New York, Old Hatred

Summary

---

The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode Title: New York, Old Hatred
Date: June 26, 2026
Host: Jon Podhoretz (Editor of Commentary)
Guests: Seth Mandel (Senior Editor, Commentary), Josh Kraushar (Editor-in-Chief, Jewish Insider)

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores the dramatic spread of open antisemitism within the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, focusing on recent political victories of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-aligned candidates in New York and other cities. The hosts and guest discuss how old strains of Jew-hatred are being repackaged for contemporary politics, how these themes intersect with anti-Israel fervor, and what the shift means both for the Jewish community and the broader trajectory of the Democratic Party.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The DSA’s Takeover and Antisemitism’s Resurgence

• Old Hate in New Rhetoric: The episode opens by noting how the week’s political news has featured explicit antisemitic rhetoric from victorious DSA-aligned candidates in New York, echoing conspiracy theories from figures like Henry Ford a century ago ([03:08], [05:14]).
• Quote:

  “We are going back in time before there was an Israel ... to evoke literal, self-consciously and openly antisemitic conspiracy thinking and bringing it back and repurposing it in the 21st century.” (Seth Mandel, [06:50])

2. The Charrington Controversy

• Henry Ford’s ‘The International Jew’: Discussion centers on Charrington, a local Brooklyn party chief who posted a passage from Henry Ford’s notorious antisemitic pamphlet, replaying dangerous, debunked rhetoric ([03:08], [05:14]).
• Modern Expression of Ancient Conspiracy: The hosts emphasize this is not merely anti-Zionism but the “original form of it,” blaming global Jewish conspiracy rather than simply opposing Israel’s policies ([08:05]).
• Quote:

  “What this Charrington character is expressing is actually the original form...which sees Israel as an extension of Jewish conspiracy, not Jews as an extension of a militaristic Israeli state.” (Seth Mandel, [08:05])

3. Antisemitism as a Driving Force in Progressive Politics

• Beyond Israel: The group argues that antisemitism is not a secondary effect but a central motivator for the leftist activist class, especially in large urban centers ([11:05], [14:04]).
• Investigative Reporting: Jewish Insider’s reporting finds these stories everywhere, especially at the local level where new political talent is groomed ([14:04]).
• Quote:

  “...the problem is always actually bigger than it seems, because anytime you go digging, you will find more of this stuff… especially at the local level where the grassroots are training the leaders of tomorrow.” (Seth Mandel, [13:13])

4. Rise of Extreme Candidates Nationwide

• Examples Beyond New York: Seattle, St. Paul, Washington DC, and potentially Los Angeles are highlighted as cities where DSA-aligned, anti-Israel and sometimes openly antisemitic politicians are gaining power ([14:04]).
• Mainstreaming Extremism: Questions are raised about whether these ideas could spread to more centrist or purple areas, with pending primaries in Maine and Michigan as test cases ([16:48]).

5. AIPAC as a ‘Dog Whistle’

• Use of ‘AIPAC’ in Campaigns: The acronym functions as a signal in progressive campaigns, a stand-in for “Jewish power” or “Israel lobby,” similar to how the NRA was once politicized on the right ([18:48]).
• Quote:

  “It’s the dog whistle, it’s the wink that you are with the progressive cause to say you won’t take money from AIPAC and you don’t like AIPAC.” (Jon Podhoretz, [18:48])

• Key Difference: Unlike the NRA, AIPAC doesn’t have mass populist backing, leaving Jews more vulnerable ([24:00]).

