We have a generation of confected radicals turning a well-practiced revolutionary apparatus toward whatever "is" rather than toward meaningful social or political dragons like those slayed in the past. It reminds me of students (and grown adults working in corporations) who emphasize the "destruction" in "creative destruction". They conflate destruction as the goal, forgetting that some vision and means to create a better future state are meant to precede transformation.
Your frame presupposes that the best way to fight eradicators is by not allowing any democrats to come into power. If, instead, what has caused the rise of the eradicator faction is Trump and his “mad king” populism, then removing or disempowering him and his cronies will be what leads to the sidelining of the eradicators over time. In other words - if the eradicators are the yin to Trump’s yang, then the right answer is getting rid of MAGA now, so this eradicator faction has no more polarizing Trump fuel to pour onto their anti market and anti Israel fire.
I readily acknowledge that the convenient existence of Trump has accelerated the rise of the Eradicator faction in the Left coalition. But you are beyond naive if you believe that Trump is the primary cause.
In fact, the left turn Dems took from 2009 to 2016 - along with, no doubt, the GOP’s bad go-along position on illegal immigration - played a major role in the rise of Trump. “Bitter clingers”, anyone?
Trump did not create DEI. Trump did not create oppressor-oppressed ideology. Trump did not create Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Trump did not create the anti-free speech leftists who dominate academia. Etc.
I hope you are right that the exit of Trump after 2028 will lead to "the sidelining of the eradicators over time." But I fear it will not. Instead, any Republican who does not go along with Democratic conventional wisdom will be considered one of "his cronies". They will be "MAGA without Trump", just as awful. At least that will be the party line, and the line of a lot of the media. Perhaps people will want to "turn down the heat" and won't accept that. Some will, but I fear they will be a minority--or at least a "silent majority".
It will be kinda depressing to return to a GOP that pretends there was no reason he commanded so much support, pretends it was all because of his mad charisma.
Democracy never needed darkness in which to “die”.
Ironically it took a successful war to turn Americans against Israel. Are they all Eradicators, the Americans that have turned off by the Gaza war. Perhaps the no-holds-barred strategy was not such a great idea.
You could have mentioned that a significant % of Dems support political violence, including assassinating the President.
It’s a Dem Demonization Strategy, to lie & distort the record so as to justify hatred against the target. It results in the Dem Derangement Syndrome, with Dems acting deranged because of their hate because of the Demonization. Originally mislabeled by Krauthammer as Bush DS, then modified as Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS. But it was Dems that are Deranged, not Trump, Bush, Palin, Kavanaugh, nor the Jews, nor capitalism.
The open secret yet illegal discrimination by colleges against hiring Reps has allowed deranged Dems, full of hate, to dominate so many institutions thru the Dem indoctrination in college.
3 actions would help: 1) enforce the non-partisan req of colleges to get tax benefits, needing at least 30% Reps & Dems to qualify, or pay the fair partisan share in taxes;
2) 8 year term limits on govt jobs. We need servants as govt workers, not masters.
3) end, or very highly restrict, the NGO regulations, and enforce audits for every $10 million of tax deducted revenue they get (yearly, weekly).
Eradicators is a good name for the assassination party.
There would be no significant "eradicator" faction in American politics without the last half-century of mass immigration. Does it make you rethink your support for that policy?
Arnold writes: "And if the Democrats win this year’s mid-terms and/or the 2028 general election, the Eradicators will try to bully the moderate Democrats into submission."
Based on recent Congressional voting activity, the Eradicators have already bullied the other Democrats into submission on Israel-related issues. Sadly alarming!
Israel is a litmus test, not the goal itself. Opposition to Israel's mere existence is as logical as "Queers for Palestine".
I do not like religious governments, and have no use for Israel in isolation. But Israel is not isolated. It is surrounded by religious dictatorships far more vile than Israel could ever be. To throw Israel to the wolves is to support Islamic dictatorships.
Democracy is a lousy form of government. Even if you gussy it up as Representative Democracy, it is still majority rule, collectivism, the enemy of individualism. But every other form of coercive monopolistic government is worse.
