WHAT THIS POST IS NOT ARGUING
The argument of this post is not to suggest that far-left groups and far-right groups are mirror images of each other on the basis of surface-level similarities, or a logical fallacy known as reductio ad Hitlerum (e.g. such as by making the argument that dog lovers are just like Hitler because Hitler, too, loved dogs).
The DSA and the KKK are obviously not equivalent to each other, as they sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum and hold drastically different views — in all areas but one.
WHAT THIS POST IS ARGUING
- Few on the left actually understand the role that antisemitism plays vis-à-vis white supremacy, meaning that ultimately they misunderstand white supremacy itself.
- Those with a propensity for conspiratorial thinking and anti-establishment views will often perfectly align with their political adversaries on the issue of Jews.
DAVID DUKE AND THE ISRAEL-HATERS
Time and time again, David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, has praised or outright endorsed anti-Israel left-wing politicians.
- In 2019, Duke endorsed Ilhan Omar, calling her the most important member of the US Congress, “by defiance to Z.O.G.” [Z.O.G., or “Zionist Occupied Government,” is a neo-Nazi conspiracy that alleges Zionist Jews control the American government].
- In 2024, Duke endorsed Jill Stein in her presidential campaign, praising her for fighting what he saw as Donald Trump’s “subservience to the Jewish lobby.”
- This month, Duke praised DSA rising star Darializa Avila Chevalier, supporting her since-deleted Tweets condemning interracial relationships between Arab and Black men and white women.
- In the same interview, Duke endorsed New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, telling the Free Beacon, “I think that the new mayor of New York was a step forward…His views on Israel are critical, because there's no more important political issue than the fact that a tiny minority of America…the oligarchs of the Jewish people, that they are controlling our foreign policy.”
ANTISEMITISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY
The left claim to fight white supremacy. Indeed, left-wing antizionists persistently deflect from accusations of antisemitism by pointing to the “real antisemitism” coming from white supremacists and the far-right. And yet, they seem entirely oblivious to the outsized role that both antisemitism and antizionist animus play in white supremacist ideology.
Antisemitism, as the “world’s oldest hatred,” is foundational to white supremacy, and indeed it far predates other forms of racial hatred in the West.
By the 18th and 19th centuries, the pseudoscientific racial science that characterizes what we understand today as white supremacy was deeply entrenched in antisemitic sentiment about the so-called Jewish race.
The seeds of contemporary white supremacy, particularly in relation to racial hierarchy, are the same seeds that ultimately produced the annihilation of 6 million Jews, or 67% of the Jewish population in Europe, during the Holocaust.
Contemporary white supremacists believe that the white race is at risk — and it’s the Jews that are risking it. They believe that the Jewish people are behind a secret plot to change the racial makeup of Western countries, which they describe as a “white genocide,” and that they do so through political influence, the promotion of LGBTQ+ rights, and support for non-white immigration (indeed, this last conspiracy is what motivated the perpetrator behind the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting).
ANTIZIONISM AND WHITE SUPREMACY
We tend to think of antizionism as a strictly left-wing phenomenon. Indeed, today, many antizionists even have the gall to describe Zionism as a form of white supremacy, In reality, outside of the intracommunal Jewish debate of the 19th and early 20th centuries (i.e. the Zionists vs. the Bundists vs. the communists), the earliest antizionists were white supremacists. Among them:
- Wilhelm Marr, the self-described antisemite who believed in the so-called superiority of the Germanic race, called Zionism a “foul Jewish swindle.”
- Alfred Rosenberg, the infamous German racial theorist who laid the foundations of Nazi ideology and described Zionism as a subversive plot for Jewish global domination.
- Adolf Hitler, who publicly condemned Zionism as early as 1920 and went on to disparagingly write about the Jewish movement for national self-determination in Mein Kampf.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union laundered antizionism through the language of academia and human rights (see my recent post, MADE IN THE USSR), but at its core, far-right antizionism and left-wing antizionism are not parallel or similar ideologies; they are one in the same.
- Both see Zionism as an inherently sinister endeavor that seeks to exert world influence through politics, “dark money,” and the media.
- Both see Zionism as so-called Jewish supremacy.
- Both believe Jews cannot be satisfied with a small sliver of land and instead are using Israel as a launching pad from with which to pursue global dominance.
For this reason, contemporary white supremacist groups, from the KKK to neo-Nazi groups such as the Aryan Nation, all regard Zionism is a sinister Jewish plot.
WHY THE TWO ARE MORE ALIGNED THAN THEY'D LIKE TO ADMIT
We tend to think of antisemitism and antizionism as political issues relegated to different sides of the political spectrum, but the data indicates something different.
A comprehensive April 2023 study published in Nature’s Humanities and Social Sciences Communications found that the biggest predictor of antisemitism is not whether you are politically right-wing or left-wing, but rather, whether you adhere to conspiratorial views. In other words, those with conspiratorial ways of thinking are likelier to be antisemites. Additionally, antisemites are also more likely to hold authoritarian views — on the right and the left — and are also more likely to want to “overthrow social order.”
"What we found is that antisemitic views are more likely among conspiracy theorists, revolutionaries, and people who see dictatorship as an acceptable form of government."
Dr. Daniel Allington
ZERO SELF-AWARENESS
When David Duke endorsed Jill Stein in 2024, she categorically rejected the endorsement, calling Duke a “racist troll.” She evidently never paused to consider — at least, certainly not publicly — that the two share views as it pertains to Israel and Palestine.
In light of Duke’s recent praise of Chevalier and endorsement of Mamdani, the predominant left-wing discourse online is not one of reckoning and self-reflection, but instead reflexively surmises that Duke must be trying to delegitimize the new DSA superstars by attaching his name to theirs.
As a follower of mine noted, the mainstream media has a role to play in this. When Duke endorsed Trump’s 2016 run, it demanded that Trump rebuke Duke’s views. Now? Zero coverage, save for conservative outlets.
Sincerely, I must ask: when is enough enough? When will Jew-haters on the left come to terms with the fact that their views in relation to Israel, Zionists, and the Jewish people are not as righteous as they’d like to believe?
"We do not believe that there could ever exist a state with lasting inner health if it is not built on internal social justice."
Adolf Hitler
The so-called social justice that Hitler spoke of was one in which German society should rid itself of its Jews.
I have to ask: is the far-left of today so different, really? Any Jew that does not perfectly fall in line with the party line is shamed, abused, and ostracized – or worse.
A COUPLE OF REMINDERS
You cannot adequately claim to fight white supremacy while upholding white supremacist conspiracies about the Jewish people, the Jewish state, and the Jewish national movement for self-determination.
- It was the lynching of a Jewish man, Leo Frank, that led to the resurgence of the KKK. Today, the far-left and far-right alike are resuscitating conspiracies about Leo Frank’s alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl, despite the longstanding historical consensus that Frank was innocent of the crime.
- The conspiracy that Zionists hold undue influence over the American government can be traced back to a neo-Nazi named Eric Thomson, who published an article titled “Welcome to the ZOG-World,” where the introduced the Zionist Occupied Government conspiracy theory.
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