On a meal at Mar-a-Lago and the problem of antisemitism, in America and elsewhere (ever and always)
Until men are angels, we will not eradicate antisemitism — but we can curb it, manage it. By “we,” I mean humanity. In America recently, there has been a spate of antisemitism — both words and deeds. Offenders in the “words” category include two celebrities: Kanye West, the pop star, and Kyrie Irving, the basketball star.
I know the NBA a bit. The pop world, less so. I did hear of Kanye West, however, back in 2009, when President Obama called him a “jackass.” This was after West had insulted Taylor Swift at an awards ceremony. (I’ve heard of her too. And Beyoncé.)
(Shake it off, baby. And put a ring on it while you’re doing it.)
Speaking of entertainment: Do you remember Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the 1967 movie? Well, guess who came to dinner at Mar-a-Lago last Tuesday night: Kanye West, in the company of Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes is a white nationalist and antisemite and Holocaust-denier. Big fan of Putin as well. Fuentes leads an organization called the “America First Foundation.” He has a podcast, or a “livestream,” called “America First.” You get the picture.
Here is a video of Kanye West — known as “Ye” (pronounced “yay”) — introducing Fuentes’s America First show.
As I see it, “America First” was smelly then — meaning the early 1940s — and is smelly now. Some America Firsters are more benign than others, to be sure. And noses vary, in what they smell. In any event . . .
After the Mar-a-Lago dinner with Donald Trump, Ye gave a debriefing. Doing his debriefing in the present tense, he said, “So, Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes.” I can imagine. If you can’t — you and I know different Donald Trumps (and I’m not talking about Sr. vs. Jr.).
About Ye, Trump wrote, “. . . we got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on ‘Tucker Carlson.’” Again, I can imagine.
A question for you: When an ex-president sups with antisemites, and notorious ones, does it aid the normalization of antisemitism? I think it does. What presidents do matters, and what ex-presidents do matters. They are leaders. They are in the public eye. They set tones, for better or worse.
Following the dinner, Trump got a lot of criticism, true. But I caution: There is always a lot of criticism en route to normalization. Here is an example of the criticism that Trump received: “Bigotry, hate and antisemitism have absolutely no place in America — including at Mar-a-Lago. Holocaust denial is repugnant and dangerous, and it must be forcefully condemned.”
That statement came from the White House press office. Do you think any Republican cares about criticism from that quarter? I don’t think so.
Kanye West is not a “normie,” as they say — not normal. A little, or a lot, off. Any number of his comments illustrate that point. “When I say ‘Jew,’” Ye has explained, “I mean the twelve lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people known as the race ‘black’ really are. This is who our people are. The blood of Christ. This, as a Christian, is my belief.”
Here is a written statement from Ye: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”
He must have meant “DEFCON,” which is a military term for “defense readiness condition.” Although “Death Con 3” does sound like a future conference (perhaps with Ye and other luminaries as speakers?).
Just a bit more: “I prefer my kids knew Hannukah from Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering.” Is this a compliment, a tribute to the Jews? It would not take much reading of history to think: no.
For many, Kanye West is a cultural hero, or countercultural hero — a culture warrior. A bold foe of political correctness. When he wears a shirt saying “White Lives Matter,” a lot of people get a thrill. Last month, the House Judiciary Republicans declared a kind of trinity: “Kanye. Elon. Trump.”
Of Ye’s friend Nick Fuentes, I have been aware for about five years — since the Charlottesville rally (“Unite the Right”). An article in the Times of Israel gives a strong flavor of him.
“The anti-Christ is the Jewish state of Israel,” Fuentes says. Also, “I piss on your Talmud. Jews get the f@#$k out of America.” Fuentes does not believe that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. He figures “maybe 200,000-300,000 cookies.” (Cookies are baked in ovens, you see.)
In a video, you can see Fuentes speaking into a camera and saying,
So, you’re either a Catholic or you’re a Jew. You’re either a Catholic or you’re with the Jews. That’s how it is. That’s the way the world is. So, anyway, that’s that.
And when are Catholics gonna start asserting their control? I want Catholics to run this country, not Jews. I want this country to be run by Catholics, not Jews. And I don’t think that’s controversial.
I want this country to have Catholic media, Catholic Hollywood, Catholic government. I want this to be a Catholic-occupied government, not a Jewish-occupied government.
And so forth. Rarely is sectarianism so stark in America.
Earlier this year, two congressmen spoke at Fuentes’s America First Political Action Conference: Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, and Paul Gosar, of Arizona. Both are Republicans. Greene, I wrote, “was the star speaker.” And “the No. 2 star, probably, was” the organizer himself: Fuentes.
In the course of his talk, he said, “Can we give a round of applause for Russia?” His audience responded with tumultuous applause. Some started to chant “Putin, Putin.” Fuentes responded, “Absolutely, absolutely.” The atmosphere was totally beer hall.
Fuentes also said, “The United States government has become the evil empire in the world.” Great applause. He further said, “The United States government has become the ‘Great Satan,’ as many have called it.”
