Bad Hasbara - The World's Most Moral Podcast - 228: Appetite for Construction, with Nathan J. Robinson

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Matt and Daniel are joined by Current Affairs Editor in Chief Nathan J. Robinson to talk over Francesca Hong’s abandonment by the name-brand left, Oliver Larkin’s Palestine conversation with 2 people, one of whom is on camera with him, and the Central Synagogue attacker doing for blue polos what Charlottesville did for white ones.Visit https://halapalestine.com/ and use code BADHASBARA for 10% off. It helps the show! Products made in Palestine and delivered to your door.Please donate to Derry Square Knitters: https://bit.ly/derrysquareknittersJoin the Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/badhasbaraSubscribe to the Substack at https://badhasbara.substack.com/Get a Youtube Membership at https://www.youtube.com/@Badhasbara/membershipVisit Current Affairs and subrcribe: https://www.currentaffairs.org/TICKETS: The Bitchuation Room LIVE in Minneapolis August 20: https://dice.fm/partner/tickets/event/92keno-the-bitchuation-room-live-20th-aug-the-parkway-theater-minneapolis-ticketsTICKETS: Matt Lieb and Francesca Fiorentini October 15 in Brooklyn, NY: https://bit.ly/octoberbellhouseBad Hasbara Merch: https://estoymerchandise.com/collections/bad-hasbara-podcastWhat’s The Spin on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50JoIqCvlxL3QSNj2BsdURWhat’s The Spin on Tidal: https://tidal.com/playlist/3cec7963-1fc5-42bc-ab7d-64fb420eb50eWhat’s The Spin Album List: https://bit.ly/whatsthespinlistSkad Skasbarska playlist: http://bit.ly/skadskasbarskaSubscribe/listen to Bad Hasbara wherever you get your podcasts.Spotify https://spoti.fi/3HgpxDmApple Podcasts https://apple.co/4kizajtSubstack https://substack.com/@badhasbaraSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/bad-hasbara/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello everybody and welcome to Bad Hasbara. The world's most moral podcast. That's right. My name is Matt Lebe. I will be your most moral co-host for this podcast. I'm up. And I'm Daniel Matte and I sure will be your other most moral co-host. We sure are.

Thank you so much for joining us. Another great episode. Please shout out to producer Adam on the ones and tears. And Brent on the three is and fours. Sorry, guys. I don't know what's going on. That's fine. We just ran out of chowder. We ran out of chowder, and now we're just, you know, but we didn't run out of shouter. I'm loving your stay puff marshmallow man shirt.

Thank you, man. You know, I like it. You know, I have two of these. There was, yeah, somehow I got two. And so now I wear it a lot and people notice. I'm like, it's not dirty. I have two of them. And they're like, why do you have two puffed daddy shirts? Oh, it says nice, nice. You see it says puffed daddy. And that's a weird joke to explain to people now that P. Diddy is kind of in, you know, the whole, he did his own little mini Epstein thing. Allegedly.

Anyways, I buy two different sizes depending on how puffed I am at any given time. Thank you, producer Adam. You know what? They are two different sizes as well. Yeah. So shout out to producer Adam. Shout out to Brent. Shout out to all of you for giving us five stars in a review on your local.

apps, whatever you do, give us five-star and a review. And yeah, go to bad as braw.com if you want to buy a t-shirt. We're going to have some more made and they're going to be great. Baddisfra.com. But first, today's episode is brought to you by Dairy Square Knitters. And I'm very excited to talk about Dairy Square Knitters. The Dairy Square Knitters reached out to us directly and their words say it best in this authentic dairy accent. There's not a lot to tell that isn't a lotus of waffle. People donate wool. We make pretty babies and kid stuff and sell it.

The only money that comes out is the cost of tables at fairs. We buy everything ourselves. We've managed to send over 15,000 pounds to the Palestinian charities in the last terrible three years just selling our stuff. Oh, and we're all proper old. I'm the youngest at 45. The rest of the ladies range between the 60s through the 80s. So please go to bit.l.L.Y slash Dairy Square Knitters and get yourself something net. Get it net till you straight to you. Let's spell that for people. Okay, you're right. D-E-R-R-Y-S-Q-U-U-E. A-R-E-K-N-I-T-E-R-S.

That's bit. L-Y-S-Dary-S-A-S-D-E-S-A-S-G-E-S-A-R-Nitters. Yeah, please go, click that link. Go into the description, click it, go to that website, type it in and see for yourselves what they're doing. I really, I love this adorable group of dairy, you know, knit homies, just going around, just knitting, and, yeah, they sent over 15,000 pounds to Altsinian charities.

It's really a wonderful work that they're doing. Incredibly cute. I myself am going to click on the link after we're done and buy myself something because it's great work. And now that we've talked about them, if there are any cockney square knitters, yes, please. Get at us, please. Although, of course, they would do it in rhyming slang.

So it would be like cockney pear shitters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're a Cockney Square knitter, please email spanners by Gmail.com and let us know about all the knitting you're doing. Yeah. Daniel? Yes, sir. What's the spin?

Well, Matt, you know what a diabetic is? Uh-huh. Someone with diabetes, as Wilford Brimley would say. You know what a diuretic is? Uh-huh. Right? Something that makes you shit or piss. But do you know what diagetic is?

Oh, man, I did at one point. I forgot. So it is the theme of today's spin. Diagetic music is music that takes place in the world of the show. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Or of the thing, right? Yes. Like the wire didn't have any, yeah.

The wire didn't have music except for a couple of, you know, instances. Montage music. Yeah, montage music. Most of they had a diagetic music. It was music. Including, including inscrutably, Avon Barksdale listening to spearhead, which was Michael Franti, which was very, very strange. What is a suddenly in Oakland?

Anyway. You could like it. Right. So these are all songs and or albums that are diagetic to movies. Hmm. Okay? And I didn't use the soundtracks. I'm actually going back to the original.

Oh, I like it. Because that would have been too easy. Yeah. So maybe you can guess which movie this is diagetic to. I can't even guess who that guy is. That's Peter Gabriel, formerly of Genesis. Oh, that's what he looks like. And this is what he looked like here.

He only has any hair. This is for, what's that movie with the boombox? Say anything. Say anything, yeah. Yeah, Ione Sky, Ad Rock of the Beastie Boys' former wife with John Cusack, strong Palestine activist. Hell yeah. In Your Eyes is from that movie.

Fuck yeah. April in Paris by Count Basie and his orchestra. You know what this is from? April in Paris. Not from midnight in Paris, right? No. Okay. Apparently, I haven't seen it, but in Blazing Saddles, there's a shot of the desert.

And April in Paris is playing, and the camera pans over to the actual Count Basie and his orchestra playing April at Paris in the middle of the desert. Why do I not remember that? It's been a minute since I've seen Blazing Saddles, I guess. Yeah. Rick James' street songs, Super Freak. was the audition music for the girl in Little Miss Sunshine. Oh, that's right. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great scene. Great movie. Roxy Music, the album Avalon. In Lost in Translation, it's Bill Murray's karaoke song. Okay, okay. I've only seen that movie once.

Recently rewatched it. It holds up, though. No, it really holds up. I just saw it once. I was like, I don't know why people like this so much. But it's fine. It's a movie about nothing, but it's a movie about human connection. I liked it quite a lot.

Huey Lewis in the news, four. Not the album with the most of their hits, but hip to be square is on this album, which is featured in what film, diageically? See, I thought you were, I thought we were going to talk about Back to the Future. No, Power of Love is not on any of their studio albums. Really?

They did that four. Wow. Oh, yeah. Then they wrote back in time. They wrote all the songs for that movie. That's crazy. Good for them. No, I don't know. What has hip to be square in it? American Psycho. Apparently, he puts it on before one of his... That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And finally, this is an album that isn't in the movie, but it's talked about in the movie.

Okay. Santana Abraxas. Do you remember this? No. If I said to you, no, he's on the phone. There's something very wrong here. I don't want Santana Abraxas. I don't know what's happening. Something's very wrong.

My wife left me. It's hereditary. I don't know. It's a serious man. He's on the phone with the Columbia Record Club, which insists that he's ordered Santana Abraxas and he now owes. And he's never heard of it. He's completely perplexed.

Oh, that is amazing. I don't remember that being shouted out in it, but that's a hilarious pull. No, I don't, I didn't order Santana Praxis. God, that movie rules. I got this record at a shop, I think, in Montana. I just, I'm not a big Santana fan, although it does have some good songs. It's got Oyakoma Vian, Black Magic Woman and stuff like that. But I was like, I have to have this album strictly so I can feature it on the spin in reference to a serious man.

Because it's truly my favorite co-inghammed. Brothers film. It's a great one. Really? That's your favorite? It's my favorite in the sense that I can go back to it over and over again. That's true. And find more in it. Like everything else I feel like I've squeezed the juice out of. Fargo is so great. Lobowski is Lobowski. Miller's Crossing. There's so many, oh brother, we're art thou. But a serious man just finds new ways to delight me every time I see it. Yeah, yeah. It's a very good movie. And that's a very good spin. One of the least philosemitic movies you'll ever see. We will be talking about some phylo-Semitism on this episode.

We sure will. But first, we got to introduce our guest. That's right. It is time to introduce our wonderful guests. We're very excited to have him here. You know him as the very dapper, very well-suited. Ha-ha. Editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine, ladies and gentlemen, and everyone else,

welcome to the podcast, Nathan J. Robinson. Hey, Matt. Hey, Daniel. I appreciate that little of hype. Yeah, I like to hype people up. Just by appearing on the screen, you have increased the sartorial acumen quotient of this podcast. All the socialists wear suits now, haven't you heard it? This is the thing.

I know. Everyone's up in their game. Mamdani and Hassan are really, like, challenging the rest of us to make sure that we... You know, I'm still a member of the New York City chapter of Nordstrom's Rack, but my national membership has lapsed. Oh, okay. Yeah. The National Nordstrom's Rack does... way too woke, dude.

The funny thing is, I stopped wearing, like, suits and stuff. The pandemic, I kind of let it all go. And then some pikers started wearing suits every single damn day of his life. And he's got like, 20 suits. So I've been like, okay, well, you better wear a suit because you've got a reputation to uphold. So you got back onto suits because you were like, this guy is jockeying my style. Yeah, I can't let Hassan be the suit guy. My God.

And he says that he's doing it to appeal to the wine moms, which I thought was a joke. but then a wine mom friend of mine was like, you know who I really like these days? That Hassan Piker, you really speaks to me. It works. I'm telling you. You know. Yeah. I got to try suits.

