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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
I know next to nothing about Fuentes, which is why I’m going to tread lightly with him specifically. But I will take a more general guess as to why the O/P has been greeted with a degree of skepticism. The audience is a group of people who are no strangers to implied and expressed accusations of bigotry for the views that they hold–much, most, or all of it undeserved. It’s understandable that accusations drawing conclusions of this nature would be questioned.
Exactly.
Fantastic comment by Arizona Patriot. I listened to whole speech because I’m pedantic. I think that Bethany Mandel was a bit unfair by showing the one clip that made her sound like a bigot. She does have a very strong belief that Latinos cannot be convinced into a Republican or conservative party. That doesn’t mean she thinks that Latinos are inferior people that aren’t loved by G-d but I get that some folks will have beef with that. That ain’t the same as being a racist.
That being said, I’m uncomfortable with alot of the people on the stage as well as her constant accusation that anyone that doesn’t agree with her is being paid off. Can’t Charlie Kirk simply be wrong about the most important issues?
Some of her stuff is worrisome but she deserves to be presumed not an anti-semite until their is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
With all due respect to the OP, I think the OP is precisely the type of hyper-sensitivity that Malkin is railing against. I didn’t hear anything bad in these comments.
Yet, I do think we need to be vigilant in finding hate within our ranks. There are some, associated with that conference who have been too careless with statements regarding the jews.
I can see a worthwhile discussion being warranted with MM and Jewish conservatives on what exactly she is trying to say with these comments. However, just jumping immediatley to the anti-semite card is as bad as anti-semitism itself. I think that is Malkin’s point.
The trouble is that Kirk and fellow travelers have engaged in the kind of smearing and name-calling that we see in the OP. It’s not simply a matter of Kirk being right or wrong. When challenged, Kirk’s response has been to cry “racism” and all the other -isms. Mrs Malkin was responding to that, not to Charlie Kirk’s views.
The most notable example is when Kirk was challenged months ago about his “we should staple a Green Card to every foreign student’s diploma” [going from memory], an idea he got from Joe Biden of all people. One can agree or disagree with that policy but Kirk resorted to a different response, as outlined above.
I guess that makes Tucker Carlson a racist too.
The OP also looks like cancel culture creeping in to Ricochet.
Malkin is speaking to a group of anti-Semites who regularly traffic in Holocaust denial, and she’s complaining that people have deemed it anti-Semitic to question the number who have perished in WWII. She can’t even say Holocaust. I’m not sure how she can get more explicit. Yes, it is anti-Semitic to deny that millions died in the Holocaust. I’m sorry she finds it frustrating that you can’t openly question how many without being called an anti-Semite.
How do you know she was referring to the Holocaust?
Sorry, assertions not in evidence in the video you chose to post.
I was hoping that there would be some engagement here. That’s a good thing and thanks.
A couple of suggestions: support your comments in the O/P that have been questioned (there are several good ones above) and support the allegations made immediately above–by sentence. I know it’s not easy, but you hold a responsible position here and making naked allegations (“speaking to a group of anti-Semites who regularly traffic in Holocaust denial”) isn’t enough in a site that deals in substance.
Give it a try.
Sure, I would agree that if someone put the number of people who died in the concentration camps as less than a million, that would be anti-semitic.
But as @jager points out in #20, how many millions is your limit?
Get back to us when you, in good faith, do the journalist thing and show up to an event and talk to the real people there (not the caricatures posted by media heads on Twitter).
So far, all I see is people reacting in bad faith to you tube videos.
I follow quite a few personalities at that shin dig. Some might color outside the lines of acceptable discourse, but shouting anti-semite doesn’t convince people you are morally superior.
“Journalism” today has devolved to reading tweets and retweeting. Nothing in-depth is required; nothing more than a 45-second video clip to reach sweeping conclusions. People are paid to do this? There was more effort put into many of the comments than there was in the OP.
Just to add – a lot of the holocaust denial that does exist in this area (as well as moon landing denial, and other bizarre claims that I’m not certain are serious or ironically supported in cynicism) is partly due to the post-modernist view of what on earth is TRUTH?
A lot of them are very young and have not made it out of the education system yet (college students). Fuentes just turned 21. All they know is that their teachers have been lying to them about a lot of stuff and they have seen through experience some of the lies while others can’t be verified by living because they are historical artifacts.
They dig up research, find conflicting reports with little documentation. They see claims that sound like the same lies they got in school.
They have no faith in certifications, credentials, or mainstream “truth”, whatever that is. They do know government isn’t trustworthy. So why not question what the government has been telling us?
These aren’t stupid kids – immature, yes. Unsophisticated, sure. Definitely lacking in wisdom. But they are digging and searching for truth in a post-truth age.
I’m sorry, but she said “world war II.” Are we going to require specific words be used? What version of NewSpeak dictionary do we buy today? Has the old one expired? I’m not going to give one second of credence to complaints about saying that people died in WWII and not in the politically correct term, the “Holocaust.” I’m tired of people trying to control my speech. Her meaning was clear, and she was referring to the millions of people killed by the Nazis in horrific camps, a significant portion of which were Jews (oooh, am I allowed to say that?).
