We Are Falling Apart

The Right is successfully exploiting fears over rising antisemitism for its reactionary crusade while the Israel-Hamas war is tearing the democratic popular front to pieces

Elise Stefabik, during last week’s Congressional hearing

In May 2022, an 18-year-old white man killed ten people and wounded three more in Buffalo, New York. It was an act of domestic terrorism: The killer saw his actions as part of a struggle against “global elites” – especially Jews – who are orchestrating a nefarious conspiracy to “replace” white people, to conduct a “white genocide,” mostly by bringing non-whites to America via uncontrolled immigration, by interracial marriage, by discriminating against whites in general.

The “Great Replacement” theory is over a century old. In recent years, it has animated the most horrific acts of white supremacist violence: It was the ideology that inspired the attacks in Norway in July 2011, killing 77 people; the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, killing 50 people; the attack in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019, killing 23 people and wounding a further 22. It also animated the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018: “All Jews must die,” the terrorist yelled, while killing eleven people. “Great Replacement” justifies attacks against anything and anyone coded as “the Left,” against “elites” more broadly – and it is always directed against Jews, as they are held responsible for the “invasion” of non-whites. Antisemitism has always been one of the organizing principles of the fascist, white supremacist worldview: What makes all these supposedly inferior non-white groups so dangerous is that someone is telling them to hate white people and telling white people to hate themselves, someone is coordinating it all. Jews are pulling the strings. It’s a fundamentally conspiratorial perspective, allowing these extremists to present themselves as both superior to all non-whites, but also extremely vulnerable and under siege.

The “Great Replacement” theory binds all these acts of white supremacist terrorism together. And on today’s American Right, it has been openly embraced by the reactionary intelligentsia, the rightwing media machine, as well as by Republican officials. The speed with which “Great Replacement” has been popularized, normalized, and moved towards the mainstream of conservative politics is just breathtaking. White Christian nationalist extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, she of “Jewish space lasers” fame, were openly campaigning on it in the 2022 midterms, for instance, trying to whip the base into a frenzy: “Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you,” Greene was pleading with her crowd, “replacing your jobs, and replacing your kids in school. And coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture.” These were not just fringe voices in the Republican Party. Right after the Buffalo attacks in May 2022, leading Republicans reacted by openly embracing that exact idea. They were doubling down, actively endorsing the far-right extremist ideology that so clearly inspired the terrorist violence. Prominent among them was Elise Stefanik, who had started out as a “moderate” Republican from New York, but through a combination of ambitious opportunism and sincere radicalization came to embrace Trumpism and go all in on defending Trump. Within 48 hours of the domestic terrorist attack in Buffalo, Stefanik was spreading and legitimizing the core tenets of the violent conspiracy that had just killed eleven Americans: “Democrats desperately want wide open borders and mass Amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote,” she declared on social media. That’s just where the Republican party is today. That’s just who Elise Stefanik is. And yet, supposedly serious people want us to believe that this party is the bulwark against antisemitism in America – and that Stefanik, specifically, emerged from last week’s Congressional hearings about antisemitism on college campuses as a brave fighter for Jewish culture and life in America.

We have reached a truly bizarre place in our political discourse.

Antisemitism on the Left, antisemitism on the Right

I want to be as clear and unequivocal as possible: Antisemitism is a massive problem in American society – and it has gotten significantly worse since the terrorist Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. The problem is also not confined to the Right, but pervasive across the political spectrum. It is very hard to quantify exactly, but there is no doubt that there has been a rise in leftwing antisemitism, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in the past two months. This is not surprising, as there is typically a strong correlation between antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on the Left – something that is not true for certain strands of rightwing antisemitism. Finally, there is also definitely antisemitism on college campuses – and much like in American society more broadly, it has gotten significantly worse since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. These are real and urgent problems, and they require a serious and sincere response.