6. Spread to Other Regions and Demographics

• Colorado Example: Malat Kiros, a DSA-affiliated challenger to a longtime progressive Denver congresswoman, demonstrates how the anti-Israel/antisemitic current is spreading beyond New York ([24:00]).
• New Nominees and the Silence of Moderates: Discussion of how even candidates with extremist records (e.g., Hamawi in NJ, associated with radical Islamism) face little opposition from moderate Democrats fearful of seeming “Islamophobic” ([30:29]).
• Quote:

  “When your own opponent won’t go after you with obvious attacks that will move the needle in a race because they’re afraid of being seen as racist or Islamophobic… that’s a big, big red flag too.” (Josh Kraushar, [30:29])

7. Progressivism, Identity Politics, and Power

• Socialism vs. Identity Politics: DSA’s radicalism, including anti-Israel rhetoric, is prioritized over even the core identity markers valued by the modern Democratic coalition, as seen in potential moves against Hakeem Jeffries ([34:28]).
• Class Analysis of the New Left: It’s not the poor or marginalized driving these changes, but wealthier, highly educated, young white progressives, often allied with more radical Muslim elements ([37:17]).

8. Why This Shift Now?

• Trump’s Influence: Trump’s post-2024 actions—hardline immigration enforcement, unwavering support for Israel, direct confrontation with campus antisemitism—inflamed the activist left and catalyzed further radicalization ([41:10], [43:02]).
• Parallel to GOP Insurgency: The rise in primary challenges echoes the insurgent right of the 2010s—“playing it within the boundaries is a loser’s game” ([46:32]).

9. The Failure of Democratic Party Institutionalists

• Dem Party Moderates Are Losing the Organizational Battle: Institutionalists by definition don’t build new structures. The DSA-aligned activists are “carpenters,” while moderate Democrats are “tenants” (Jon Podhoretz analogy, [63:42]).
• When Will There Be a Backlash?: Real backlash against radicalism only comes when things “hit rock bottom,” as seen in cities like San Francisco ([64:52]).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Old-New Antisemitic Playbook:

  “Here we are literally 100 years later repurposing Henry Ford.” (Jon Podhoretz, [05:14])

• On What Used to Be Disqualifying:

  “Any one of these ... could have been disqualifying. Now you put them together and you have a Lego structure that’s like a voting booth that may get them elected.” (Jon Podhoretz, [29:23])

• On the AIPAC/NRA Contrast:

  “Jews do not have that [populist protection]. There is no army behind the Jews to protect the Jews against the use of being Jewish as a weapon against them.” (Jon Podhoretz, [24:48])

• On Democratic Moderates’ Limitation:

  “They don’t have ... they don’t know how to build a new house. ... They are the makers. You are the resident.” (Jon Podhoretz, [63:42])

---

Important Timestamps

• 03:08 — Analysis of Charrington’s antisemitism and the legacy of Henry Ford.
• 05:14 — Details on Henry Ford, The International Jew, and its echoes today.
• 14:04 — Scope and spread of antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric at the local political level.
• 18:48 — The politicization of “AIPAC” and analogy to the NRA.
• 24:00 — Colorado candidate Malat Kiros as case study for national spread.
• 30:29 — Adam Hamawi in New Jersey and Democratic silence as a “red flag.”
• 34:28 — Tension between socialism and identity politics in Democratic primaries.
• 37:17 — Class identity of the DSA activist base.
• 43:02 — Trump’s influence on Democratic radicalization.
• 54:23 — The “all about the Benjamins” Ilhan Omar moment and party’s censure refusal.
• 58:26 — The 2012 Democratic Convention: “Jerusalem is the capital” controversy.
• 63:42 — Metaphor of builders vs. tenants in the Democratic Party structure.
• 64:52 — San Francisco as precedent for backlash against progressive dysfunction.

---

Episode Tone & Language

The conversation is serious, urgent, and at times darkly witty, especially in employing historical analogies and political metaphors. Panelists speak candidly, without euphemism, about the risks to Jews and to the Democratic Party’s future from the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric in progressive politics.

---

Conclusion

The episode paints a vivid, historically grounded picture of how antisemitism—once presumed vanquished from the American left—is now being revived and weaponized by insurgent progressive forces. These elements are overtaking the Democratic Party’s institutionalist core, fueled by frustration toward established norms and a radical vision of what American politics should be. The guests warn that backlash will require institutional collapse and real-world consequences before moderates are able to reassert control—if they are able to do so at all.

