The USA. Three Easy Steps. From Democracy to Mobocracy to Ochlocracy

“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.” -Elie Wiesel

Last week in an article published in Foreign Affairs and written by Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, the headline, “American Hatred Goes Global. How the United States Became a Leading Exporter of White Supremacist Terrorism”, overlapped that same week with an article in VOA (Voice of America), “Research Warns White Supremacists Are Building a Shadow Militia”. 

VOA stated, “White supremacists appear to have settled on a new strategy to grow their numbers and ready capable fighting forces across the United States, Canada, and Europe while avoiding the scrutiny of law enforcement. New research, presented Friday by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), warns the past several months have seen a proliferation of small, loosely affiliated combat sports and fitness clubs — known as Active Clubs — that publicly advertise fitness, self-improvement, and brotherhood.”

If that wasn’t enough, the Pew Research Center, on September 19/23, announced, “Just 4% of US adults say the country’s political system is working extremely or very well, and positive views of many government institutions have hit historic lows. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who dislike both the Democratic and Republican parties is at its highest point in nearly 30 years of polling, and 63% say they are dissatisfied with all the current presidential contenders.”

Irrespective of where we live, these reports must concern us. Fascists and White Supremacists and their ilk gleefully look for opportunities to promote their agenda. They have found it in what is called the three poisons of nirvana! Greed, hatred, and delusion. And, coupled with the language of the Trumptwits, has enhanced their goals.

The above reports brought back memories of an article I wrote nearly three years ago.

My article, Deus auxilium Americae! published in January 2021 in the Times of Israel, contain a collection of commentaries, although written by me during the years of President Trump’s tenure, are just as much applicable today.

Which brings me today, during the early days of our new year, to a quote I recently found in the 1942 edition of A Book of Jewish Thoughts published in London, England by the Office of the Chief Rabbi. The quote comes from the Talmud:

” ‘All Israelites are mutually accountable for each other.’ In a boat a sea, one of the men began to bore a hole in the bottom of the boat. On being remonstrated with, he answered: ‘I am only boring under my own seat.’ ‘Yes,’ said his comrades, ‘but when the sea rushes in we shall all be drowned with you.’ So it is with Israel. Its weal or its woe is in the hands of every individual Israelite.”

Irrespective of Israel’s current political situation, we as Jews who live in Diaspora communities and those of you who live in Israel are mutually accountable for each other. We all have a grave responsibility to acknowledge that ethically or religiously, of every religious denomination, we Jews cannot lose our sense of proportion and perspective when judging each other’s shortcomings. For Diaspora Jews, we all must remain unshaken in our principal support, in our solidarity and belief that the land of Israel takes precedence as a nation rather than first taking political sides.

And that’s how I see it.♦