What America’s progressive Jews can do now? A response to Debra Messing

Debra Messing wrote a moving piece that was published by the TOI Blogs on Monday.

I want to emphasize my admiration and respect for Debra, who has been one of the heroes, in my view, among America’s progressive Jews, for not conforming to the no doubt huge pressures in her industry, and among her peers, to mindlessly adopt the Israel ‘genocide’ narrative as the likes of CNN, NYT and BBC churn out anti-Israel agitprop day after day.

With that said, I found the piece hugely naive. In saying that, it only further reinforces my admiration and respect for Debra. It has exposed very publicly her vulnerability and soul-searching at a time of confusion. In that, she no doubt speaks for many others. She is like one who suddenly discovers that their long-term spouse, the love of their lives over many decades, never loved them back, even at the time of courtship, and in fact secretly hated them all along. And like the spouse spurned in this metaphor, the hopes that the relationship may still be repaired, the ‘last warning’ before filing for divorce, is at once as delusional as it is heart-breaking.

How has this happened?

Beneath the moral face of progressivism in its righteous quest to overcome societal discrimination lurks the evils of critical race theory and the progressive inter-sectionalism that hard-codes oppressor/victim-binaries into human interaction.

Why do I say evil? Why use such strong terms? When these kind of binaries get hard-coded, those with the preferred characteristic(s) are no longer held to account for their agency. They are ‘oppressed’ after all – their oppression excuses them from responsibility (see UK grooming gangs scandal, to see an example of the actual evil that emerges in practice).

And those without the preferred characteristic(s), even if they personally did nothing wrong, well they’re still ‘oppressors’ and must be held responsible for the oppression all the same. (That’s where us Jews usually come in).

What may have began as well-meaning efforts at ‘affirmative action’ has led to a wide-scale outbreak of rampant two-tierism, when two people are treated differently under the law, or by the system, for the same action, because of ‘preferred characteristics’.

There are some other societies in not-too-distant history which saw this kind of thing happen, and we know all too well the horror stories that subsequently emerged. As Pastor Niemoller memorably expressed, it isn’t long before ever larger numbers of people find themselves lacking ‘preferred characteristics’.

The problem for progressives like Debra is that the basic righteousness of the underlying cause, defeating societal discrimination, has become the gateway for a different kind of person and a different kind of ideology to enter. This is the political road to hell paved with good intentions.

Put simplistically, most US progressive Jews have fought – rightly – for a ‘color- / gender- / sexuality-blind’ society, in which everyone has the opportunity to succeed or fail according to their abilities and efforts, not the color of their skin, their gender, or their sexuality. It is clear from America’s history of Jewish quotas and exclusion why such a high proportion of US Jews would be committed to this cause and why African American communities who typically suffered much worse forms of discrimination would be seen as natural allies.

Unbeknownst to them, some of their allies – let us not argue about the number, but it’s no doubt significant – do not share the same basic objective. They want to replace historical injustices with – to use a few progressive buzzwords – ‘new hierarchies’ of ‘privilege’ and ‘oppression’. The problem is, they also call themselves ‘progressive’, they also fight for ‘inclusion’, and they also use, even exploit, the – often contorted (let’s be honest) – language of progressivism to pursue their ends.

We also know from many historical and current experiences — not only in the US — that “entryists” tend to come in as the loudest and most aggressive activists within an expanding coalition. Relatively small numbers of well-organized, ideologically-committed entryists form a hardcore vanguard, playing belligerent “divide and rule’ games to marginalize those that oppose them and clear the way for ideological takeover. Playing on deliberate distortion of terms and confusion of concepts, that hardcore vanguard can build mass support for an alien ideology (think Queers for Palestine). This is what has happened in the US, and increasingly worldwide, to progressive politics.

But ideological entryism is by no means a unique occurrence. It has played out in many contexts in many places in many times. And it has often been defeated. The UK has several pertinent examples within living memory. With that knowledge comes hope.

So what can US progressive Jews do now?

They can lead the fight back.

1. First, US progressive Jews can shine a light on the important differences between, let’s call them for now, the “anti-discrimination progressives” on the one hand, and the “new hierarchies of discrimination progressives” on the other.
2. Second, US progressive Jews can disentangle the language and find new words, new concepts, new narratives, that dissociate the one from the other. Banishing the word ‘progressive’ may be a good starting point, as this seems to be an entry point for the “new discriminators”, and a source of confusion for everyone else. Language matters.
3. Third, US progressive Jews can take intellectual leadership in carefully formulating the “anti-discrimination” worldview, and building up the defenses of that worldview – conceptual as well as literal — to prevent entryism by those that in reality oppose this worldview and would rather use it as a convenient vehicle to achieve different ends.
4.  Fourth, US progressive Jews can lead the emergence of a new coalition with like-minded persons in other communities, whether those from what progressives would call ‘traditional allies’, or those from communities not typically seen as ‘traditional allies’. This can truly be a bipartisan coalition that could shake up US politics. For all the frustrations that US progressive Jews have faced, they can be sure that in some of their ‘traditional ally’ communities, there are many brave and thoughtful voices being silenced right now by a small number of aggressive entryists. Some valiantly resist – think Ritchie Torres – but many many others do not or cannot. These silenced voices must be given a new home and, to use another progressive buzzword, a ‘safe space’, to re-emerge as champions of their communities and to consolidate the counter-attack against the entryists.
5. Fifth, and expressing particular appreciation here to Bari Weiss, the pioneer par excellence who has already made this journey, and pushed it to its logical conclusion, US progressive Jews must organize quickly and at scale. Along with ‘new coalition partners’, they must help to found the new institutions – traditional media, new media, think tanks, social clubs, grassroots movements and more – necessary to carry their worldview to the political elites and the people alike, as old institutions no longer are fit for purpose, either due to ideological capture, weakness, or both.
6. Sixth, US progressive Jews can force the political leadership of American progressivism to to make it transparent what they stand for and to choose a side. They can fortify those who choose their side, and dissociate from those who choose the other. For example, even if I disagree with much of her politics, and even though I am a non-American somewhat distant from the rough and tumble of US politics, I see in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a moral person with good instincts, but one who has to play the political game and mobilize a base she may not agree with.
7. Seventh, US progressive Jews can become as well-organized and ideologically-committed as the entryists. They can move the battleground to take on the entryists on their own turf with campaigns and protests that are every bit as fervent without crossing the line, as the entryists regularly do, into hate speech, intimidation or violence.

These are the key steps by which entryists have been defeated in the past and they can be defeated again today. Before anything, we must believe there is nothing inevitable that the entryists’ worldview will prevail. But at the same time, progressivism as it exists today cannot continue in its current form – excluding the entryists will transform the worldview fundamentals of those that call themselves progressive today.

In other words, the divorce is inevitable, but a speedy rematch with a better-suited partner may soon be on the cards.