I look like shit in a suit, though. I have a body built for hoodies. It's, uh, yeah. No, you're about to say it's wrong and you're about to tell me that a very good tailoring could get it done. But it's done. We'll see. We'll see maybe one day I'll wear a suit on this podcast.

No, what I'd say is this only, everyone looks, terrible in a suit until they get it adjusted for them. Right, until they get the perfect suit. I have yet to have one. I always look like Steve Harvey. No offense to Steve Harvey. But, you know, I have a body that looks like first round NBA draft pick gets drafted by the, you know, Charlotte Hornets.

Not that that's a team that exists anymore. But, yes, I just don't. I got to get a tailor is what I got to get. We need to talk about the issues here. We need to tailor this episode. We need to tailor this episode to our guest. To current affairs. Sure.

Exactly. There's been things that have been going on in the American left space, which are, you know, are inherently adjacent to and in some ways overlapping with the topics this podcast focuses on. And you're the perfect person to have on to talk about it. So a recent spate of electoral races, some. victories for the socialist left, some narrow defeats, and all kinds of controversy around what exactly the principles of our would-be leaders are. And you've been covering some of that over

at current affairs. And you told us off air that you were just in Michigan reporting on and watching the Abdul al-Sayyid race. What are over just generally speaking, just to start us off, what what are your thoughts about the state of, you know, socialist politics on the, on the electoral side of things? What do you have been deserving? Well, it's in some ways the most exciting that it's been in my adult life because I am just so used to us losing all the time forever. Right. And, you know, I came of age politically at the time of the Occupy movement 2010, 2011. Also known as the kombucha party.

Well, our generation just went through disappointment after disappointment, right? People got very excited about Obama and he was a disappointment. People got excited about Occupy and then the police broke up the protests and they didn't really have any demands and it kind of dissipated. And people got excited about Bernie Sanders who ran in 2016 campaign. You know, won a bunch of states, 1, 45% of the vote or something and, you know, and then still lost, and then people got excited about Bernie Saturday to get it 2020, and then he lost again. So, but when

Zora and Mabani became the mayor of New York City, it was the first time that I recall as having a major actual substantive victory. And... Yeah, we've been feeling like Rambo forever. Do we get to win this time? Yeah, fine, right. Well, I mean, watching that campaign unfold when he was at like 3% of the vote, And you thought, okay, well, this is going to be another, I'm glad at least we have a candidate in this race, as opposed to the previous race.

I don't even think there was a strong left candidate. But, you know, I don't think there was much expectation that he would win and then he won. And then, you know, sort of overnight, the Democratic Socialist became a major player in American politics because you capture, you know, you become mayor of the most important city in the country. all of a sudden your movement is a threat to power, and all of a sudden, you know, more congressional. I mean, obviously, AOC won, and that was a major victory back in 2018. But this was something different.

And so in some ways, it's really exciting, but also, just knowing some of the history of the left and knowing that there was a point where the Socialist Party had a thousand elected offices in the early 1900s, and then World War I broke out and the whole thing collapsed. I mean, I am, and also knowing that the left has a history of tearing itself to shreds with leftist turning on one another. So the starting of World War I, the starting of World War I was sort of the Obama makes

a phone call to get everyone together of the early 1900s is what you're saying. Right. Did Obama do World War I? These are the questions we ask. Go ahead. And then also, also knowing that there is a possibility, of course, that you could get a lot of people into office who call themselves socialist. and then they become not much different from anyone else in elected office.

No, that could never happen. No, that's not a thing. No, no, when politicians say they're going to do something, they do it. No, Nathan, I'm sorry, you're wrong. What happens is people who call themselves socialists get into office, right? And then everyone else remembers wrong. Right. What they said.

Exactly. We all just have collective memory failure. That's right. And we suffer from the collective delusion that they promised us something that they promised was doable. Yeah, you just don't get it. Like bringing the ruckus to the Democratic Party. How dare you? Oh, I dare.

But yeah, I mean, it seems like it's a, it's. Look at Adam. People get elected, then Big Ginger boyfriend gets sad. Yes. It does seem like, you know, it's a, it's a mixed bag right now in terms of how I'm feeling. I'm feeling both simultaneously optimistic at a time when I think optimism is warranted, at least if you're someone who believes in electoral politics making any sort of change at all. But I'm also feeling cautiously pessimistic, if that's a thing, regarding the leadership right now among the sort of socialist.

you know, quote unquote, cadre of the left, especially those in power, specifically with AOC and Bernie Sanders. And it's not to say that I don't think that their function is important. They seem to be good at two things, which is fundraising and also creating hype. I mean, they are two very, at least popular among their own, you know, politicians. especially Bernie Sanders. Have you seen Bernie's egg freezing videos? They're riveting.

Well, after you boil the egg, you have to put it into the refrigerator. Did you know that a hard-boiled egg can start to develop salmonella within an hour? Do not leave it on the counter. But yeah, so, I mean, what, tell me about, you know, you've told me about, I think, your optimism about it. But what do you see in terms of the possible repeating of mistakes that might be, I don't know, sort of happening now within the, I don't know, leftmost part of the elected Democratic Party? Well, I mean, it's hard to know what's a mistake because certain decisions are supposedly strategic choices and you don't know if they're going to pay off or not.

You know, for example, AOC and Bernie sort of strategically hold their tongues about members of the Democratic leadership from time to time. And that's considered to be a very careful political calculation on their part that's part of a long three-dimensional chess game. You could read it a different way, which is that they've gotten too close to these people. And you don't really know, right? Maybe they all have some game in mind. And this was kind of the case in Wisconsin where, you know, they decided not to endorse the socialist candidate who then lost very narrowly. And all these people told me, oh, no, no, no, you don't understand. This is sensible strategy on their part.

They very carefully pick and choose and they don't endorse all socialist candidates. And they endorse the ones that they think have the most chance of prevailing in general, elections because they want to avoid. They're getting involved in things that are going to lose and embarrassments and they're conserving their resources and they're sitting down and they're they're plotting the ascendance of the socialist movement. Sometimes they have to throw a socialist under the bus, but they do it, you know, because they understand the political game better than you, the outside observer who sees

them not endorsing a socialist candidate and things. But what are you doing? This person has a chance to win. And so I try and preserve my humility. And when I see, for example, when I saw AOC doing her selfies with Joe Biden in the middle of the escalating genocide or when I saw her going on to stage at the DNC and speaking about how Kamala Harris was trying to end the war. Working tirelessly. Yeah, see, that's not holding your tongue. Like it's one thing to hold your tongue.

and, okay, I'm not going to endorse this candidate that I think is a liability for some three-dimensional chess reason. But it's quite another thing to call Nancy Pelosi Mama Bear to say you will, to preemptively come out and say, yes, we will endorse Hakeem Jeffries, one of the genociders in chief,

and we're just going to lie about what Kamala Harris is up to with regard to stopping the genocide that she and her boss have funded and sanctioned. Yeah, look, If I'm being honest, I do find something pretty more leguress about endorsing Kamala Harris and not endorsing Francesca Hong, who is, you know.

Would have been the first socialist. Yeah, would have been the first socialist governor, yeah. Some woke stuff in 2019, 2020, at the same time that everyone from AOC to Zeranamadani was saying the same kind of woke defunct police. She's trying to represent Milwaukee. What do you want from her? That's right. Sorry, Nathan, this is the kind of.

of humor we have on this show. It did depress me to see that. Yeah. You know, they depressed me to see her coming out. Well, I mean, what I've always said about the 2024 thing is that there, I really do feel like that was a clear instance where you can actually prove that it's not really three-dimensional chess because- Right, exactly. AOC had an opportunity.

She had a position of real strategic leverage. That is to say, Kamala Harris needed her endorsement, right? She had something that she could withhold. And she could basically say, until you endorse the demands of the uncommitted movement, which, by the way, were very, very modest. They were things like, you know, put a Palestinian speaker on stage at the DNC, which is itself a purely symbolic, meaningless concession. They could have had Nasdaily on. I mean, literally, they... Seriously, pay lip service to the mostly empty representation matters ethic.

That doesn't mean anything anyway. Just pay lip service to that. Meet with the Gaza families. Well, okay, you can meet with the Gaza families, but the Biden administration's policy is not going to change. But those were the demands. And so it's very clear that she obviously could have, in 2024, said, well, you're not going to get my endorsement

until you concede to these basic demands. And it's obviously clear that she didn't make that demand because if she had made that demand, she wouldn't have been speaking in support of Kamala Harris, right? They either wouldn't have done it, in which case she wouldn't have got the endorsement, or they would have done it, and that's why she would have endorsed. So she didn't do that. And I feel like that's a pretty clear instance where I don't think there's anything

that I could possibly not know about how that situation is working, and you're not doing what a pragmatic, strategic actor would do. If anything, it's the anti-proof of concept. It is showing the, well, I'm going to make the strategic decision here, and it completely not working. This idea of like we got to, you know, rally behind Kamala and this will work out. Just trust me. I know it seems gauche for me to say all this and support this. But the whole just trust me model falls apart when they lose.

And so to me, I look at the both. Bernie and AOC sort of being the people who get to the arbiters of the line of how far left you can go. I see that is deeply troubling because their instincts, at least for the last three years, since October 7th, have been pretty dog shit. Not to mention, if it wasn't bad enough that she said that, like that act of commission, not a single apology sense for saying that. And, you know, it would be nice, of course, if the very few progress.

journalists who have remaining access to her since she's extremely finicky or picky about, you know, whose show she'll go on. In fact, Nathan J. Robinson, right here, will you pledge right here on Baddisfarer that if you ever are so fortunate or skilled to work your machinations to get her on the current affairs podcast or get her in your sights? Will you put that question to her? I'm just looking for some fucking leftist. I need, you know, where is my Jeremy Scahill?

You know what I'm saying? She doesn't come. Actually, Rokana, to his credit, right? To his credit. To his credit. To his credit. Very unsatisfactory answers to Jeremy Schaill's questions, and Jeremy Schaill very successfully exposed the fact that Rokana has internalized this idea that Israel has a

right to defend itself, and Palestinians don't have an equal, an equal right. But Rokana goes on everyone's show. It makes himself accessible, and he lets himself be pelted with these, incredibly critical questions. I don't even know if he realizes how bad he sounds when he answers them. But it's really endearing, isn't it? There's something about it.

Like, after watching someone take that pelting, I'm like, man, did that guy reveal some biases and prejudices and limitations? But at least he willingly revealed it. Right, and he doesn't seem to be aware of it. And it doesn't require him then to put on this fake veneer. That's the most insidious thing that I really get distrustful of.

just the teflon, the layers of teflon, and as you put these coats of shellac on yourself, you become less and less like the person you promised to be. And there's also like, what frustrates me is when you hear things that are obvious bullshit, and one of the whole appeals of left politicians is that they tell the truth. They don't give you the normal political bullshit. So when AOC and Bernie were saying why they didn't endorse Francesca Hong, and they were saying things like, I don't know much about that race.

