Endless compassion

I’m optimistic. This week America rejected hate. “Huh?!” No, that’s what happened. America rejected the identity politics of the socialists in the Democrats. They rejected Rashida Tlaib’s sole Palestinian flag (ie, no American flag) outside her door in Congress. They rejected AOC’s platforming of misogynists like Hasan Piker. They rejected the 400% increase of antisemitism; the shooting of Jews in the streets, the university encampments, and the daily mass intimidation of anyone who supports Western freedoms in our city’s centers via “peaceful protest”.

They rejected being called transphobes for wanting to protect women’s sports. They rejected being assumed racists for not proving otherwise. They rejected being ignored or bullied or shamed and DARVO’d for speaking up for the women nobody else believed. They said no to hate. But the socialists believe they said yes to it: yes to transphobia, to homophobia, to misogyny, to racism, to antisemitism (re: the latter, give me a break). As a member of the most persecuted minority to ever roam this earth, I call bullshit. People who are shocked and appalled by the January 6th insurrection but completely silent during yesterday’s Amsterdam Pogrom are not kings and queens of morality. Their moral compass is broken. So sorry, but the socialists lost the rest of us. Because America chose ideas over identity, finally. And so long as we can match our values, we will be fine, because we will fight for them freely in an arena where we won’t be cancelled and evicted from society for challenging the wrongs. And you can rest assured that we will challenge the wrongs. Whether it’s the lifelong Democrats who voted against their own party for pandering to extremism, whether it’s lifelong Republicans themselves, whether it’s people like me who cannot vote and consider themselves political orphans too mistrusting of any institution to put my life completely in their hands, or whether it’s the Never Trumper Democrats; we all have shared values that we are vying to protect and that we will hold any and every elected official accountable to.

Online advocate and staunch Democrat Brianna Wu wrote yesterday:

It was a difficult pill for me to swallow as a trans woman, but Americans want to think about identity less. Not more. So that means we have to change how we approach this. Inverting the hierarchy of oppression is out. Mutual respect and seeing each other’s humanity is in.

Last night I lit my Shabbat candles, and I sat with them for a longer moment to wish peace on the people who are hurting right now, and they have every right to hurt. Disappointment is a valid feeling. Of course, many people are crushed. They believe in what they believe in wholeheartedly, but have they made sure they can trust the information they’ve received and that it holds? I’m not sure they can. After years of fighting both antisemitism and misogyny, I don’t trust any mainstream media, not even if they say things that seem to appeal to my interests. Will there be a national abortion ban in America in the next four years? I will eat my whole hat collection if that happens. I really do ask any person who has been in wild grief this week to consider this, and I say this as gently as I can: if you feel like you despise your country, you just might be a pawn in the enemy's pocket. "Divide and conquer" ring any bells?

To the few who still follow in the socialist Democrat bracket: for over a year, nobody came to show real solidarity to Jews, and yesterday on a day in which Jews were chased through the streets of Europe, thrown in rivers, and forced to say “Free Palestine” while pleading to their assailants “I’m not Jewish!”, they did not lift their heads to care. During a pogrom, while they are tearing their hair out over a perceived domestic war that isn’t even happening. They are fantasizing about wars, while real wars continue, while their neighbors scream at them: HELP US, PLEASE SPEAK UP.

Amsterdam was a real premeditated Islamist pogrom against Jews, like those in Aleppo, like those during the Farhud, like those in Eastern Europe during Nazism. Do you know what that tells you about the socialists? They don't care about oppression at all; they care about being able to claim that they are oppressed. America has in large droves entirely rejected their way of talking about community and the world, and instead of wondering why, they are having an identity crisis. They are having an identity crisis because they're realizing that not only does nobody care about individual identity, but without identity politics they stand behind nothing. They feel rejected right now, and their sense of importance is challenged. We identified the narcissism of the “community of the good”. Weaponizing charity as a way of advancing their own egos and power. Americans have shown that they see through that, and I live in hope that Americans have just shown that they care about growth and unity. If all of that fails, then there is still hope: hope that the Democrat party will do some real analysis and come back closer to center, and more unified in themselves.

Every Friday night for thousands of years it’s what we’ve had. A light in the dark. A blessing in the air. A song in the quiet. Not everyone wants a light in the dark. Some people aren’t ready and want to stay in their fear and their anger, and all we can hope for is that one day they will understand why we shine bright through suffering and pain. And why it’s the way we know how to love. It is the healthiest way to love and sometimes it must happen from a distance. This is how we’ve survived. Leading with the flames of two white candle sticks. Last night I gave a thought to peaceful, safer, unified times, and fully believing we will reach them.

If the Democrats want to recover it is incumbent upon all moderate liberals to stop cowering, waiting for someone else to rid the party of its far leftism. It is for every moderate to stand up to extremism, in all of its forms. Many moderate liberals consoled privately to me in the last year, but they did not have the temerity to do it publicly. To use their voices, and their platforms, and to really stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us to reject their fellow Democrats who had gone too far. If a liberal is going to dehumanize someone like me as a person who doesn’t care for civil liberties because I demand more from the leaders of the world to, for instance, clearly and fully condemn the Free Palestine movement, they’re no better than the racists they fear.

To all the online “advocates” who bolster the fear-mongering, I say shame on you for your irresponsible behavior. Shame on you for screaming that there is a war on women while ignoring wars on women in Israel, in Sudan, in Afghanistan, in Iran. Shame on you for ignoring wars on individual women here in the United States when it doesn’t suit your agenda. Shame on you for sharing Qatari funded outlets like AlJazeera that fuel the Islamist ideologies and anti-American vitriol. Shame on you for allowing the Chinese state controlled app TikTok for informing your “knowledge” base. Democrats, I put to you that you don’t hate your country. Enemies of America hate your country and they are doing a good job of making you eat your own tail from the inside. Stop letting them. Take back your power. Take control. You don’t have to like who is in office but for your sake, open your eyes to the threat, and get to work.

We are in a global war against an ideology that will strip all of us of all of our civil liberties, but here are to many moderate liberals believing the same mainstream media that has done its best to obfuscate from this very fact, instead believing their disinformation and division-stoking. Moderate liberals have not had the guts to share the independent voices of truth, instead fearing that the age of Substack is some sort of right-wing attempted pendulum swing. They cannot look at themselves and consider that they are the ones who have been doing the cancelling, the ostracizing, the decreased tolerance of viewpoints, that they have pushed centrist, reasonable, moral, rational voices out. That instead of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, they have been running a Dejected, Oppressive and Exclusion project. MSM and social media have convinced so many in-pocket vulnerable Democrats that they’re about to experience a war that may not be coming and is certainly not here, as they sit alone in their homes tearing up their lives and melting down over the democratic election of a presidential candidate. The juxtaposition is mad and should be alarming to all. Brainwashing is not exclusive to one side. The horseshoe theory is alive and well. MAGA and the Squad could shake hands if they tweaked a few of the words they use.

So if you hate the likes of me for being optimistic, I give you my endless compassion in return. I’m optimistic because I have to be, because I know what I’m talking about and I believe it in my soul. I know the enemy. I’ve seen the evil of the Islamic regime. I don’t want it to touch the lives of any American I love. It is too late for many parts of Europe, but it is not too late for America at large. Hold fast, and hold strong. We’re going to be okay.