Israel, for all its religious government faults, is still the only Representative Democracy in the region. To choose Islamic dictatorship over Israel is as idiotic as choosing plain old dictatorship over democracy.
> “I assume that moderates on the left would feel uncomfortable with the destruction of Israel or with America being turned into Cuba.”
I used to share that assumption. I don’t anymore.
The reactions I saw from people I would consider thoughtful, liberal friends—after October 7 in Israel, and closer to home, in India, after the Pahalgam attacks in April 2025—were deeply unsettling. Not because everyone took a “wrong” position on policy, but because of the moral asymmetry in how violence was processed, justified, or quietly ignored.
What shocked me was not just disagreement. It was the ease with which brutality could be reframed, contextualized, or deprioritized depending on who the victims were. In some cases, there was silence where I expected outrage. In others, a kind of detached rationalization that felt far removed from basic human empathy.
That experience has forced a sobering update in my own thinking:
it is not safe to assume that people will instinctively recoil from the brutalization of others—especially if those others fall outside their moral in-group.
To be clear, I’m not claiming that “all moderates” hold extreme views, nor that disagreement equals endorsement of violence. But I do think there is a growing gap between what people say they stand for in principle and how they respond in moments that test those principles.
That gap matters.
So I appreciate you naming a phenomenon—even if the label “Eradicator” will understandably make some readers uncomfortable. Sometimes the discomfort is a signal that something real is being pointed at, even if the framing can be debated.
Given your usual reluctance to take apocalyptic positions, the fact that you’ve written this suggests you see a genuine shift. I suspect many readers feel a version of this unease but are hesitant to articulate it.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s important that you continue to write about it—even if it costs you some subscribers. Clear thinking under social pressure is precisely what’s in short supply right now.
The very concept of Iran and its "resistance" having nuclear weapons is totally unstable and unacceptable for humanity, as they will use them. The only reason we are alive today depends upon MAD (mutually assured destruction) actually working, which implies that leaders of the nuclear-armed nations want to live (you can't dig deep enough to stop nuclear weapons). When the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran keep saying, "they love martyrdom more than Israelis and Americans love life," the required MAD assumption of wanting to live is not present. They appear to truly believe that they don't die, but just go to a better place, like all the believers who drank the Cool-Aid in my generation. These true-believers also claim to want all their citizens to go to heaven with them. This religious cult is larger, politically smarter, and better armed than the Cool-Aid drinkers.
Being a lot older with a lot more knowledge about nuclear weapons than any talking heads (did my thesis at Laurence Livermore Labs and worked there), I have observed that people who truly believe in anything from space ships to deities can commit suicide and/or kill others while believing they are doing God's work or joining space aliens. By killing their own citizens, they are benefiting their belief system.
First, a typo: "against Israel of the side of Cuba" should be "against Israel on the side of Cuba."
Second, a substantive point. I think the problem is that we have 2 parties that are anti-free market. I remember attending a Hoover dinner about 20 years ago where George Will was the speaker. He said that the most anti-American president in our history was Woodrow Wilson. I think that Donald Trump comes in second. Also, Vance is strongly anti-market. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is fairly anti-market also. Those facts make the choice more complicated.
“I think that Donald Trump comes in second. Also, Vance is strongly anti-market.”
Context matters, David.
In the context of “Republicans”, I have only minor quibbles with your claim - and none relative to prior GOP presidents and VPs.
But in the context of today’s politicians - and this post - the idea that Trump and Vance are less pro-market than *most* nationally elected Dem office holders is surely ridiculous, is it not?
I was comparing presidents. Here are the two sentences, of which you quoted only the second: "He said that the most anti-American president in our history was Woodrow Wilson. I think that Donald Trump comes in second."
Ok, but then you mentioned not only Vance, but also Josh Hawley.
How is the mention of Hawley remotely relevant to just comparing presidents?
I assumed your whole comment, based on your last sentence “Those facts make the choice more complicated” meant you were referring to your own statement at the beginning of the paragraph - the thing that *I* was objecting to - that “we have 2 parties that are anti-free market”.