---

Transcript

[Ad]

Foreign.

[Josh Kraushar]

Expect the worst. Some drinks and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, expect the worst, hope for the best.

[Jon Pothorts]

Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday. January, though. I was gonna say January. I wish it were January. Then maybe we could redo much of this year and be in better shape than we are now. June 26, 2026. I'm Jon Pothorts, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John. And if it indeed were January, we would not have seen a report yesterday that next week will hit 102 degrees here, so.

[Jon Pothorts]

Oh, you mean in Washington?

[Seth Mandel]

Yes, in the greater Washington area.

[Jon Pothorts]

We're in New York, so we're going to be 40. It'll be fine. 40 Celsius. So we're joining everybody in Europe. At least we have air conditioning, which seems to be the subject of social media all week, is what's wrong with the Europeans and their fetish against air conditioning. And now we can drop this triviality in turn. To our guests today, editor in chief of Jewish Insider, FOX News political commentator Josh Kraushar. Hi, Josh. Welcome back.

[Josh Kraushar]

Hi, John. Great to be back on my 70 degree patio enjoying the weather in D.C. before it gets 100 degrees.

[Jon Pothorts]

Please enjoy, because you have not enjoyed this week except as a producer of news. This has been among the more momentous weeks in the world of Jewish news since October 7, as the fallout from October 7 now seems to be raining down on all of our heads, not in the way that we were expecting. So we're not going to go into the DSA victories. We've already talked about that. We could talk about all kinds of other stuff, but I think it is important to note that on your website today, you note two important phenomena that represent the boulder rolling down the hill. That is the DSA takeover of the Democratic Party and its renewed or new prominence as the sort of harbinger of future Democratic trends. So one is the story about Democratic Party local party chief in Brooklyn, not like the head of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn, but a district in Brooklyn named Charrington. And Josh, what did Charrington do that is worthy of note?

[Josh Kraushar]

Well, this is reflective, John, of just the hatred extremism, just vile radicalism of the DSA activist class in New York City. So I'm actually reading Will Bretterman wrote the story today who's been getting a lot of scoops. He's been covering New York City and all the crazy politics there before the primaries. But Charrington is just sort of like your kind of, you know, politician and the Democratic socialists of America. And she posted of, you know, just the most vile anti Semitic screed last year to her Instagram praising Adolf Hitler, describing Jewish world conspiracy, you know, saying to a reporter who was asking her questions about the Post to get your rabbi and did not double down on all the anti Semitism and his. A low level elected official now won an election in New York City among the other DSA aligned candidates. So this is where these candidates come from. This is not. We learned from Chevalier, the likely congresswoman elect in Manhattan and other parts of New York City, that this is the pool in which they swim in. And I think people who are in denial that antisemitism, hatred of Israel is not the fuel that, that, that is kind of, you know, driving these politicians in New York and beyond. I think they're in denial. It's not about affordability, like this notion that Madani's election last year was driven by affordability, which I, some really political analysts I respect a whole lot were kind of driving that, that, that narrative. But I mean anyone who's been paying attention to what's been going on in, in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for the last couple years knows how much Israel occupies this and the hatred of Israel and anti Semitism occupies this really ugly space in their imagination. And it's gotten worse and worse and worse. And we saw the outcome of that electorally in New York City just this past Tuesday.

[Jon Pothorts]

So Seth, what Charrington did in her post that is the source of this news story is literally run a passage from a pamphlet written in 1923, I believe, called the International Jew by Henry Ford, the creator of the Ford Motor Company and easily the most prominent open anti Semite in the United states in the first half of the 20th century. As he was the extra, it would be as though Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, I mean he was the leading innovative industrialist of the beginning of the 20th century. And he was consumed with this idea that Jews, Jewish power, Jewish cabals were going to destroy America and the world. And he not only published this pamphlet that had a readership in the millions, he ran a newspaper called the Dearborn Independent outside Detroit. That was his daily way of expressing this obsessive message. Here we are literally 100 years later repurposing Henry Ford, not talking about and

[Seth Mandel]

dealing with Dearborn itself, by the way, as a locus of a lot of people.

