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The Fall of Michelle Malkin
At an alt-right conference running counter to CPAC, called AFPAC, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin fell further down the rabbit-hole:
.@michellemalkin on "anti-Semitism" pic.twitter.com/oFNMhVqLFj
— Zoomer Clips (@ZoomerClips) February 29, 2020
In this short clip Malkin engages in not just Holocaust denial, but also indiscriminately throws around charges of dual loyalty. It’s part of a trend for Malkin, who also endorsed anti-Semite Paul Nehlen in his contest against Rep. Paul Ryan.
In her opening remarks, Malkin referred to herself as the “Mommy” of the group and thanked the “Groypers,” the alt-right group hosting her, for pushing back against mainstream conservatives.
Today, the ConInc gatekeepers will welcome this lying asshole doxxer who does Antifa & SPLC’s dirty work back to @cpac. All the young culture warriors at @TPUSA & @yaf sit on their hands. Thank you, Groypers, for fighting back & hounding this toxic little menace! #AmericaFirst https://t.co/guZ3oCBmqF
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) February 29, 2020
It’s hard to overstate Malkin’s influence in the conservative media ecosystem; she is the founder of HotAir, Twitchy, and was a mentor to many up-and-comers over the course of her time at the helm of both.
Really embarrassing for anyone who continues to defend her and has refused to recognize she appeals almost exclusively to bigots now.
Hard for anyone on the right to complain about Omar, Tlaib etc. if we don't call this out.
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) March 2, 2020
And because of Malkin’s influence, we (as a conservative movement) need to self-reflect about how reflective Malkin’s views are of our movement as a whole. Has Malkin always questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust? Has Malkin always considered Jews to be agents of the Israeli government? How mainstream are the views she’s professing now in the conservative movement? They are uncomfortable questions, but ones we need to be asking as we continue to (rightly) call out the anti-Semitism on the Left with Omar, Tlaib, etc.
Published in General
There’s another post up by the author about the election. I’d imagine there’s no perceived need or desire to wade into this discussion, no matter how many comments it’s generated, which I regard as unfortunate. Go figure.
Speaking of those guys, here is the wiki entry;
According to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, “[a]ll the serious research” confirms that between five and six million Jews died. Early postwar calculations were 4.2 to 4.5 million from Gerald Reitlinger; 5.1 million from Raul Hilberg; and 5.95 million from Jacob Lestschinsky. In 1990 Yehuda Bauer and Robert Rozett estimated 5.59–5.86 million, and in 1991 Wolfgang Benz suggested 5.29 to just over 6 million.[ad] The figures include over one million children. Much of the uncertainty stems from the lack of a reliable figure for the number of Jews in Europe in 1939, border changes that make double-counting of victims difficult to avoid, lack of accurate records from the perpetrators, and uncertainty about whether to include post-liberation deaths caused by the persecution.
So these historians are all a bunch of nazis.
I’d never heard the sharks-in-the-Atlantic ghost story before.
In support of this I would point out that there are people who collect conspiracy theories to believe in. I suspect they are kind of addictive after awhile.
So are you saying that Ricochet should have her on a podcast to ask her the questions? Or that @bethanymandel should call her up on the Conservaphone™ and discuss it? Because what I’m seeing here is a post by a conservative pundit trashing another conservative pundit for Failure To Distance, and I’m getting kind of a mean girl vibe here.
That’s exactly what I suggested much earlier. Someone with access to Malkin should ask her about it instead of all this speculation and accusation.
That is a lot of questioning of the “precise number”.
The only reason people have any desire to question the magnitude of the Holocaust is because it has been used to justify Jewish Nationalism and the interests of Jews while generally claiming that nationalism and identity/collective interests are evil.
The reason nationalists grasp at the Jews is because they want the same accordance given to Israel and support for a kind of Jewish cultural isolation and preservation that is actively fought against, specifically for white Americans but really for all other demographics in the west. There’s more cultural isolation allowed among the minorities in our society, but largely conservatives are against that, too… except for where Jews are concerned.
But the Holocaust is held up as some unique and unparalleled tragedy (even though genocides have happened before). Because of this unparalleled evil specifically targeting Jews (even though 4 million non jews died too), we defend Jewish nationalism and turn a blind eye to their ethno chauvinism. We even promote it in US policy and law (Defense and promotion of Israel over Palestinians, anti-BDS laws).