I thought of Pat Buchanan, a senior America Firster. “To much of the world,” he wrote, “America has become the most secularized and decadent society on earth, and the title the ayatollah bestowed upon us, ‘The Great Satan,’ is not altogether undeserved.”
A little more, from my article:
At his conference, Fuentes said, “And now they’re going on about Russia and ‘Vladimir Putin is Hitler’ and . . . and they say it’s not a good thing, and . . . I shouldn’t have said that . . .” From the audience, big laughs.
Looking into this America First conference, I thought of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — whom the Republican National Committee had censured for their participation in the House committee investigating January 6. Would the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene ever be censured? Not on your life.
In fact, she has become something of a powerbroker in the GOP. According to reports, she is playing a role in the election of the next House speaker: Will it be Kevin McCarthy or someone else? Greene wields clout.
Pity, if you can, Steve King, the Republican former congressman from Iowa. For remarks perceived as friendly to white nationalism, he was shunted aside by the GOP establishment. He was stripped of his committee assignments. That was in 2019. About two seconds later, people such as King were movin’ and shakin’, causing the establishment to quake before them.
Who is more representative of the Republican Party? Marjorie Taylor Greene or Liz Cheney? MTG or George W. Bush, the former president? MTG or Senator Mitt Romney, who was the party’s presidential nominee in 2012? It’s the congresswoman, isn’t it? She is utterly mainstream, is she not?
About ten days ago, Greene said,
We had 5 million people cross our border illegally since Joe Biden took office. Let’s compare that to how many Russians have invaded Ukraine. 82,000 Russians have invaded Ukraine. I think the American people and the taxpayers of this country deserve to know why the Biden administration and this Congress is so interested in funding the protection of Ukraine’s border and not the protection of our border.
For a more striking example of moral idiocy, you could hardly ask.
Before I leave the subject of Nick Fuentes’s America First conference altogether, let me paste a bit more from my article. The following may amuse you, somewhat:
In addition to the congressmen, the America First conference featured Sheriff Joe Arpaio — one of President Trump’s many interesting pardonees. Arpaio said, “I have the reputation of being the biggest racist in the country — think of that.” The crowd responded with applause. Nonplussed, Sheriff Joe said, “Well, I hate to . . . I hate to . . . What are you clapping for, that I am or I’m not? Well, I’m not! And I know you guys and gals aren’t either. You’re just trying to do the right thing for our country.”
I doubt it.
I do.
Earlier this month, Dave Chappelle, the comedian, hosted Saturday Night Live. He gave a monologue about Kanye West, Kyrie Irving, and controversies over antisemitism. “I’ve been to Hollywood,” he said. “And I don’t want y’all to get mad at me. I’m just telling you, this is just what I saw: It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot.”
Here is one thing that comes to mind: They are also people. And likely very different from one another. They are not marching in lockstep, functioning as a clique or cabal. Some surely hate one another. Some would cut one another’s throat. They are kind and mean; religious and non-religious; funny and humorless; smarter and dumber; and so on and so forth. Individuals, when you get down to it.
And maybe individuals to a fault! Do you know this old saying? “Ask two Jews, you get three opinions.”
As Kanye West proves — and Dave Chappelle and countless others prove — black people are not all One Thing. Neither are Jews. Neither are people named “Fuentes.” (As far as I know, Daisy and Nick have nothing in common.)
Dave Chappelle knows all this, we can be sure — or largely sure. His monologue left room for interpretation. But others have a shakier grasp on the matter, to put it mildly.
It is possible to make too much of antisemitism (and too much of racism and other evil things). It is possible to make too little of it. You don’t need to be looking for antisemites under every bed. Then again, many are jumping up and down on the bed.
If I had to err, I would err on the side of making too much of antisemitism. An excess of vigilance is not a bad thing. The record of antisemitism is catastrophic.
The older you get, the more you realize that the world is a garden, needing constant tending. The weeds will grow back. And grow back. We can ill afford to take much of a break from our gardening.
“In America recently,” I wrote at the top of this article, “there has been a spate of antisemitism — both words and deeds.” There have been the celebrities, Kanye and Kyrie. There have also been attacks on synagogues — murderous ones. College campuses have stunk of antisemitism, often in the guise of “anti-Zionism.”
And yet, the United States, like other Anglophone countries, has been one of the least antisemitic countries in all history. Indeed, it has been one of the most philosemitic. Think of the famous crack that Irving Kristol made in the 1990s (I believe): “The danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them but that Christians want to marry them.” In other words, integration and assimilation were going so well, a distinctive Jewish identity was under threat.
Alarmism is no good. But a proper alarm? That is something else. I say, beware: beware the normalization of antisemitism — an antisemitism that can seem casual at first (“You ever been to Hollywood?”) but that can evolve into full-blown Nick-Fuentes-ism. Granted, there are a lot of things to beware. But antisemitism is near the top of that important list.