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Liberal writers let TDS get in the way of calling out leftist anti-Semitism

Liberal writers let TDS get in the way of calling out leftist anti-Semitism

Some liberals, like Bari Weiss, see that the greatest danger is coming from the left but insist on gratuitous swipes at Trump when discussing the issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ELw11xPl8

Former New York Times writer Bari Weiss’ new Tablet piece is an illustration of the kind of confusion a great many liberal Democrats seem to display these days.

For example, Weiss puts her finger squarely on the fact that leftist Democrats such as AOC are either anti-Semitic themselves or fully at the service of other anti-Semitic leftists. But after discussing that for a while, she reverts to reflexive Trump-hate [my emphasis]:

…[M]any smart, well-intentioned people are confused. Or rather: Looking for someone to explain why an emerging movement that purports to advance the ideals they have always supported—fairness, justice, righting historical wrongs—feels like it is doing the opposite.

There is also the X factor of Donald Trump, which is impossible to overstate. Understandable hostility toward him has prevented many Jews from seeing the problem on the other side. To even look away from the obscenity in the White House for a moment strikes many, as they have told me, as irresponsible or beside the point.

I share with the majority of American Jews’ disgust toward Trump and Trumpism, which has normalized bigotry and cruelty in ways that have crippled American society. That truth doesn’t detract from another: There is another danger, this one from the left.

This way of thinking isn’t just an idiosyncrasy of Weiss’. It appears typical of someone in the throes of a strong cognitive dissonance that he or she cannot easily resolve. Weiss hates Trump, but hates the danger on the left as well.

In the second and third paragraphs of that excerpt, Weiss exhibits her Trump-hatred, although she doesn’t seem to feel the need to give a single specific example of how Trump has demonstrated the terrible qualities she’s writing about. The reader is to take them on faith.

The rest of Weiss’ article is a lucid warning about the dangers of the far left and Critical Race Theory – the latter of which happens to actually be a huge and influential purveyor of “bigotry and cruelty” today, and to also be the force that has in fact “normalized” these things and is currently “crippling American society.”

Weiss follows up her warning about the danger of the left with this, which makes it clear she thinks the left represents a greater danger than Trump, and that Biden would not be able to stop them:

And unlike Trump, this one has attained cultural dominance, capturing America’s elites and our most powerful institutions. In the event of a Biden victory, it is hard to imagine it meeting resistance.

So one would think that Weiss’ contention – that the left is a bigger danger than Trump, and that Biden as president wouldn’t counter that danger – would lead her to recommend to her fellow liberals that they vote for Trump. But rather than say that, Weiss is focused on being able to fight “wokeness” from within the Democratic Party, presumably with Biden as president.

Good luck with that.

Weiss follows with a recitation of liberal ideals. This is also interesting, because her list clearly tracks to the ideals of the right these days – only Weiss may not realize it. She also (even after being forced to resign from the NY Times because her type of liberalism no longer exists there) doesn’t seem to understand that she’s reciting ancient history as far as the Democrats are concerned. It’s been a game of pretend for a long time, as the ostracism of Joe Lieberman many years ago should have made crystal clear:

[The ideals of America as a whole used to be] liberal in the most capacious and distinctly American sense of that word: the belief that everyone is equal because everyone is created in the image of God. The belief in the sacredness of the individual over the group or the tribe. The belief that the rule of law—and equality under that law—is the foundation of a free society. The belief that due process and the presumption of innocence are good and that mob violence is bad. The belief that pluralism is a source of our strength; that tolerance is a reason for pride; and that liberty of thought, faith, and speech are the bedrocks of democracy…

…[T]his liberalism relied on the view that the Enlightenment tools of reason and the scientific method might have been designed by dead white guys, but they belonged to everyone, and they were the best tools for human progress that have ever been devised.

Weiss adds:

American liberalism is under siege. There is a new ideology vying to replace it.

I hate to tell Weiss, but adhering to that sort of “American liberalism” today makes her what’s known as “a conservative.” And I regret to inform her that the “new ideology” isn’t “vying to replace” that sort of liberalism among the Democrats. It did replace it quite some time ago. And the left has taken over nearly every cultural institution, including the press (a phenomenon she obviously experienced at the Times).

So it’s late and getting later.

It’s fairly apparent that Weiss wrote the piece to appeal to those Jewish Democrats who can hear her and who might not know what’s been going on with the left and what it signifies. But the point of view Weiss addresses is neither specific to Jews nor limited to them. It is rife among liberal Democrats today, and although Weiss is primarily addressing liberal Jews in her article, Jews share her sentiments only insofar as they are liberals.

But by demonizing Trump (which perhaps Weiss feels she must do, not only because she believes what she says but also because she thinks the readers to whom she’s appealing believe it, too), Weiss is cutting off the most obvious avenue to buy time for any kind of reversal of the dangerous and alarming trends on the left that she sees and describes so well.

[Neo is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at the new neo.]

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Comments

2smartforlibs | October 25, 2020 at 4:33 pm

It gets in the way of everything and it feeds the kool-aid drinks that start the violence.

    Tom Servo in reply to 2smartforlibs. | October 26, 2020 at 10:26 am

    Isn’t it past time for all Faithful Jewish believers to admit that the Democrat Party is simple the modern iteration of the German National Socialist Party of the 30’s ???