It's not relevant to comparing presidents. But I see your point. Yes, Hawley is probably better than even the median Democrat. Re Vance, I'm not so sure. HIs campaigning for Orban was ugly.
Ok while I still strongly disagree with your claim that there is a reasonable chance Vance is more anti-market than today’s median Dem, at least I can do so respectfully, as at least that is less insane than asserting or implying that Trump and Hawley are.
My disagreement with you here is no defense at all of Vance - and I likely share many of your concerns about him becoming the GOP standard bearer in 2028 - it is rather exactly AK’s point about the power already shown by the “Eradicator” wing of the Dem party, and the utter unwillingness of the median Dem Congresscritter - hell, even the 85th% closest to the center Dem - to push back on them at all for many years now.
Whether out of genuinely held beliefs or the more likely fear of being primaried is of little relevance.
For me, I look at it from the perspective of rhetoric vs. legislative legacy. Yes, there is a lot of anti-free market rhetoric from both parties right now, but as of yet, they haven’t really accomplished anything of lasting consequence. As for TR, FDR, LBJ and the SCOTUS that enabled them (e.g. Wickard v. Filburn), I would say that their legislative achievements were far more consequential in the steady decline of our free market tradition than anything from either party today.
Consequently, it may be too premature to rank Trump as second worst after Wilson.
I am a Jew and I support Israel. But I don’t support America’s wars against enemies of Israel; I certainly support Israel’s right to fight those enemies—root and branch.
But Israel has bad politicians too. They use the Holocaust as a shield against anyone who should dare argue against Israel and its policies. This is no different than what other victim groups have been doing in support of terrible policies.
There’s a difference between attacking Jews for being Jewish and attacking Israel for exploiting the Holocaust and antisemitism.
PS—Israel isn’t going anywhere so stop crying wolf and please stop using Jews and the Holocaust as a political excuse to kill innocent people.
Sam Harris has made plenty of good arguments for regime change in Iran that have little or nothing to do with Israel.
To clarify, in the piece I listened to, he said nothing for or against military action. I don't know where he stands on that. Not sure I care unless he has an argument which I would find compelling.
Israel is not going anywhere. How lovely a sentiment. If you are wrong, I assume you'd come here and say, ooops?
Israel doesn't need to "exploit" the Holocaust. You can disagree with Bibi and his messianic cult, but it would take just ONE atomic bomb from Iran to eliminate Israel. Do you even know the size of Israel?
The Holocaust is not an excuse and is not being exploited. It is there with everyone who lost a family to the Nazis. Only those who didn't can say, "exploit" on that trauma.
Your response to my comment seems to be questioning my Jewish credentials but I will give you the benefit of the doubt (for the moment) and move on to your argument (or so it would seem to me to be) for warring against Iran. I would argue that the United States or Russia or China (or even North Korea) could (if provoked) “drop bombs” on their adversaries (but I give this a low probability, say 1-2 percent—N. Korea is on the higher side of my estimate).
Again, I support Israel’s right to exist and to defend its people (or stated differently, I support the right of any individual or group of individuals to defend against an imminent attack against their own freedom and liberty). But it gets a bit dangerous once “we” (whoever that is) start declaring war against states with nuclear weapons or nuclear technology—don’t you think? (I believe that’s called alarmism.)
PS—Israel is the size of New Jersey. I have met many survivors of the Holocaust and my grandparents, Joseph (a Magyar) and Lena (a Czech from Poland) escaped the Nazis but of course not all our family were so fortunate. I blame the U.S. and the European governments for shutting their doors (and their eyes).
I can also provide a long list of books (The Bloodlands is perhaps the most disturbing, but I think Viktor Frankl’s books are deeply profound and show what Hannah Arendt coined “the banality of evil”.) that I have read on Israel and Antisemitism (I am currently reading Thinking The Twentieth Century by Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder which I highly recommend).
PPS—I have both family and friends living in Israel and serving in the IDF—Both my young yoga instructor (she’s maybe 27 now) and a young man I used to drive to swimming with my daughter, who are both 22.
