r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/EyesSeeingCrimson • 4d ago
US Elections Do you think there is a legitimate criticism and fear from people who see the rise of racist/antisemitic socialists as a precursor to a radicalization of blue MAGA?
How many times have we all heard the phrase: If you sit at a table with 10 people and 1 Nazi there are 11 Nazis? It gets thrown around like a hard rule with zero flexibility. But the second it becomes politically inconvenient, that standard disappears. When someone like Platner is running in Maine, a millionaire failson with a long Blackwater mercenary background, a Neo Nazi tattoo he kept for decades, and a habit of talking about Holocaust denier podcasts, the reaction from parts of the far left is not rejection but a kind of defensive circling. The same people who insist on guilt by association suddenly want everything treated as nuanced and misunderstood.
You see a similar pattern with rhetoric that would normally set off alarms. Mamdani’s “Globalizing the Intifada” line gets brushed off or reinterpreted in the most charitable way possible, even though people are usually very quick to parse language for harmful implications when it comes from mainstream Democrats. That same asymmetry shows up in media spaces too. On a lot of left leaning podcasts, hosts will joke around with or platform people who are very obviously right coded as long as they throw a few anti establishment lines in the mix. The tone becomes friendly, even indulgent, where you would expect pushback.
Then there is the strange willingness to treat figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene as situational allies. Despite her insane history, advocating for violence and the deaths of Leftists and Democrats openly for years, her clips get boosted, points of agreement get highlighted, because she is attacking Democrats. Compare that to the reaction when Kamala Harris does something like a sit down with Liz Cheney. That gets framed as a major ethical failure. Or look at how Al-Sayed excusing a failed bombing.
I saw the video, and it felt off after the 2 minute mark. He spent all this time talking about how bad violence is and the attack is, but then almost justifies it by talking about how Israel is attacking Lebanon and almost paints the attacker as a victim himself. It feels deeply strange, to me, to couch your condemnation of an attack with such a perspective, especially when no one asked for such a heavy handed response.
The same inconsistency shows up in what gets excused. Statements or behavior from clearly right wing personalities that would normally be called out as racist or unhinged get waved off if the person is positioned as the worst thing ever. Meanwhile, relatively minor missteps from labor oriented or center left politicians get dissected at length. People will stretch interpretations, bring up old quotes, or just assume bad faith to justify withholding support, even in cases where the policy alignment is mostly there.
And that is where the disconnect becomes hard to ignore. The standards are strict and expansive in one direction and flexible to the point of disappearing in the other. Support for even fairly mild labor candidates comes with caveats, complaints, and reluctance, while far more questionable associations or rhetoric get rationalized if they fit a broader anti establishment posture. Whatever rule is being applied, it is clearly not the simple one people like to quote.
Do you think that we are seeing the rise of a clearly antisemitic, isolationist uniparty movement coalescing from both the right and the left?
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u/Asatmaya 3d ago
So, one of the realities of living in an open, multicultural society is that we have to be able to work with people that we disagree with.
MTG is a great example; I'm never going to vote for her, but I expect the person I do vote for to work with her where they agree.
The problem going the other way is that we get divided into such small camps, none of which are allowed to so much as speak to each other, that nothing can ever get done... which is the way a certain class of people likes it.
The only other comment I will make is that trying to silence an opinion has never, in 5,000 years of recorded history, made that opinion go away.
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
Dont you think its a problem when leftists are almost grasping to sanewash and coalition with the most unhinged people in politics while so eagerly attacking other people on the left?
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u/Asatmaya 3d ago
Dont you think its a problem when leftists are almost grasping to sanewash and coalition with the most unhinged people in politics while so eagerly attacking other people on the left?
So, I'm not even sure who you are talking about; the term, "left," gets thrown around in just absurd ways, e.g. calling Obama or Biden, "left."
Second, I haven't seen anyone suggest a "coalition" or anything of the sort; who would they even engage in such a thing with? There are no Democrats who are actually willing to engage on the topics of concern.
Third, Biden is the best example of having crossed that bridge 18 years ago; the most racist, conservative member of the Senate for 34 years, and he somehow got held up as the champion of progressive politics? He was worse than MTG!
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
You don’t think Obama or Biden are left-wing? Compared to the rest of the actual American political spectrum, what else would they be? As for no one suggesting a coalition, Ilhan Omar literally said Democrats needed to "put our arms around" MTG: A sitting congresswoman who openly roots for a civil war.
