According to the polls, Donald J Trump has a massive lead in the race to be the GOP nominee for president next year; and is more likely to win the general election than Joe Biden. This week’s Morning Consult poll on the swing states was particularly grim: Biden would lose five of the seven key races and is down 47 – 43 percent in the overall vote in the states that will decide the election. In these states, Trump has 22 percent support among African-Americans, and 38 percent among Hispanics: a breakthrough if it were to pan out. Other polls this week confirmed the Trump edge.

I mention this because of how the former president has responded this past week to a serious foreign policy crisis. In any other era, or with any other candidate, it would be instantly disqualifying. His core point about Hamas’ pogrom was as follows: “If the election wasn’t rigged, there would be nobody even thinking about going into Israel.” Even when it comes to a complex and metastasizing Middle East war, it’s all about how he was wronged in 2020. In case we weren’t fully aware of this, he reiterated it in all CAPS: “THE ATTACK ON ISRAEL WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, ZERO CHANCE, IF THE ELECTION OF 2020 WAS NOT RIGGED AND STOLLEN [sic].”

How would he engage Israel and the region at this moment? We have no idea. All Trump seems to care about is that prime minister Bibi Netanyahu allegedly backed out of supporting the Soleimani assassination at the last minute and took credit:

I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing. So we were disappointed by that. Very disappointed. But we did the job ourself. It was absolute precision, magnificent, beautiful job. And then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good. But that’s all right.

That last phrase — “But that’s all right” — is a common one for Trump. Translated it means: “And I am absolutely still livid about all of this, and cannot begin to let it go.” Trump’s other searing complaint against Netanyahu is that he recognized Joe Biden as the new president of the United States too quickly: “He was very early — like earlier than most. I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him.”

Then Trump pivoted to immigration, insisting that he’d reboot a new version of the unconstitutional Muslim ban:

If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified. If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sick thoughts that go through people’s minds — very dangerous thoughts — you’re disqualified. Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities and we will send them straight back home.

There are, of course, vetting procedures already in place with respect to Islamist terror. But it’s fascinating to watch how he segues so quickly from terrorists abroad to immigrants at home. He even claimed Hamas was on the “southern border” of the US:

These are the same people, many of them, that did a number in Israel, a sneak attack. Same people we have pouring into our country by the thousands. Are they planning to attack within our country? Crooked Joe Biden and his boss Barack Hussein Obama did this to us … people are pouring in from the Middle East into our country, largely males, strong young males. What;s [sic] going on over here? Are we going to be raided like Israel was raided?

Trump’s own Israel policy while in office was to give Netanyahu everything he could possibly ask for — recognition of Jerusalem as the capital, moving the US embassy thither, annexing the Golan Heights, backing the ethnic cleansing that Israel is conducting on the West Bank (funded, in part, by his son-in-law), and decimating aid to the Palestinians … while asking for absolutely nothing in return. The “art of the deal.”

Then his administration reached the Abraham Accords, which were premised on the idea that the Palestinians did not exist, did not need to be consulted, and could be indefinitely suppressed with no consequences. Netanyahu, for good measure, did what he could to keep Hamas strong enough that Palestinian unity would be a permanent chimera, and the project of Greater Israel could continue. You can see how a policy of this kind of contempt and denial could lead to a new surge of violence.

And I know you know this, but it’s still vital to remember that a major political party is backing this incoherent, unhinged, fact-free narcissist to be president of the United States. It is therefore no surprise to discover that the same party is completely incapable of forming a stable majority in the House of Representatives because it too is incoherent, divided, unhinged, and narcissistic. We’ve never had this amount of time without a Speaker in the history of the House. But then we’ve never had a majority party as utterly vacuous as this one.

The leading candidate for the Speaker, who keeps running and keeps losing, is Jim Jordan, the apotheosis of Republican nihilism: he has passed no legislation in his time in office — zero! — and he was up to his neck in the attempt to overturn the last election and in the storming of the Capitol on January 6. He has launched investigations into every Trump prosecutor. His supporters have run intimidation campaigns, including death threats. He is entirely a negative, howling artifact of ideology.