I don't care about Jewish credentials. Anyone who says Israel is "exploiting" the holocaust has no clue as to the trauma and has probably never been in wars where the survival of his family and country was at stake. Sitting comfortably where you are in the US and claiming Israel is not going anywhere is nice. That said, whether or not Iran posed an imminent danger to Israel is an academic philosophizing. Israel might be the size of NJ but this is misleading when it comes the nuclear war. 2/3 of Israel is desert. Its metropolitans (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem mostly) can be wiped out instantly with nuclear attack. So here is a question to you, whether you have relatives in Israel or not: Should it wait until Iran has nuclear bombs when it explicitly threaten to wipe Israel off the map? NJ isn't surrounded by 7 Muslim countries eager to destroy it.
I believe my support for Israel has been made perfectly clear. If Israel must go to war against Iran or for that matter against any other country hostile towards it so be it—I support any individual or group of individuals defending themselves provided that the threat is real. But I do not support the U.S. military going to war unless and until individuals in the United States are under imminent threat of attack.
The idea that the possession of nuclear technology or even weapon technology is tantamount to an imminent threat is apocalyptic.
PS—Please stop wielding “Israel” as some sacred thing. Israel is a place on a map and the home to many different kinds of people. It is in no sense a monolith.
Wrong on two counts. First, Israel is not just "another place on the map." You just lost your Jewish "credentials." Israel is home to the smallest, and most persecuted, ethnic group on earth with history of 3000 years. What home to different people? Would a nuclear bomb discriminate between people of different origins? Where do you get your information from? Whether you find it "unique" or not doesn't matter one bit. Israel is not France or Panama.
I agree, and stated it elsewhere, the US had no good reason to go into war. That said, Israel needed US permission to attack Iran, ridiculous as it sounds. It needed US missile defense against 10,000 ballistic missiles and Hezbollah rockets into the Galilee. And whether or not US joined the attack, Iran would have reacted by attacking US and its Arab allies in the region. Your Monro standoffish perspective lacks any credible understanding of the region. Your "support" for Israel lacks sincerity as well.
Ad hominem attacks and unsupported claims that I don’t understand are not fact based arguments. I have never denied the history of antisemitism or that Israel is the historical and political homeland of the Jewish people. Furthermore, I categorically refuse (in the same way that I do for BLM and other victim seeking groups) to grant Israel (and its political leaders) immunity from warranted judgment. Accordingly I have simply pointed out that “Israel” is not beyond scrutiny for its actions.
I unsubscribe not because of the fearful take on the election. I miss the old Kling I thought I knew as analytical and insightful. It’s actually totally okay to be a single-issue voter. But invoking any other reasons like bundled policies, other actors in the party, or mood affiliation seems to over-dress the underlying reason.
The Democrats will do anything and everything they can to turn us into a one-party state, and we can see part of what that would be like by looking to the governance of Democrat controlled states and cities. They would pack the Supreme Court, add Senators from DC and Puerto Rico, and who knows what else. They are terrified by President Trump, who has given voice to the many (73 million in the last election) who have finally found a politician who has tried to address their concerns, but has been fought every step of the way by Democrats. Democratic leaders are slavishly in the control of "the groups," i.e., the most radical activists who live off government largesse through systems of grift like USAID and many others. Democratic politicians know they can easily be driven out of office through primaries where only the radical base votes. Yes, it is an apocalyptic situation. Sad that only a sharp rise in anti-Semitism and a threat to the existence of the Jews in Israel can wake up a few of the 80% Jewish majority that have long been unconditionally married to the Democratic Party.
Well said; and yes regarding too many things all need to show their work when saying this or that!
Sensible, not Crazy; Educate not Indoctrinate and be careful who learn from....
Think for yourself; something way too many do not do today.
We have a generation of confected radicals turning a well-practiced revolutionary apparatus toward whatever "is" rather than toward meaningful social or political dragons like those slayed in the past. It reminds me of students (and grown adults working in corporations) who emphasize the "destruction" in "creative destruction". They conflate destruction as the goal, forgetting that some vision and means to create a better future state are meant to precede transformation.