Like, it's a local race. Like, that's not your reason. Didn't Bernie say, I don't know much about dairy farming in Wisconsin? Like, it's just crap. The other dairy's fucking state. We're supposed to, I mean,

our left politicians are supposed to be the ones that treat us like adults that tell things like, and so when they tell us things and when IOC said the working tirelessly for us, it's like,

I know that's fault. I know there is a propaganda the campaign by the Biden administration to convince us that they are trying to end the war that they in fact support. That is the fundamental truth about this administration's relationship with this conflict, is they support Israel's actions and they want to convince us that they're trying to stop them. So, and those actions are genocidal. And so you are helping them with the specific propaganda point that they are trying to make, which is that they are trying to end the war. I know it's false.

You know it's false. Like at least Biden's son's cognitive, like that guy's life is full of cognitive dissonance. Did you say he recently being like, absolutely. I mean, I don't know what else you call it. It's a genocide. Netanyahu's pure evil. You know, like. But can you get him on?

Because he seems to be like pretty willing to talk to a lot of people. And can you just bring him on and put the question to him? Like, yeah. It's possible because he's another guy who, who has been through enough slings and arrows, maybe self-inflicted, but also inflicted by the life he's lived. Also, he might be up for it. Cocaine is fun.

Yeah, that's right. But yeah, I, you know, speaking about the non-endorsement, this, you know, I was reading your piece about Francesca Hong's loss. And you talked about solidarity among, you know, on the left, being the deciding factor here. She lost by just a few thousand votes, an incredibly small margin to the more establishment, you know, opponent.

And I think you're correct in saying that had AOC and Bernie endorsed Francesca, then she could have made up those votes. I'm wondering whether or not this, is something that you see, like, what do you think this portends in general? Do you see them as being sort of the final, I guess, the newest hurdle that the American electoral left is going to have to deal with? You have to get both AOC and Bernie to agree with you, or are they, you know, are they merely

just a fundraising apparatus for them? Literally the keymaster and the gatekeeper. Right. No, straight up. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think what disturbed me about this race is that it's pretty clear that they probably could have put her over the top. Maybe not if they'd just, like, done a very late endorsement where they're like, yeah, fine, go vote for her. But they had just gone to Michigan to support Abdul al-Sayyad, who then won also by a very, very narrow margin.

And also who probably would have lost had they not done that. And then Abdul is not even a Democratic socialist, but Francesca Hong was a Democratic. Socialist was positioned to be the first ever DSA governor if she'd won. And it's frustrating that they could have made a difference in that race if they had like, you know, used some of their resources, not just endorsed her, but, you know, give her your email lists. Tell your followers to go out there and knock doors for her, you know, because the Abdel campaign was flying people in from all over the country to go, to built this army, you know, say, go out and support her. is always going to be a tough race. We know that the idea of a Democratic socialist winning a

Democratic primary, it's statewide in Wisconsin, is an unprecedented kind of a victory. I mean, obviously, there were successful socialists again 100 years ago, but in our time, this is totally, totally remarkable. Why aren't you doing everything? And they gave these very, very cold and pointed kind of like, you could have just given a generic answer even. It's say, well, obviously, like, I strongly support, you know, having more democratic socialists in office. But they gave these answers that were very clearly, like, I don't think I'm going to get involved. What was AOCs? It was something like Francesca Hong certainly exists, huh? Yeah, she has made her presence known in that race. Yeah. That's the report card you never want to

bring home. Wow. Yeah. Like, at least say, you know, like. Wow. Daniel Monte certainly has been in class a lot and sometimes even say. stuff and does his homework. You could have said, like, she's bringing a lot of important ideas into this. Ray, I don't know. So I don't get it. There's no public explanation that has been persuasive.

The only explanation I've seen, obviously, their own explanations are bullshit. So the question is, why didn't they support this candidate? And maybe they knew something that we all don't know that didn't come out. But it seems from the Republican oppophile about Hong that came out, And from all of the media coverage, like, it really was like, you know, she's Thanksgiving, you know, like classic like 20-something leftist like shitting on Thanksgiving. Like, okay, yeah. And everyone, when they're a baby leftist in their 20s, goes like, fuck Thanksgiving. That's what we do.

It's like a right of passage. Exactly. And they think that that's harder to overcome than being named Abdul Rahman El-Sayed and all of the shit that. So, I mean, like, what's the calculation that makes sense? him worth supporting, and he was worth supporting, of course he was, and her not. I just, I just don't get it. It seems like, you know, because of the lack of, again, information as to why this is, you know, happened, why not support Hong? It seems like the answer is woke. And that is, you know, concerning, given that the discourse seemed to be at least a couple days before

the election, this woke, one. discourse started happening. Go ahead, Nathan. Well, let's just say, before we get to the woke stuff, the explanation that we know is, you know, the woke stuff. Francesca Hong was saying embarrassing things that would have made it hard for her to win a general election. There is one other possibility that's a little disturbed because we're talking about AOC and Bernie Sanders, zero-long left. And that is the possibility that Francesca Hong was not endorsed by them because she had not gotten close to them. Like, behind the scenes, she had not done, come and kissed the ring.

She had not, you know. She hadn't done the work. She wasn't, like, she doesn't do better. Reading, which is, my dear leaders. Maybe it is the case that these candidates, that these people endorse people who are within their networks, who are approved as kind of allies. And there are power struggles within the left going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. And maybe it is the case. I don't know. I just want to say there is a possibility

that someone like AOC doesn't necessarily want someone who has no loyalty to her or interested or becoming the first socialist governor of Wisconsin and being a competitor within the left movement for prominence. I mean, as soon as much as a socialist to have. I love that. That's really insightful. I mean, it's interesting. That's a possibility. It's, you know, there's, They learned one thing from, you know, Jim Clyburn, you know, getting Biden the win in South Carolina, which is like, damn, you know, because we needed, Bernie needed to go kiss the ring and he never did that. And that has been largely explained as why, you know, that loss was so massive. Maybe the one thing they learned is like, oh, it would be nice for someone to kiss our rings. I got lots of rings.

Someone needs to make an AI, you know, face swap thing of the end of the Godfather with the door. closing on Francesca Hong's face as, as AOC is surrounded by. You know, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there are many ways in which people's social networks, you know, affect who they, you know, you know, you helped me, so I'll help you. And maybe it was that Francesca Hogg was just out there on her own, building her own thing. And they don't get involved in, you know, you know, cases where that person, again, I don't know because I'm not, I'm out here in New Orleans. So I don't

know what people are saying in New York. I don't know what goes on in the room where AOC and her advisors sit down and decide who to endorse or not. And maybe that conversation is about woke, or maybe that conversation is about something else. And I don't know. Yeah. Speaking of New Orleans, that's exactly what Bernie and AOC said when asked about Francesca Hong, who'd at? Yeah, right. Yeah. But the thing that pissed me off is, you know, if you're going to endorse one of the two, I mean, at least

at least Abdul Al-Saya, if Abdul Al-Said had lost, we'd have Haley Stevens who's just a delightful nutcase who I really enjoy hearing from. David Crowley now. David fucking Crowley, yeah. Well, as a character, she's... As a character.

No, she's a bad person. She really grew on me. Yeah, yeah, but that's the thing about it. She's starting to grow on me, too. Even though she lost, I think I'm going to write her in. Um, but, you know, stick to witness. Yeah. So all we really have to go on because we don't know, uh, is theories. And one of the theories that,

uh, you know, we've, we've talked about or alluded to is this idea of woke being the deciding factor here. Uh, and that is, um, because, you know, two days before the race, um, you know, before the primary last week. AOC went on, uh, ABC News and, um, was talking about, Francesca Hong's tweets, and I have a video of that. Oh God, do we have to watch it? Yes, we do. Welcome to hell. Thank you.

What do you make of those controversial statements? I'm sure you've seen. I mean, she's, you know, the Thanksgiving dust up. She says she doesn't, you know, still believe that, but, you know, the abolished prisons, abolished police. I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy. Yeah, woke one. was crazy. First of all, it's not

Beh. Beh-da-da-be-be-be-be-be-be-be-w-w-wwwww. One do-da-do. Dufant police. Gonna get rid of Thanksgiving. Whiteness will be illegal and money won't exist. Anyways. Uh, well, done.

I mean, of course, what she was referring to with her little, uh, I have a, a city council, like, appealing to someone else's joke. Chioese, yeah. His tweet, when he, it's not a saying. Okay, it's not, it's not like he, it's not like his catchphrase. He walks into the room like Kramer and says, whoa, whoa, what was crazy. And everyone just starts clapping, yeah. Like, she was referring to one tweet from him when someone was trying to take him. the task for a tweet he had posted that had nothing to do with police at all. It was about how

you're saying, we don't need another cis white man in this position or whatever. It was about identitarianism, the kind of, you know, left-wing dogmatism around identity and those aspects of woke one, you know? Right. But to, to, it was also, it was also his own tweet. It was his own tweet. It was response to himself. It wasn't a response to this candidate who is, you know, is two days away from a national, a Democratic primary within the state of Wisconsin. And the, it just felt like a changing of the conversation to something that is rather than helpful for Hong

is directly harmful to the campaign. And I have the rest of that video because I think it's important to hear where she goes with this. One was crazy, okay, that's true. And I think that what's important is that, By the way, pause. It had the desire effect. You see how disarming that is for the ABC anchor.

It's like it's so perfectly tailored. He loves that. Right, of course. But then it opens up this next question. Was it? I mean, did the movement go too far with some of those positions? I mean, you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police. Well, you know, I think that, especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the

overtime window. We were shut down. there was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. Unemployed people will caught into the craziest ideas, you know? Exactly, dude. I'm sorry, I was stuck inside for a while. We were rewatching Sopranos for the fifth time, and I just started saying defund the police.

