⏰ CONSERVATIVES WAKE UP‼️
Rupture on the right is being fueled in real time by mind-numbing drivel from influencers like
@DanBilzerian here. If active measures aren't implemented right now to leverage these ideologues back to the fringe where they belong, you're basically handing the keys to
#Congress back to
@TheDemocrats at mid-terms in November (less than 6 months away now!!) and likely for the foreseeable future as well.
The same two factors that have allowed radicals to capture the left are actively doing so for the right - right before our very eyes. Those two factors are ideology & ignorance.
The ideological component, like the left, is populism - but for different reasons.
Progressive populism boils down to an aversion against defense spending. Essentially, every dollar spent on planes & tanks & bombs & such is a dollar not spent on ... trans, BIPOC, unhoused asylum seekers or whatever social benefit cause the left is championing at the moment.
For what used to be the extreme right, populist sentiment is driven primarily by hyper-isolationist libertarianism. In 🇺🇸, "America first" is interpreted as "America only" - but the country name is interchangeable depending on where the hyper-isolationist libertarian happens to live ("UK first" is interpreted as "UK only", and so on).
If you pay close enough attention, that's the sentiment behind this tweet from Bilzerian. He's responding to a post
@SecWar announcing
@POTUS's $1.5T defense budget. Insisting "we want our tax dollars spent helping Americans, not used to kill foreigners" is just as populist (and vapid) as it is for what used to be the far left ... but there's a different rationale for the far right.
Regardless of where one sits on the political spectrum, ideology can easily lead to willful ignorance. It provides a lens that filters one's worldview & influences how one perceives local, national and/or global events. Just like a pair of 🕶️, it's an individual choice to put them on & then to keep them in place.
This is why
@elonmusk routinely refers to a "woke mind virus" (eg:
x.com/elonmusk/status/189060…). Obviously it's not literally a "virus." But what is often now described as "wokeness" seems so effective at "spreading" from person to person & impacting an entire subpopulation (sticking with the "virus" metaphor) because the patients want to be "infected."
This is also why an apparent (metaphorical) epidemic of willful ignorance among conservatives has come to be described as the "woke right." It's voluntary & ideological, y'all ... but for different reasons depending on where the person sits on the political spectrum.
And just like the left (but again, for different reasons),
@Israel has emerged as a popular fulcrum for leveraging populist political sentiment & rhetoric.
Anti-Israel sentiment has a long heritage on the left, but in its present form it can be traced to the Durban Conference in 2001. The full name is actually relevant for appreciating the progressive foundations of the event: World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa from 31 Aug - 7 Sep 2001.
The full history of the Durban Conference is worth exploring if you haven't already, but one significant development to note here is that a coalition of predominantly populist progressive NGOs issued their own joint statement in connection with the conference. In the statement, the NGO coalition condemns all countries "who are supporting, aiding and abetting the Israeli apartheid state and its perpetration of racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing, acts of genocide."
Notice the date again. 2001. Just 2 years later, in December 2003, a
@UN General Assembly resolution was adopted to request
@CIJ_ICJ consider issuing an advisory opinion based on the prompt, "What are the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory." The Wall advisory opinion was then published in July 2004.
#BDS movement organized & coalesced soon thereafter, and this populist progressive, anti-Israel movement has spread across the left side of the political spectrum ever since ... including today.
That brief recap of developments on the political left is important to keep in mind because it provides the same rhetorical tools the extreme right is pulling off the shelf to influence a broader spectrum of conservatives.
This video I've attached of commentary from Dan Bilzerian about 🇮🇱 is a perfect example. We'll address a bit later the effort to justify political violence. For now, let's focus on the terminology he relies on for the justification.
(If you haven't watched the video yet, it's not a bad idea to take a little break now & do so. It's only 44s long).
Starting at the 26s mark, Bilzerian explains why he "truly believe[s] that the majority of that country [Israel] is evil."
As he sees it, "they're perpetuating a genocide; they've been operating in apartheid; they're suppressing those Palestinians; they're attacking their neighbors; they're operating like terrorists; they're fucking arrogant, ungrateful bastards; and they need to be wiped off the fucking map."
Alright, so we've got bookends of a subjective ethical opinion (majority of Israel is "evil") & an actual call to commit genocide (Israelis "need to be wiped off the fucking map"). In the middle, we've got rhetoric that either directly refers to or at least touches on my primary specialty: public international law.
You may recall that much of the legal or quasi-legal terminology can be traced to the NGO declaration following the Durban Conference (hence the brief history detour). But let's take a brief, 1-3 sentence look at each one of the terms so we can visualize how they've been exploited in public discourse primarily on the left so we can also understand how the Woke Reich is coopting the same today.
