ the warfare state, and the New Deal had an-oriented political essays, and he reckless spending on the military, better luck than did the Great Soci- understood Communism abroad stratospheric budget deficits, the ety: Franklin Roosevelt’s welfare- and statism at home to be expres- implausibility of the Strategic De- state initiative is conjoined in the sions of the same tendency toward fense Initiative, Bitburg…” American mind with World War II, centralization and regimentation “Empathy” is of course a lit- the good war, a period during which at the expense of the individual. erary device rather than an ac- the Depression-battered nation be- For Spitz, this is just the impres- tual human experience (I suppose
Commentary 43
Politics&Ideas.indd 43 10/15/18 1:26 PM Spitz means “sympathy,” or that sected to some interest, with Rea- It is mysterious why Spitz would he does not know the difference), gan’s attempt to make nice being put in so much obvious labor to pro- but knowing whether Reagan felt hilariously misconstrued by the duce a book that, while full of anec- something for the destitute or for former president, who apparently dote and detail, is hollow at its core. those stricken with AIDS requires thought that Reagan was serious There is a great deal of stuff in this knowing things that are: 1) not about bringing him back into the supposed portrait of this “American obviously knowable, having to do White House as a vice president journey,” but very little of Reagan, with the internal condition of the and “co-president.” either the man or his ideals.q man’s soul, and 2) contrary to the public record, as Peter Huber’s reporting in City Journal on the Reagan administration’s actual response to AIDS demonstrates. Crazy Brash Spitz assumes facts not in evi- dence, apparently in order to pad out a thin paragraph. As for the rest of it, Spitz as- Asians sumes “the failure of Reaganom- ics,” that the economic record of the Reagan years is not only one of The Souls of Yellow Folk columnist for Tablet, places “Paper failure but one of obvious failure, By Wesley Yang Tigers” as the second essay in his which is contrary to the data. Up W.W. Norton & Co., stunning collection, The Souls of for debate? Of course. But with 40 256 pages Yellow Folks. Like many of the other percent real GDP growth, the Rea- essays and articles, it is doubly gan years saw what amounted to Reviewed by Elliot Kaufman bold: a cold shower of analysis that the addition of a second California will jolt readers out of sentimental- to the U.S. economy. The Strategic N “UNDERCURRENT ity, and an arresting personal testi- Defense Initiative that he calls of racial panic” lurks mony that must arouse sympathy. “implausible” laid the foundations in American discus- It is part sociological investigation for what is—right now—a national sions of Asians, re- of the end of Asian “immigrant missile-defense system of “dem- ports Wesley Yang in forbearance” and part manifesto. It onstrated capability,” in the words Ahis National Magazine Award–win- begins with an accusation: of the Pentagon’s chief weapons ning essay, “Paper Tigers.” It’s not tester. This is shallow stuff and by just the rise of China. Every Prize Day Here is what I sometimes sus- far the worst part of the book. It is at your kid’s school, you hear the pect my face signifies to other sloppy writing, sloppy research, names that are called, and you fear Americans: an invisible person, and sloppy thinking. their Tiger Moms and Dads have barely distinguishable from a The book is at its best when it outclassed you. But more important, mass of faces that resemble it. sticks to straightforward report- what of their children, the impassive A conspicuous person standing ing. A chapter called “The Big faces that rise to collect the awards? apart from the crowd and yet Mo,” in which Spitz follows Rea- “What of the Asian American who devoid of any individuality. An gan through the primaries, offers obeyed everything his parents told icon of so much that the culture interesting perspectives on the him?” Yang asks. “Does this person pretends to honor but that it sundry pissing contests within the really scare anyone?” in fact patronizes and exploits. campaign and the role of the West No, and neither did the Chinese Not just people “who are good Coast money men who had been kids who knocked me out of com- at math” and play the violin, trying to figure out what to make petitive chess in middle school. But but a mass of stifled, repressed, of Reagan—and how to make use now that I’m a writer, Wesley Yang abused, conformist quasi-ro- of him—since 1968, when Reagan strikes fear into my heart. Yang, a bots who simply do not matter, and the country were spared a socially or culturally. candidacy for which he was not yet Elliot Kaufman is the Joseph prepared. Reagan’s odd relation- Rago Memorial Fellow at the Wall Asians are not white enough to ship with Gerald Ford is also dis- Street Journal. be treated as true individuals, Yang
44 Politics & Ideas : November 2018
Politics&Ideas.indd 44 10/15/18 1:26 PM Ever watchful for soothing lies, explains in the book’s introduc- STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, tion, but they are also denied the Yang wonders if our societies have MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION Title of Publication: Commentary. 2. Publication No.: 125- right to feel aggrieved, unlike other anything to offer these people, any- 220. 3. Filing Date: September 27 2018. 4. Issue Frequency: Monthly (except combined July/August issue). 5. No. of minority groups. Their material thing at all. Issues Published Annually: 11. 6. Annual Subscription Price: $45.00. 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of and educational success is used to Take the Asian Virginia Tech Publication: 561 Seventh Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10018. 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or waive that away. Held back by a shooter, whom Yang analyzes in General Business Office of Publisher: Same. 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and white corporate culture on one side his essay, “The Face of Seung-Hui Managing Editor: Publisher: Carol Moskot, 561 Seventh Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10018; Editor: John and affirmative action on the other, Cho.” Instead of turning to rancor- Podhoretz, 561 Seventh Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10018; Managing Editor: Abe Greenwald, 561 Seventh Avenue, they know some of the resentments ous identity politics, which would 16th Floor, New York, NY 10018. 10. Owner: Commentary Inc. 561 Seventh Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10018. 11. of both minorities and whites. have channelled his pain and Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of This lends Asians a unique narcissism in a way that our so- Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None. 12. Tax Status role in America. Marginal, to be ciety increasingly accommodates, (for completion by nonprofit organizations authorized to mail at nonprofit rates). The purpose, function, and nonprofit sure, but also central, and maybe Cho chose an “impossible” class status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 even universal, Yang speculates. consciousness, prefiguring the alt- Months. 13. Publication Title: Commentary. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: September 2018. 15. Extent and It is here that Yang’s title becomes right. He saw himself, in Yang’s Nature of Circulation. a. Total Number of Copies (Net press run): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 more than cute. Similar to W.E.B. words, “as a warrior on behalf of Months: 14,769 No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 14,349 b. Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside Du Bois regarding black Ameri- every lonely invisible human being the Mail) (1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above cans, Yang believes the Asian ex- in America.” nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: perience—and even “Asian,” Yang Impossible, Yang thinks, because 11,070 No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 10,584 (2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated argues persuasively, is not a par- from pornography to drug addic- on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): Average ticular enough term—can offer a tion, our society endlessly distracts No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 0, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: window into the American experi- the “undernourished human soul.” 0. (3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales ence, and broaden it, making it Amid sexual freedom—which didn’t Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS®: Average more humane. But “that lies at the level sexual hierarchies but ratio- No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 1,407, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: end of a cultural project that has nalized them—these suffering peo- 1,367. (4) Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS (e.g. First-Class Mail®): Average No. Copies Each scarcely even begun,” he sighs. ple cannot organize without self- Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 804, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 830 c. Total Paid Yang departs from Du Bois in incriminating. Many of the ones Distribution (Sum of 15b (1), (2), (3), and (4): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 13,281, No. his ambivalence toward the obliga- who shamelessly organized anyway Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 12,781. d. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (By Mail and Outside tions of the minority artist to his were vicious and full of hate. the Mail) (1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541: Average No. Copies Each Issue group. He can use the Asian “we” Maybe we’ve all become shame- During Preceding 12 Months: 100, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 100 (2) Free or Nominal with force and credibility, but more less. Yang’s incisive review of the Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541: Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 0, No. commonly he goes with “I.” Though anonymous “sex diaries” published Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 0. estranged, Yang does not abandon on New York magazine’s website (3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS (e.g. First-Class Mail): Average No. Copies his people. Rather, he calls on diagnoses the casual trauma of dat- Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 0, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 0. (4) Free or them to be individuals, bold and ing. “There is a certain pride in un- Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 unbowed. Yang celebrates colorful derstanding the limits of a transac- Months: 0, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 0. e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution troublemakers who are done wait- tion,” he observes, and “a certain (Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3), and (4): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding ing and now punch through the callousness toward the merchan- 12 Months: 100. No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 100. f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e): “bamboo ceiling” that allows them dise is an unavoidable side effect Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 13,381, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing to succeed as Asians in America, of entering a marketplace as both Date: 12,881. g. Copies Not Distributed (See Instructions to Publishers #4 [page #3]): Average No. Copies Each Issue but only so far. What is to be done? buyer and seller.” In our struggle During Preceding 12 Months: 1,388, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 1,468. h. Total (Sum of 15f Wesley Yang has an answer: Asians to never run out of options and to and g): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 14,769 No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest must assert themselves and “dare never be made to look naive—to to Filing Date: 14,349. i. Percent Paid (15c divided by 15f times to be interesting.” stay in control—we no longer no- 100): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 99.3%, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest The Souls of Yellow Folk also tice that we treat our temporary to Filing Date: 99.2%. 16. Electronic Copy Circulation: a. Paid Electronic Copies: Average No. Copies Each Issue During tackles the interaction of sexual partners like something less than Preceding 12 Months: 16,206, No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 16,657. b. Total Paid Print liberation with Internet technol- human beings; after all, we’ve been Copies (Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 29,487. ogy, as well as the escalation of treated that way ourselves. No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 29,438. c. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid Electronic social-justice rhetoric. In address- Yang extends that analysis in my Copies (Line 16a): Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 29,587. No. Copies of Single Issue ing both, he treats the challenges favorite of his essays, “Game Theory.” Published Nearest to Filing Date: 29,538. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c X 100): Average of the marginal “loser”—to be Reviewing “seduction” books, he No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 99.7. No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: recognized, to be equal, or to get a reaches a shocking conclusion: The 99.7%. I certify that all information furnished on this form date—with sympathy and urgency. pickup artists are on to something. is true and complete. Carol Moskot, Publisher
Commentary 45
Politics&Ideas.indd 45 10/15/18 1:26 PM “The Game players made explicit the become cold, commitment-averse, the identity politickers of the left workings of a new sexual economy,” manipulating self-maximizers—in from within their own tribe. “The he writes. By formally disaggregat- short, monstrous—in order to win. intellectual temptations I am try- ing sex from love, family, and feeling, So don’t hate the players or the ing to combat are temptations I these Lotharios “disclosed with un- Game, but instead “the world for have experienced regularly myself,” usual clarity the nature of the larger which it is a useful guide.” he writes. Fans of identity politics game we all play: one in which each Here Yang sounds most like often dismiss prominent critics as player gives what he must and takes New York Times columnist Ross a cast of conservative reactionar- what he can.” Douthat, the type of conservative ies tacitly defending their own When relationships become ra- who admires Christopher Lasch. identities’ interests. This argument tional calculations in which part- One suspects that Yang was a con- can’t be levelled at Appiah, a gay ners expect to stay together only servative of the left, like Lasch, and man of color, a self-described cos- until they get better offers, it is hurt- is now one of the center. Either mopolitan, a left-winger, and an or-be-hurt, Yang explains. The pick- way, it doesn’t matter. He is one immigrant. Of course, nobody us- up artists, who started off harmless of the most interesting