But the political and institutional reaction to the problems of rising antisemitism has mostly lacked sincerity. It has been overwhelmingly occupied with what has been happening on the Left, and with the college campus, specifically – thereby obscuring the much more significant and more dangerous antisemitism on the Right. A distinguishing feature of rightwing antisemitism is its centrality to the white Christian ethno-religious political project. In this sense, there is a parallel here to anti-feminism, which also definitely exists on the Left, but is not constitutive of the leftwing political project – while the Right’s vision of the natural and/or divinely ordained order is inherently patriarchal.

In the United States, Republicans are undoubtedly more supportive of the state of Israel – and the current Israeli government – than the Left, certainly than the Democratic base. Crucially, however, that does not necessarily entail affirmation and support for American Jews. In fact, it often means the opposite. On the Religious Right, Christian Zionism is fueling the political support for Israel. Among evangelicals, especially, it is based on Israel’s role in end-times theology: Rightwing evangelicals view the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Israel not only existing, but expanding its territory to cover the entirety of the “Holy Land” is seen as instrumental in bringing about the Rapture, the return of Christ, the war to end all wars, and a world dominated by Christians – a world in which a few Jews convert and all the rest are eliminated, together with all other evil.

Beyond the Religious Right, the reactionary political project is beholden to a white Christian nationalism that is fundamentally opposed to multireligious, multiracial pluralism. Rightwingers are generally sympathetic to the idea of a nation with a clearly defined ethno-religious identity, which they see in Israel. To some extent, a Jewish Israel is even coded as white and part of a struggle for the survival of white civilization against non-white threats: Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, however they may be framed.

But here is the catch: In this worldview, Israel is necessarily where the Jews belong. In “real” (read: white Christian) America, on the other hand, Jews can only be conceptualized as outsiders. Their right to be here is always conditional – fully depending on them showing deference to the white nationalist political project. In both dominant ideological strands on the Right, Jews in Israel are good – but Jews elsewhere are dangerous, rootless “globalists” standing in the way of God’s plans or undermining the strength and unity of the white Christian ethnostate. It’s not difficult to see why the pro-Israel strands on the Right are very much willing to make common cause with fascist and openly neo-Nazi circles who have no such Zionist sympathies and just hate Jews, no matter where they are, no matter the circumstances. The Right is not a monolith, there is disagreement here over how exactly the “Jewish problem” should be dealt with. More importantly, however, there is consensus regarding the underlying vision of how “real American” society should ultimately be ordered.

That is why it is so bizarre to view today’s Republican Party as an ally to Jewish life and culture in America: It is now entirely “normal” for leading Republican elected officials to rail against “globalism” and indulge antisemitic conspiracies that focus on the supposedly nefarious influence of George Soros; the newly-elected Republican Speaker of the House is a Christian supremacist; the party’s standard bearer and presumptive nominee for the presidency is the leader of a fascistic movement, he is the guy who those marching in Charlottesville in 2017, yelling “Jews will not replace us,” ecstatically support; Trump, in fact, seems to subscribe to all the usual antisemitic stereotypes and has long been pushing antisemitic tropes about Jews only liking money, only being loyal to Israel – he has no discernible conception of American Jews as Americans, only as “them” rather than “us”; and, finally, the rightwing base has rapidly descended into more and more aggressive forms of conspiracism – anywhere from one fourth to one third of Republicans qualify as QAnon supporters, a conspiracy theory that is as inherently violent as it is antisemitic.  

Congressional show trials

Against this background, the reactions to last week’s Congressional hearings – titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” – have been not only bizarre, but dangerous. The hearings singled out three presidents of elite colleges, all of them women: Liz Magill from University of Pennsylvania, Sally Kornbluth of MIT, and Claudine Gay, the first Black president of Harvard. The presidents’ answers have garnered widespread condemnation, while Elise Stefanik, in particular, has been singled out for praise among the lawmakers questioning these university leaders. But the whole thing was designed in bad faith to be a spectacle, and it was a trap. Stefanik focused on whether or not certain speech – specifically: calling for a genocide of Jews – was prohibited on campus, allowing only yes-or-no answers. The presidents referred to the rules these private institutions, which are as such not bound by the first amendment in the same way as public universities, have given themselves, and gave a tentative, hesitant answer that certainly made them look bad but was also technically correct: That it depends on the specific context in which that speech occurs. This has been widely portrayed as an outrageously amoral stance (although it really had nothing to do with morals, and everything to do with an existing and binding institutional code of conduct), and as evidence not only of an unwillingness to condemn and police antisemitism, but active complicity. All of it is feeding into the pervasive narrative of colleges as institutions dominated by leftwing extremism and “woke” antisemitic ideology. And that, of course, was precisely the purpose of these hearings from the start.