They're after Tony way too often. He's just trying to feed his family. the fact that she is bringing this up. She's missing an incredibly important factor, just saying COVID and not mentioning the, you know, public murder of George Floyd that happened and the Black Lives Matter movement's demonstrations, biggest demonstrations ever in the United States

throughout the country. Like, not mentioning that seems to be calculated to me. How do you not mention George Floyd in that moment? And also as if police abolition, prison abolition, and I'm not taking a position on those as slogans, nor as, you know, cut and dried 100% doctrines. I'm not saying anything because I don't quite know where I think about it. I think there's, I've heard intelligent arguments that, well, you know,

people in these communities actually don't want police abolished. I don't know. But it's certainly not the case that these ideas, has sprung up whole cloth out of N-91, N95 masks. Right. Okay? They just let nuts. We had cabin free. They were the result of movements, black

lead movements, working class movements that had been advocating at least since Ferguson. Right. Well. Which is years before that. And so you're not just throwing Francesca Hong under the bus and throwing your own history into the trash compactor,

but you're basically saying, yeah, I'm not really beholden to the lineage of these efforts, you could say there were important corrections that needed to happen in this society, and in the woke space, there were some overcorrection, some hypercorrections, that with the benefit of hindsight, just like she could say, you know what, I stretched too far to try to get Democrats elected, and that's why I said that she's working for a ceasefire, but I'm sorry, but she can't do that. She just has to dismiss the whole thing. No, I mean, we can think about if we want to critique her answer, what a different

better answer would have been. And I think after the interviewer said that, I would have said, well, hang on a minute. Let's remember the context. Let's remember the murder of George Floyd. Let's remember the uprising that occurred. And let's remember that in those moments when people were paying attention to the fact that the United States, police across the United States kill a thousand people a year, often in very, very brutal ways, that we have some of the worst prisons in the world, that we are the prison capital of the world, or maybe just out to China, we don't know, but people were thinking, well, there's got to be a better way to do this, that we don't need these kind of violent solutions to social problems.

I'm critical of the slogan, defund the police, because I don't think it says what you're going to fund instead. But underlying it is a belief that we should respond to as many problems as we can with non-violent, non-carceral solutions. And then you say, and that's what Francesca Hong was talking about, albeit inelegantly. If you look at the actual, policies she advocated. They are good policies. And if you look at her platform in this election, it's a good platform. So this is the kind of thing that you could say to an interviewer and you don't have to own every kind of loopy thing that was said by anyone on the left about identity politics in 2019. But what you do have to do, as you say, is not disavow a really, really important

social movement to defend it and explain it. And to say... Especially not two days before the primary. I mean, I'm not saying that this was a calculated move in order to kneecap Francesca Hong, but I'm just pointing out that without any sufficient explanation as to what happened with the why not endorse, it does very much seem like they looked at Francesca Hong said, this person is not able to sufficiently distance herself from these sort of woke tropes that are going to be trotted out by the right wing. And to that, I say that that just to me shows bad leadership when it comes to AOC and bad political instincts. Because as much as people want to make the point that everyone hates woke, everyone hates defund, everyone, you know,

hates these hot takes and whatnot, I actually think a good politician is able to sell anything. and if they can't sell it, they're able to flip it back on the person who's asking the question and flip it back on their opponent. And to me, to seed ground on that is not good. It spells disaster, in my opinion. The other thing, Matt, which I mentioned in my article about this, which is, okay, so you look at Francesca Hogg's answers on, like, Thanksgiving,

and you don't think she's doing a very good job of explaining her old tweet. Okay, well, here's what you do. If you are, let's think about what a leftist who was a real movement, leader who wanted to build up those in the movement. You fly to Wisconsin. Or you deputize someone who's a really good person. I see where you're going to this, Nathan. It's not AOC's job to educate Francesca Hong.

You forgot to clap during that. Stop making our leaders do emotional labor. You say, we're going to talk about, we need to respond to these questions better. Here's your answer on Thanksgiving. The only person canceling Thanksgiving is Donald Trump, who is going to be the reason you can't afford pumpkin pie this year. Boom. That's what you said.

and then you've nailed it and then you move on. That's what Abdul-L Sayyid would say. At this point, at this point in his development. Go and help. If you think she's weak, go help her. Yes, yeah. I mean, I said the same thing about the, you know,

defund the police issue that she has. She immediately in that clip, by the way, goes into talking about crime, where she's like, you know, I think we can all admit now that we hate crime and crime is bad. And I'm just like, what are we literally what are we doing here? I don't understand how you can.

So obviously flip-flop. To me, that's not a sign of, oh, we're getting our shit together. It's a sign of total weakness when you are going to now be the, you know, let's put the fun and defund the police. When you're now going to change into sort of a, I don't know, pro-police. You know, just that, that to me is not a strong place to come from, especially for someone who's relying on young left-leaning people coming out in these elections. And I don't know how, I mean, Zoran said something similar. I have a clip of Zoran. This was on the 11th.

The morning of the primary was asked this question. Do you think, well, one was crazy? sometimes what you believe can change, can develop, it can grow. And I know that there are some for whom they still believe in that. I've made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police, that I will not be defunding the police. And that to me, delivering critical public safety also looks like working with our police department alongside many other partners. And we've seen over the first seven months of this administration what that can look like. So, I mean, I look at this woke one discourse as being nothing but harmful for this, you know,

burgeoning socialist left electoral movement. And, you know, I have some optimism. But this is making me feel pretty pessimistic, Nathan. I don't know how we can look at that and not see a, you know, sort of the borders here, the line of, you know, you shall not cross this line, go more left than this line, is being dictated by the likes of AOC and Bernie Sanders, who, two people who were just agonizingly slow to, and still to this day, have not really taken up the mantle of, like, leadership when it comes to talking about the issue of the genocide. So I don't know how to feel about this, Nathan.

Someone's got to make me feel better. months was in October 20, 23 through December was you know, refusing to call for a ceasefire. Yeah. And I believe someone had to chase AOC

around a movie theater before she'd condemned the genocide. Yeah. And I believe her answer to that person chasing, you know, her around was I already said it. This is not okay. Which I was like,

like, part of me was like giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she did. Maybe I just don't know. But as far as I could tell, she had not. I mean, this has not been something she had made a public statement about. And so I worry that people who are not really, you know, in touch with sort of the way the left has been moving for the past few years are the ones who are going to be dictating the what is to woke line. Yeah. So there's just the concept of woke being one thing when that's a good.

incredibly, incredibly vague and includes a lot of important pro-social justice beliefs and includes a lot of kind of misguided beliefs. Like, it's just a, I mean, I hate talking about woke because I really think that there's a lot in there that is really important and there's a lot in there that isn't. And you've got to disentangle it if you're going to sound intelligent on the subject. But the other point here is that this is not just an issue of AOC's leadership of, in in the contemporary left movement for the purposes of which candidates are going to get elected. We are on the cusp of a 2028 election, a primary, where the left is either going to have

a candidate or it isn't. And New York, a lot of leftists in New York have been coalescing around the idea that AOC needs to be the left candidate for president, that she needs to have the unified support of the socialist movement. And it may happen that if she chooses to run, it tears apart the left because there are a lot of people who think that any criticism of AOC undermines the Democratic Socialist movement. And there are a lot of people who think that AOC no longer embodies values that are much to the left of Nancy Pelosi. And so it could be that that campaign is a very, very divisive moment that really splinters this exciting new left. That's my worry.

And, you know, this is, I say worry. I have to qualify that with, I am an electoral politics pessimist. So I already am worried in general. Nathan, what do you make of the, that sort of dust up along some sectors of the online left over Shama Suant's campaign and the way that was and wasn't. paid attention to by people we might have expected to give a shit about it. Well, there's another instance where I would make the same claim that solidarity is important. I like Shama's Juan.

I think, and, you know, she is, she could be quite negative about other leftists, so I understand why she rubs people the wrong way, but she's an incredibly accomplished person, right? Her time on the Seattle City Council showed that she's an organizer, that she got the $50 minimum wage through before anyone else did, the Amazon tax. She's a PhD economist. She's an incredibly smart person. She deserves our support, right? She's right about pretty much everything.

If you go through her platform, like every leftist would support everything on her platform. And I thought that, like, I don't know that she was ever going to win that election, but She needed to come in second. at least to make it through, it was a, what's that called the jungle primary? And maybe there is a world in which that could have happened. I don't know what her campaign was like on the ground. Sometimes these things are disorganized and it, there is a lot. And I also, Francesca Hong, although she came so close to winning that I think she must

have had a pretty good campaign. So I don't know what that campaign was like. I do know that I, as someone who runs a left media outlet, consider it my responsibility to elevate voices. who are on the left who are not being hurt, who are not going to be heard in the mainstream media, right? And so I interviewed her for that campaign. I've interviewed her before.

I think that she's, you know, that's our job as left media is, I would have interviewed Ralph Nader in 2000, even though he was only polling at like 2%, even when he was pulling at 2%. And I would have blamed you for the last 26 years for destroying America. But, but, but, um,

that's a good liberal. So, so it was, it wasn't, frustrating to see people treat her as not a legitimate part of the left, when she has this candidacy that is against this really horrible congressman that we all agree, we shouldn't, that

this, it would be nice if this congressman were ousted. Arch Zionist. Right. Arch Zionist, that guy. Yeah, and I think what you said about her negativity is important because another way of saying that is just one, the one thing she doesn't have.

There's no bone in her body that's designed to ingratiate herself. And that's very jarring to the online left because there is a lot of looking good and preening and posturing and sort of... But it's also just like when you have a kid in class who can't read social cues very well. That was me, by the way.

And kids just kind of go... They get the ick, you know? But part of the social cues are like being a good hang, being that cool kid... And like you said, not... not taking shots at people for not being left enough. And she doesn't have that. So, I think, Dan, this is important.

This is important because I think one of the things that we, if we are going to have a successful left movement in the 21st century, one of the things everyone has to do is let go of your ego, of your personality, and care about advancing the issues. And what I've tried to do is, and this has taken work, because I think it's hard for all of us when we're critical. I get so much shit for people. online. People criticize me

on the internet all day, every day. People make fun of the way I look, the way I talk, people say my opinions are total dog shit, that I'm a clown who doesn't know what he's talking about. And I'll tell you what. And that's just my Twitter feed. I don't mind. I mean,

I will still be your friend tomorrow because I'm part of, because I'm not going to shun you because of stuff you've said. I think SWAT probably would bristle and hate some of the stuff that we publish it at current affairs. But frankly, like, she's too important for me to, like, have beef. I think you can't have beef. I don't even have beef with AOC Bernie Sanders. I actually want them to be better.

I actually hesitate to criticize them because I believe in solidarity, so I only criticize them when I feel like I actually have to in a constructive way where I'm saying, this is how Bernie and AOC can be better. But I don't disown them, because I know that they are actually kind of the best we've got in some sense. Absolutely. My suggestion that they go fuck themselves is entirely constructive. I think it would do them some good. I mean, no, I completely agree with you when it comes to punching left.