writers in ing a sane standard to judge ideas nerds, had to teach themselves to America today.q should require certain identities of their author as a kind of credential. But then, if everyone were using a sane standard, we wouldn’t need books like this. Appiah begins by laying out a ID Canard theory of how people get identity classifications wrong. In each cat- The Lies That Bind: tails of who needs to be afforded egory of identity, he says, there is a Rethinking Identity protection from oppression. But view that what defines the groups By Kwame Anthony Appiah they agree about the principle that is something real, something out Liveright, 256 pages there is something real and impor- there. Naive critics of religions tant to the idea of group demo- think that it is scripture that makes Reviewed by graphic identities—that “at the up what a religion is about, but this Nicholas Clairmont core of each identity there is some misunderstands the role of ritual deep similarity that binds people of and community in creeds and what DENTITY ISSUES are now that identity together.” creeds are actually for. Nationalists firmly at the center of Ameri- That quote is a description of are convinced that their nation is a can life. For the left, every- identity essentialism from the new real historical group tied to some thing you say, you say “as a…” book The Lies That Bind: Rethink- territory, though in many cases, At magazines and newspa- ing Identity, by New York Universi- that history is recent and that terri- I pers, identity is now a coverage ty professor of philosophy and law tory changes. In our thinking about area that demands a whole section, Kwame Anthony Appiah. “I’ve set what makes races different, Appiah usually with a growing staff. Uni- myself the task in this book of dis- says, “too many of us remain cap- versities have created majors spe- cussing some of the ideas that have tive to a perilous cartography of cializing in identity and staffed di- shaped the modern rise of iden- color.” versity offices with their graduates. tity and trying to see some of the This brings Appiah to his posi- On the twisted version of a right mistakes we regularly make about tive theory of identity. He argues promulgated by the likes of Steve identities more clearly,” writes Ap- that even though science and his- Bannon and Richard Spencer, we piah. Essentialism, he finds, is the tory have no hard and true facts find the same obsession with iden- worst and most common of these to point to when questioned about tity in photo-negative. Ethno-na- mistakes. what makes someone Serbian or tionalists and their fellow travelers It’s a timely project, with the black or Hindu, two things remain. disagree with the left about the de- left retreating ever further behind No. 1 is the labels themselves. If identitarian slogans and leading people agree enough about what Nicholas Clairmont is a debates that yield more polariza- they intend to convey by using the freelance writer. This is his first ap- tion than persuasion. It is promis- word “Serbian,” that in itself grants pearance in Commentary. ing, then, that Appiah is addressing power to Serbian identity, even
46 Politics & Ideas : November 2018
Politics&Ideas.indd 46 10/15/18 1:26 PM if the semantics of the word have lightest attack on the ideas that some technical problems. No. 2 is The push people toward tribalism and that identities “matter to people.” i away from liberal individualism. This can have its benefits. “Having book And what he leaves unquestioned an identity can give you a sense of is really a is the most important stuff: Should how you fit into the social world,” identities matter? What, if any- Appiah writes. But it also has con- battle cry for thing, conceptually links different sequences. It’s all well and good kinds of demographic group identi- to know that scientific racism is the moral ties, such as “Pakistani” and “male” nonsense, but that doesn’t matter superiority and “Roman Catholic”? What sepa- much when a racist is assaulting a rates these demographic group black person he’s convinced is his of liberalism, identities from other meaningful inferior. inter- classifications for types of people, After this initial theorizing that such as “orphan” or “philosopher” identities are as linguistically and nationalism, or “believer in UFOs”? Are some socially important as they are phil- and universal identities (such as gay) worth cel- osophically shaky, Appiah takes ebrating, while others (such as to the specifics. With one chapter humanity. But Aryan) are not? Is the distinction for each of five types of identity— the battle cry is between the genders different or creed, country, color, class, and somehow more real than the dis- culture—he intersperses examples disguised, and tinction between races? Is political from his own background and from it cannot be. affiliation a matter of identity, and poetry and literature to tell a story was it always so? Do people take about what the prevailing view is part in identity groups primarily and how it is wrong. And here the in order to place themselves inside book stalls. It is so caveated, so fact that they have that supposed a group, or in order to place others self-consciously subtle, so couched ancestry in common,” Appiah tells outside the group? in charming anecdotes and high- us, addressing the question about These are just some of the time- brow literary references that it’s the relationship between ethnic- ly, important, and intellectually in- hard to imagine anyone changing ity and nationhood raised by the teresting questions about identity his thinking after putting it down. fact that, say, Ireland is a nation that Appiah doesn’t get around to A leftist identitarian could easily but Greater Celtland is not. And, rethinking. read the whole book without quite he adds soon after, “what others The book is really a battle gleaning that he is being attacked outside the group think is impor- cry for the moral superiority of save for in one short section that tant, too. Identity...is negotiated liberalism, internationalism, and criticizes the notion of cultural ap- between insiders and outsiders.” universal humanity. But the battle propriation. Can Appiah’s whole point really be cry is disguised, and it cannot be. Appiah’s own background is a “look, these are dumb ideas, but Appiah seems to want to fight the genuinely interesting and richly they’re dumb ideas people have”? identitarian mode of thinking and examined one, but he leans on it Still, Appiah does know how to arguing, but only so far as fighting too much. It often feels as if he is assemble a stylish sentence. And he it doesn’t take him uncomfortably reminding his leftist readers that does a much better job than most out of the bounds of acceptable he is Ghanaian in order to head off academics at avoiding technical discourse in the worlds of NYU and any offense that they might take— jargon. When a phrase like “estab- the New York Times. That isn’t very which isn’t questioning identity lish some normative significance far, so he pulls punches. Which politics; it’s acceding to it. And if for the shared label” slips through, tells you everything you need to personal narrative is laid on thick, the reason you notice is that most know about the book, and every- the philosophical criticism of iden- of the other prose is so good. And thing you need to know about its tity discourse is ultimately quite the closing section, in which he media-savvy author. This in turn thin. Take his discussion of nation- drops some of the pretense and tells you everything you need to alism: “A nation is a group of people simply argues for the center to hold know about the self-censorious who think of themselves as sharing against identity radicalism, shines. workings of today’s incendiary dis- ancestry and also care about the Still, the book makes only the course on identity.q