All to say: "Eradicators" is an apt name.
Your frame presupposes that the best way to fight eradicators is by not allowing any democrats to come into power. If, instead, what has caused the rise of the eradicator faction is Trump and his “mad king” populism, then removing or disempowering him and his cronies will be what leads to the sidelining of the eradicators over time. In other words - if the eradicators are the yin to Trump’s yang, then the right answer is getting rid of MAGA now, so this eradicator faction has no more polarizing Trump fuel to pour onto their anti market and anti Israel fire.
I readily acknowledge that the convenient existence of Trump has accelerated the rise of the Eradicator faction in the Left coalition. But you are beyond naive if you believe that Trump is the primary cause.
In fact, the left turn Dems took from 2009 to 2016 - along with, no doubt, the GOP’s bad go-along position on illegal immigration - played a major role in the rise of Trump. “Bitter clingers”, anyone?
Trump did not create DEI. Trump did not create oppressor-oppressed ideology. Trump did not create Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Trump did not create the anti-free speech leftists who dominate academia. Etc.
I hope you are right that the exit of Trump after 2028 will lead to "the sidelining of the eradicators over time." But I fear it will not. Instead, any Republican who does not go along with Democratic conventional wisdom will be considered one of "his cronies". They will be "MAGA without Trump", just as awful. At least that will be the party line, and the line of a lot of the media. Perhaps people will want to "turn down the heat" and won't accept that. Some will, but I fear they will be a minority--or at least a "silent majority".
It will be kinda depressing to return to a GOP that pretends there was no reason he commanded so much support, pretends it was all because of his mad charisma.
Democracy never needed darkness in which to “die”.
Ironically it took a successful war to turn Americans against Israel. Are they all Eradicators, the Americans that have turned off by the Gaza war. Perhaps the no-holds-barred strategy was not such a great idea.
You could have mentioned that a significant % of Dems support political violence, including assassinating the President.
It’s a Dem Demonization Strategy, to lie & distort the record so as to justify hatred against the target. It results in the Dem Derangement Syndrome, with Dems acting deranged because of their hate because of the Demonization. Originally mislabeled by Krauthammer as Bush DS, then modified as Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS. But it was Dems that are Deranged, not Trump, Bush, Palin, Kavanaugh, nor the Jews, nor capitalism.
The open secret yet illegal discrimination by colleges against hiring Reps has allowed deranged Dems, full of hate, to dominate so many institutions thru the Dem indoctrination in college.
3 actions would help: 1) enforce the non-partisan req of colleges to get tax benefits, needing at least 30% Reps & Dems to qualify, or pay the fair partisan share in taxes;
2) 8 year term limits on govt jobs. We need servants as govt workers, not masters.
3) end, or very highly restrict, the NGO regulations, and enforce audits for every $10 million of tax deducted revenue they get (yearly, weekly).
Eradicators is a good name for the assassination party.
There would be no significant "eradicator" faction in American politics without the last half-century of mass immigration. Does it make you rethink your support for that policy?
Janus can’t really do anything about having two heads.
Arnold writes: "And if the Democrats win this year’s mid-terms and/or the 2028 general election, the Eradicators will try to bully the moderate Democrats into submission."
Based on recent Congressional voting activity, the Eradicators have already bullied the other Democrats into submission on Israel-related issues. Sadly alarming!
Israel is a litmus test, not the goal itself. Opposition to Israel's mere existence is as logical as "Queers for Palestine".
I do not like religious governments, and have no use for Israel in isolation. But Israel is not isolated. It is surrounded by religious dictatorships far more vile than Israel could ever be. To throw Israel to the wolves is to support Islamic dictatorships.
Democracy is a lousy form of government. Even if you gussy it up as Representative Democracy, it is still majority rule, collectivism, the enemy of individualism. But every other form of coercive monopolistic government is worse.