So is his party. A party wedded to ideological abstractions, emotional hissy-fits, constitutional brinkmanship and a strongman candidate is not a conservative party. It is the anti-conservative party. Objecting to everything is objecting to nothing. Gerrymandering yourself into a homogeneous, minority cult only rewards ever more extremism. Obsessed with themselves, demanding the impossible, and risking everything for it: this is not a party that is in any way fit for government, and yet it is a party that is all but guaranteed huge sway because America is so polarized that extremists get away with anything.

I have plenty of issues with Democrats. They too have a hard time corralling their extremes. But they are capable of governing a democratic society according to the rules that such a society is built upon. The Republicans, quite simply, are not. Their candidate is a terrifying joke. Their party, as it has devolved into Bannonism, is a cancer on our democracy.

New On The Dishcast: Spencer Klavan

Spencer is a writer and podcaster, an up-and-coming voice in conservatism’s next generation. He’s an associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books and the host of the “Young Heretics” podcast. He’s also the author of How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises and the editor of Gateway to the Stoics. You can follow his latest writing on Substack.

Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on finding God in the humanities, and why so many gays throughout history have been drawn to the Church. That link also takes you to commentary on Martha Nussbaum’s episode on animal rights, plus more reader debate over the war in Israel and Gaza.

Narratives, Truth, And That Hospital

I have to say that this was a week I’m particularly grateful I don’t run a 24/7 live-blog anymore. The Dish helped pioneer the online practice of covering unfolding events with a constantly-updated stream of content during the 2009 Iranian Green Revolution. It was hazardous then — even when we were not a “news” site as such and not really competing with anyone. It’s ever more hazardous now, with social media far more systemically distortive.

But social media, it turned out, was irrelevant in this case. It was the mainstream media that became the source for rampant, reckless disinformation. The NYT swiftly pronounced: “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.” Maybe if they had printed “Hamas says,” they would have an excuse. But they didn’t. The explosion remained a “strike” for hours and then became a “blast.” The claim of 500 deaths was also sourced exclusively to Hamas. A BBC reporter on the ground in Jerusalem argued: “It’s hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes.”

None of it was true. We need to wait for more evidence for a definitive explanation, but we can see with our own eyes the next day that the hospital wasn’t actually hit; that the craters in the ground were relatively small; that nearby windows remained intact; and that the fatalities were in the region of 50 – 100. The IDF released a recording of Hamas operatives saying the blast was a failed rocket launch from another terror group; and video footage seemed to confirm an overhead explosion as a rocket fell apart and some of it landed near the hospital.

There was a time the NYT and the BBC would have been embarrassed by these blunders. But the NYT responded not with a nostra culpa but with a piece claiming all news was now provisional and its stories will continue to change — even reverse themselves — as facts come in: “we report what we know when we find it.” But they never knew what had just happened; they ran with Hamas’ propaganda instantly. The BBC, at least, put out a statement that “it was wrong to speculate that way.” “All The News That We Haven’t Confirmed” should replace the current NYT motto.

And no one really cares about the truth. The Middle East is aflame; a PR debacle for the Islamists has become a PR debacle for Israel. Once again, it seems, the pre-existing narrative — Israel punishes innocents in Gaza — was too potent for the actual reality to be seen. There was almost a need for the media to find some story of Israeli wickedness to “balance out” the Hamas atrocities. Yes, the IDF has lied before in similar cases; but that’s a reason to wait to confirm, not to rush into pixels. Others, like Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, just refused to correct the record. Israel’s “massacre of 500 innocents in a hospital” is fast becoming an “alternative fact.”

It reminds me of Michael “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” Brown. He was instantly deemed an innocent victim of police brutality, when, in fact, he was killed in a scuffle as he tried to grab a cop’s gun. Activists still used the phrase “Hands Up” in demo after demo. Or take the case of Matthew Shepard, brutally murdered by his meth-crazed former lover, over a drug deal gone wrong. The media instantly grabbed at an explanation that fit their priors: Shepard was murdered by a stranger saturated in homophobia, because that’s how it is in red America. The truth? Who cares? We got a new hate-crimes bill.

