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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31244 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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So Tucker is under fire from the ADL after Tucker claimed attacks on white women was because they were "key to reproducing the white race" or something to that effect. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, has now openly called him a Nazi. Greenblatt in particular seems to have a personal obsession with Tucker, with him publicly demanding Fox News fire the talkshow host on previous occasions. Tucker has also been the subject of a massive frontpage NYT article claiming he was a white nationalist.

An Orthodox Jewish group has decided to never let a good opportunity stirring the pot go to waste, joining the fray by issuing a statement demanding him to resign. Who? Greenblatt, of course! They represent about 2000 rabbis, so it isn't a small group, though admittedly the Orthodox community within the American diaspora is much weaker than they are within the British community.

There are two things of interest to me. First, the intra-Jewish CW on how to deal with rising de facto white nationalism. Even the most generous reader of Tucker's words will have to concede that he is making explicit racial arguments on behalf of a race, namely his own. Whether you agree with him or not is beside the point. He is no longer mumbling or hinting.

But secular Jews, who have historically been most alarmed about white nationalism, are now training their guns on the Orthodox community. The NYT - arguably their house paper - unloaded on Jewish day schools (called "yeshivas") in a front page article some weeks ago. The Orthodox community is growing very fast and unlike previous eras, retention appears to be stronger. So we can expect the American Jewish community to look more like the British one (which tends to lean conservative). Right-wing Jews do of course worry about white nationalism but they tend to not overlook left-wing anti-Semitism as much as secular Jews do.

Just a few days ago, Jerusalem Post carried an Op-Ed predicting the end of the "golden age" for Jews in America. Were Nazis the culprits? No, the author contended. The threat is "Islamo-Leftists". As the Jewish community trends right, a more diverse range of opinions will flourish away from the monolithic focus on white radical right extremism. But at the same time, it is hard for non-Americans such as myself not to notice how open racial appeals are made by folks like Tucker or Ann Coulter. Admittedly, Coulter has dipped her toes in these waters in previous years but even a cursory look at her substack shows the word white come up just as often as conservative. A decade ago, that wouldn't have happened.

As a curiosity, her podcast partner is Mickey Kaus, who is Jewish. So we seem to be viewing two different trends. First, an ever-increasing explicit focus on race from white right-wingers away from generic terms like "conservative" or "Christian". Second, an internal Jewish struggle where the long-term trend seems to favour the right-leaning Orthodox community. Stuck in all of this, you have legacy organisations like the ADL which still has institutional clout. Yet Tucker seemingly cannot be fired despite being openly called a Nazi by the head of the ADL, something that I would not have expected under the era when Abe Foxman ran the organisation. Is this a sign of a weakening hold of the ADL within the Jewish community or a radicalisation (racialisation?) on the part of white America? The answer, it appears to me, seems to be both.

As the Jewish community trends right

But is it so? I wish it would be the case, but it looks like most Jewish vote - at least outside Orthodox community - goes firmly to the left. Yes, I know about Ben Shapiro, etc. but those are singular exceptions, in my opinion dwarfed by the opposite trends. Given the normalization of the thinly veiled antisemitism on the Left (BDS, anti-Zionism, embracing militant Islam, "dual loyalty" talk, etc.) I don't know what attracts the American Jews in the Left so much, but that seems to be the case to me.

Yet Tucker seemingly cannot be fired despite being openly called a Nazi by the head of the ADL

Why would you expect him to be fired? ADL is lately openly political and embracing the leftist narratives, and one of the leftist narratives that exists roughly since the Nazis first appeared on the political scene is to call everybody on the Right "Nazis". If every such case would lead to people being fired, nobody to the right of John Kerry could be ever employed. It's not the coin that retains any weight by now.

I would have figured it would have been regarding the Kanye segment 2 weeks ago

Ann Coulter. Admittedly, Coulter has dipped her toes in these waters in previous years but even a cursory look at her substack shows the word white come up just as often as conservative. A decade ago, that wouldn't have happened.

She has always been on the fringe while still dipping her toe in the mainstream. Her comments after 911 were extreme even back then. Being pro-white or being concerned about 'white issues' does not imply antisemitism. There is always a fine line which some are able to walk.

That said, Carlson and Coulter aren't saying anything that couldn't be found in the National Review or even on cable news 25 years ago. This is probably just because in the fifteen years following 9/11 immigration was less central to the political debate in America than it was in the '90s or is now.

It's true that National Review used to be significantly further to the right in the 1990s on issues like immigration. The founder of Vdare (I forget his name) used to be published there. But I did read some of the texts they published and while they warned about hispanic immigration and "illegal aliens", they were careful not to use explicitly race-based arguments. That is something we're seeing now even if the context isn't immigration but rather 'wokism' for the lack of a better term.

