Conservatives don’t understand antisemitism like the left. By Scott Pinsker at PJ Media.
Conservatives:
Trouble is, conservatives are REALLY bad at addressing [antisemitism]. Simply horrible. We’re unpersuasive, unconvincing, and off-key.
Why?
Because we’re disconnected from the subject matter. It’s diametrically opposed to how our brains are wired.
We don’t get it. Antisemitism and ethnic hatreds are alien concepts.
Because conservatives believe in the glorious, God-given sanctity of the individual. It’s our foundational tenet: Each life is precious, unique, and irreplaceable. The individual is the smallest, most vulnerable minority on the planet — and morality demands his protection. Conservatism embodies individuality, self-determination, and the pioneering spirit.
Reducing a person to the sum-total of his ethnicity is the exact opposite of that. …
The modern left:
In left-wing America, racial identity is king. Our skin color is our group. …
Which creates an insurmountable optics problem for “white” Israelis fighting “brown” Palestinians.
Group identity is a prerequisite for antisemitism; individualism negates it. If you’re an individualist, hating all Jews is as illogical as hating someone for their height or eye color. Because genetic superficialities do not define us; our actions, choices, decisions, and beliefs define us. …
Accentuating group identities blazes an open lane for ethnic hatreds to spread. …
Group identity and a rejection of individualism … sow fertile fields in Goebbels’ garden: In every historic example of antisemitism, group identity superseded individualism. …
History:
Antisemitism has survived for many millennia. But conservative values are a recent phenomenon — as is the United States. We’ve barely been around for 250 years. But in that short time, no country has done more to protect the Jewish people. When other countries persecuted them, jailed them, and slaughtered them (repeatedly), we provided safe haven — and in turn, Jews have been our doctors, served in our military, built atomic weapons, cured polio, invented Hollywood, and revolutionized industries. From Wall Street to Main Street to Silicon Valley, it’s been one of the most fruitful, two-sided, win-win partnerships in world history.
It worked because the American Dream is antithetical to antisemitism. The stronger the former, the weaker the latter.
Because conservatives are individualists, while the left are collectivists ( who have recently taken to grouping peple by race and ethnicity, having moved on from grouping by class).