So if there is incentive among nationalists to minimize the holocaust, it isn’t to deny Israel or Jews the right to self and cultural preservation, ethno-states, or ethno chauvinism but rather to lay claim to their rights for the same.
I disagree with that premise. That is probably a reason, but it’s not the only one.
Pretty certain it is the only reason at that conference.
Maybe not for the imaginary skinhead with Swastika tattoos, but certainly for well-dressed, politically engaged, nationalists.
I never considered white to be a cultural group. Maybe that’s just a product of having grown up in Chicago, famous for its ethnic enclave neighborhoods. White was just what black people called me, otherwise there were the Polish, Irish, Italians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, etc. and then the mutts (northsiders).
Maybe another product of that upbringing is that I’m not against cultural preservation or some isolation. The difference, I think, is that while we all had our flavors we were also all Americans first, identifying with Columbus, the Pilgrims, the Founders, Lincoln, baseball, and apple pie.
What I object to is the difference based on group. It should be ok for all or ok for none. Going further, I’d say that that without an overriding identity for all then our project in self government is doomed to truly tribal squabbles and feuds, and on against policies that tear down that common identity while encouraging isolation. So I’m against identitarianism for all of those reasons.
And here’s Richard Spencer himself on the subject:
From another angle (The Daily Beast) how conservatives and progressives differ about what causes antisemitism:
I think this is true, and I think it’s weird that people dont see it. Then comes the double standards.
Although, I dont think Jewish is an ethnicity. It sometimes behaves like one, unlike say Buddhist or Lutheran.
I agree with your first sentence.
I reject your final assessment. This country was believed to have what it took to be successful as a federation of many distinct nations. Virginians were Virginians first. It is the attempt to erase those distinctions among the American nations and make us all exactly the same that is one reason we have such a large central state. It was supposed to be a national cooperative to defend our way of life while pursuing our own distinct interests within our own states. But together, we would unite to defend all of our states together – because we are stronger when presenting a united front to an aggressor than we would be separated.
However, just because we are stronger together when opposing an outside aggressor does not mean we should attempt to be exactly the same across our states.
And it is interesting that individualists see something wrong with this formation. Its like if we are all unique individuals, the government can’t pick one out or something? But instead, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, further removed from the individual it governs. Nations, communities, families – they all bring government closer to the individual. The individual, as part of a group of like minded people with similar values and morals, is better able to secure his rights against someone who thinks he shouldn’t be that way.
There’s nothing wrong with voluntary or natural collectives (the family is a natural collective). Its when the state punishes a collective for the sin of 1 that you begin to have problems.
I don’t think that conservatives would refer to “hate” like that. That is such a flat and uncharacteristic way of describing conservative viewpoints. More like: antisemitism, as one example of human ability to dehumanize and otherize, has evolutionary, cultural, circumstantial, and philosophical roots. It’s both simple and complicated.
The Progressive side of that quote is also thin, although accurately so. It’s all well and good to blame racist ideology, but another part of their ideology is that only white people can be racist. So whiteness causes antisemitism according to progressives.
They are not imaginary.
It is just that their supply far outstrips the demand, hence the many race hoaxes.
I dont think we disagree here. At the founding we had differences. However, we also had some important overriding commonalities. Strong Christianity, for one. Mostly English and European culture and all of the commonalities inherent there based on Western Civ.
I think that it is weird that we condemn what you call “ethno chauvinism.” Why can’t people just have their own country, and prefer their own people and culture?
I wrote this earlier, but I think that it bears repeating. Israel is for the Jews. Japan is for the Japanese. Poland is for the Poles. Nigeria is for the Nigerians.
Why can’t we just let people have their own countries, and cultures, and prefer them over others?
I think that there is an answer. In America, we’ve been conditioned to the nondiscrimination principle. This has occurred, perhaps to a lesser extent and a bit differently, in Europe. I think that the reasons are different — in the US, the reason is the historic mistreatment of blacks, while in Europe, it is the atrocities of the Nazis and especially the Holocaust.
There’s an element of self-hatred in this ideology. It’s almost as if certain societies want to destroy their own culture, and therefore condemn any celebration or support of it. But it’s only certain societies, and you all know which ones.
Prager explains that they are a religion, an ethnicity, a people, a nation and a culture.
They actually link racism with ethnic nationalism. You can’t have the second without the first.