This is why the left loves groups like MS13, because OMB!

Weiss has always struck me as an idiot. Supposedly, she is some sort of moderate, but you have to be pretty dumb to write the equivalent of “the barbarians are at the gates, but the Orange Man is icky.” Honestly, when The Left keeps insisting that Trump has brought civilization to an end, I just don’t see it. I honestly don’t see ANYTHING.

    henrybowman in reply to OnPoint. | October 25, 2020 at 7:33 pm

    “you have to be pretty dumb to write the equivalent of “the barbarians are at the gates, but the Orange Man is icky.”

    Stupidity… or is it the terror of social and political isolation and approbation among her (poorly) chosen peer group?

    “No one reads the ‘Thoughts of Chairman Mao’ with more love in his heart than I, but can you comment on the reports that the entire population of dozens of farming villages in the west have died of starvation?”

Which is exactly why a bumbling, corrupt incompetent has any shot at all of being elected President.

Because the left has gone so far down the rabbit hole of ‘good intentions’ that they are literally incapable of objectively analyzing whether their ACTIONS are working AT ALL towards their alleged good intentions.

She needs a radical recto-craniotomy. Ask for lots of anesthesia with that melon head, Bari.

Weiss isn’t that bright. She lost a debate with Joe Rogan trying to explain how bad Tulsie Gabbard would be as POTUS. If you never seen that clip, watching it will convince you how unimpressive she is.

It’s cute how libs think they’re smarter than those on the right.

She just needs time to get out of the liberal echo chamber. She reminds of Tim Pool of a year ago. He would always be hedging while criticizing the actions of the Left. Will she get there? Who knows.

    henrybowman in reply to c0cac0la. | October 25, 2020 at 6:28 pm

    Eventually, once when she realizes that her “loyalty oath reflex” is now somehow failing to get her invited to the right parties, like it used to.

Quite the bubble she is in. As Dennis Prager put it… it was easier to eat a ham sandwich than vote Republican. That “abomination” in the White House is more Pro-Jewish than the Party she is having a hard time abandoning. Her party has always been on the trajectory to communism and anti-religion. It has finally become personal but she still doesn’t see or want to believe the truth.

Meh. This dustup between Weiss and her erstwhile comrades at the WaPo is a food fight between two groups of evil people. She is still enamored with the Glorious Communist Revolution and is weirdly demanding that she be spared the brutality and terror a Harris administration would unleash. Frankly she is no different from those who successfully cancelled her at the WaPo.

Time to face facts. Weiss is not our ally. Weiss has never been our ally. Weiss will never be our ally. She is perfectly OK with “racists” being loaded into cattle cars and sent to their death so long as she is spared.

I tried reading this article a few days ago. The weird switching from semi-coherent argument to outright hatred gave me whiplash. It only took a couple paragraphs for me to conclude that the writer was an imbecile and move on to something else.

Liberalism is a mental disorder. You see it every single day.

Their minds are so screwed up with conflicts that do not match up that they are unable to think straight.

Dementia Joe is probably their perfect candidate in that regard. Of course he will soon need help going to the bathroom, but hey, he is of the “right” party, so his racism, his corruption, his gaffes are all OK.

Bari Weiss is a stupid child, and about as wise as Alexandra Cortez.

She’s a useful idiot of the NY Times.

is her name intended to be some sort of joke?–is it really bari ” white? ”

for some reason, while attempting to read her nonsense am hearing the love unlimited orchestra playing in the background

lord

.
To New Neo, nice takedown! VERY nice!

The liberal spectrum from libertarian to conservative to “good Germans” to the progressively divergent.

Insanity. Pure insanity.

Weiss can’t be blamed.
Jews have never been able to figure out who their friends are. Back in the bad old days of the Third Reich, there were actually Jews who served in the German army. Many didn’t leave Germany when they had a chance because they still believed the German government was a friend to the Jews.
Today, they vote overwhelmingly for the Democrat Party, even though the Democrats have supported Palestinian terrorists in the past and regularly condemns Israel.
They support black causes, even though black leaders despise them.
Throughout the ages, they’ve sown the seeds of their own destruction.

“I share with the majority of American Jews’ disgust toward Trump and Trumpism, which has normalized bigotry and cruelty in ways that have crippled American society.”

She is seriously in denial and self delusion. What has President Trump EVER done to Jews? Is that why there was a big parade for him in NYC by Jews? “Normalized bigotry and cruelty?” She should provide some evidence or keep her misinformed opinion to herself, rather that speak as some sort of authority on the subject.

Understandable hostility toward him [i.e., Trump] has prevented many Jews from seeing the problem on the other side. To even look away from the obscenity in the White House for a moment strikes many, as they have told me, as irresponsible or beside the point.

1. I am aware of nothing other than today’s liberals having long resorted to the “we’re at war with Republicans who dare to be conservative” that would provide any “understanding” of the hatred for Trump. Rubio, Jeb, Cruz, if any of them had been the Republican candidate in 2016 would have been a misogynist, homophobe, and/or the next Hitler.
2. Liberals I speak with use terms that are similar to “the obscenity in the White House,” I ask what could lead them to use that description. I get one of two responses — “he said he could grab pussy,” and the other is just incomprehensible word salad.