Bad Company: Kanye, Neo-Nazis, and Right-Wing Media

By Kevin Howley, December 6, 2022

By now you’ve probably heard all you can stomach about Ye, the musician, entrepreneur, and notorious antisemite formerly known as Kanye West.

The epitome of our garbage in, garbage out news cycle, the rapper’s ode to Adolf – as in Hitler – during a recent appearance on Infowars has trumped news coverage of the twice-impeached former president’s despotic and increasingly desperate, re-election bid. Et tu, Ye?

GOP criticism of Trump’s dinner date with Ye and his plus one – Nick Fuentes, a rising star among right-wing extremists – has trickled down from Congressional Republican leadership.

So too, right wing media slow-walked muted responses to Trump’s gathering of neo-Nazis at Mar-a-Lago and the firestorm following Ye’s praise for the Fuhrer that left Infowars host Alex Jones looking like a paragon of propriety. No mean feat, that! This nothing-to-see-here reaction to Ye’s antisemitic antics follows a familiar pattern of dismissal, distraction, and false equivalence.

Lazy Thinking, Lazy Writing

The Daily Wire’s Joseph Curl phoned in this hot take on Ye’s “Springtime for Hitler” remix. Curl doesn’t waste any time – or space for that matter – with the following explanations for West’s antisemitic rants:

1.     Kanye’s stupid.

2.     Ye’s having a psychotic episode.

3.     Saint Pablo thinks he can say anything and get away with it.

4.     Yeezy just wants to be done with it all so he’s burning down his life.

Lazy opinion writing aside, each of these accounts can plausibly be applied to the Count of Mar-a-Lago. Regardless, the message is clear: for conservative pundits – and not a few Republican presidential aspirants – antisemitism isn’t a big deal.

Taking a more light-headed approach, The Federalist offers what it kindly refers to as satire to dismiss the gravity of raging antisemitism in American public discourse. Shawn Fleetwood goes on to condemn “the many terrible and awful people, things, and events that have caused physical and emotional harm throughout world history.”

Weak satire of this sort reveals a sad truth: intolerance and indifference are the cornerstones of today’s conservative movement.

 Who You Calling Antisemitic?

When they aren’t downplaying hateful rhetoric from neo-Nazis, right wing media attempt to turn the tables and call out Democrats for antisemitism.

The lead for a recent Daily Wire story is a case in point: “President Joe Biden took an apparent shot at his predecessor while condemning Kanye West’s antisemitic statements Friday, but Biden has been silent on anti-Jewish bigotry from members of his own party while many Jewish leaders deem Trump a friend of Israel.”

The report singles out “far-Left Democratic lawmakers,” most notably “The Squad” – the right’s favorite punching bag – for their condemnation of Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories.

To be clear. Calling out the state of Israel for flagrant human rights violations is not synonymous with antisemitism. Indeed, such false equivalence provides cover for hateful rhetoric at home and helps legitimize Israel’s decades-long oppression of Palestinians.

Without putting too fine a point on it, criticizing Israeli apartheid for what it is, is a far cry from the virulent hate speech uttered by right wing extremists – from Charlottesville to Mar-a-Lago.

“America’s First Jewish President”

You needn’t tout your Jewish bona fides to ignore the difference between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel. Unless of course false equivalence enables you to score political points, as Wayne Allyn Root aims to do in this disingenuous defense of Donald Trump, “America’s first Jewish president,” for Gateway Pundit.

Evoking then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s relationship with his local pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who had the gall to rebuke both the United States and Israel for crimes against humanity, Root goes on a rant of his own.

“The entire Democrat Party is filled with Jew haters, antisemites and politicians who hate Israel and work against the interests of the Jewish people 24/7/365. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have spent plenty of time around Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, among many others.”

Thinly veiled Islamophobic diatribes of this sort are reckless and dangerous, especially in such fraught moments as this. More important, they’re counterproductive to this country’s ongoing project: realizing the full potential of multi-cultural democracy.

Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. His most recent book is Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.

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