Or think of the fake Rolling Stone story, about a girl allegedly gang-raped by frat boys at UVA. Years later, Jann Wenner was still saying: “You get beyond the factual errors that sank that story, and it was really about the issue of rape and how it affects women on campus, their lack of rights. Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof.” Other than the fact that Michael Brown was shot resisting arrest, Matthew Shepard was murdered by his ex-lover, Jackie made everything up, and Israel didn’t bomb a hospital, the rest of the stories are bullet-proof!

Lies and propaganda are not new, of course — especially in wartime. But we used to rely on the established media to check and refute them. Now, they’re part of the problem. They seem to have forgotten that reality is not just their beat, but far more interesting and complicated than any narrative will ever be.

The View From Your Window

Westminster, Colorado, 7.57 am

Money Quotes For The Week

“You can tell from the shapes of their spines that it is an adult and a child, and they are sitting together and they are hugging tightly together. They were burnt to death like this. Cremated alive in their own home, clutching one another,” – Chen Kugel, a forensic pathologist on the pogrom.

“It is not simply that the Republican Party has politicians like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. It’s that the Republican Party is practically engineered to produce politicians like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene,” – Jamelle Bouie.

“It’s like, I belong to this political organization that believes in three things: affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, and the wholesale murder of Jews. Two out of three ain’t bad!” – Eric Spiegelman, on the Democratic Socialists of America.

“On Saturday, after sixteen years of siege, Hamas militants broke out of Gaza. More than 1,300 Israelis were subsequently killed … ,” – Ta-Nehisi Coates and 87 other “writers and artists who have been to Palestine to participate in the Palestine Festival of Literature.”

“[Trump] wants to put MSNBC on trial for treason so that he can execute us,” – Rachel Maddow.

“2020: Silence is violence. 2023: People can’t be expected to comment on every situation. It’s okay to just keep silent, especially while events are still unfolding … 2020: Believe all women. 2023: Where is the physical evidence of these ‘alleged rapes’?” – Robert Sterling.

“Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out,” – David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, in 1953.

“If land acknowledgment means we honor who originally owned the land, why does this work with American Indians and not the Jews?” – Bill Maher.

“All you can do is write it; I can’t make stuff up to make you happy,” – Michael Lewis on the backlash against his new book on Sam Bankman-Fried.

Dissents Of The Week: Covering Your But

A reader quotes me from last week’s column:

“There is no historical context — none — which can excuse or mitigate what Hamas did and what Hamas is. There is no oppression that justifies the murder of infants in their beds.”

Well said. However, right after this, you qualified it with “But” — going on about how terrible Israel has been, which is basically justifying context. Either the issue of Palestinians excuses this horrific act or it does not. I don’t see how to read your condemnation of Israel as anything but an excuse for the barbaric and inhumane act perpetrated last weekend. There was no reason to conflate the two issues otherwise.

There can be context without “justifying” context, as I made abundantly clear. And Israel has behaved appallingly toward the Palestinians it controls on the West Bank. Another dissent:

I can hardly believe you fell into the “but brigade.” Do you think for a minute that if every Palestinian demand was met by Israel that the Palestinian hatred of the Jews would be satisfied? Is there any record of Palestinian mass protest against Hamas? Have doctors demanded that Hamas take their rocket launchers away from hospitals? Have teachers demanded that rockets be taken away from schools? Have the international supporters of Palestine demanded the same?

Hamas runs a totalitarian police state. Demonstrations do not happen without Hamas control. And, yes, Palestinian hatred of the Jews is deep. None of this exculpates the settler movement, backed by the current Israeli government.

More pushback:

Israel’s “ethnic cleansing”?? Not very long ago, there were hundreds of thousands of Jews spread out across the Middle East. Today, there are basically no Jews living in Iran, Syria, Jordan, and so on. Meanwhile, millions of Arabs live in Israel, participating in society and serving in government. But, according to you, it’s the Jews who need to stop doing the “ethnic cleansing.”