I think that people too often are, you know, quick to punch left because they are, you know, trying to hold on to a space and they feel like they, represent the sanest version of this politics. And a lot of it is ego-based. A lot of it is clout-based, too. I just, I guess I, you know, to wrap up the woke conversation regarding this, I wish there was at least some understanding from AOC and Bernie that the function that they serve should not be drawing any sort of boundaries because I think they at this point should learn that where they are the most successful is being sort of the pot of money and names and, you know, email list for the burgeoning left candidates now. And it seems like, you know, Bernie is too old now. He's not running again. And so it feels like, it feels like.

What he can do is pretty limited. But it's incredibly important. AOC worries me. And I just don't know. I don't know where to go. I don't want to criticize. Even on this podcast, I feel like I'm constantly trying to just get, I don't care what internet beefs people have. I want everyone who represents a faction of the left that wants to end the genocide, wants to end

Zionism, I put them all on and we get shit all the time for who we put on. And so I just, but it's hard to look at, you know, what's going on with the AOC and not go like, I don't know how to push other than to scream and to void. And it occurs to me also that when you, because you talked about there were aspects of whatever gets called woke that were extremely positive. And there were some that weren't so positive. Quite aside from the individual, you know, policy ideas, because everyone's going to disagree on those, on different cultural issues, whatever. But one of the things that, to me, was unequivocally,

and I think if people were honest and a little more humble, they would have to admit that it's embarrassing and completely ineffective and counterproductive about the culture around that was that it basically boiled down to a kind of peer pressure, right? It was like that the art of persuasion was lost, and browbeating became the same. thing and excluding people who already don't agree with you and calling them names and,

you know, and calling them bigoted because they're not all the way where you are, you know, and that kind of gatekeeping and shunning people and tarring people with the ick brush. And so, but if that, the ick brush is very much a thing. The ick brush, right? Didn't even realize it's almost a pun. Yeah, this kind of like, like, like, you know, social pressure calligraphy where you Anyway, the point is, that ethic has not expired. It's just changed form, and they're still doing it.

And that's like, you're not getting at, you're not learning the core lessons that could actually avail the left well. You're just continuing on and pretending that you've changed. Yeah, it's when the left acts like a Fed. That's the problem I have. Which is to say a high school mean girl. Yeah, no. And is, you know, actively participating in sort of divide and conquer tactics that. have always been used to destroy the left.

When you are actively participating in that, and I feel like I don't, so much attribute that to the quote left, you know, when it comes to early, whatever people consider woke, I, for the most part,

look at that and I see it as part of a heavily online culture, you know, of people writing. I mean, it was people getting mad at think pieces. If we're, this is from my position and my perspective,

I just saw people getting mad at think pieces, getting mad at tweets, getting mad at like, the way in which people were interacting with them online and not so much in, you know, real spaces or in very distinct, like small, insular academic spaces. And then taking that and saying like, oh, we need to put all these people in concentration camps. That was like the anti-woke part of it. And I don't know. I feel way more dismissive of woke because I'm like, you just close the full. fucking internet. Just just close your computer and then you won't be worried about being white

all the time. But that's me. And I, you know, that's my... It's a very white thing to say, Matt. It's a very white thing to say. Yeah. People just like, oh, they're mad at me for being white. Close a computer. You won't even know they're there. Being online is a choice. Yeah. Any closing thoughts, Nathan, before we let you... I was just trying to remember in trying to be clear about the distinctions between the things that were good and the things that weren't about this movie. I was trying to remember.

There was one incident that I thought was an example of something we should definitely leave behind was, I think it was the editor. This black woman was appointed the editor of editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, and then they discovered that a decade earlier, she'd said, like, as a teenager, homophobic tweets, and she was fired. She was fired for a job. She got a decade later. And I think that is the example to me of you're not giving.

people an opportunity to get better, right? And you're almost encouraging them to go to the dark side, because you're saying, well, you'll never get accepted again. You've been tarred with the ick brush. And what's you're tarred with the ick brush? You might as well go and hang out with Tucker Carlson, because he's your people now. We don't want you. There's no getting better.

There's no restorative justice. There's no process of growth. There's no coming back. And that was the sort of incident where I was like, okay, this is a problem because this is going to push people out of your movement. But then there was an incredibly important conversation about racism and policing and prisons. And that was important. And confronting the reality of the level of disparity between black Americans and white Americans and how that has persisted decades after the end of the civil rights movement is crucial.

And so, you know, defend the things that were defensible and disavow the things that needed to be disavowed and grow and learn. And I think to me, I still want AOC to give that apology for her role in helping launder the genocide. Because I still believe that people can get better. I know, you know, we become very sitting. But if she did that, if she said, look, I understand. understand now why that was a problem, I would accept that apology. And I think we should accept that apology because we should want people to start thinking and start growing. But that's people, right? And once politicians become sufficiently embroiled in, embedded in certain power systems,

I become a bit more Ben Kenobi like, you know, she's more machine now than woman twisted and evil. just his most pessimistic take. It is. I know. And he was wrong. He's got a lot of positive takes, too. He was wrong in that case, you know, but, but no, I like your, you're hopefully, and what I certainly like is your, your, uh, appetite for construction. Ha ha. You're, your constructive bent.

It's funny because I'm such a, people who know me only through my Twitter feed, I'm actually, uh, see, I could come across as an asshole, I think, because I'm so. negative about so many. It's because you're wearing a suit. It's so many people. But I actually try to be a real, real fun friendly leftist. It's because you look like an injury lawyer, but you don't talk like one. No. I kind of, yeah. Well, I look obnoxious. I sound obnoxious, but I'm really very sweet. No, yeah, you're great. And I'm really grateful to you for coming on and, you know, talking with us. And yeah, where can people find your work? Oh, people got to go to current affairs. and they should subscribe to our print magazine because our print magazine is gorgeous.

And that's how we continue to do the work that funds, we're a non-profit, so it funds all of the art, all of the writing. So we need print subscribers. It looks beautiful on your coffee table. Please subscribe to current print. Absolutely. We'll put a link to that in the description. Yeah, please. Yeah, please subscribe to Current Affairs and get the print edition. You want your house to look good. Get some fucking magazines in there. And they're not like New Yorkers where they come every week so you'll build up this part of ours once every two months so you have time to read it. Wonderful.

You know. Nothing worse than getting a New Yorker subscription and realizing you don't like to read that much. You're like, oh no. Any more like homework. I've seen. I've looked at all the Ross Chast cartoons. Yeah. It's been months.

I haven't read not one shout nor murmur. Nathan J. Robinson, thank you so much for coming on. And we are going to take a quick commercial break, but everyone please stick around because we're going to be right back. This episode is brought to you by Hala Palestine. That's right, guys. We finally did it. We got an ad.

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And I can't wait to see you wearing it in the... Yeah, I will wear it, but I wanted to wait until we recorded the ad to show it, just because it just comes in this nice package. And because it's, you know, it's got a little printout of... of where it was made, how it was made. And, you know, just it's nice to, I wanted to do the unboxing here on the ad. Well, well, then rip it open while I read the next few sentences. Yeah, you go ahead.

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Yeah. So you can get a 10% discount. a 10% discount on any of the great products at halapalestine.com with the offer code bad hasbarah. That's right. You can feel good about where your money is going when you shop at halapalistine.com. I think I almost said chala. It's halal. Hala.

Ha. They taught us how to say that age when we were there. That's right. They tried to unhah. They're like, get that goddamn ha out of there. Stop putting chas and stuff. They said, imagine opening a, like a can of soda. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Halapalistan. There is. And use the code Bad Hasbara. That's H-A-L-A-Palistine.com offer code Bad Hasbara for 10% off. Thank you so much to Hala Palestine for this beautiful Kaffa and for the soaps. And now back to our regularly scheduled program. And we're back to Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral podcast. ass, Nathan J. Robinson has left the building.

It was nice to have some current affairs, man. All my affairs are... In the past. They're just really out of date. They're moldy oldies, all of your affairs. This guy's... This guy's on Bumble for Olds. You know what I mean?

If kids still use Bumble? Is that still a dating at people? I don't even know, man. I don't know, but it feels really good to have him here. field field really good yeah it field it feels really good it was nice it was a great conversation I'm glad we got to talk about woke I feel like old people are on crumble thank you thank you

that's a great up crumbus that's that's very good I feel like you know we haven't had that like conversation about like what is woke before on this podcast and it's important I think you and I coming from different generations kind of have different feelings around what kind of peer pressure existed at the time and what kind of and it's it's it's interesting because you know one thing I wanted to say before he left it didn't get a chance to is I just wish the left candidates wouldn't seed this ground that woke is something that they need to address.

Because to me, I look at this era that people keep, you know, turning back to, talking about, you know, what woke is. And I look at it as pretty much universally just hot takes and think pieces. Whenever someone, you know, would tweet about the AOC woke one thing and people would like, write like, what's woke? What even is that? every response was just a fucking collage of headlines about like is is sonic the hedgehog too white and but they would they would tweet it out earnestly saying this is what i'm talking about and i'm like guys if this is if this is the issue that you are the most concerned about uh as a politician feel free to turn

to ignore it and turn it back on the person who's asking i just as a politician i agree with you i think that there is a... I wouldn't... I do have a slightly different take on it because I have a different memory of it. I wasn't so generationally inside of it, so I felt the... I'm being...

Like, there was something very peer-oriented about it. Sure. Sure. There's just that feeling when you're in a room and you're, you all of a sudden have to learn new ways of speaking and new, whatever. And if I felt that way,

and I'm millennial, then if you if you and I'm leftist and I'm cosmopolitan and all that and then just seeing the ways that others in society reacted and of course right-wing grifters jumped on it but I I don't think aOC or much less Bernie need to address this and I don't think it's it's tenable at all for them to throw Francesca Hong into us on the other hand I do think there's value in in left spaces activists growing up a bit and looking back and not using the fact that anti-woke was bullshit and totally disingenuous and mean and cruel

and not interested in any of the corrections, never mind the over-corrections. One good example of this, and people may feel different ways about this, there was an article in a rag called The Argument the other day by Cassie Pritchard, who's a trans woman, who was reflecting on some of the tactics and just the mood that, that existed around that time in trying to push forward

a new understanding of gender. And she says, look, the mistake I made, the mistake we made was insisting that everyone had to come onside our ontology, our relatively new understanding of what sex is, what gender is, whatever. And she says, looking back, it actually doesn't matter to me whether you, how you see me, or like, what you think I am at my core. What matters is, do you think I should be an equal member of society?