Commentary 47
Politics&Ideas.indd 47 10/15/18 1:26 PM devaluing it.” It is easy to see how the Trump phenomenon might fit into Stanley’s working definition of fascist politics. Not So In fact, it’s too easy. Stanley relies heavily on evi- dence from social psychology, a field currently going through an Fascist epistemic crisis in which results often fail to replicate. So when he claims that “there already is a How Fascism Works: tellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, strong in-built bias toward forget- The Politics of Us and Them victimhood, law and order, sexual ting and minimizing problematic By Jason Stanley anxiety, appeals to the heartland, acts one’s in-group committed in Random House, 240 pages and a dismantling of public wel- the past,” or that “those who ben- fare and unity. The second of these, efit from inequalities are often Reviewed by Oliver Traldi propaganda, seems to be Stanley’s burdened by certain illusions that true area of expertise. Just three prevent them from recognizing the OW SHOULD WE years ago, he wrote a book entitled contingency of their privilege,” it’s think about the can- How Propaganda Works. His the- hard to know whether he himself didacy and presi- sis was that everyone involved in is engaging in “manipulative ex- dency of Donald politics engages in propaganda, pertise,” a charge he levels at his Trump? What trends and that what differentiates good opponents. H and concepts are important for propaganda from bad propaganda The chapter on the fascist love understanding them? In How Fas- is whether it is being used for good for the heartland and its concomi- cism Works, Jason Stanley at- or bad ends—to promote liberal de- tant hatred of urbanites closes tempts to make a scholarly argu- mocracy or to promote some other with survey data: When faced with ment that, given the history of “dysfunctional ideology.” the question of whether poverty is fascist tactics, the past three years For the other nine tactics, Stan- more often the result of an indi- make up a moment of fascist poli- ley distinguishes the good from the vidual’s lack of effort or of exter- tics. The book is not intended to bad by what he describes vaguely nal circumstances, 49 percent of reflect and capitalize on popular as “understanding the dynamics country-dwellers and 37 percent hysteria about Trump. Whether or of power.” He writes, “Oppres- of city-dwellers choose the former, not it ultimately distinguishes it- sion is a powerful motivation for while 46 percent of country-dwell- self in this way is another matter. action, but the questions of who ers and 56 percent of city-dwellers Stanley, a professor of philoso- is wielding it when, under what choose the latter. Stanley takes this phy at Yale, provides a highly gen- context and against whom, remain to be “a particularly large gulf” of eral account of what fascist politics eternally crucial.” This framework opinion. But it’s patently not. It’s entails. He aims to paint a picture is reminiscent of the Bolshevist a small gap. And in making it out that’s vivid enough to be helpful slogan “Who, whom?” which im- to be larger than it is, doesn’t Stan- in identifying fascist moments but plied that politics is not about prin- ley himself fall into an “us versus abstract enough to be applicable ciples but about group struggles them” trap—turning a statistical across changing historical condi- for dominance. Among Stanley’s proclivity into a regional essence, a tions, which he says ultimately insights about fascism are that reason to treat ruralites as “other”? determine “the regimes [that fas- it is rooted in nations, not states, There is a larger problem with cists] enact.” and that it builds from a sense of Stanley’s book. It’s that his theories The book breaks fascism down victimhood. At the same time, he have little to do with fascism. The into 10 political tactics: appeal to a writes, “the nationalism that arises tactics he describes are common mythic past, propaganda, anti-in- from oppression, is not fascist to all political movements, even in origin.…despite appearances to explicitly anti-fascist ones, and Oliver Traldi is a graduate the contrary, equality is its goal.” the dangers he perceives in these student in philosophy at the Uni- We also read that “fascist politics tactics are precisely what we see versity of Notre Dame. targets expertise, mocking and in the current “everything is po-
48 Politics & Ideas : November 2018
Politics&Ideas.indd 48 10/15/18 1:26 PM litical” culture. Ultimately, Stanley often so outlandish that they can has written a book about politics, How hardly be expected to be literally not about fascism. He draws on a i believed.” His explanatory theory wide range of examples, allowing Fascism about their effectiveness requires in only enough detail to make his Works is that they be believed, but his de- argument and eschewing what scriptive theory about what they does not fit. In this way, he makes fascinating actually are requires that they not sure that the political movements be believed. On closer examina- he endorses are excluded from the because it tion, his own theory looks like the charge of fascism and the political enacts what outlandish one. movements he despises are includ- As the book nears its end, Stan- ed in the charge. it describes: ley broadens the scope of his “fas- Stanley sometimes goes to bi- the difficulty cism” charge. He writes: “The fas- zarre lengths to associate Trump- cist vision of individual freedom is ism with fascism. In the book’s of engaging similar to the libertarian notion of introduction, he castigates Steve politically individual rights.…When voters in a Bannon for his remark about the democratic society yearn for a CEO era to come: “‘It will be as excit- without as president, they are responding to ing as the 1930s.’ In short, the era demonizing their own implicit fascist impulses.” when the United States had the This is ridiculous, and the idea most sympathy for fascism.” Here one’s of “implicit fascist impulses” that is some of the surrounding con- opponents. must be constantly searched out, text of Bannon’s comment, from interrogated, and catalogued has a Hollywood Reporter interview: itself the feel of totalitarianism—the “I’m the guy pushing a trillion- feel of a Communist “struggle ses- dollar infrastructure plan.…Ship- counter such rhetoric with reason sion.” But it’s also a shift from Stan- yards, ironworks…Conservatives, is akin to using a pamphlet against ley’s stated purpose of investigating plus populists, in an economic a pistol.” But, of course, it is sim- fascist political tactics rather than nationalist movement.” Bannon is ply using one pamphlet against fascist policies. clearly referring to Roosevelt-style another. How Fascism Works is fasci- projects like the Works Progress Despite all his charges that nating because it enacts what it Administration. Is Stanley calling fascist politics threatens reasoned describes: the difficulty of engag- the progressive hero Roosevelt a discourse, Stanley thinks that ing politically without demonizing fascist? No. But just what he is do- some beliefs are per se so ridicu- one’s opponents, without making ing is not quite clear. lous that instead of engaging with them out to be fundamentally dif- Also troubling is Stanley’s anal- the believers in a reasonable way, ferent from oneself. That its author ysis of truth and debate. In criti- we should diagnose them and of- is clearly sensitive to this difficulty cizing the “marketplace of ideas” fer psychological theories. So it’s makes its failures all the more argument for free speech, he notes fascist when someone threatens evocative. Stanley writes