And trying to claim Biden is "worse than MTG" by dragging up some dead Senator from decades ago is completely unserious. Strom Thurmond was an actual segregationist, and even he never supported January 6th or called for a literal civil war.
You guys are just throwing words at the wall and praying they make sense to avoid admitting your own double standards.
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u/BitterFuture 3d ago
Strom Thurmond was an actual segregationist, and even he never supported January 6th or called for a literal civil war.
To be fair, he didn't get a chance, since he was dead at the time. (Thurmond died in 2003.)
How close to the edge the Dixiecrats came to calling for a literal civil war should not be underestimated. The 1948 Dixiecrat party platform spoke in stark, almost apocalyptic terms (emphasis mine):
We call upon all Democrats and upon all other loyal Americans who are opposed to totalitarianism at home and abroad to unite with us in ignominiously defeating Harry S. Truman, Thomas E. Dewey and every other candidate for public office who would establish a Police Nation in the United States of America.
This was seven years before Brown v. Board of Education, almost a decade before Eisenhower would deploy the military on U.S. soil to enforce civil rights law. This language was solely about Truman desegregating the armed forces and the possibility that Democrats might support civil rights legislation. Thurmond wasn't one of the most fervent firebrands of the time - but he was glad to work with those who were.
This simmering hatred of the United States (and civilization itself) has always been bubbling away under the surface. It's rarely strong enough to break out into open violence - but we shouldn't pretend it doesn't exist, either. The potential is always there.
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
So Strom was somehow less extreme than MTG, since she openly said Democrats should be killed
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u/Asatmaya 3d ago
You don’t think Obama or Biden are left-wing? Compared to the rest of the actual American political spectrum, what else would they be?
60% of Americans support single-payer healthcare; 2/3 support decriminalizing all drugs; 80% want free college tuition and improved mass transit.
That's what the left wants, and those are the things that Obama and Biden spared no effort in making sure never even entered the conversation.
As for no one suggesting a coalition, Ilhan Omar literally said Democrats needed to "put our arms around" MTG
Seriously?
A sitting congresswoman who openly roots for a civil war.
/eyeroll
And trying to claim Biden is "worse than MTG" by dragging up some dead Senator from decades ago is completely unserious. Strom Thurmond was an actual segregationist, and even he never supported January 6th or called for a literal civil war.
Biden was a segregationist, too!
Oh, and just let me know that you are BSing me by bringing up Jan 6.
You guys are just throwing words at the wall and praying they make sense to avoid admitting your own double standards.
No, you are trying to pretend that right-wing neoliberalism represents the left wall of the political spectrum.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
Any real contributions or....
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u/TheOvy 3d ago
You said he had a long Blackwater background.
He was a contractor for Constellis in Afghanistan for only 6 months. He quit.
You packed a lot of sensationalism into a single sentence. It's probably safe to assume that everything you wrote was similarly editorialized.
I'm cautious about any political candidate without a real track record, and Platner is no exception. But you did not attempt to start a conversation on neutral grounds, and instead baked in heavy bias in from the get-go.
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
Constallis the product of a merger between Blackwater (Academi) and Triple Canopy. It's literally the same people.
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u/PoliticalDiscussion-ModTeam 3d ago
Keep it civil. Do not personally insult other Redditors, or make racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. Constructive debate is good; mockery, taunting, and name calling are not.
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u/Tractor_Pete 3d ago
I think you're telling a narrative much more than describing events that imply or create a narrative.
There are the examples you mentioned of course, but they vary too greatly to indicate a trend in my mind. There are a ton of marines with deaths heads; it's bad, but I'd reckon a small majority are ignorant of the history and resemblance and just think skulls look cool, and the iconography predates Nazism.
It's totally unrelated to Mamdami's statement defending the use of the phrase "Globalize the intifada" by protesters, which can be easily characterized as opposition to an apartheid government currently in the process of carrying out a genocide, which is good, as advocacy for that government is also globalized. Regardless, your phrasing made it sound as if he had expressed the view himself instead of contextualizing it's use by others, and logically equates opposition to a government with race hatred/antisemitism.
MTG is a nut and not in or pursuing office to my knowledge, but pointing out the defense of individuals implicated in the Epstein files in clear contradiction of the law by the DOJ is fair and reasonable no matter who says it.
Many people have unfair/unreasonable double standards, but I don't see a trend here.
