If you are disturbed or triggered by terrible, hateful racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, please look away now. I wish to God I had not happened upon this thread (which got a lot of attention on Twitter) on The Forward, which bills itself as “a legendary name in American journalism and a revered institution in American Jewish life. Launched as a Yiddish-language daily newspaper on April 22, 1897, the Forward entered the din of New York's immigrant press as a defender of trade unionism and moderate, democratic socialism.”
A few days ago, the web site of the paper published an essay by a very misguided young Jewish man entitled, “I’m a Jew and I’m a Member of the Alt-Right.” forward.com/… Here is a snippet of his ridiculous, but earnest defense of alt-right, which is really just a sanitized new appellation for white nationalist racism:
I enjoy the nasty talk in the alt-right. I enjoy spending rhetorical time with people who might otherwise hate me. The alt-right has energy, it has vitality, it’s something NEW and creative, it’s honest and forthright. It’s also the only viable political movement that is explicitly fighting for that nebulous concept of “Western Civilization.”
I have thick skin and a tolerance for others. Liberals like to imagine themselves “tolerant,” but real tolerance is the ability to be around people who are different than you and still value them as people. I’m from a small town, and was raised around tough, rural whites who didn’t spend much time checking their privilege.
The author goes on to embrace white ethno-centrism and even deigns to imagine that he, a Jewish boy, might join and fight for the “movement.”
Why can I swim in a sea of (sometimes genuine) anti-Semitism and laugh at it, while other Jews can’t stand to be called “Jew”? Why am I easily able to ignore the nasty language, stereotyping, and general hostility Jews experience from the Alt-Right?
Part of it is because I believe that what happened to young Eliav Terk is worse than a million Pepe memes. Part of it is because traditional Conservative politics have failed and offer no response to the left’s toxic identity politics.
So far so good, right? Trump is “reaching out” to minorities, making (dubious) converts, and showing he can appeal to basically anyone other than white bread bigots. You’d imagine Trump’s froggy army would be all over this with welcome leis and hosanas to the high heaven.
Well, Trump’s army did rush on over, but they weren’t exactly extending olive branches:
Part of now deleted thread