passion- that “the utopian assumption is reasoned discourse about your ately about injustices throughout that conversation works by ex- own beliefs, and it is fascist to en- history, especially injustices that change of reasons…until the truth tertain reasoned discourse about took place in Nazi Germany and ultimately emerges.” He contin- someone else’s beliefs? That’s quite those that he perceives to be taking ues: “But conversation is not just a paradox. And the psychological place in the United States today. used to communicate information. theories on offer are not particu- But it is easy to extend his outline Conversation is also used to shut larly coherent. For instance, Stan- to the movements he takes such out perspectives, raise fears, and ley writes that “conspiracy theories great pains to distinguish from heighten prejudice.” Maybe so, but are effective…because they provide fascism. Politics is ugly, and it has if all we hear in disagreement is simple explanations for otherwise the power to make us ugly, too, if these malign purposes we ascribe irrational emotions, such as re- we don’t watch very closely. Under to our political enemies, we will sentment or xenophobic fear in a certain interpretation, How Fas- end up having no conversations at the face of perceived threats,” but cism Works manages to show us all. He concludes: “Attempting to also that “conspiracy theories [are] just how ugly it can get.q
Commentary 49
Politics&Ideas.indd 49 10/15/18 1:26 PM DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET THE IPAD EDITION OF Commentary FOR FREE? YES! YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO COMMENTARY INCLUDES IPAD ACCESS Choose from either Commentary Complete or Commentary Digital and you’ll get 24/7 access to the iPad edition. All for one low price of $19.99! SUBSCRIBE ONLINE AT COMMENTARYMAGAZINE.COM/SUBSCRIBE Commentary
C&C .indd 50 10/15/18 1:27 PM Culture & Civilization
The Swinging Star
Why is Bing by recorded 396 hit singles, 41 of his permanent significance as an Crosby forgotten? which topped the charts—yet only artist. Despite certain shortcom- one, his 1942 “creator recording” of ings, A Pocketful of Dreams: The By Terry Teachout Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” Early Years, 1903–1940 was gener- the bestselling record of all time, ally and, for the most part, justly N THE 41 YEARS since he continues to be heard regularly. He praised. Had Giddins brought out dropped dead on a golf was also the most popular movie a second volume with sufficient DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET course at the age of 74, Bing star in the world for five consecu- promptness, he might well have Crosby has become the for- tive years between 1944 and 1948, a accomplished his goal. But as the gotten giant of American record topped only by Tom Cruise— years went by without a sequel, THE IPAD EDITION OF Commentary I popular culture. Among millenni- yet few of the four dozen feature Crosby’s reputation all but van- als, he is barely even a name, even films in which he starred are still ished into the grave along with the though he was the most successful shown with any frequency on TV, last living veterans of World War II, and influential pop singer of the and most of those, like Holiday Inn among whom he was so admired FOR FREE? first half of the 20th century. Cros- (1942) and High Society (1956), are that it was no exaggeration that his mainly remembered for the pres- otherwise modest tombstone de- Terry Teachout, Commen- ence of such co-stars as Fred scribes him as “beloved by all.” tary’s critic-at-large and the dra- Astaire and Frank Sinatra. Even so, Giddins persevered, YES! YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO COMMENTARY ma critic of the Wall Street Journal, The jazz critic Gary Giddins and he has now given us Swinging is the author of Pops: A Life of Louis sought to change this by publish- on a Star: The War Years, 1940– INCLUDES IPAD ACCESS Armstrong (2009) and Duke: A Life ing in 2001 the first installment 1946, which will presumably be fol- Choose from either Commentary Complete or Commentary Digital and of Duke Ellington (2013). Satchmo of a multivolume primary-source lowed at some unknown point in at the Waldorf, his 2011 play about biography whose purpose was to the future by a third volume.* But you’ll get 24/7 access to the iPad edition. All for one low price of $19.99! Armstrong, has been produced off reintroduce Crosby to modern lis- SUBSCRIBE ONLINE AT COMMENTARYMAGAZINE.COM/SUBSCRIBE Broadway and throughout America. teners and make the case for * Little, Brown, 736 pages
Commentary Commentary 51
C&C .indd 51 10/15/18 1:27 PM while A Pocketful of Dreams cov- successful as a recording artist and ered a 37-year span, Swinging on a By 1931, a star of film and radio that in 1933 Star devotes a like amount of space i he stopped performing in front of to the next six years of Crosby’s Crosby live audiences, thereafter concen- life—eventful ones, to be sure, but was America’s trating on his burgeoning career in not so much so that it would have the electronic media. been impossible to tell their tale far biggest singing Throughout the ’30s, Crosby’s more concisely. on-screen persona was that of a lik- The fact that Crosby had three sensation. able but unscrupulous scapegrace simultaneous careers—as pop CBS gave him whose casual charm made him ir- singer, movie star, and host of a resistible to women. But there had weekly radio series—and an event- his own radio always been more to his artistry— ful private life makes his story show, and for as well as to his off-stage personal- difficult to tell in a coherent way. ity. Classically educated by Jesuits, And while it is a tribute to Gid- most of the next he was intelligent, well-read, and dins’s literary skill that A Pocketful quarter-century devoutly religious, and his intense, of Dreams and Swinging on a Star expansive 1932 recording of E.Y. are consistently readable, it is no he would be Harburg’s “Brother, Can You Spare less true that he has a tendency to heard weekly a Dime?” is one of many perfor- let the piling of fact upon fact ob- mances from the ’30s that do far scure the main line of his 700-page from coast to more than hint at the passion that narrative. coast. underlay his deceptive noncha- Still, readers who want to know lance. He also had an iron will that as much about Crosby as Gary gave him what he described in Call Giddins wishes to tell us—among Me Lucky, his 1953 memoir, as “the whom I count myself—will find be heard on the records of Jerome habit of facing whatever fate set in Swinging on a Star a compelling Kern’s “Ol’ Man River” and “Make my path, squarely, with a cold blue study of the middle years of a pop- Believe” (both from Show Boat) eye.” This coldness was invariably ular artist who by the end of the that he cut with Whiteman in mentioned by those who, having Second World War was so closely 1928. In addition, his microphone- met Crosby, were startled by how identified with the American na- amplified baritone voice was un- distant he was in person. As for his tional character that he seemed to abashedly masculine at a time will, it was so strong, he was able embody it. when most male pop singers were, to bring under unaided control the like Rudy Vallée, effete-sounding taste for liquor that had pushed N HIS YOUTH, as Giddins tenors. him as a young man to the brink of explains in A Pocketful of This combination of traits elec- alcoholism. IDreams, Bing Crosby had been trified his listeners. By 1931, Crosby None of these qualities, how- a jazz singer, one of the very first— was America’s biggest singing sen- ever, are apparent in Crosby’s work and very best. As a member of Paul sation, adored by the public and as an actor