Racism and anti-semitism have been defined to be so broad and the standard for being labeled racist or anti-semitic is so low, that the terms are now meaningless. I don’t care if you call someone racist anymore because I’m told that just because I am caucasian (according to some) that I am racist and there’s nothing I can do to change that assessment, I will always be racist because of my race (the irony is lost on the accusers). The same goes with anti-semitism. If you say anything bad about Israel, you must be anti-semitic. Though I know Marines who were attacked by Israeli jets and tanks back in the 80’s. Jonathan Pollack is a traitor who spied on us for the Israelis. Israel might be a convenient friend recently, but they aren’t always. Israel and Judaism are not the same thing. One is a political body, the other is a religion, and they are not co-equal.
I won’t be censored and I won’t censor others for not using the correct Newspeak vocabulary. If that’s all you’ve got, then you’ve got nothing.
As Derb says, whenyou make some speech off limits, you drive people to the extreme people who break the taboo.
Would also, for perspective, suggest some reading at the site of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
I guess it really isn’t bearing false witness when you talk broadly about people who you can’t know and accuse them of despicable things.
Here‘s the link to the text of Michelle Malkin’s speech. I liked the speech. Her criticisms of CPAC are valid. That doesn’t mean that CPAC has no place.
Here’s a quote.
That last paragraph is a good one; that’s why I put it in bold. What she says about immigration is even better. RTWT.
Her concerns are existential. And valid. She’s pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. How rude. OK, ban her from CPAC. I liked her speech then, too, but I can see how maybe she was a buzzkill for TPTB. It’s a private group, why not.But the emperor is still nekkid.
Not surprised to find out I’m an anti-Semite, too.
I figured I was right around the time I voiced the no good, very bad opinion that I thought Holocaust Remembrance was to prevent such genocide against any people.
Good to have it finally verified.
(BTW, if that’s what makes me an anti-Semite, I’m not ashamed)
I want to hear the UCLA speech she mentions.
Yeah, shes devolved a little on her immigration thing, and apparently Fuentes Youtube channel got deleted. But by the sound of it, its just activists and kids being silly.
Watching Hunters right now and its fairly topical it seems.
Based on that site’s guidance, I’m revising my spelling of antisemitism versus the one that seems to be more common in these environs: anti-Semitism. The latter spelling always struck me as clunky.
Unfortunately, the page most relevant to the discussion at hand, Working Definition of Holocaust Distortion and Denial returns a page not found error.
That is very true. And that time in the trenches, dedicated to advancing the conservative cause and supporting our country, should have earned her at least some benefit of the doubt. It seems to me that she is still trying mentor even today, giving an impassioned speech (to some young and maybe not-so-disciplined up-and-comers?) about the dangers of unchecked immigration, trying to engage others on what is, arguably, the most important issue in domestic politics today. What’s that they say about a prophet?
Hard to tell how many people showed up for this Malkin conference. She lists many conservative allies…..but the only speakers were Fuentes, Scott Greer (who used to write for a Richard Spencer site) and Patrick Casey, leader of Identity Europa, which is a group that supports America being a white ethnostate. So, Fuentes was hardly the outlier loon in Malkin’s new band of buddies. Its great to see Trumpism devolving to this gross level.
This seems especially apt under the circumstances.
As others have pointed out, Bethany needs to be specific. Where did MM mention a number of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust.
From IHRA
The wording isn’t always clear or neutral, some examples seem to be mission creep, but there it is.
Predictably, it and its use are contested. By a number of people or organisations.
Also – is it possible to be hard on the issue but soft on the person? People see things differently depending on their place in the world; that doesn’t automatically make them right but it should make their sincere perceptions more understandable and relatable.
Some observations:
The number of abortions in the US since Roe vs Wade is pretty close to the number of immigrants to the US since Teddy Kennedy’s immigration bill passed; with chain migration the number of immigrants is certainly greater.
The demographic changes brought about by immigration are a major driver of the Corbynization of the Democrat Party. (Anti-Americanism in education is another.)
Charges of antisemitism are frequently leveled by Jews (usually left wing Jews, but Jews claiming the authority of identity and the authority of the Holocaust; “Because the German Jews on the St Louis were turned away from the US in 1939, you have to support open borders now. If you don’t, you’re an antisemite.”
You’ll find people on the “alt-right” (or at least classified by others as such; please define your terms, @bethanymandel) who support Israel being a Jewish state which controls its borders and immigration… and think the US should do likewise.
Basically if you oppose the Total Transformation of the US and/or oppose Israel being forced into a non-survivable agreement you’re an antisemite.
Yes, I saw that. It is not, however the topic I mentioned: the definition of Holocaust denial. That is the broken link and that is the basis for the charge of antisemitism. The page you quoted merely refers back to Holocaust denial, which is the definition that’s relevant.