Israel, for all its religious government faults, is still the only Representative Democracy in the region. To choose Islamic dictatorship over Israel is as idiotic as choosing plain old dictatorship over democracy.
I want to focus on one line in your piece:
> “I assume that moderates on the left would feel uncomfortable with the destruction of Israel or with America being turned into Cuba.”
I used to share that assumption. I don’t anymore.
The reactions I saw from people I would consider thoughtful, liberal friends—after October 7 in Israel, and closer to home, in India, after the Pahalgam attacks in April 2025—were deeply unsettling. Not because everyone took a “wrong” position on policy, but because of the moral asymmetry in how violence was processed, justified, or quietly ignored.
What shocked me was not just disagreement. It was the ease with which brutality could be reframed, contextualized, or deprioritized depending on who the victims were. In some cases, there was silence where I expected outrage. In others, a kind of detached rationalization that felt far removed from basic human empathy.
That experience has forced a sobering update in my own thinking:
it is not safe to assume that people will instinctively recoil from the brutalization of others—especially if those others fall outside their moral in-group.
To be clear, I’m not claiming that “all moderates” hold extreme views, nor that disagreement equals endorsement of violence. But I do think there is a growing gap between what people say they stand for in principle and how they respond in moments that test those principles.
That gap matters.
So I appreciate you naming a phenomenon—even if the label “Eradicator” will understandably make some readers uncomfortable. Sometimes the discomfort is a signal that something real is being pointed at, even if the framing can be debated.
Given your usual reluctance to take apocalyptic positions, the fact that you’ve written this suggests you see a genuine shift. I suspect many readers feel a version of this unease but are hesitant to articulate it.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s important that you continue to write about it—even if it costs you some subscribers. Clear thinking under social pressure is precisely what’s in short supply right now.
The very concept of Iran and its "resistance" having nuclear weapons is totally unstable and unacceptable for humanity, as they will use them. The only reason we are alive today depends upon MAD (mutually assured destruction) actually working, which implies that leaders of the nuclear-armed nations want to live (you can't dig deep enough to stop nuclear weapons). When the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran keep saying, "they love martyrdom more than Israelis and Americans love life," the required MAD assumption of wanting to live is not present. They appear to truly believe that they don't die, but just go to a better place, like all the believers who drank the Cool-Aid in my generation. These true-believers also claim to want all their citizens to go to heaven with them. This religious cult is larger, politically smarter, and better armed than the Cool-Aid drinkers.
Being a lot older with a lot more knowledge about nuclear weapons than any talking heads (did my thesis at Laurence Livermore Labs and worked there), I have observed that people who truly believe in anything from space ships to deities can commit suicide and/or kill others while believing they are doing God's work or joining space aliens. By killing their own citizens, they are benefiting their belief system.
Two points.
First, a typo: "against Israel of the side of Cuba" should be "against Israel on the side of Cuba."
Second, a substantive point. I think the problem is that we have 2 parties that are anti-free market. I remember attending a Hoover dinner about 20 years ago where George Will was the speaker. He said that the most anti-American president in our history was Woodrow Wilson. I think that Donald Trump comes in second. Also, Vance is strongly anti-market. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is fairly anti-market also. Those facts make the choice more complicated.
“I think that Donald Trump comes in second. Also, Vance is strongly anti-market.”
Context matters, David.
In the context of “Republicans”, I have only minor quibbles with your claim - and none relative to prior GOP presidents and VPs.
But in the context of today’s politicians - and this post - the idea that Trump and Vance are less pro-market than *most* nationally elected Dem office holders is surely ridiculous, is it not?
I was comparing presidents. Here are the two sentences, of which you quoted only the second: "He said that the most anti-American president in our history was Woodrow Wilson. I think that Donald Trump comes in second."
Ok, but then you mentioned not only Vance, but also Josh Hawley.
How is the mention of Hawley remotely relevant to just comparing presidents?
I assumed your whole comment, based on your last sentence “Those facts make the choice more complicated” meant you were referring to your own statement at the beginning of the paragraph - the thing that *I* was objecting to - that “we have 2 parties that are anti-free market”.