prior to World War II, Whiteman’s orchestra, with which admired by musicians. In that by which time he had starred in he performed from 1926 to 1930, same year, CBS gave him his own two dozen feature films, all of them Crosby listened closely and com- radio show, and for most of the next fluffy comedies. And while he also prehendingly to Bix Beiderbecke quarter-century he would be heard became the host of NBC’s Kraft and other noted white jazzmen, weekly from coast to coast. At the Music Hall in 1936, that hugely and he was also profoundly influ- same time, he began to appear in popular weekly radio series was a enced by Louis Armstrong, who movies, revealing himself to be a music-oriented program that is of was as important a vocalist as natural screen presence with a flair interest today mainly because he he was a trumpeter. Even when for comedy that compensated for performed many songs on the air Crosby sang the ballads that his his undistinguished physical ap- that he did not record commercial- fans increasingly favored, his still- pearance (he had a dumpy figure ly. It was in the recording studio developing style was notable for its and a receding hairline that forced that he made his most persuasive light-footed rhythmic swing and him to wear hats or a toupee in claims on the attention of poster- improvisational freedom, as can front of the camera). He became so ity—and that he first came into his
52 Culture & Civilization : November 2018
C&C .indd 52 10/15/18 1:27 PM own as a mature artist. In 1934, Crosby signed with Even He’s about the only singer I like. Decca, a new record label launched i I hate singers. They ought to by Jack Kapp, a producer with an though have on skirts. But not that guy. uncanny knack for gauging mass Crosby sang He’s got a real voice and I hear taste. Kapp believed that Crosby, he’s right all the way. popular as he already was, could well all the way become even more so if he down- It was for a similar reason that played the jazzy side of his singing, to the end of Crosby was welcomed so whole- opting instead for a simpler, more his life, his film heartedly by the frontline soldiers lyrical style and embarking on for whom he performed through- what Crosby later described as a career dried out World War II, not infrequently “diversified record program…that up in the mid- at real risk to his personal safety. embraced every type of music.” In Giddins’s astute assessment, Trusting in the sureness of Kapp’s ’50s and he “Bing expressed inborn virility, instincts, he put his recording ca- came to be seen secure and stoic…restraint carried reer in the producer’s hands. It was more weight [with the troops] than a decision he would never regret.* as a nostalgia amorous histrionics.” When those Along with the usual film, show, merchant, still same soldiers returned home after and Tin Pan Alley tunes, Crosby re- the war, they remained loyal to the corded an astonishingly wide vari- beloved but now man who had done so much to as- ety of other songs for Decca during irrelevant. suage their longing for the world the next two decades, among them they had left behind. “Blue Hawaii,” “Deep in the Heart While Crosby’s wartime bal- of Texas,” “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” ladry occasionally flirted with “Silent Night,” “Swing Low, Sweet While jazz would always remain blandness, it was just as often Chariot,” “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral part of Crosby’s singing style, his elegant and satisfyingly unman- (That’s an Irish Lullaby)” and voice grew deeper in the mid-’30s nered. Nowhere is the appeal of “Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie.” (in part as a direct result of vocal his new approach displayed to In addition to recording countless strain caused by overwork earlier more persuasive effect than on solo performances, he was teamed in the decade) as well as darker in his 1944 studio recording of “Out in the studio with a similarly wide tonal color, causing him to sound of This World,” a Harold Arlen– range of partners, including Arm- less like a teen idol of the Jazz Age Johnny Mercer ballad, which is strong, the Andrews Sisters, Con- and more like an adult singing for at once strikingly unsentimental nie Boswell, Eddie Condon, Xavier other Depression-era adults. Ac- and singularly beautiful. While his Cugat, Judy Garland, Louis Jordan, cordingly, he now took care to steer rich, solid tone and chiseled dic- Mary Martin, Johnny Mercer, and clear of overt emotionalism—he fa- tion “present” the song exactly as Les Paul. He became a one-man mously preferred not to sing songs written, he floats each successive musical melting pot, one whose whose lyrics contained the phrase I phrase atop the beat with a subtle distinctively American combina- love you—opting instead for a qui- rubato reminiscent of the playing tion of versatility and instant rec- et, contained understatement that of a great jazz instrumentalist like ognizability was a major source mirrored his natural reticence. Armstrong or Lester Young. of his fame. More than any other Unusually for pop singers of the This style, as Kapp predicted, popular artist before or since, he period, this combination of quali- appealed even more powerfully to was all things to all men, yet he ties was as attractive to men as it Crosby’s contemporaries than the resembled no one but himself. was to women. In Swinging on a unbuttoned singing of his youth. Star, Giddins cites a passage from But it took longer, as Giddins *Most of Crosby’s biggest hits for Decca W.R. Burnett’s 1940 crime novel chronicles in Swinging on a Star, are included in Bing: His Legendary Years 1931–57 (Geffen, four CDs). A representa- High Sierra in which Roy Earle, a for him to develop a screen per- tive selection of earlier sides can be found hard-boiled gangster portrayed on sona consistent with the newfound on Bing Crosby: 1926–1932 (Timeless). the screen by Humphrey Bogart, maturity of his singing. On the eve His rarely reissued 1944 performance of “Out of This World,” mentioned below, explains why he favors Crosby’s of World War II, his most popular can be heard on YouTube. “mellow baritone voice”: films were the frivolous “Road”
Commentary 53
C&C .indd 53 10/15/18 1:27 PM comedies that Crosby had inaugu- year by awarding him an Oscar as (and Jack Kapp) usually favored the rated with Bob Hope in 1940, for the best actor of 1944. bland backing of radio-style studio which he embodied yet another orchestras instead of the vibrant variation on the same insouciant O POPULAR artist stays at big-band-with-strings accompani- character he had been portraying the top of the heap forever. ments that were later crafted for on screen since 1931. NAfter the war, Crosby’s pop- Sinatra by Nelson Riddle. It was not until he teamed up ularity finally started to fade, in large Yet anyone prepared to listen with the director Leo McCarey to part because of the simultaneous through the old-fashioned sound make Going My Way (1944), in rise of Frank Sinatra. Rock ’n’ roll fin- of Crosby’s Decca recordings and which he played a genial but ished what Sinatra began, and even focus on the singer himself is more serious-minded priest who rescues though Crosby sang well all the way than likely to be astonished by his a foundering urban parish from to the end of his life, his film career unique blend of emotional delicacy bankruptcy, that he was given the dried up in the mid-’50s and he came and rhythmic poise. While many of opportunity to play a fully devel- to be seen as a nostalgia merchant, the records themselves, like most oped screen character who was still beloved but now irrelevant. of his films, have become period as mature as Crosby himself. In Unlike Sinatra, who remains an pieces, Crosby the artist remains the words of the film critic James icon two decades after his death, as accessible and vital as ever, so Agee, Father O’Malley was “a wise Crosby can sound on first glance much so as to put the attentive young priest whose arresting re- unreachably distant from us today. listener in mind of Artie Shaw’s oft- semblance to Bing Crosby never Not only do most listeners pre- quoted 1992 remark: “The thing obscures his essential power.” The fer the “confessional” approach of you have to understand about Bing result was a performance which Sinatra to his subdued restraint, Crosby is that he was the first hip disclosed for the first time that but Crosby’s records of the ’30s and white person born in the United Crosby had real acting talent, a rev- ’40s often lack the immediacy and States.” So he was—and that hip- elation to which Hollywood paid punch of Sinatra’s classic albums of ness, like Sinatra’s, remains undi- well-deserved tribute the following the ’50s and ’60s, mainly because he minished by the passing of time.q
