Notices by Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social), page 9

America can accept judicial review as it is defined by this Supreme Court majority – which really means: Reactionary judicial supremacy – or it can have true democracy and functioning governance. But not both.
 
Please consider subscribing:
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-originalist-supreme-court-vs

“The Originalism Trap” is out today: It is a book written with wonderful clarity and great purpose. I hate having to keep up with the many ways in which the Supreme Court sabotages egalitarian democracy. I loved reading this book. 17/

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735353/the-originalism-trap-by-madiba-k-dennie/

“Inclusive constitutionalism,” Madiba Dennie argues, “means that we should interpret the Constitution with the egalitarian and anti-subordination goals of the Reconstruction Amendments in mind.” High time we demand the Court take America’s Second Founding seriously. 16/

The Students Have Never Been the Enemy
 
Student protest movements have historically functioned as an indispensable corrective for America and the West. That is the legacy of 1968 we should be talking about.
 
New piece:
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-students-have-never-been-the

This is the type of comment I’ve been getting a lot for my latest piece: Always from self-regarding liberals who never want to grapple with the fact that the civil rights protests of the 1950s and 60s – the legacy of which they surely want to claim – clearly violated those principles.

Under no circumstances is “Let’s help the party of Trump, QAnon, Christian supremacism, and ‘Great replacement’ theory exploit the situation and further their antiliberal project” a plausible answer to the question of what must be done in response to rising antisemitism.

More here:
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/we-are-falling-apart

Moreover, the fears over antisemitism are being leveraged to legitimize the reactionary mobilization against egalitarian democracy more broadly – the “counterrevolution” against the sinister forces of globalism and “wokeism” people like Christopher Rufo dream about. 17/

These hearings are part of the eternal reactionary crusade against the college campus as a place of subversive leftwing indoctrination. Higher education has always been one of the institutions on which rightwing resentment has focused most intensely. 16/

The key takeaway is that the most dangerous, most violent forms Islamophobia and antisemitism are fueled by similar ideologies, they are coming from the same people. Helping them advance their cause would be a disaster. 19/

Across the “West,” far-right movements and parties are following this same playbook, gleefully exploiting the anger and fear of Jews for political gain. Marine LePen, for instance, leader of the National Rally in France, was quick to announce her support for Israel. 18/

Elise Stefanik is obviously not interested in an effort to fight antisemitism. She is engaged in a cynical attempt to use Jews to suppress speech reactionaries don’t like, advance the antiliberal “counterrevolution,” and punish those the Right sees as the enemy within. 5/

Against this background, the way institutional leaders like Columbia’s president are pretending these Congressional hearings are actually about fighting antisemitism and bending over backwards to appease the Republican inquisitors is not only bizarre, but dangerous. 15/

The Republican Speaker of the House is a Christian supremacist; Trump, the party’s standard bearer, is the leader of a fascistic movement and the providential leader of a rightwing base that has rapidly descended into more and more aggressive forms of conspiracism. 14/

In both dominant ideological strands on the Right, Jews in Israel are good – but Jews elsewhere are dangerous, rootless “globalists” standing in the way of God’s plans or undermining the strength and unity of the white Christian ethnostate. 12/

The reactionary political project is beholden to a white Christian nationalism that is fundamentally opposed to multireligious, multiracial pluralism. Rightwingers like the idea of a nation with a clearly defined ethno-religious identity, which they see in Israel. 10/

In the United States, Republicans are undoubtedly more supportive of the state of Israel than the Left, certainly than the Democratic base. Crucially, however, that does not necessarily entail affirmation and support for American Jews. In fact, it often means the opposite. 8/

Mainstream institutions helping Far-Right politicians who have been instrumental in laundering the most extreme, violent antisemitic conspiracy theories launch a full-on new McCarthyism under the umbrella of “fighting antisemitism” - we are far down the road to a very dark place. 6/

If you think Elise Stefanik - or any other major figure in today’s Republican Party - is leading an honest fight against antisemitism, if you actually think that’s the Right’s political project, I must assume you are either incredibly uninformed and naive or simply full of shit. 7/

A distinguishing feature of rightwing antisemitism is its centrality to the white Christian ethno-religious project. On the Religious Right, Christian Zionism is fueling the support for Israel – and an end-times theology that desires a world in which Jews are eliminated. 9/

But here is the catch: In this worldview, Israel is necessarily where the Jews belong. In “real” (read: white Christian) America, on the other hand, Jews can only be conceptualized as outsiders. Their right to be here is always conditional. 11/