[Jon Pothorts]

Well, that's true too. That's right. Dearborn, the home of the largest population of Muslims in a municipality in the United States as a percentage of the population is in Dearborn, Michigan. So we're not talking about intersectionality here. We're not talking about colonial oppressors. We're not talking about the idea of Israel not being in the proper community of nations. We are going back in time before there was an Israel, before there was any defined population called the Palestinians, before there was anything to evoke literal, self consciously and openly antisemitic conspiracy thinking and bringing it back and repurposing it in the 21st century. Right.

[Seth Mandel]

Well, anti Zionism was, you know, non Jewish anti Zionism. Now I'm not talking about Jews who were diasporists or whatever before the state of Israel, but like Soviet anti Zionism

[Podcast Host Matt Ebert]

was,

[Seth Mandel]

that's what fed. First of all, that's what supplied Henry Ford with these ideas was the, you know, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and those types of forgeries and fabrications, but also the things were reversed, right? Which is the Jews desire to have a state in Israel, to have self determination in the Holy Land was looked upon by these people. And as a branching out of the Jewish conspiracy, right. Today we think of a lot of anti Zionism as, oh, they don't like Israel, they don't like what Israel's doing. And so they, that, that blows back on American Jews or diaspora Jews or whatever. But the truth is that what this, what this Charrington character is expressing is actually the sort of the original form of it which sees Israel as, as an extension of Jewish conspiracy, not Jews, as an extension of a militaristic Israeli state. And that is flipping the script for people. And there's a lot of background that I think people are missing in that. That was in your, you know, what you spoke about.

[Jon Pothorts]

I mean, the other thing to bring up, Josh, is that Ford was not writing in a vacuum. In the early twenties. Views like his had political purchase to the extent that the first major immigration restriction bill was passed in 1924, a year after, two years after the publication of the International Jew. And it was largely aimed at Jews. The idea being that the last, the previous quarter century had seen this massive influx of immigrants from, you know, from southern Europe, I mean, from Italy and also, you know, places like that, but from Eastern Europe. And we needed to close the golden door for reasons of whatever. And a lot of those reasons, a lot of the reason that that was a populist issue that had purchased and passed through the Congress was views expressed by people like Henry Ford, who popularized them. Here we are A day after a very significant immigration decision, the Supreme Court we might want to talk about later. I again, 100 years after the 1924 immigration restriction bill, we are again talking immigration restriction except everybody like Charrington and others in the dsa, they're now all for open borders. They're all now for letting as many people in as possible. Because the original impetus, which was to prevent some kind of Jewish takeover of the United States, they are now affirmatively looking for a kind of immigrant takeover of the United States through vanguard immigrants who can get themselves elected to Congress and start working their will on the Democratic Party.

[Josh Kraushar]

Well, and it's on the left and on the right and I think we should delineate the two, John, because on the left it started with intersectionality, which is sort of the benign academic kind of crazy kind of thing theory of the world that if anyone in power is evil and there's this hierarchy of things that are bad and we want to take down those who are powerful. And increasingly we've seen over the last five, ten years the Jews have been sort of the focus of their ire because they have power. And when you look at one of the things that really breaks off the Democratic socialists of America from the Democratic Party, it's this sort of broad caricature of the democratic power base as business people, moneyed interests and Jews. And that is what you're seeing the most extreme version of that in these rants and these ugly, just vile anti Semitism from Charrington. But you see that in Ro Khanna's rhetoric from a more quote unquote mainstream progressive who's looking to run for president in the House, talking about the Epstein class, talking about these very same themes that are trying to really draw attention to this. A class of people that are not they don't have your interests in hand. And by the way, they're Jewish. Right? I mean, that's the whispering, maybe not so whispering, part of what a lot of progressives are increasingly saying. Aipac, the line that has become a litmus test in a lot of these primaries, which I don't think, frankly, most people who are saying that don't even know what AIPAC is. But that has become this litmus test that also is a standby, standalone or kind of a symbol for Jewish power and influence within politics. So I mean, at first it was about Israel. I think we all knew that that was sort of their way of trying to bring this kind of anti Semitism and extremism into the party. And now we're seeing the ugly ugly rhetoric, explicitly anti Semitic rhetoric from Charrington, but also two of the three Mamdani endorsed and DSA endorsed candidates who won their nominations in New York last night or Tuesday.

