One of the points I like to make is that anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine.  In all societies at any time in history, low levels of anti-Semitism meant a more successful country with greater individual liberty, at least by the norms of the time and place.  When anti-Semitism appears, it is always the first step toward oppressing the general population.  Writing at the Spectator, Dominic Green points out that, in America, the rising tide of anti-Semitism is pushing us toward that second category.  What's happening is exceptionally dangerous to American norms and individual liberty.

Green notes, accurately enough, that the American left has become completely anti-Semitic.  It can no longer disguise its rhetoric as mere anti-Zionism that is somehow magically separate from anti-Jewish sentiment.

What makes this mindset so dangerous, says Green, is that this ferocious American anti-Semitism is being folded into the toxic mess that is modern leftist intersectionality, complete with its racial hatred and a dripping disdain for white people (and Jews, for this purpose, are classified as white).  Pair this with the left's racist, condescending paternalism for non-white people around the world and then infect the ruling class, stands for trouble, lots and lots of trouble:

This isn't just anti-Semitism as the collateral damage of socialist theory, or even anti-Semitism as a depraved echo of Christianity. It's aspirational racism. The difference being that the alt-right aspire downwards, to become what liberals call 'white trash'.

The alt-left aspire upwards. Its leaders learn the fancy Jew-baiting of the intellectuals at brand-name colleges, along with a provincial race guilt that sees the world as a stage for the purging of the American conscience. Their followers are the children of 2008, a jilted, debt-ridden generation. They resent the institutions that have stolen their future, but they cling to the same institutions and appeal for help like the spoiled children they are.

[snip]

The wickedness of the Jews is taught in our finest schools as the 'colonialism' or 'apartheid' of Israel. It is taught by social media: imagine what Dr Goebbels could have achieved if he'd had Twitter and Instagram. It is mobilized by BLM and AOC and the DSA in the way that revolutionary socialists have always tried to stir up the mob by blaming the Jews. It is endorsed by members of Congress and most of the media, as when Nancy Pelosi poses with the Squad for Rolling Stone or the New York Times publishes calumny after calumny against Israel.

There is more, and I urge you to read it here.

My takeaway is that what we are seeing is not the casual anti-Semitism that has characterized much of the West for the last 2,000 years — and that was prevalent in America for over a century.  Thus, we are not looking at people being denied entry to the country club or job opportunities.  Instead, what we are seeing here is the uptick of a malevolence that is folded into a statist political ideology.  The last time we saw this kind of thing, was in Germany in the 1930s.

As always, let me make it clear that I am not calling the American left a Nazi party.  Nor am I saying Nancy Pelosi is the female equivalent of Hitler.  (I am not even saying that about Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib.)  However, I am saying we are rapidly heading in a direction that could make such comparisons more apt than anyone in America should ever find acceptable.  And, as we know from history, these things happen rapidly — more rapidly, perhaps, in a time of social media than most people can comprehend.

Image: Anti-Israel march in Chicago.  YouTube screen grab.

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