How the rabbis of the Talmud transformed everything into a legal question—and Jewish law into a way of thinking and talking about everything
“ Chaim Saiman has written a genuinely enthralling book about a concept central to rabbinic Judaism: the study of Jewish law, not only as a guide to life but as ongoing encounter with the divine. A superb, much-needed, and enlightening work.” —Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
“ Halakhah not only succeeds wonderfully as an introductory text but brims with ideas, formulations, interpretations, and perspectives that will stimulate, enrich, and catalyze scholars as well. Saiman’s smart, comprehensive, and regularly brilliant book will stand as a significant contribution for some while to come.” —Yehudah Mirsky, Brandeis University
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DO NOT PRINT THIS INFORMATION COMMENTARY NOVEMBER 2018 19-165 54 Culture & Civilization : November 2018
C&C .indd 54 10/15/18 1:27 PM MEDIA COMMENTARY
continued from page 56 at the party,” they Acknowledging the weaknesses and lack of corrobora- wrote. “The magazine contacted several dozen class- tion in your story doesn’t make it stronger. mates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh regarding the inci- Once the New Yorker published its story, the Times dent. Many did not respond to interview requests; oth- felt no compunction about printing Ramirez’s allegations ers declined to comment, or said they did not attend or and deriving larger sociological meaning from them. On remember the party.” The exception was an unnamed September 25, came an article with four bylined names source who “said that he is ‘one-hundred-percent sure’ and six contributors noted at its conclusion entitled “In that he was told at the time that Kavanaugh was the a Culture of Privilege and Alcohol at Yale, Her World student who exposed himself to Ramirez.” If one of my Converged with Kavanaugh’s.” The lead: “Last week, more Free Beacon writers had come to me with these caveats, than 30 years after they graduated from Yale, Deborah I would have told her she had zilch. Ramirez contacted her old friend James Roche. Some- Just how weak was this story? The evening it was thing bad had happened to her during a night of drinking published, in the 16th paragraph of an article about in the residence hall their freshman year, she said, and she Ford’s agreement to testify before the Senate Judiciary wondered if he recalled her mentioning it at the time.” Committee, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos And guess what: He didn’t. No one else did, wrote the following in the New York Times: either. In an October 3 follow-up headlined, “The FBI The Times had interviewed several dozen Probe Ignored Testimonies from Former Classmates of people over the past week in an attempt to Kavanaugh,” Mayer and Farrow identified the anony- corroborate her [Ramirez’s] story, and could mous source who had recalled hearing of the incident find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. after it had happened. He is Kenneth G. Appold, the Ramirez herself contacted former Yale class- James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation His- mates asking if they recalled the incident and tory at Princeton Theological Seminary. told some of them that she could not be cer- tain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed Appold said that he initially asked to remain himself. anonymous because he hoped to make contact first with the classmate who, to the best of his That sound you hear is the Gray Lady telling recollection, told him about the party and was Eustace Tilley to talk to the hand. an eyewitness to the incident. He said that he Of course, after Republicans pointed out that the had not been able to get any response from New Yorker was the sole publication to run Ramirez’s that person, despite multiple attempts to do story, the journalist guild closed ranks and lauded Far- so. The New Yorker reached the classmate, but row and Mayer for admitting they had no supporting he said that he had no memory of the incident. evidence. “I gather some people thought we were try- ing to knock down her [Ramirez’s] account, but that’s Care to revise that “one-hundred-percent” cer- not what we were doing. I’m not questioning their tainty, Professor Appold? story. We’ve been competing against Ronan Farrow for Mayer and Farrow continue to defend their a year and he’s terrific,” Dean Baquet told Erik Wemple piece. “We try to be fair, accurate, and tough on all of the Washington Post. sides,” Mayer told the Washington Post. For his part, On September 24, Paul Farhi of the Washington Farrow told George Stephanopoulos, “We take report- Post wrote an article headlined, “The conservative ing of this type extremely seriously. The evidentiary conspiracy theory about the media and the Kavana- basis for this, and the number of witnesses who were ugh nomination has a few holes.” Farhi admitted, “To told at the time, is strong.” If you want to know why be sure, Ramirez’s allegations have some inherent the Fake News charge levied by Trump is sticking, weaknesses, most of which are acknowledged in the you need only look to the New Yorker. Yes, the New New Yorker article.” Memo to aspiring journalists: Yorker.q
Commentary 55
C&C .indd 55 10/15/18 1:27 PM MEDIA COMMENTARY The New Yorker’s Shocking Dereliction
MATTHEW CONTINETTI
ET’S PRETEND YOU are the editor of a maga- senators were growing leery of Kavanaugh. A second ac- zine. Two of your reporters say they’ve learned cuser might have defeated him altogether. Conservatives L of a woman who alleges that a prominent fretted as they awaited the New Yorker report. man exposed himself to her while the two were at a Then they read the article and anxiety turned party in a college dorm more than 30 years ago. Her into outrage. “Senate Democrats Investigate a New story isn’t ironclad: Her recollection is hazy because Allegation of Sexual Misconduct, from Brett Kavana- she had been drinking that night. She has been ask- ugh’s College Years” led with news that “at least two” ing longtime friends if they have any memory of the Democratic senators were investigating the charges event and has come up short. The man in question of Deborah Ramirez, a registered Democrat living in denies the allegation. No one seems to have any direct Colorado who “spent years working for an organiza- knowledge of what the accuser is talking about. There tion that supports victims of domestic violence” and is one gentleman who refuses to go on the record who had attended Yale at the same time as Kavanaugh. says he heard about the incident from another person “After six days of carefully assessing her memories sometime after it happened. Question: Do you run a and consulting with her attorney,” Farrow and Mayer piece without corroborating evidence, or do you tell wrote, “Ramirez said she felt confident enough of her your reporters to keep digging? recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh If you chose the second option, congratulations! had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, You have better judgment than the editor of the New thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it Yorker. Yes, as the old ad campaign had it: Yes, the New without her consent as she pushed him away.” Yorker. The New Yorker piece had all the signs of a hit The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Su- job. Co-author Mayer, a notorious lefty, had previously preme Court was already in jeopardy on Sunday, Septem- targeted Vice President Mike Pence, Charles and Da- ber 23, when the Drudge Report began teasing “a new vid Koch, Dick Cheney, and Clarence Thomas. Hawaii twist” in the story from Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer Senator Mazie “Shut Up, Men” Hirono was quoted of the New Yorker. Christine Blasey Ford, the California early on, calling Ramirez’s allegations “credible” and psychologist who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual mis- adding, “We’re taking them very seriously.” Nor did conduct while they were teenagers, had agreed to testify it take long for other Democratic senators to group in public before the Senate Judiciary Committee. While Ramirez with Ford and another woman, Julie Swet- there were gaps and inconsistencies in Ford’s account, nick, as Kavanaugh’s “three credible accusers” whose and all the individuals she identified as witnesses either lurid charges disqualified him from the bench. denied or did not recall her charges, several Republican Farrow and Mayer were up=front about the fact that they lacked corroboration. “The New Yorker has Matthew Continetti is the editor in chief of not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kava- the Washington Free Beacon. naugh was present continued on page 55
56 Culture & Civilization : November 2018
C&C .indd 56 10/15/18 1:27 PM YOU DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH... Palestinian Mythology Palestinian Arabs claim full ownership of the Holy Land, denying any Jewish connection or rights—all based on deceptive lies, all easily proven false. In this era of “fake news,” it’s often hard to tell truth from 1948, when five Arab armies attacked, only about 30,000 fiction. Indeed, Palestinian Arab leaders have constructed an are still alive today. Some live in the disputed territories elaborate false mythology to justify their war against Israel of Judea and Samaria, and many over the 70 years have and the Jewish people. It’s time to lift the curtain on these made homes in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Nonetheless, myths—to separate truth from fabrication. the Palestinians claim that 5.5 million descendants of these refugees—children, grandchildren, and great What are the facts? grandchildren—are also refugees. No other descendants Every ethnic group has the right to create its own narrative— in history have ever been considered refugees. Indeed, no but such a narrative should be based on truth, especially displaced refugees, let alone descendants, have inherent when it denies the rights of others. We may disagree on legal rights to return to their original homes after a war. interpretation, but at least we should agree on the facts. So, Any such returns have always been negotiated among let us consider five cornerstones of the Palestinian narrative the parties—and so they will be in a peace agreement and judge their moral strength by adherence to the truth. We between Israel and the soon find that modern Palestinian myths are unfair attempts Peace between Palestinians. to disenfranchise the Jewish people from Israel—their 5. Israel is guilty of ancestral homeland. Israel and the apartheid against 1. Palestinians are indigenous to the Holy Land: Palestinians must the Palestinians: False. President Mahmoud Abbas often claims Palestinians be based on good False. Palestinian are related to the Canaanites, a group that vanished 2,300 leaders frequently years ago. This claim has no basis in archeological or genetic faith and the truth. accuse Israel of research. Nearly all Palestinians trace their lineage to Arab committing genocide, lands. What’s more, unlike the Jews, Palestinians have no ethnic cleansing and apartheid. In fact, Israel’s two unique language, culture or religion—essential markers of million Arab citizens enjoy full civil rights and benefits— indigenous peoples. Indeed, historians, archeologists, biblical greater than those in Arab nations. Palestinians in the records, and the Koran itself affirm conclusively that Jews West Bank, on the other hand, are largely self-governing, founded a kingdom in the Holy Land some 3,000 years have increased dramatically in number over the decades, ago—before arrival of the Arabs—and have lived in the and enjoy a higher standard of living than any of their lands of present day Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Arab neighbors. Limitations on Palestinian movement Bank) ever since. within the West Bank exist only when necessary to prevent Arab terrorism against Israelis, which continues Mr. Abbas 2. Israel occupies Palestinian land: False. to this day. In short, accusations of discriminatory and even mainstream media frequently refer to “Palestinian subjugation of Palestinians by Israel are false and malign. land.” In truth, the Palestinians have never had a state, nor have they had sovereignty over any land in the Middle The Nazis continuously repeated “the Big Lie” to convince East. Aside from individual private holdings, there is no the their people to wage an imperialistic, genocidal war. defined public Palestinian land in the disputed territories. Today, Palestinians repeat falsehoods to convince the world Nonetheless, Israel has many times offered to turn over most that Jews are evil, colonial usurpers. Until the Palestinians of land it won after its defensive war against Jordan in 1967 agree to negotiate peace with Israel—in good faith and in exchange for peace, but the Palestinians have refused all based on truth—they are sadly condemned to bitterness and those offers. thwarted aspirations for independence. 3. Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian people. False. Palestinian leaders commonly herald Jerusalem This message has been published and paid for by as a Muslim and Christian capital—unfairly excluding 3,000 years of Jewish history and Jerusalem’s centrality to Judaism. Indeed, history shows King David founded Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish kingdom around Facts and Logic About the Middle East 1000 BCE, before the advent of Islam. Jerusalem is cited P.O. Box 3460, Berkeley, CA 94703 669 times in the Hebrew bible and not a single time in James Sinkinson, President the Koran. Moreover, Jerusalem has never been an Arab Gerardo Joffe (z"l), Founder capital, and for most of the city’s history, Jews have been FLAME is a tax-exempt, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Its purpose the majority population. is the research and publication of facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the 4. Palestinians have a right of return to Israel: False. United States, Israel and other allies in the region. You tax-deductible Among approximately 700,000 Arabs who left Israel in contributions are welcome. To receive free FLAME updates, visit our website: www.factsandlogic.org
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SeptemberNovember 2018 Cover.indd 42 10/15/188/14/18 1:44 1:32 PM PM Columns.indd 1 2/16/18 12:41 PM