[Seth Mandel]

Josh, can you, can you tell us like the impression I get from reading Jewish Insider is that these stories are every, these stories are everywhere. If you can find, if you go looking for them, you will keep finding them. Is that what, what you know, can you tell us about that from the perspective of, of a publication that is finding these stories that nobody else is digging up? And the sense that the feeling that we get reading it, that the problem is always actually bigger than it seems, because anytime you go digging, you will find more of this stuff and more of this stuff and more of the stuff, especially at the local level where the grassroots are sort of training the leaders and the politicians and the activists of tomorrow.

[Josh Kraushar]

Well, Seth, I think it's important to put some of that into perspective in that we are seeing it primarily in the Democratic Party in urban area, in big cities. Right. We spotlighted what was going on in mayoral races as early as last year and everyone was talking about Zoran Mamdani. But we also noticed that there was an anti Israel socialist mayor of Seattle that was about to be elected and St. Paul, Minnesota. And we saw the trend lines in Washington, D.C. which now that there really isn't much local coverage in the Washington Post. I don't think a lot of Washingtonians even knew that there was a socialist mayor on the ballot in Washington who got nominated pretty easily this past week in D.C. and there are a few other. You have a D.S. you know, Spencer Pratt got all the attention on social media. It was actually the DSA councilwoman who actually finished in second place and has a real chance to win the mayoralty in Los Angeles. And I think a lot of the social media conversation obscured what was actually going on. And in the big cities and college towns. I will say that the big test coming up and what we're watching closely and we've been reporting on endlessly, is does this spread beyond the deepest blue parts of the country? My fear is that we saw this in the Republican Party, but once an idea, once you kind of plant that viral seed, even if it's only in certain factions and certain parts of the country, against because of partisanship, because of polarization, it can easily spread and become party dogma. We're seeing that with progressive lawmakers that I would never have imagined would say kind of borderline anti Semitic comments are now trying to test those lines out because they see some political advantage in doing so. Mamdani's election, by the way, was the fuel for that. So Maine, Graham Platner, I mean the question can Graham Platner win in a purplish blue state in Maine? Is that possible given the fact that he had a neo Nazi tattoo, that he praised Hamas terrorist videos, that he obviously is an abusive boyfriend? Those are the things that would have any one of those things would have sunk a candidacy for any office a decade ago, five years ago. I don't think we're as confident that that's going to happen again. So that'll be a big test. And also Michigan, we have primaries coming up in August, most notably for the Senate race in Michigan, where you have a contest between someone who's unabashedly anti Israel, flirts at the very least with these anti Semitic slogans and is on the socialist line, essentially against the more mainstream Democrat endorsed by Chuck Schumer and the party leaders. It looks like Abdul Al Said, who's the former candidate, has got the momentum and may be able to win actually a Senate seat in a general election, even given his back.

[Seth Mandel]

Van Hollen endorsed him yesterday, Is that right?