I also think you misunderstand progressives – who might say that it’s the bigotry of the majority, or those with power, that can be implemented as an ism. In the West that majority is white people, in India it’s Hindus, in Pakistan it’s Muslims. And in each if these countries progressives support non whites, Muslims and Hindus – as relevant. Because lacking power and minorities. Focusing on whites is focusing on a culturally specific expression of the issue rather than the issue itself. Imho.
This is in violation of intersectionality.
According to that theory you can, in fact, have ethnic nationalism without racism. You can even enforce unicultural exclusion and not be a racist.
This statement neglects the effects of “colonialism” which supersedes, in this case, all other concerns and still makes it whitey’s fault.
Timothy Snyder in his book Bloodlands puts the number at 5.7 million (page 407). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum puts the number at 6 million. What you see in the wikipedia entry is the evolution of the historiography on the subject. The postwar calculations could not fully capture the toll because of the lack of access to mass killing sites in Eastern Europe and archival/census information because of the Cold War. In the post Cold War era that has been a great deal of recent scholarship that more fully captures the extent of the killing. I recommend taking a look at this map created by an organization that finds and documents mass killing sites in Eastern Europe. The research is ongoing. I don’t consider actual scholarly historiographical debate an issue here. I do not think that was what Malkin referred to in her comment.
Unfortunately I cannot get access in the short term to the source discussing the reasons for the uncertainty, but it is in an Oxford University publication I have used in the past for research on another topic related to the Holocaust.
I would point out that Holocaust deniers are not concerned with the difference between 5,700,000 and 6,000,000. They like to reduce the the numbers radically. This can be seen in this video clip of Nick Fuentes, who uses the post of a follower to riff on the actual number of Jews killed, comparing the number of Jews killed to baking cookies. In the clip he says maybe 200,000 to 300,000″cookies” could be baked in 5 years. He also likes to use euphemisms. Nick Fuentes was one of the 4 speakers at the conference.
I understand that. I don’t much care about the rest of the world so I was speaking about the US. In the US, only whites can be racist. I understand why they say that, but I don’t think it makes much sense considering the language and practical political policies they support. Tyranny of the majority is different than racism, sexism, blah-blah-ism, etc. They act as if this is only a white phenomenon, as if it can only be a white phenomenon. “They” being radical identitarians, almost synonymous nowadays with “progressive”.
It is possible to note the barbarity of the Holocaust and recognize the barbarity of other genocides. The only group in WWII who got their own death camps were the Jews – this included Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. In the concentration camps, which were terrible for everyone sent there, the Jews were singled out for the worst treatment. One of the reasons there are even Jewish survivors of places like Auschwitz is because the Nazis decided they would work them to death rather than kill them outright because they killed all of the Soviet POWs too quickly for use as laborers (Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL, 295).
Why on earth does Israel have to play into this supposed new American nationalism? Who cares about what Israel does? Why does it matter? Because at heart this is a white nationalist movement.
It matters because it matters to the people we need to convince.
And the people we are trying to convince have embraced a double standard without even realizing it. They say its evil to promote an identity, but defend a people who promote their identity.
It is either evil for everyone or it is right for everyone. You can not have it both ways.
It is possible to have an identity without having to denigrate all others. White nationalism privileges being white above all. Having a Jewish identity and wanting good things for your fellows is not the same thing as what white nationalism calls for. I would also point out that Israel, while majority Jewish, also has sizable ethnic and religious minorities that have their own political parties and can practice their faith traditions.
There is this imagined mythical past when all was White European that white nationalists dream of returning to. It ignores the fact that Africans made up early America, as well as Amerindians. Ben Franklin was worried about German speakers! Once you add in the peoples of the Southwest after the Mexican-American war you get a more diverse country. Once there is immigration from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe you get a more diverse country. Chinese immigration, Japanese immigration, the taking of Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898, you get a more diverse country.
I watched the linked clip. I didn’t find it to be funny or cute or dissident. Was he intending it to be? What was the point of the bit? Reveling in the mass industrialized dehumanization and murder of people, of Jews? That’s possible; there are people who would revel in that. Is Nick Fuentes one of those people? Or is Nick Fuentes a young guy with no particular connection to historical events (as the young often are) and a thirst for the subversive and independent (as the young often are) and with no risk-regulator (as the young often are)? I would have to listen to more to find out. Is this one of his go-to themes?