Do you think I should be treated with love, dignity, respect, so on and so forth? And making a utilitarian case for a less dogmatic kind and less peer pressure internal echo chamber kind of politics. And I think it's a really strong and important and healthy salutary self-check to do in retrospect. And I think there's things people could consider similarly about the moment of COVID and the ways that COVID skeptics were treated. I was really happy to see that. That's different than AOC disingenuously and expediently throwing out some little quip. You know what's interesting.

Ironically, it is one of the reasons why this framing of Woke 1 is something that I've been encouraged by before AOC said it. Because what it was, the joke of Woke 1 was people, differentiating it from where they are now on the political spectrum in terms of having more intersectional analysis and class analysis. Whereas before, Woke 1, it was sort of the joke was, I was mostly concerned whether or not the media I was consuming represented me in sort of an identity politics type of way with no thought towards any other consideration. and now woke two is, you know, allegedly supposed to be one in which you are, I don't know, I guess more intersectional, although that feels like a woke one term or whatever the fuck.

Well, the term was thrown around a lot without actually being practiced or defined. Right. And so, you know, it's been an encouraging sign to me the fact that people are trying to do a more inclusive, less sort of abrasive politics. Less self-righteous. Less self-righteous, especially when you're trying to, you know, you're trying to build, you're trying to convince people of things, right? And it's ironic that that ends up being, you know, the term that AOC used, not in order to, you know, talk about where her politics are now, but almost in terms of backpedaling, going, oh, I am no longer woke.

I believe that cops should be more funded and that we need to stop black crime. I mean, she didn't say black crime, but I'm sorry. Woke has been a term that has now been used to essentially just mean things that black people and their allies believe in. Well, and there's a reason for that. Yes.

Because in the genealogy of the word, who invented it? Like every other term in U.S. slang, it's a black term. And it didn't originally mean having virtuous political beliefs or even being kind or compassionate to the marginalizer. It was a self-interested, communitarian, neighborhood level, stay woke, brother. Be aware of the ways that the trichnology of the society. Of white supremacy. A white supremacy, Ray large, is going to try to turn you against your own and turn you against yourself. Yes, yes.

You know what I'm saying? Don't get sucked in. It's a consciousness-raising tool. Right. And so it is, you know, it is, you know, dark and discouraging to, I don't know, disavow woke in this sort of joking way in order to talk about how, you know, we all agree that we're against crime now. I'm like, o'clock, Lord, that's fucking terrible. Anyways, we've talked enough about the political instincts of AOC and awokeness in general. it's time to go to the world's most unwoke place. Florida, where the gators are racist and the, I don't know, I have nothing.

But I want to talk about this guy Oliver Larkin. He is an activist, he's union organizer, and he is running as a Democratic candidate in Florida's 25th congressional district. And he's doing a campaign against the incumbent Democrat, Jared Mosk. I saw a vote Larkins sign. I thought it said Free Palestine. The crocs are tired. So he's running obviously to the left of Jared Moskowitz, who we've talked about on this podcast, you know, one of the, you know, group of Democratic congressional congressmen who are constantly

the most Zionists out there, constantly are. are denigrating people like Abdul-Said or, you know, Rashida Talib, or Ilhan Omar. You know, this is, Jared is one of those people. And he's primaring him. Oliver went on a local news program in Florida and had this, for the most part, pretty cordial exchange with the host. And then it got to the question of Israel and his positions on that. And that's when, well, it got a little weirder.

And I want to play some of that right now. How are you going to explain to your Jewish voters that you would like to essentially put Israel in an existential threat? I look at this as making sure that we actually practice democracy abroad as well as at home. And when the nation state law in Israel was passed, in I believe 2018, that created a much more tiered system of citizenship that privileges Jewish citizens above Palestinians. I don't believe it is in the United States' interest to support that. Let me just stop you before one second. That actually is factually incorrect. There was not a Palestinian state in 18. What I want to talk about. She has no idea what she's talking about.

I mean, that truly is baffling to me. So in 2018, there wasn't a Palestinian state. Therefore, the nation state law didn't get passed in Israel that privileged Jewish Israelis from non-Jewish Israelis. Just total nonsense. Yeah. Well, exactly, Matt. In fact, the other night, Israeli police didn't raid and pogrom a Palestinian wedding in

Um el-Fahom, which is within the borders of 48. Right. Well, because they couldn't have. They couldn't have. Because if Palestinians don't have a state. There's no state. Now. Yeah. It just was one of those weird moments, but it keeps getting weirder. She keeps doing this.

Here and now of the state of Israel exists in 1948, which actually was supposed to be a two-state stolution and then rejected by the Arab states. But your- motherfucker said two-state institution. Stolution. Stolution. That's what she said. Essentially taking away defense.

And I think that's a very important thing for, for, for, for, viewers in your district because that's what they want to hear you talk about. Why? Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. That's incorrect. That is factually incorrect. It has been regarded by the United Nations and Amnesty International. She said that's propaganda, right? People have quoted her as saying that's problematic, which would have been hilarious. I wish. I wish. That's problematic. And I'm giving that a big yikes. Yeah. No, she's immediately cut. off talking about a genocide being committed and just ignores, plows through him talking about the

different organizations that have called it a genocide, as well as all of the just general war crimes that have been committed by Israel. I'll continue. Human rights organizations, including Betselm, there's a number of... The definition of genocide in the U.N. The U.N. has said this does not apply to what many people might think as a disproportionate wartime action. that's what that is

in many people's minds. Genocide is a very specific thing. Actually, genocide being committed against Jewish people, not by Israel. And that's just a fact. That's just a fact. I love her appealing to noted international experts

many people's minds. Many people's minds, dude. I love ending everything. You know her. I love ending every sentence with, and that's, of fact is a hell of a way to convince someone you're speaking facts. I mean, look, is she saying facts?

No. But does it sound like a fact? Yes, because she sounds very convinced of it, especially the part where she's like, no, you see, in the UN there's a very specific definition about what genocide is. And actually, if you think about it, the Jews are the ones being. Genocided. Yeah.

I love that specific definition no longer applies. Now it's just vibes again. Now we're back to vibes. That's, uh, yeah. Well, I think she means that the specific definition means that which happens to Jews. I mean, it's like, that is how some people have read it. They're like, is she saying that only Jews can experience genocide? Yeah, in many people's minds.

That's what she said. Yeah. I don't think, I think you'd have a tough time getting her to, um, repeat anything she just said here because I think she is sort of on autopilot. Well, she's certainly not going to repeat it on Instagram since she deleted her account. She did delete her account. I imagine because this went viral and people immediately were like, hey, what did any of the words you say mean? But yeah, she continues on.

She also had, I think, a producer in her ear yelling the entire time. The United Nations recently in Geneva found that the IDF had deliberately targeted women and children. there's been famine conditions imposed over the Gaza Strip by the blockading of aid. Entering the strip, there's been indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, of mosques, of churches. Again, I'm going to have to stop you as that is factually not correct. Oh, shit. But I hear you talking about something very important to a lot of people and certainly who think that way. But as a congressman, I'm being told we have to rep.

Oh, for real? Oh, my producer, Serenosa Burjure A-Pack is telling me that we have to... Wow. Sertanote Pura A-Pack. Holy shit. Oh, man. Yeah. Sorry, we got to...

I'm being told just now I'm being told that we got to go. But I just want to say, I am rubber, you are glue, and so on and so forth. And everything you say is a lie. And to quote the UN, uh n uh yeah n uh i i hear and i feel uh and i see your yuh huh and i just want to retort with a n uh and i just want to acknowledge uh much like francesca hong you exist yeah and you you take up you take up space yes um your facts are factually incorrect and that's a fact uh jack but yeah that is how that interview truly a fascinating look into the state of local news where, I mean, some people are criticizing

Oliver Larkin for not firing back hard enough at her and like letting her take up so much space and just saying, no, you're lying over and over again. From what I understand, the interview up until that point had been pretty like normal. And it would have seemed awfully weird if he had gotten, I guess, angry about it. I don't know the calculation. All I know is I don't think he needed to. I think it was enough to just watch her constantly cutting him off every time he mentioned a war crime. Anytime he mentioned, you know, Israeli, even just aggression against Palestinians being told, no, that's not factual. And we got to go, dog. this can't this isn't allowed on florida tv um yeah so i great job oliver i hope uh i hope you get to be

interviewed again um by this person because maybe you guys can have a deeper conversation about it it's amazing how how quick uh news and it's no longer just national news but even at the local level though which it says a lot uh they're so quick to flicks their fact checking muscles the minute anyone says anything true about israel or palestine yeah it's crazy that they They have just automatic fact checkers. Yeah, no, you can just say kind of anything about anything on any news channel. But people got facts when you talk about apartheid. People got facts when you talk about genocide.

All of a sudden, they got, you know what they got? They got, hey, did you know, actually, that in 1948, the Arabs were offered a state, but then they rejected it in favor of doing anti-Jewish violence at the behest of the ghost of Adolf Hitler. probably didn't know that. And that's a fact. And that's the tooth. Yeah, so good shit all around on that front. Now we're going to go to New York. We're going to fly into New York right into the World Trade Center to talk about what's going on at a synagogue. Can you tell me a little bit about this story? Well, the central synagogue in Manhattan. venerable institution that flies Israeli flags and has brochures for helping IDF soldiers

ever since October 7th, good Zionist institution, suffered a jarring interruption in its Shabbat services this past Friday night, when a man later identified as Larry Montez, a man in his 50s, I believe, from Queens, entered the synagogue and kind of bum-rushed, The Bima. Yeah. Beema rushed the show. Beam rushed. And yeah, he was yelling some things.

He, I think, struck someone or there was some kind of physical education. We have video of the attack. And I'll play that for people right now. Just so people listening can know what the captions say. It says, anti-Semitism in New York City. Manstorms Central Synagogue assaults to. And here is the video of it. You hear some yelling.

And then you see a man in what looks like a best buy blue collared shirt yelling some stuff. And he's being let out. Yes. So this was immediately framed as a hate crime, an anti-Semitic attack. It was promptly condemned by the mayor, as it should have been, as you would expect. And here is Zoran's tweet. I am horrified by the assault at Central Synagogue during services today. I can only imagine the pain and fear and attack like this during Shabbat services,

causes for the congregation and for Jewish New Yorkers across our city. Every New Yorker must be able to observe their religion without fear of violence. This despicable act, you know, this is just the standard boilerplate condemnation of this kind of violence. I'm never, you know, I think it's appropriate that the mayor has to put out a statement like this. I'm always, I'm always amazing. by who else thinks they need to go on Twitter and be like, this is despicable. This has no place.