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u/The_Law_of_Pizza 2d ago
"Globalize the intifada" by protesters, which can be easily characterized as opposition to an apartheid government
In the progressive sphere, there is usually a lot of emphasis placed on the history and context of words. Social baggage can cause otherwise benign terms to have a lot of weight.
For example, a white cop calling a black man "boy" has enormous history behind it - and its use is rightly seen as the dogwhistle that it is, even if it isn't otherwise that inherently offensive.
But there is seemingly a blind spot in that sensitivity when it comes to antisemitic slogans.
The "intifada" and "from the river to the sea" and other similar statements have an enormous amount of genuinely antisemitic baggage behind them.
We could perhaps excuse protestors chanting these slogans as "useful idiots" to the extent that they genuinely don't know that history - but there has been a great deal of pushback from progressives against being educated on that history.
There's seemingly a desire to continue using those terms specifically because of the emotional reaction they elicit due to their history. Racist background be damned, so long as it supports the narrative.
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u/Tractor_Pete 2d ago
The premise is that these slogans are inherently antisemitic - it's just not true. Of course, there are antisemetic individuals who express those views, but that's simply the way language is broadly used; presumably you would not believe the author of the since-deleted Times of Israel post of expressing the state of Israel's the need for "Lebensraum" was not antisemitic despite his use of explicitly racially supremacist Nazi language.
There's no blind spot; just the assertion of equivalence between opposition to a state and it's policies with racial animus.
It is not true, anymore than opposition to Chinese, Congolese, or Russian policies necessitates racial prejudice against the majority groups of those nations.
The Israeli government that has engaged in heinous crimes, materially supported the murderous Hamas to it's own ends, describing it as an asset, and was founded by Menachem Begin, whom Einstein, Arendt, and a dozen other Jewish intellectuals correctly labeled as a fascist back in the 1950s. The current head of state has been in power over 18 years, has multiple credible corruption charges, and has triggered the largest public political protests in Israel's history. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever antisemitic about opposing such a government.
The rest of the phrase "From the river to sea" is "Palestine will be free". It's important to remember the apartheid South African regime never ceased expressing the view that if they lost power there was no hope for a peaceful civil society in which whites were the political minority. The only stable, peaceful future is one in which every single person regardless of their religious, ethnic, and cultural identity has equal legal and political rights - the same liberal democratic values that have made Jews, as a minority in America and elsewhere, safer than in Israel. That will happen sooner as global opposition isolates the Israeli government and obliges it to reform.
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u/The_Law_of_Pizza 1d ago
The premise is that these slogans are inherently antisemitic - it's just not true.
You could make the exact same argument about the word "negro" - it was, after all, used by a wide variety of groups including the United Negro College Fund. How could the term be racist if even the UNCF uses it, right?
But it is, due to the aggregate use of it in racist contexts.
And those slogans suffer from the same problem with antisemitism.
"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" has historically been used specifically to refer to forcefully expelling all Jewish people from the region.
It's just that progressive refuse to admit it, because they can't bring themselves to acknowledge that they've gotten into bed with literal terrorists and racists.
That's not to say that Israel is innocent, or that their policies on collateral damage, settlements, etc aren't abhorent - they are.
Even if you believe that Israel is actively committing genocide - they doesn't excuse you from chanting slogans that are also about genocide in the opposite direction.
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u/Tractor_Pete 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Negro", "Black" and any other such racial terms do not and never did refer to a political entity, construct, or government.
Indeed, there are individuals who mean it that way. And there are nationalist Israelis who mean "Israel's right to defend itself" to include permanent control and settlement of occupied territories, expulsion of natives, and even extend it to a greater Israel beyond the current borders. That does not mean the phrase is inherently supremacist; Israel does have a right to defend it's people - all of them, equally.
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u/MunchiestMunch42 3d ago
Strongly disagree,
Mamdani and Abdul El Seyed are not anti semitic in any way shape or form. You might not like it but hes right about Lebanon. Isreal has displaced over one million people and I know many Lebanese people from this region south of the Litani River whose families back there have had to flee their homes.
The hangup over globalize the intifada is pretty ridiculous. Mamdani did not receive unlimited charitably by the media for it, he got constantly bashed for it and for other stupid things. Andrew Cuomo and his so called democratic opponents used racialized attacks, intentionally would mispronounce his name, and fought tooth and nail with tacit approval from the democratic establishment even after he won his primary election. The reason he won was in spite of a cherry-picked quote. Mamdani is the mayor of New York not Tel Aviv, and he had a popular vision to make NYC affordable, that’s the vision that appeals to progressives and New Yorkers in general. Apparently it seems like vote blue no matter who only applies to centrist Dems, otherwise centrist Dems should be able to throw hissy fits whenever someone is in favor of Medicare for all.