Look, these presidents did not do a good job. Not at all. I am also generally not the right person to defend university administrations and leadership of elite colleges, for which I have very little sympathy. Most importantly, I do think that all institutions of American life, very much including universities, should police violent speech, harassment, and intimidation – and, if it turns out that they are either not willing or not able to do that, there should be a reflection on what changes are needed to rectify that situation. These are difficult questions, on multiple levels. For instance: The Left has been almost universally critical of Israel. Powerful political forces are trying to define that as inherently antisemitic – which is dangerous. Meanwhile, groups and people on the Left have also certainly, at times, crossed the line from fair criticism of Israel’s war to antisemitism, mostly by conflating Jews, Judaism, Zionism, and the state/government of Israel. On a different level, once it is established whether or not speech is antisemitic, the next challenge is: Does it also constitute speech that is not protected by the first amendment? Does it meet the established standards for legal or disciplinary sanction? If not, should those standards be modified?

In last week’s hearings, Republicans were entirely uninterested in exploring any of these questions. And remarkably, a lot of Democrats are apparently just fine with the type of show trial that was held. When Harvard’s governing board decided to support president Claudine Gay, the House immediately passed a resolution calling for her resignation and condemning the testimony by the three university leaders – with significant Democratic support.

“If the shoe fits…”?

When I criticized the lionization of Elise Stefanik on social media a few days ago, one response stuck out to me: “If the show fits…” Several people used that exact same phrase to express their opinion that my criticism was misplaced: So what if Republicans were bad and Stefanik acting in bad faith? As the argument went, their attacks hit the right target, the presidents had it coming.

But this interpretation completely misunderstands and underestimates what’s happening here –how successful the Right is at exploiting justified fears over antisemitism to advance its reactionary agenda. First of all, these hearings were part of the eternal rightwing crusade against the college campus as a place of subversive leftwing indoctrination. Seamlessly and effortlessly, the Right equated the problem of campus antisemitism with everything else they hate about higher education: DEI and whatever “woke” dangers they associate with that – by abstract association and vague insinuation, it all becomes one leftwing enemy. As such, this is merely a continuation of a reactionary quest that has lasted for decades. William F. Buckley, the godfather of modern conservatism and founder of the National Review, published his first book in 1951. Titled God and Man at Yale, it told the story of Buckley’s undergraduate experience that was supposedly marred by liberal professors forcing their collectivist, atheist beliefs onto the students – an environment entirely hostile to conservative values and religion. In the 1960s, as Ronald Reagan rose to political stardom in California, he vowed to fight back against those out-of-control radical leftists in Berkeley, to reign in the Free Speech Movement and restore order on campus. It has been a core tenet of conservative political identity since the formation of modern conservatism in the middle decades of the twentieth century that “the Left” has taken over the central institutions of American life and is using both institutional and cultural power to suppress conservative speech, that conservatives are being shut out from spaces they are entitled to control and dominate. Higher education has always been one of the institutions on which this rightwing resentment was focused most intensely. In a billionaire donor class wanting to shape elite colleges according to their will and sensibilities, Republicans have found a willing ally.

Secondly, in a broader sense, the fears over antisemitism are being leveraged to legitimize the radicalizing reactionary mobilization against egalitarian democracy more broadly. Rightwing activists like Christopher Rufo are dreaming of a counterrevolution against the sinister forces of globalism and “wokeism” that have supposedly captured most institutions of American life, of re-capturing those institutions from “the Left,” of transforming them, turning them into instruments to impose proper American values on the country.