Israelis are, allegedly::
- "Perpetuating a genocide": False ❌
Intent is typically decisive, as it is here. Intent to destroy a(n actual) terrorist group that commits one of the most horrific atrocities in living memory then deliberately hides & fights among its own civilian population is not genocide. It's war.
- "Operating in apartheid": False ❌
Just like any other state, 🇮🇱 is permitted to protect & defend its borders & population. Security measures implemented that "separate" 🇮🇱 from 🇵🇸 are in response to a long history of (actual) terrorist attacks & threats to continue committing attacks in future. These measures are not implemented "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them" as required in art. II of the Apartheid Convention.
- "Suppressing those Palestinians": False ❌
Same response as immediately above for "apartheid" - though it is worth noting this rhetoric aligns with the perpetual sense of victimhood that plays well with the left & that has facilitated the expansion of anti-Israel sentiment among liberals in "solidarity" with 🇵🇸.
- "Attacking their neighbors": False ❌ This is actually kinda impressive for how thoroughly it inverts reality.
Israel has been attacked by (actual) terrorists in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen etc - and the nonstate armed groups doing the attacking are proxies of Iran. Claiming it's Israel that has attacked its neighbors is, in a word, fucking delusional (ok 2 words, but the "fucking" seemed appropriate here for emphasis).
- "Operating like terrorists": False ❌ Yet again a complete inversion.
Although there is no universally-recognized definition for the term "terrorism," the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) provides an instructive formulation. According to Article 2 thereof, terrorism can be described as an act "intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act" (emphasis added). So if you're looking for actual acts of terrorism in accordance with this definition, go back & review the GoPro & CCTV footage of 10/7;
@IDF is the entity fighting against the (actual) terrorists.
Okay, so if we dispose of all the legal or quasi-legal rhetoric in the middle, this is what we're left with:
- Bilzerian explains why he "truly believe[s] that the majority of that country [Israel] is evil." As he sees it [legal rhetoric omitted]; "they're fucking arrogant, ungrateful bastards; and they need to be wiped off the fucking map."
What we've got left to work with is the majority of Israelis are supposedly "evil" (intrinsically subjective moral assessment) because they're arrogant, ungrateful bastards.
When all the nonsense legal or quasi-legal rhetoric is stripped away, we can see what actually motivates this anti-Israel tirade. Hyper-isolationist libertarian ideology.
Bilzerian insists in the QTd post that we (fellow hyper-isolationist libertarians of the Woke Reich) "want our tax dollars spent helping Americans, not used to kill foreigners." And Israel, as a recipient of some degree of defense spending (a whole other conversation in itself), is full of "arrogant, ungrateful bastards" who, in his view, are taking up our tax dollars rather than helping Americans.
And that, ladies & gentlemen, is how ideology is fueling ignorance just as much on the right today as it has been on the left for quite some time.
I had in mind at the outset to also cover visible signs regarding how this Israel fulcrum & hyper-isolationist libertarian lever is being used to split the conservative side of the political spectrum. It's also not a bad idea to address overt, explicit messaging from Iranian officials & state-run media in places like 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🇹🇷 etc. For all the "America first" bluster, Woke Reich influencers like Dan Bilzerian here are actually carrying a helluva lot of water for America's geopolitical competitors & adversaries - which is no accident (that's how effective influence operations work). Also not a bad idea to explicitly describe how supporting our closest major non-NATO ally in MENA, including in the current conflict against Iran, actually is putting America's interests first if the ideological haze of the Woke Reich is wiped away. And last but certainly not least, the predictable, sharp increase in aggressive - often violent - attacks directed against Jews as a proxy for Israel & Israel as a proxy for Zionism we've seen perpetrated by the political left that will also predictably be perpetrated now by the political right if the Reich mind virus is not cured should also be discussed.
But, given the length of the current post already, it's probably best to leave it at that. More to follow on these & related topics in the days & weeks ahead, I'm sure.
For now, let this be a wake up call for conservatives. The rupture on the right is accelerating & spreading, and it's driven primarily by ideology & ignorance - just as radicals have now become the mainstream on the left.
The time for action is now. These radical influencers need to be relegated back to the fringe where they belong, before it's too late.
"Silence is complicity" is probably hyperbolic in this context (as it is in most tbh), but it's certainly the case that silence is complacency.
Don't be silent or complacent. That's how the fringe became mainstream on the left. Conservatives can learn from liberals' mistakes ... but the window to do so will not remain open forever.
#SeeSomethingSaySomething #EnoughIsEnough