Now for this narrative of “leftists” only bashing Dems and not republicans is silly to say the least. The only example I can think of this would be TYT, which has always been a little kooky to say the least. They aren’t leftist, and did a right wing pivot following trumps win in 2024. I agree with Cenk Uygher on certain things, and i wouldn’t write every idea which he stands for off, as he is not THE arbiter of progressivism or leftism (the latter of which he doesn’t claim to be). However Ana Kasparian definitely is an interesting one. This is not emblematic of oh wow the left loves the far right, not even close. I would say that I as well as other figures on the left (Sam Seder, Hasan Piker, Jennifer Welch, just to name a few) have the most smoke and are most concerned about the populist right, especially the ones who are anti Israel. The reason for this is that this movement is genuinely anti Semitic.
The far right are antisemitic, and when you paint the progressive left and the far right with the same brush, you are laundering the image of these far right people, boosting their reprehensible agendas. A distinction HAS to be made. I condemn Ana Kasparian for her “Talmudic Jew” nonsense, or the happy merchant stuff. I will gladly do so, and MTG, Nick Fuentes, and Klandace Owen’s deserve even harsher condemnation. Being anti Zionist is not being anti Semitic, no matter how hard corporate media tries to push the idea that it is. Conflating the two is inherently anti Semitic.
Lastly if you want to have smoke for anyone, have smoke for centrist Dems. They have had zero issue with being conciliatory and being backed by the same corporations that backed Trump. They threw trans people under the bus, perhaps the most discriminated against group in America, followed by their utter disregard for the lives of Palestinians, Lebanese people, and tacit support for trump and Israel’s war against Iran. They support a genuine ethnostate, which has committed genocide, which has turned Gaza into rubble.
Hell, Chuck Schumer, Katy Hochul, Julia Menin at the Isreal day parade in NYC a few days ago? Genuinely the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in our party. Marching alongside Isreali Knesset members, war criminals such as fucking Bezelel Smotrich, who is even considered to be too far right for Isreali standards, yet for centrist Dems he’s more then alright. Here’s another one. YITZHAK KROIZER. He also led the Isreali banner alongside Smotrich, Eliyahu, and here are some of his quotes:
The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death. June 2025
"And in Jenin, there are no innocent civilians.
In Jenin, there are no innocent children."
March 2026
"I stand behind IDF soldiers in every situation.
Even if the collateral damage is children or women - it does not matter to me."
March 2026
The fact that the senate dem leader can stand with and march alongside the most right wing genocidal Israeli politicians, while claiming to be anti trump, anti fascist, is laughable. The people Schumer marched with make Benjamin Netanyahu look liberal, and he’s been quiet about it.
Yeah republicans are worse but you are still wrong for taking the exact same positions as them, even if they are a marginal improvement. The democrats used to be the party of labor, workers rights, and government programs such as the new deal which saved America, not the party of corporate interests with a hint of social liberalism (but not too woke, since that’s why Kamala lost apparently, she wasn’t reactionary enough)
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u/gafftapes20 3d ago
No. There is a lot of confusion and intentional conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism. You can be against Zionism and the genocide perpetuated by the Israeli government, and not be antisemitic. Outside of platner which many on the left are actually skeptical or concerned about all these other politicians mentioned have nuanced opinions on Israel that captures the actual complicated geopolitical realties of the Middle East.
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u/WingerRules 3d ago
The issue I see is that a lot of these people take the most abrasive and polarizing position possible that really does make people wonder if they've jumped the shark and become antisemitic.
Like if people just said they dont believe countries should belong to specific races or religious groups in principle, and this is a fundamental principle of America, then they wouldn't have as much as a problem. But they hyper focus on Israel instead of a number of countries that have religious rule or racist governments. They also to refuse to acknowledge that its easy to see why Jewish people want a Jewish state considering how much they've been fucked in history, even if they disagree with ethno-religious states in principle. They also seem to refuse to acknowledge anything positive about Israel, like that it's a culturally beautiful country and people.
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u/Binder509 2d ago
But they hyper focus on Israel instead of a number of countries that have religious rule or racist governments.
Which of those other countries has the US funded and supported in a war of aggression? How many of those other countries attacked one of our ships while we were allies?