Elise Stefanik is not, therefore, leading a good-faith effort to fight antisemitism, nor is the problem merely one of grandstanding or hypocrisy. She is engaged in a cynical attempt to use Jews to suppress speech reactionaries don’t like, advance the antiliberal “counterrevolution,” and punish those the Right sees as the enemy within. An increasingly authoritarian white Christian ethno-nationalist movement and a grievance-driven reactionary billionaire donor class are allied in this project, their main target is egalitarian pluralistic democracy. The hearings were not some separate fight rightwingers have taken up for righteous reasons and out of sincere concern – they are part of the crusade.

Across the “West,” far-right movements and parties are following this same playbook, gleefully exploiting the anger and fear of Jews for political gain. Marine LePen, for instance, leader of the National Rally in France, was quick to announce her support for Israel and vowed to protect Jews from Islamism. Meanwhile, some prominent white nationalists over here in the States have been pushing a pro-Palestinian position – with great success, as they have seen their public audience grow significantly. But this is ultimately the same move: Tap into the majority population’s widespread resentment and hostility towards Muslims – or do the same with the pervasive antisemitism. The key takeaway is that the most dangerous, most violent forms Islamophobia and antisemitism are fueled by similar ideologies, they are coming from the same people. Helping them advance their cause would be a disaster.

“If the shoe fits…” is simply not an adequate way of assessing politics. In the wake of the manufactured anti-“CRT” panic, rightwing activists have occasionally unearthed a silly DEI statement here or a misguided anti-racist how-to manual there. That didn’t validate this bad-faith attempt to purge and ostracize anything and anyone dissenting from a white nationalist understanding of America’s past or present. “The enemy of my enemy” may sound like savvy strategic advice in a vacuum. But in practice, a political response based on such a premise leads to bizarre places. It leads to the head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), America’s most influential Jewish advocacy group, praising Elon Musk’s “leadership in fighting hate” – even though Musk has worked tirelessly to turn the world’s most important political communications platform into a fascistic propaganda machine and is aggressively embracing even the most notorious antisemitic conspiracies. Why? Because Musk was also vowing to crack down on pro-Palestinian speech. That was enough, apparently. And it leads to Democratic leaders sharing a stage with John Hagee at the March for Israel in Washington, DC in November: Hagee is an evangelical Zionist and vile antisemite who once praised Hitler for doing his part to drive Jews to Israel, all in service of bringing about the end times. Musk, Hague, Trump, Greene, Stefanik. “The enemy of my enemy” must not be the answer.

The pro-democracy popular front is falling apart

The only thing that can defeat the reactionary mobilization against egalitarian pluralism and prevent white Christian authoritarian rule in America is a broad coalition from the Left to the center and beyond – a popular front, if you will, devoted to upholding constitutional government and liberal democracy. This coalition has always been fragile. I fear it is now disintegrating rapidly.

“I’m done with the Left.” I have heard variations of this sentence so many times over the past two months. From Jews who feel betrayed by the racial justice activists they saw as their allies, especially after the broad mobilization of civil society under the banner of Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2020; from Never Trump conservatives who are feeling justified to re-embrace their disdain for the Left as an overriding principle; from neighbors, parents at school, acquaintances on the playground. My personal experiences and encounters come with the usual caveats. Unfortunately, what’s been playing out publicly in the nation’s major papers and in the halls of Congress points in the same direction as my anecdotal evidence: The Israel-Hamas war is tearing the pro-democracy popular front apart. The numerical majority in this country does not want to live in a Trumpist autocracy. As long as Republicans are committed to Trump as their leader, they depend on enough conservatives, moderates, centrists, and anti-Leftists to hold their noses and make common cause with the Right anyway. Mainstream media, center-right pundits, and Democratic politicians helping the party of Trump, QAnon, and “Great Replacement” launch a neo-McCarthyist crusade, legitimizing it as a campaign against antisemitism in America – that will go a long way towards establishing the kind of permission structure by which people convince themselves that Trump is not so bad after all, or at the very least the Left is worse. We are far down the road to a very, very dark place.