The Free Press has declared full war against the streak of antisemitism in the extreme right. I first covered it based on a couple of articles they published a couple of weeks ago, noting the difference between friends and allies. They published another one this week that makes a rather important point. It is easy to confuse media and politics, but they are not the same.
Here’s the meat of Batya Ungar-Sargon’s piece:
The fight roiling the right isn’t about young people turning on Israel. It’s a turf war between conservatives and content creators, between those who want votes and those who want views.
Extremism brings views. Votes are about finding a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. My post of a couple of weeks ago was making the point that we can politically ally with very wrong people in pursuit of a noble end – and such remains true. But as I consider this latest piece, there is an important caution to be sounded. We have watched online media extremism pull Democrats very far to the left in a relatively short period of time.
Now to be fair, Barack Obama was much farther left than he let on, aiding immensely that leftward shift. But even his political gifts could not have moved the party as much as it has moved unless its base could not make the distinction between media hype and political reality.
President Trump is far more sophisticated than he lets on. He knows he needs the extremism on the right to win elections, but he does not govern extremely. The problem is his rhetoric. Because he is so media savvy, he uses rhetoric designed to give those media extremists what they are looking for – views. But in the effort and because of his position, the confusion between media hype and political reality can be exacerbated.
Caution is urged.
And Now, The Round-Up
Regulating speech, in any fashion, is a no-win scenario. The right to free speech implies a right to be foolish, stupid and idiotic. I hate to side with the bad guys on this one, but they are right on the issue at hand.
In Britain, where private gun ownership is highly regulated, mass knife killings are becoming quite common. It is not, nor has it every been, about the weapon – it is about the person wielding it.
Only in California:
Finally, the American interstate highway system, inspired by the German autobahn, have much older roots than this century and the last.