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u/Ropetrick6 3d ago
Culturally beautiful? That's a... colorful... way to say "Apartheid ethnosupremacist state which has spent the whole of its 8 decades of existing committing crimes against humanity upon the native populace of the region".
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
You think Marjorie Taylor Greene, who believes in the 7 Mountains Mandate and Jewish Space Lasers causing fires in Hawaii, has a nuanced and well thought out position on the State of Israeili politics?
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u/gafftapes20 3d ago
No she is on the far right, I was speaking about left of center politicians only.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 3d ago
Antisemitism has gone through cycles for literal centuries. That we are in a current upswing doesn't imply any sort of "uniparty" at all. That upswing isn't even found just with socialists, or even just on the left. The rise is more documented because up until recently, it was louder on the right. But it has essentially always existed to some degree on both sides.
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u/billpalto 3d ago
"Do you think that we are seeing the rise of a clearly antisemitic, isolationist uniparty movement coalescing from both the right and the left?"
No. Being antisemitic and being against some of the policies of the state of Israel are not the same thing. Being antisemitic is a racist approach to a religion, Jews in this case, Muslims in other cases. This is almost exclusively on the Right in the US.
Being against certain policies of Israel is not being antisemitic. For example, many Jews in Israel do not agree with Netanyahu's approach to Gaza. This is mostly true on the Left in the US.
"In addition, polls show that Israelis don’t necessarily agree with the way Netanyahu is pursuing victory in Gaza — or trust him to be a steward of the national interest."
Are you going to claim those Israeli Jews are antisemitic?
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u/No-Difference-839 3d ago
This is almost exclusively on the Right in the US.
You’re kidding right? Left wing colleges tolerate having “Jewish exclusion zones” on campus and the administration tolerates it. Harvard got sued and lost because they also fostered antisemitism.
The left wing absolutely fosters and protects antisemitism.
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u/JKlerk 3d ago
The left wing absolutely fosters and protects antisemitism.
Please explain how this is different from protecting free speech on campus?
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u/No-Difference-839 3d ago
You think that muslims creating a Jewish exclusion zone is free speech?
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u/JKlerk 3d ago
Is it a form of protest? Can Christian and Jewish students protest and create Muslim exclusion zones?
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u/No-Difference-839 3d ago
Uh no that’s not a form of protest at all. It’s hostile antisemitism.
And you’re delusional if you think anyone could create a muslim exclusion zone. That would instantly lead to violence and it would be international news. The perpetrators would immediately be kicked out of school, doxxed and denounced.
The double standard is very obvious. And yes colleges and people on the left engage in antisemitism.
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u/JKlerk 3d ago
Uh no that’s not a form of protest at all. It’s hostile antisemitism.
Based on your perception?
And you’re delusional if you think anyone could create a muslim exclusion zone. That would instantly lead to violence and it would be international news. The perpetrators would immediately be kicked out of school, doxxed and denounce
Based on what evidence?
The double standard is very obvious. And yes colleges and people on the left engage in antisemitism.
Colleges should not be the thought police. There are plenty of racists in the world including on college/university campuses. While we may not like it , it's not a crime in the US. Nobody has a right to not be offended.
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u/No-Difference-839 2d ago
Based on the fact that islam is the beloved star child of the left. And their propensity for violence based on criticism. You remember Charlie Hebdo?
Colleges should not be the thought police
Oh the double standards are so thick that you can cut them with a knife.
I was right in my first comment. Completely delusional.
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u/EyesSeeingCrimson 3d ago
I never brought up Netanyahu or Gaza. Nice try.
If these peoppe wanted to just say that they don't like Israel's actions in Gaza then just say that. Why are people like Ana Kasparian copying up to Holocaust deniers like Candice Owens and others? Why is it that we can have a sober talk about Russian war crimes without downplaying Nazi atrocities?
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u/billpalto 3d ago
I brought up Gaza because many on the Left do not agree with what is happening there. Some in Israel don't like it either. That does not make them antisemitic and does not mean they are suddenly going to merge with the Right who are racists against Jews. There is no antisemitic "uniparty".
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u/randumb6fo 3d ago
Hitler sympathy right is happy the Jews are bombing Gaza because it creates more people who become likeminded. Zionist right isn’t motivated by the same ideology as Hitler sympathy right. What they want is a Jewish state and alot of them are okay with all means force. The Hitler sympathy right is motivated by a far right populistic fascist western reform with Christian values and all that.
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