It's not relevant to comparing presidents. But I see your point. Yes, Hawley is probably better than even the median Democrat. Re Vance, I'm not so sure. HIs campaigning for Orban was ugly.
Ok while I still strongly disagree with your claim that there is a reasonable chance Vance is more anti-market than today’s median Dem, at least I can do so respectfully, as at least that is less insane than asserting or implying that Trump and Hawley are.
My disagreement with you here is no defense at all of Vance - and I likely share many of your concerns about him becoming the GOP standard bearer in 2028 - it is rather exactly AK’s point about the power already shown by the “Eradicator” wing of the Dem party, and the utter unwillingness of the median Dem Congresscritter - hell, even the 85th% closest to the center Dem - to push back on them at all for many years now.
Whether out of genuinely held beliefs or the more likely fear of being primaried is of little relevance.
For me, I look at it from the perspective of rhetoric vs. legislative legacy. Yes, there is a lot of anti-free market rhetoric from both parties right now, but as of yet, they haven’t really accomplished anything of lasting consequence. As for TR, FDR, LBJ and the SCOTUS that enabled them (e.g. Wickard v. Filburn), I would say that their legislative achievements were far more consequential in the steady decline of our free market tradition than anything from either party today.
Consequently, it may be too premature to rank Trump as second worst after Wilson.
True.
100%. Kudos.
I am a Jew and I support Israel. But I don’t support America’s wars against enemies of Israel; I certainly support Israel’s right to fight those enemies—root and branch.
But Israel has bad politicians too. They use the Holocaust as a shield against anyone who should dare argue against Israel and its policies. This is no different than what other victim groups have been doing in support of terrible policies.
There’s a difference between attacking Jews for being Jewish and attacking Israel for exploiting the Holocaust and antisemitism.
PS—Israel isn’t going anywhere so stop crying wolf and please stop using Jews and the Holocaust as a political excuse to kill innocent people.
Sam Harris has made plenty of good arguments for regime change in Iran that have little or nothing to do with Israel.
To clarify, in the piece I listened to, he said nothing for or against military action. I don't know where he stands on that. Not sure I care unless he has an argument which I would find compelling.
Israel is not going anywhere. How lovely a sentiment. If you are wrong, I assume you'd come here and say, ooops?
Israel doesn't need to "exploit" the Holocaust. You can disagree with Bibi and his messianic cult, but it would take just ONE atomic bomb from Iran to eliminate Israel. Do you even know the size of Israel?
The Holocaust is not an excuse and is not being exploited. It is there with everyone who lost a family to the Nazis. Only those who didn't can say, "exploit" on that trauma.
Your response to my comment seems to be questioning my Jewish credentials but I will give you the benefit of the doubt (for the moment) and move on to your argument (or so it would seem to me to be) for warring against Iran. I would argue that the United States or Russia or China (or even North Korea) could (if provoked) “drop bombs” on their adversaries (but I give this a low probability, say 1-2 percent—N. Korea is on the higher side of my estimate).
Again, I support Israel’s right to exist and to defend its people (or stated differently, I support the right of any individual or group of individuals to defend against an imminent attack against their own freedom and liberty). But it gets a bit dangerous once “we” (whoever that is) start declaring war against states with nuclear weapons or nuclear technology—don’t you think? (I believe that’s called alarmism.)
PS—Israel is the size of New Jersey. I have met many survivors of the Holocaust and my grandparents, Joseph (a Magyar) and Lena (a Czech from Poland) escaped the Nazis but of course not all our family were so fortunate. I blame the U.S. and the European governments for shutting their doors (and their eyes).
I can also provide a long list of books (The Bloodlands is perhaps the most disturbing, but I think Viktor Frankl’s books are deeply profound and show what Hannah Arendt coined “the banality of evil”.) that I have read on Israel and Antisemitism (I am currently reading Thinking The Twentieth Century by Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder which I highly recommend).
PPS—I have both family and friends living in Israel and serving in the IDF—Both my young yoga instructor (she’s maybe 27 now) and a young man I used to drive to swimming with my daughter, who are both 22.