Obviously. Yes. Whenever it's someone who's like not even in the city in which it happened and it's just like, you know, it's like if Gavin Dueson was like, I also saw that video of guy yelling at synagogue. And I also condemn anti-Semitism in the strongest terms. This has nothing to do with this meeting I'm taking tomorrow with some funders. Like, it is, yeah.

Right, like, why don't you just tweet awful? You hate to see it. Right. But it's like, I am officially going to come out and get out ahead of this and say, I don't approve it out in the workplace. Yeah, not in the workplace. I don't approve of that in the prayer space. That's right.

All right. So others weren't having it from Mayor Mom Dani, because they knew that his secret to key agenda was to make these kinds of things happen. Here is Ophir Akunis, who I think is the Israeli consul general in New York. What a wonderful phrase. Ophir Akunis. I'm sorry. Which is a great name.

Go ahead. Yeah. The attack at Manhattan Central Synagogue is a direct result of Mayor Mamdani's sustained campaign of incitement. I warned that words would turn into actions, and that is exactly what is happening. Mom Dani has failed to protect New York Jews, New York's Jews. It is not enough to issue lukewarm condemnations. Action is needed. So the thermometer is out. That's right. And it's getting hot out here for these Jews. Yeah, but the condemnations are flaring. But the condemnations are not warm enough. That's right. It's like your dad sending back soup at the Museum of Tolerance. That's right.

This guy is sending back the condemnation because it's kept it. The condemnations need to be nuked up a little bit just to get them to the right temp. Right. Stop anti-Semitism was also very quick and eager to draw connections between Zoran and his circle and this obviously anti-Semitic attack because what else could it be? I'm sure we won't find out that in fact something else was going on. Outrageous, former Mamdani staffer Debbie Sasslaw claims the attack on Central Synagogue was not a hate.

crime despite the attacker screaming Jewish swine and fake Jews. That's apparently what he screamed outside as he was being detained. Oh, okay. Sasslaw took to X to falsely state Larry Montes was an Orthodox Jew upset with reform congregants. Well, that is false. I don't know if Sasslaw actually said that. If she did, that would be incorrect. Is anyone affiliated with Zoran, not poisoned with hate?

That's a great question. Thank you. Stop anti-Semitism for asking. Speaking of poison with hate, what is Richie Torres? to say. Yeah, noted hatred and violent rhetoric condemner

Richie Torres. A violent agitator disrupted Shabbat service at Central Synagogue, assaulting a congregant and the security guard. Just as troubling as the violence itself is the political climate that emboldens it. American politics has become so obsessively antagonistic toward,

quote, Zionists, whoever they are. Whatever the fuck that is. You know, you mean Jews. They always do this to be like, just say Jews. And it's like, motherfucker, then why are you a self-described Zionist? That's right. That doesn't make sense. Are you saying you're a self-described Jew? Just say that then. I want to wait till he says that before I say the other thing. That's like us being like, you know, Randos on Twitter, I've become so obsessively antagonistic

towards quote-unquote podcasters. Right. Yeah. We are podcasters. That's what we do. let's say yeah that even a synagogue is seen as fair game for disruption and desecration no jewish space is considered sacred enough to be left untouched it's a strange thought because anyone who's going to do something like this is going to go for the most sacred thing right like like desecrating sacrily like the point of anyway whatever right like you expect you expect there to be a space that'll be sacred enough where like genuine neo-nazis are like no well no that's fucked up dude no no we don't do that. No, that's the Torah. Leave the scroll alone. All right. We're here just to, you know, I don't know, write some slurs on the wall. I'm not here to desecrate the holy word of God.

These vermin are having their day of atonement. You know, the worst part about it is that there's, within all this is sort of the unreasonable expectation that there will just never be any violence or act of hatred towards Jews at all. And I'm like, I'm sorry, that's just not, it's not reasonable to expect for that to happen. I think it's fair and reasonable to call out an actual act of violence. In this case, it sounds like something that has probably happened and will happen again at synagogues and churches and anywhere. People getting let out and kicked out because there was screaming.

screaming some shit is not, it is not reasonable to expect that this will, this particular incident won't happen. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. Well, yeah. I'd like to see more people to get led out of synagogues for screaming, but I'd like them to be young Jews being like, right, exactly. Yeah. My genocidal uncles and ants. Anyway, that's Richie Torres. He keeps talking about how anti-Semitism's at historic highs with more hate crimes against Jews than against all other communities combined. Yeah. And Jews should know, because they're good to at math. Instead of cooling tensions, both the far left and the far right

keep pouring gasoline on the fires of hate, fear, and blame. Okay, so, we're racking up the condemnations of this obviously anti-Semitic attack. Who else do we have? I'm sorry, just real quick. Love the, yeah, let's talk about metaphorical fires.

Just whenever we talk about metaphorical fires in defense of literal fires being and you know bombs and guns and death reigned upon Palestinians that always it always makes me want to blow chunks

but let's go to the ADL good thing he didn't say big tent in the same sentence yeah that's right here's the ADL last night's assault at Central Synagogue is a painful reminder of what Jewish communities across the country and be on face every day fucking liars incidents of

Jesse Brown's getting some ghostwriting opportunities here incidents of violence, harassment, and intimidation and houses of worship are not isolated, vents, they're part of a deeply alarming pattern. That's why we are fighting for the Right to Worship Act

and urging Congress to pass the Jewish-American Security Act. Jasa? It sounds too much like Masa. Or Jawa. Yeah. Like the little mercantile, short, you know,

traitors. Not traitors, but. But in Star Wars, you know, the little guys who sell droid parts. Oh, God. Yeah, I know. I know who exactly you're talking about. I'm just, but I'm just thinking about the way it rhymes with Yasa Masa. It's just Yasa Jasa is killing me.

Come on. Is Jasa going to let us be free? Yeah. I'm sorry. To protect. Protects Remember Meniga? Oh, no, I don't.

Oh, yes, I do. What was that? Bill Ackman's. Bill Ackman's. Make New York. Yeah. Yes. M-N-Y-G-A.

Yeah. God. That was so bad. I just got scared. I just got scared. What do you say it? What are you mean? deserves to pray in peace. That's why

we're going to introduce a security act named after Jewish Americans. That'll go over so well. God. Yep. That's going to go great. I'm sure that will not. Like stern gangbusters.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. All right. So then we had a couple of just wing nut reactions that revealed a little bit more about I think the true face, the true id of this reaction.

This one was hilarious to me. Karen Woods, who's got a couple of, I don't know what those are in her, they look like spiders, there might be characters in some language, I don't know, I don't know what those are in her handle, or, or, or. Oh, I don't know.

It's, whatever. Is that, yeah, I don't know, I can't see. I don't know what it is. The NYC Central Synagogue popped up on my timeline a few years ago. It's rabbi, Angela Bukhtahi, is half Korean. They often host interfaith dialogues

with the Muslim community. It's the place where transgender rabbi will convert you, covert you, it says. But she means convert you. Yeah, that kind of synagogue, you know, the most progressive, most liberal-leaning, most pro-two-state bunch of Jews. But now it no, no, it's not, this is just a lie. It's a heavily Zionist synagogue. But now it no longer matters what kind of Jew-Yer, your political lean. your level of support for Israel or even your support for a Palestinian state,

you just don't deserve to live because you're Jewish. And people still tell me there's no anti-Semitism. WTF. Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's crazy. And here's... The Honda folks aren't as helpful as they once were.

Explain that one. Happy Honda Day's joke. I just want to hear what Adam has to say about that one. Blue shirt. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Got it. Ahmahqad at Black Intifada reports, I've visited Central Synagogue

since Israel's genitalized started. Inside are massive Israeli flags, a wall filled with letters to and from Israeli soldiers, posters asking for donations to Israeli soldiers, maps erasing Palestine and birthright trip photos in the West Bank. So, this idea that it's somehow a woke haven for anti-Zionists, and still it gets attacked by anti-Semites, every part of that is false.

Every plank of the premise. I don't know. Now it's all of a sudden it's Zionist to have an Israeli flag and have a wall filled with letters to and from IDF soldiers. I just don't see how those things relate. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I mean, Woke One was crazy.

You can just make things mean anything. Yeah, exactly, dude. Now, oh yeah, yes. Here we start to learn a little something about the guy who did it. Yes. Larry Montes. Now, we'll read you some information about him,

but if you're watching, just take a look at this graphic here. This is a sort of a carousel of some of his recent posts on Facebook. He's got a Passover post saying, do this in memory of me. Dude, he's got an AI fucking lion,

Israeli lion. He's got a picture of Israel's with an Israeli flag. He's literally got it. Yeah. Wow. He's got a picture of the entire land of Palestine saying, keep Israel in your heart.

Yeah. It's a little glowing heart. He's got Hebrew with translations. What is the Messiah the Jews are talking about? So he seems to really be into these Jews. His anti-Semitism is starting to feel a little philosemitic, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

You know, this is, you know, we need an actual phylo-Semitism alert. Yeah, I know, straight up. And it's just Mike Huckabee, just getting rammed by Netanyahu. But this is, yeah, this really changes the narrative a little bit because I thought there was a man who showed up filled with anti-Semitic rage against, you know, all Jewish people. And instead, it looks like he is a deep, deep supporter of Israel.

real. I don't see a, I don't see a, I don't think they're correct in the way that they're trying to portray this attack. This doesn't seem like a Mom Doni supporter, does it? No, it sure doesn't. In fact, he posted stuff against Mom Donny as well from what I heard. So there's a missing link emotionally psychologically here. What could that missing link be from a kind of philosemitic love of Jews to attacking a synagogue and screaming Jewish swine. Oh, could it be a kind of envy or stalkerish obsession? Let's take a look at what his aunt said about him. Now, first of all, we're going to get this information via an article in the foreword,

which, you know, we don't want to slag them too hard. They're not the worst Jewish paper, and they platformed us. That's true. They did a whole feature on us. But check out this thing. this headline, man charged in central synagogue attack linked to posts about Israel, Judaism, and Mamdani. Damn.

Sub headline. Those are some strong links, dude. I mean, where's the lie? He's linked. No lies so far. He's linked to posts. He's posting about Israel, Judaism, Mandani. And you can only imagine where he falls on those lines.

And you'll have to imagine. because I don't want to say where. For a few more paragraphs at least. Aunt of Larry Montes said she believed he wanted to become Jewish. Oh, hell yeah. Red Dragon's not. Well, you always hurt the one you want to become. That's right, dude.

The man accused of attacking a woman in a security guard at a central synagogue, a prominent New York City congregation on Manhattan's Upper East Side during Friday Net Services, had filled his Facebook page with posts about, but Israel and Judaism in the months leading up to the attack. And, according to his aunt, had expressed a desire to convert to the Jewish faith. I'm loving this. I'm loving this so far because I'm like, oh, this is in just like another universe. This was Olivia Rheingold.

