Don’t Let the Right’s Antisemites Organize

It has become increasingly clear over the past several years that the Democrats and the political left-of-center in the United States (and by no means only in the United States) have a serious antisemitism problem. That problem has increasingly created hostile conditions on campuses and dangerous situations for American Jews in many other settings; it has become a political liability, a divisive force within the Democratic coalition, and a threat to the credibility, moral authority, and power of long-standing institutions such as Columbia University.

The right-of-center and the Republican Party have not had such a problem. But this is not due to an absence of antisemites on the right. Antisemitism tends to flare up into view in ways that are more episodic than persistent, so it can appear to go away for times, but there have always been individual antisemites on the right. William F. Buckley Jr. spent a good deal of energy, especially in the 1990s, rooting out antisemitism from the conservative movement (even to the point of closing the pages of this magazine to some former writers and contributors), and those voices never entirely went away.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

It has become increasingly clear over the past several years that the Democrats and the political left-of-center in the United States (and by no means only in the United States) have a serious antisemitism problem. That problem has increasingly created hostile conditions on campuses and dangerous situations for American Jews in many other settings; it has become a political liability, a divisive force within the Democratic coalition, and a threat to the credibility, moral authority, and power of long-standing institutions such as Columbia University.

The right-of-center and the Republican Party have not had such a problem. But this is not due to an absence of antisemites on the right. Antisemitism tends to flare up into view in ways that are more episodic than persistent, so it can appear to go away for times, but there have always been individual antisemites on the right. William F. Buckley Jr. spent a good deal of energy, especially in the 1990s, rooting out antisemitism from the conservative movement (even to the point of closing the pages of this magazine to some former writers and contributors), and those voices never entirely went away.