[Josh Kraushar]

Yeah. And Van Hollen and other like I wouldn't be surprised if you have other progressives that kind of follow suit that are seeing the political opportunities by playing to that Mamdani like base and think that there isn't as much of a political disadvantage. Right. We're so polarized, we're so tribal writ large that I think they're realizing some of these left wing politicians, progressives that you would never imagine be part being part of this crowd, are increasingly testing these lines and testing these positions that would have been beyond the pale not that long ago.

[Jon Pothorts]

You know, when I go out and people who are listeners to the podcast see me on the street, they're always asking me, is that quince is what you're wearing? Quints? And the answer is yes, it's usually quints. And why I keep coming back to quints is because they focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton, particularly for summer. Well made basics but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless. Quince European linen pants and shirts, perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation, starting at just $34. Their tees are soft and easy to wear and they're lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quint.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Quincom Commentary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com commentary. It strikes me that apac, the phrase, the word, the. What do you call it? What do you call something like aipac? The five initials.

[Josh Kraushar]

Abbreviation.

[Jon Pothorts]

No.

[Josh Kraushar]

Acronym.

[Jon Pothorts]

Acronym.

[Josh Kraushar]

Thank you.

[Jon Pothorts]

Okay, so aipac. Most people couldn't even tell you what the five letters stand for if they know what AIPAC is because they say aipac. Because they don't want to say Jewish lobby or Israel lobby, though that was the term. That was the term of art, was just to say the Israel lobby wants this and the Israel lobby wants that. That maybe sounded too harsh and too conspiratorial. Now they can just say aipac. But here's what is of interest to me, using the term AIPAC as a kind of catch all. It's like it's the dog whistle, it's the wink that you are with the progressive cause to say you won't take money from AIPAC and you don't like aipac. So the clear predecessor to this in the world of lobbying, making a lobby an issue is the nra, right? The National Rifle Association. So the NRA for people, liberals and on the left was the villain from the 1980s through 1994, really. And Democratic Party organized largely, not largely organized a lot of its domestic agenda around opposing the nra, its refusal to agree that gun control was important, that it was looking to arm people and cause more violence and all of that. And here's the difference between AIPAC and the nra. The NRA was genuinely populist, powerful, had millions upon millions upon millions of members. And in 1994, they were a key element of flipping American politics by winning, by helping The Republicans win 52 seats in the House and taking the House for the first time in four decades and bringing liberal Clintonism to a screeching halt and reviving DLC Clintonism in the rest of Clinton's term. AIPAC and the Jew. We do not have that. There is no army behind the Jews to protect the Jews against the use of being Jewish as a weapon against them, which the NRA had. And in fact, the Democratic Party backed off. It's, you know, the centrality of gun control, it pops up every time. I mean, it pops up. It popped up after that. School shootings, various other things. Even Donald Trump had this moment where he started thinking that he needed to do something or say something about gun control after the Sandy Hook massacre and bump stocks and things like that. But mostly guns are no longer a major political issue in the United States. Also partially because of the Supreme Court assenting to the idea that the Second Amendment does in fact protect private gun ownership. Jews are afforded no such populist protection. We're tiny people, we make up 2% of the population. And even in the city with the largest Jewish population, not only in America, but in fact the world, if you're talking about the municipality of New York City alone and Tel Aviv might be larger if you take in all the surrounding suburbs. New York is the largest population of Jews in the world. And an explicit anti Semite became mayor. And two anti Semites have now won these insurgent races to take congressional seats away from Democrats, largely fueled by that. So this is part of the new world that we are going to have to reckon with and to move on to say a state that is blue, I don't even think it's really purple, though there are areas of it that have Republican voters. Colorado, which did actually have two Republican senators 15 years ago, but no longer 14 years ago. There is a candidate for Congress also primary a sitting Democratic congresswoman and she is a young, very attractive child of Ethiopian refugees who got into the United States through a lottery system and got a law degree and was apparently or says she was fired by her law firm for spending her time organizing anti Israel protests in the wake of October 7th. Can you tell us something about her? Josh?