Yes they do. The attempt to immiserate and intimidate the inhabitants of the West Bank, along with settlement of Jewish fanatics there, is a form of ethnic cleansing. It’s morally repellent.

Another reader turns to the domestic front:

You mislead your readers by writing, “dozens of Harvard student groups did indeed cheer Hamas.” How, exactly? The statement by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee does not “cheer” Hamas in any way. While the statement could be read to support the actions of Hamas, given the context and timing, the PSC clarified in another statement soon afterwards that “the PSC staunchly opposes violence against civilians — Palestinian, Israeli, or other” — a message that was repeated days later at a pro-Palestine rally.

Further, while 33 student groups initially co-signed the original statement, this process occurred in many (possibly all) cases by a group’s leadership agreeing to add their group’s name without consulting the membership, and at least five groups withdrew their names by the time the whole list of signatories was taken down. I think you would have trouble finding dozens of individual students at Harvard who support what Hamas did on October 7, much less the number of students implied by your statement.

You also write, “I’m increasingly ashamed to be a Harvard alum.” Did you see President Gay’s statement last Thursday? I think it was admirable — both in the clarity of the message and the direction it invites us.

I did see it. It was, crucially, about a week after the pogrom, and, in part, deceitful:

Our University embraces a commitment to free expression. That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous. We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views.

Yes you do! Harvard is dedicated to one worldview, a neo-Marxist one, built its racist admissions system on it, and systematically discriminates against any non-left viewpoint. It was covert when I was there — non-leftists were tolerated but condescended to and mocked; it’s overt now in the era of critical theory as the paradigm for all the humanities.

Gay herself hung a law professor, Ronald Sullivan, out to dry, because as a lawyer, he represented Harvey Weinstein. And ask Carole Hooven if sane, mainstream science that doesn’t reflect critical gender theory is allowed on campus. As for the PSC statement, it first justified the Hamas pogrom, with no statement about the loss of Israeli life, and then demanded that Israel not respond.

One more dissent for now:

Why is there so much focus on a few dozen college students? Because there is nowhere else to focus to find an enemy of Israel. It’s one of the most powerful countries in the world. Statistically, its people are remarkably safe, even considering current events, compared to the worldwide norm. Israel is rich, it’s technologically advanced, and its people are healthy. It boasts one of the most advanced militaries and the single most effective intelligence system on the planet. And it enjoys the backing of the most powerful country in the world, in both major parties. We give them money, arms, integration with our espionage services, and limitless diplomatic support.

Against all of this you have … Ivy League student newspapers? Fringe activist groups? How is this discrepancy not worth nothing?

It’s worth something. It’s also true that Israel was not powerful enough to stop a devastating, vicious pogrom in its own land.

More dissents and other commentary are over on the pod page. Keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Mental Health Break

The Chemical Brothers and Beck team up:

In The ‘Stacks

• Is the Jordan fiasco “the beginning Of DeMAGAfication”?
• Last week there was plenty of anti-Semitism on the right, too.
• Looking to history, Ed West writes, “we should be wary of casually stating that Arab states should house Gazans.” Does the right of return matter anymore?
• If Hanoi could blossom after a brutal war, why not Gaza?
• Linker is heartened by the elections in Poland that unseated the populist right.
• Drezner dissents over a Krugman column on “the fraying of the liberal international order.”
• Haidt previews The Canceling of the American Mind.
• Tabia Lee talks about the tolerance of anti-Semitism in academia.
• “You should only trust people with imposter syndrome,” says Ian Leslie.
• Now taking Ozempic, Barro explains why “10 years from now, it’ll be obvious GLP-1 drugs were a way bigger deal than AI.”
• For online dating, Danielle Crittenden tells all the defeatist men to shape up.
• Rather than choosing career or motherhood, Emma Collins considers “an outlaw option” — the convent.
• Matt Crawford defends driving “as a revolt against the Borg.”

The View From Your Window Contest

Where do you think? Email your entry to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. Proximity counts. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a View From Your Window book or two annual Dish subscriptions.

See you next Friday.