The founder of Vdare (I forget his name)

Peter Brimelow?

This is the first time a rabbinic group has called outright for Greenblatt to step down. "It is regrettable but necessary," averred CJV Midwestern Regional VP Rabbi Ze'ev Smason.

"First of all, Carlson was calling out racism, the furthest thing from being racist, proven by the fact that had each mention of 'black' and 'white' people been reversed throughout the video, everyone, including the ADL, would endorse his remarks as crucial for reconciliation and unity. But this egregious inversion is almost beside the point: the ADL's core mission is supposed to be fighting antisemitism, yet Greenblatt is so preoccupied with Carlson that the organization completely overlooked the Holocaust minimization in the statement it trumpeted out on Twitter. Any organization sensitive to antisemitic bias would have chosen a different source for the same video, had it wished to discuss it. An ADL insensitive to antisemitic bias has lost its reason to exist, and is merely obstructing real efforts to combat antisemitism, the world's oldest and most enduring form of hatred."

Now this is going to be interesting. 2000 Rabbis going hardcore DRRR to defend Tucker Carlson's defence of white people. The natural response to which is usually scoffing and rolled eyes and accusations of missing the point. Except they haven't missed the point at all - progressivism does not share the crown - and thanks to the one-upmanship of social media, we are probably in for a steadily increasing stream of progressive anti semitism as people go too far in opposing all this, further demonstrating their point. Or to put it more succinctly, it looks like these Rabbis have started Noticing.

It looks like a lot of Orthodox Jews would rather have a mildly white nationalist society which intentionally keeps them separate from the broader population, you mean. I doubt relations between, say, blacks and whites, or the percentage of the population that is of Hispanic ancestry, is at all relevant to these rabbis for any reason, regardless of, say, Hispanic overrepresentation in child sex abuse, or the black murder rate, or anything IQ related. Being separate from broader society is something that ultra-Orthodox rabbis desire for their communities and white nationalists are probably the most plausible(that does not mean actually plausible) group to deliver it for them politically in modern America.

But at the same time, it is hard for non-Americans such as myself not to notice how open racial appeals are made by folks like Tucker or Ann Coulter.

I think you're noticing this because for the first time in my lifetime (I'm 38) there appears to be some sort of centralized white mainstream identity happening.

Mainstream racial appeals have been going on my entire life. Mostly from blacks, some, more now, from Hispanics. When white people do it it's called extremist and white nationalist. When some other group does it it's considered normal.

I think white solidarity will never work because whiteness is not specific enough (such as race vs. ethnicity) or too many whites reject the idea . It is equated with low status. It's not a left/right thing, but more to do with psychology or behavior . Also, there is too much diversity economically and culturally for it to work. How would you get pro-Biden whites to 'gel' with pro-Trump whites. Western Europe was almost torn apart between Catholics and Protestants despite both being white. Whites are more diverse in terms of everything but skin color , than any group I know. At least blacks tend to be more homogenous politically.

Why is that though?

Haha. This is at least the second time the Coalition for Jewish Values attacks Greenblatt for, essentially, being a more enthusiastic leftist than he is a Jewish lobbyist, and the last time I recall it was over Tucker too. Sometimes it feels like the screenwriters of our simulation are trying different spins on a concept that flops on release but is too sweet to just let go. Will the CJV ever get him? Will it be enough to take him down?

ADL is a powerful, respected and feared, leftist NGO which is also Jewish. It doesn't «just happen» to be staffed and led by Jews, of course, the mission is still explicitly focused on the wellbeing of their coethnics, but – they have suffered value drift, it seems. And the community begins to reject them.

There can be many more adequate equilibria. Even 14/88 (assuming Tucker is saying this), in itself, does not instruct any action with regards to non-White people; and inasmuch as [major organizations of] Jews do not precommit to some form of anti-14/88, coexistence of outright reactionary Orthodox and likewise reactionary White Christians in the US is possible.

In practice, people fail at such fragile schemes. What people do not fail at is simple partisanship and quid pro quo. Tabletmag is periodically dimly threatening the Democratic audience with what they call an incredible moral and cultural sin (of «Deserting to the GOP»). We'll see if it gets deemed the best solution.

Considering that the ultra-orthodox are very concerned about intermarriage, it would make sense that they consider some form of moderate white, christian nationalism a good thing- they don't want their children marrying gentiles, any more than white nationalists want their white gentile children marrying Jews.

Those schools that the NYT wrote about are not Orthodox. They are ultra ultra Orthodox. Orthodox Jewish school, unlike those in article, teach algebra and all the normal subjects

Ultra-Orthodox is often perceived as a slur within the community. It is not a term they themselves use, because it implicitly frames non-frum communities as the center and them as marginal. In a demographic sense that may be correct, but that is separate from religious designations.

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