[Josh Kraushar]

Yeah, this is Malat Kiros. I think I'm pronouncing her name right, but she's a DSA affiliated challenger to Congresswoman Diana Deget in the Denver it's the district that encompasses the city of Denver. I knew Diana DeGette and her team when she first got elected to Congress. She probably when she was first elected in the late 1990s, would have been considered one of the most progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill. Now she is scrambling to fend off this challenge from a lot Kiros because she's and it's mainly on the issue of Israel not seen as progressive enough. Increasingly, as we've talked about, to be a leftist in good standing, you have to hate Israel. And Deget's one sin is that she generally has been not 100%, but like 80% supportive of Israel in her voting record and that is toxic for city Democratic primary voters. Kiros is one of these candidates too, John, that it's not just about Israel, as we all know. I think this is not any surprise to listeners to this podcast, but when you have such ridiculous rhetoric about Israel, antisemitism isn't far away. So she was actually just asked on one of the big news channels, the local Denver newscasts this week whether she considered the murder and the firebombing of the Boulder march to raise recognition for the Israeli hostages at the time, whether she considered the murder and the firebombing attack against that march anti Semitic. She refused to say it was anti Semitic. So that is, again, this is, I think a lot of people who have covered, you read the New York Times, you read mainstream publications, and they're afraid to acknowledge the obvious, which is that this worldview is, is not the DSA worldview, not just about Israel. They dislike Jews and they're willing to excuse terrorism against Jews in America. Right. That is Moakiros. She was just interviewed and that's her on the record just a couple days ago. And these candidates, I don't think they were afraid to speak their mind not that long ago, but now they're emboldened The Mamdani's election in New York and now these New York elections for these three deep blue congressional seats this week in New York. It's emboldened this cadre of candidates to say the most hateful, anti Semitic and extremist stuff. And we're seeing that with Kiros. And the election is Tuesday. So we'll know whether this stuff can sell in Denver like it's sold in New York.

[Ad]

This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses Setup required compatibility and availability various 18 plus.

[Podcast Host Matt Ebert]

I started with one shop. No college degree, no big investors. It was just a willingness to work. Over time, that one shop turned into a multibillion dollar business called Crash Champions. All the lessons I learned along the way came from the grind. And that's what my show Pod Crash is all about. We have real conversations with people who've built things the hard way. We talk to founders, athletes and blue collar leaders who kept going when things got tough. You'll hear stories of grit, leadership and growth. Plus real world lessons you can take back to your team and your life tomorrow.

[Jon Pothorts]

When you get momentum, you step on the gas.

[Seth Mandel]

That's how you get separation from everybody else.

[Jon Pothorts]

I was at Harvard Law School.

[Josh Kraushar]

I was blah, blah, blah.

[Jon Pothorts]

I looked up something, tell you something, there's kids in my neighborhood putting in sheetrock that is smarter than you.

[Seth Mandel]

AI is going to disrupt a lot of stuff. It is never going to disrupt physical

[Jon Pothorts]

blue collar trade skill.

[Josh Kraushar]

And the guy just looked at me and he said it's bloody impossible. So I asked him this question.

[Podcast Host Matt Ebert]

I said, it's impossible unless that's pod crash with me. Matt ebert, watch on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jon Pothorts]

Even more interestingly, it seems to me, it's that. It's that their antisemitism is now a feature and not a bug. That is to say, it is part of what rallies people to their side, is part of how they are raising money, grassroots money on the Internet. There is a, there is a and always has been and always will be a large world of who are consumed with hatred of Jews and want to advance anti Jewish, explicitly anti Jewish causes and ideas. And this dovetailing with progressivism as it does is, and I would say a certain type of anti American, pro Arab nationalism. These have all combined into this unholy stew that once would have been pretty easy to oppose on any one of the three planks.

[Podcast Host Matt Ebert]

No.