I don't care about Jewish credentials. Anyone who says Israel is "exploiting" the holocaust has no clue as to the trauma and has probably never been in wars where the survival of his family and country was at stake. Sitting comfortably where you are in the US and claiming Israel is not going anywhere is nice. That said, whether or not Iran posed an imminent danger to Israel is an academic philosophizing. Israel might be the size of NJ but this is misleading when it comes the nuclear war. 2/3 of Israel is desert. Its metropolitans (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem mostly) can be wiped out instantly with nuclear attack. So here is a question to you, whether you have relatives in Israel or not: Should it wait until Iran has nuclear bombs when it explicitly threaten to wipe Israel off the map? NJ isn't surrounded by 7 Muslim countries eager to destroy it.
I believe my support for Israel has been made perfectly clear. If Israel must go to war against Iran or for that matter against any other country hostile towards it so be it—I support any individual or group of individuals defending themselves provided that the threat is real. But I do not support the U.S. military going to war unless and until individuals in the United States are under imminent threat of attack.
The idea that the possession of nuclear technology or even weapon technology is tantamount to an imminent threat is apocalyptic.
PS—Please stop wielding “Israel” as some sacred thing. Israel is a place on a map and the home to many different kinds of people. It is in no sense a monolith.
Wrong on two counts. First, Israel is not just "another place on the map." You just lost your Jewish "credentials." Israel is home to the smallest, and most persecuted, ethnic group on earth with history of 3000 years. What home to different people? Would a nuclear bomb discriminate between people of different origins? Where do you get your information from? Whether you find it "unique" or not doesn't matter one bit. Israel is not France or Panama.
I agree, and stated it elsewhere, the US had no good reason to go into war. That said, Israel needed US permission to attack Iran, ridiculous as it sounds. It needed US missile defense against 10,000 ballistic missiles and Hezbollah rockets into the Galilee. And whether or not US joined the attack, Iran would have reacted by attacking US and its Arab allies in the region. Your Monro standoffish perspective lacks any credible understanding of the region. Your "support" for Israel lacks sincerity as well.
Ad hominem attacks and unsupported claims that I don’t understand are not fact based arguments. I have never denied the history of antisemitism or that Israel is the historical and political homeland of the Jewish people. Furthermore, I categorically refuse (in the same way that I do for BLM and other victim seeking groups) to grant Israel (and its political leaders) immunity from warranted judgment. Accordingly I have simply pointed out that “Israel” is not beyond scrutiny for its actions.
I think nuclear proliferation is dangerous, but I’m a bit of a simpleton.
I unsubscribe not because of the fearful take on the election. I miss the old Kling I thought I knew as analytical and insightful. It’s actually totally okay to be a single-issue voter. But invoking any other reasons like bundled policies, other actors in the party, or mood affiliation seems to over-dress the underlying reason.
You are subscribed to nothing. Not a single thing.
Would that a solution be found to silence these bots.
If the under 50 Dem activists were in charge of Substack, I’m quite confident they’d get rid of about *half* of said bots, anyway…
The Democrats will do anything and everything they can to turn us into a one-party state, and we can see part of what that would be like by looking to the governance of Democrat controlled states and cities. They would pack the Supreme Court, add Senators from DC and Puerto Rico, and who knows what else. They are terrified by President Trump, who has given voice to the many (73 million in the last election) who have finally found a politician who has tried to address their concerns, but has been fought every step of the way by Democrats. Democratic leaders are slavishly in the control of "the groups," i.e., the most radical activists who live off government largesse through systems of grift like USAID and many others. Democratic politicians know they can easily be driven out of office through primaries where only the radical base votes. Yes, it is an apocalyptic situation. Sad that only a sharp rise in anti-Semitism and a threat to the existence of the Jews in Israel can wake up a few of the 80% Jewish majority that have long been unconditionally married to the Democratic Party.
“I expect to get a lot of unsubscribes because of that“
How can I use AI to unsubscribe from this unseemly Substack?
Just kidding, I love me some unconventional Kling posts.