You know what I mean? Olivia Rangel, if she had not been accepted as fully Jewish, despite being holocically half Jewish on the wrong side, this is what she could have become. She could have been out here fucking in synagogues, just punching security guards, writing out messages. Like, you guys are the swine Jews. The patrilineals are the real Jews.

You know, it's just like, what do you call it? Like a fucking militant Karite Jew. We're just like, that's just some Talmud shit. Fuck that. I'm about the Torah and the Torah only. Here's what his aunt said. he's mentally traumatized because of his desire to belong to that religion. That's what he said.

Miriam Montez, the aunt of Larry Montez 46 told the New York Post. I don't know. That's what he said. He was just like, man, I just want to be Jewish so bad that I'm fucked up. I just want to be able to just,

you know, fucking eat a bagel and just be like, look at us. You know what I mean? I just want to be like able to support a genocide and be like, we have to do it. You know what I mean? M&M voice.

Dear Yids, I'm writing you this letter because I said it. Yeah, exactly. It's the philosemitic version of Stan. Yeah. Remember the song you read the head night? Yeah.

When that God saved, saw that other guy drown in and he didn't save him, that could have been you. That is, this is great, man. Given what happened, he might not have been in his right mind,

she said. However, she added that she had not spoken with her nephew in three months. Oh, man. This is just so embarrassing. This is so embarrassing. According to the assistant district attorney on the case, Ali Fasal, after his arrest, Montez called the congregants swine and fake Jews in statements to the police.

Sounds like a real cogent political thinker. Dude, I mean, I'm starting to think like this guy is a rejected black Hebrew Israelite, you know what I mean? It's just like, no, these are fake Jews. They don't know what the real, the 13th tribe or whatever. Oh, man. On a Facebook page that appears to belong to Montez, he reposted a video comparing New York City mayor,

Zohan Mamdani to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhala Khomeini. And Mamdani is who we're supposed to blame for this attack. Yes, yes. He is just the safety of the Jewish community is being torn apart by Mamdani because people who are desperate enemies of his keep doing philosemitic hate crimes very cool

it's not a hate crime it's a love crime that's right it's a love crime it's an envy crime yeah dude love crime baby love crime baby love crime other videos reposted on the page focused on Jewish and Israeli topics

one featured a Jewish man disputing claims that the Talmud contains disparishing remarks about Jesus. In 2024, he posted a photo of the map of Israel. It's not really the map of Israel. It's the map of Israel in the occupied territory, is also known as the map of Palestine, with text overlaid that said,

keep Israel in your heart. Another reposted video featuring Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi, explaining why evangelical Christians support Israel. We could play you a video by the same guy. Joseph Mizrahi from that I saw last week talking about why you have to kill Palestinian babies because they'll grow up to be terrorists. That's right. Yeah. The page also reposted several videos

from Ruhama's Food, a popular Israeli social media account. Okay, that's it. That's all I need to do. Any motherfucker reposting an Israeli food account? Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's that's peak Zionist. You don't get more. I love I love the Jewish people and the state of the Jewish people. than just being like, oh, I sure love this rebranded Palestinian food. Like, my favorite type of falafel, the colonial falafel, please. I like it because it's moist, extra moist with the tears of the people it was stolen from. That is, that's incredible, man. That is, I just like, you know, when this took place, I was very concerned as to what they're going to

find when they look into this guy because they'll take any excuse, you know, if he liked a post that said like, you know, here support this fundraiser for standing together or whatever, they'd be like, look at this classic anti-Semitic behavior. Instead, you have a guy who is just an open phylo-Semite who's just like trying to mark David Chapman, the Jewish people. Yeah. And as, right, he's trying to shoot Ronald Reagan because he's, in love with Judy Foster. Yeah, because he's right. He's love with Judy Foster.

Jew, J-E-W. Yeah, yeah, I got you. The face, and he's also just a lunatic. The Facebook past, I mean, I feel bad for the guy. The Facebook page's recent posts are more disjointed. They include screenshots showing attempts to translate seemingly incoherent Spanish text into Hebrew. Oh, God. It's a Hebrew metaculous.

Police said Montez had three prior arrests before the central synagogue attack, all of which were for robbery. Okay, so we're talking about an unwell individual, a traumatized individual. Yes. Montes was charged with two counts of assault as a hate crime and one count of criminal mischief as a hate crime. Mischief. You mischief as hate-crimeing scamp.

Yeah, exactly. You mostly get charged for that crime if you have a long wispy mustache that you keep you keep trying to curl with your thumb and forefinger. The thrice convicted Rapscallion declined to comment. Yes. He is expected to appear in court on August 20th. Yes. Yes, criminal mischief for the

only the most delightful types of crimes, you know. The whimsical crimes of a mischievous criminal. I mean, to me, there's such. an obvious and easy explanation for the rise of these kinds of incidents. Quite aside from like false flag incidents where Jews cop to, you know, attacking their own institutions to try to frame Palestinians, which has happened. And quite aside from genuine anti-Semitic attacks, which I suppose has happened too. Yes.

But, yeah, I never quarrel with facts. but look you get a mentally unwell person you get a mentally unwell person raised in some Christian tradition you get a mentally unwell person raised in New York City you place them in a moment where Jews are everywhere in the discourse why are Jews everywhere in the discourse well it starts with Israeli genocide of Palestinians and everything is downstream from that from anti-Zionist Jews pushing back on it

to Palestinians in the streets, waving Palestinian flags, to the ADL doing what it does and placing itself in everyone's face constantly. Right. So in terms of what's like the power of suggestion and what would lead someone to like focus on this group that's very salient right now and very,

there's something magnetic. Jews have always had a kind of fascination to non-Jews. Mm-hmm. And these days, there's even more material reasons for that that we have something to do with. And you get, you get, you put those all in a fucking blender and you get this. To me, it's just so far. And it's got nothing to do with the rise of anti-Semitism.

It's got scant little to do with the rise of anti-Semitism. Yeah, I think the problem with this is trying, maybe in general, to take almost anything out of it. Because I think what you actually have here is a story. Well, excuse me. I, you know, not to denigrate this point you made, because I do agree with you that, you know, we are living now in, you know, a time where just being online with a little bit of that crazy that you already had can lead you to all sorts of criminal mischief, you know, and different targets, especially, you know, at a time when you've got people, yeah, doing nonstop talking about, you know, Israel and Jews and yada, yada, yada, yada. Look, this is a story not about a mass shooting. This is a story not about a, you know, a fire bombing or even a, you know, tagging of a Jewish graveyard. This is a story about a guy who disrupted a congregation.

And I'm not, again, excusing that. But this is not... You're not using your stand-up comic privilege here. You're so used to hecklers. rabbis are not trained in crowdwork. No, but I don't think it's a reasonable thing to, number one, expect that you are never going to have a crazy person bum rush your congregation, whether it be a synagogue or a church or a mosque or a fucking Hindu temple.

It is not a reasonable expectation to be like, can you believe that this happened? It's like, certainly. I mean, Jewish institutions, Jewish religious institutions often do have security. That's why part of the story is one of the two people assaulted, which is a vague enough word that we don't know exactly what happened here, I assume a punch or a push or a touch of any kind. One of the two people was a security guard. Yeah, so one person was assaulted and one person was...

Was the reason for, you know, serve the purpose of the job, which is to... To absorb the blows of someone who's out of control. Right. Like if this were an unreasonable expectation, why would there be security at synagogues? Part of the reason there's security at synagogues is because sometimes you're going to have a fucking crazy person come in screaming about Jews. Whether or not he's being philosemitic, anti-Semitic doesn't matter. Those are two sides of the same coin to me. To me, the real story is, once again, a individual act of, you know, something that, I'm sorry, is mundane as crazy guy went into synagogue and yelled and pushed a couple of people, is being taken as a national news outcry of this is the ADL going, this is a Mamdani thing.

This is using anti-Semitism or the specter of it in order to create new legislation that makes it illegal to be yelling at Jews or whatever the fuck Jasa is. Like, this is the shit if you're actually worried about anti-Semitism that you would not do. You would specifically not try to, you know, signal boost a nothing story in order to achieve. a draconian fucking new surveillance state that says, hey, now we have to, you know, punishment. Crimes against Jews are double punishment. You know, it's like that shit doesn't stop anti-Semitism. It just creates more of it.

So that, to me, it's the story. It's called double juperty. Double juperty, exactly, dude. Straight up creates more anti-Semitism than it stops. And I think everyone knows that it's a point. we made over and over and just like looking at the way that this story is being used as an example of oh man we really got to do something about this like anti-semitism to me i just look at that and i go this is just your way of saying i actually don't give a shit about anti-semitism i care

about one thing and it is the uh support of israel at all costs and mom dani is a threat to that and we're going to use any fucking tool uh in our toolbox and the you know you know calling something anti-Semitic is the tool. That's the tool. And we won't retract it. We won't retract it. Right. And if we are corrected, we'll pretend that we never, nothing ever existed.

Yeah, that wasn't the point. It just goes into the fucking bin is another example of anti-Semitism. And that to me is like, it is evil. It's just they're doing evil things. They're swine. You're saying they're swine. I'm saying these are bad. Actually, yeah, they're bad people.

These are bad. Calling them swine is to insult our listeners and that's the last thing. That's right. We love pigs out here. We love piggies. And we appreciate pigs. We appreciate piggyies listening to this episode

which is just about done. You out there, you're the pigies, you're not swine. You are piggies, you're hogs. And you may be swine. But you know what? You're not fake Jews. And you're intelligent creatures.

That's right. You're real juice. You're real juice. You are the, the, the true Israelites. That's right. Exactly. Don't let anyone tell you any differently. I also do love, last note, that he's just taking his notes from like the reality, which is like if you love Israel enough, everyone just goes, all right, you're a Jew. Yeah. He's not wrong. They call him crazy, but he might be the sanest one out there.

So that's been our episode. Thanks so much to Nathan J. Robinson for coming on. and talking with us, subscribe to the print edition of Current Affairs magazine. And the link to that will be in the show note. So please click that link and go ahead. And subscribe to our Patreon so we can afford to put out a print edition of Badisbara. That's right. Oh, wouldn't that be easier rather than all this talking? What if we just wrote down their things?

Patreon.com slash Baddust Barbarah, Gmail.com for all your questions, comments, and concerns. All right, everyone. Thanks again so much for listening. and until next time from the river to the sea. Woke one, this is woke leader. You're on your own, baby. Yes.

Yes. Jumping jacks was us. Push-ups was us. Godma-Ga-Uradi us.