[Jon Pothorts]

A, socialism is bad. So the fact that you're a democratic socialist, that's bad because people don't like socialism. B, your Jew hatred is extremely unattractive and we like Jews fine. And C, you're siding with Arab terrorists who blew up the World Trade center, blew up the Khobar Towers building in Saudi Arabia and have killed thousands of Americans since the early 1980s. At a very minimum, any one of these three things could have been disqualifying. Now you put them all together and you have a Lego structure that's like a voting booth that may get them elected. The election also, you have Tuesday we have the election in Colorado, and I believe Tuesday we have the election in Michigan.

[Josh Kraushar]

Yeah, well, I would add to. I mean, it is shocking that you see candidates like Chevalier, you see candidates like Kiros, that face, no pushback. I think the, and I know you guys talked about Hamawi's nomination in New Jersey and which by the way, is a pretty Jewish district in central New Jersey. Seth, I'm sure not well aware of the politics in that, in that one, but I was struck not just that Hamawi, who was a guy who was affiliated with an Al Qaeda affiliated group in the 1990s when he worked in Bosnia and was the associate of the blind sheikh who was the Inspiration for the 1993 World Trade center bombing. But the fact that not only that guy win the nomination, but the fact that in a crowded Democratic field, very few of the Democratic candidates running against him even wanted to bring that obvious opposition intel up in the race. They did not want to be seen as being Islamophobic in the rhetoric of the Democratic Party base. And that is, to me, a very big warning sign that when your own opponent won't go after you with obvious attacks that will move the needle in a race because they're afraid of being seen as racist or Islamophobic. That is the water in which a lot of the Democrats are swimming in now. And it's what you look at the races where more moderate, pro Israel candidates won. Richie Torres won easily in the Bronx. You can look at Steny Hoyer's race where he handpicked a pro Israel, moderate successor. It's that the Democrats were actually willing to fight back and fight for their values. Richie Torres didn't back down, that he spent a lot of money, that he prepared for his race and defined the terms early on. Same thing in Maryland. But you see this with Schumer in the Senate, this weakness that they don't wanna speak out. They don't wanna even confront the extremism and the anti Semitism that's taking place within their very party. And you do see some voices that are trying to go after it, stop the cancer from metastasizing. But more often you're seeing a fear which I think is the most dangerous and most shocking element of this all, that there's a fear among moderate and even Jewish Democrats that speak out against this is going to create bigger problems. And that's, that's. That, that's, I think, a big, big red flag too, from, from the, the recent election results.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah, that maybe they were. There was a video the other night of, of revelers at one of the victory parties taunting a. The Hakeem Jeffries was giving his speech on. You know, they were watching Hakeem Jeffries, the full.

[Josh Kraushar]

The.

[Seth Mandel]

The House floor leader, give his speech on tv and they were chanting you're next, or something like that.

[Josh Kraushar]

Right.

[Seth Mandel]

That, that there is this. We had this discussion a couple years ago also, which was will AOC primary or recruit someone to primary Hakeem Jeffries, who was the leader after the squad, managed to push out the last leader. Right. I mean, he took over for Pelosi. He's Pelosi's chosen successor and was seen as a candidate that was palatable to the base. Hakeem Jeffries was picked because he was not going to be what AOC and the others considered Elliot Engel and maybe even Adriano Espied and those guys to be, which is tools of an old establishment, which, you know, whose time has come and gone. And yet Hakeem Jeffries is not out of trouble, right? I mean, there is, there is a. There is a hunger for not just to have this, this crew in Congress, but it. Don't you see? I see a hunger for the leadership itself, like this, this why wait sort of attitude.

[Jon Pothorts]

Here's what's interesting about your observations here, which is that Hakeem Jeffries should be immune, just as Adriano Espaillat should have been immune, according to the logic of the Democratic Party's ideology, which is that we're a gorgeous mosaic and identity politics is the most important way to sort American politics. Adriano Espailla was the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Leftists should not be primarying such a person. It could be that Republicans could beat such a person, maybe in an open race in a more complicated district, but you wouldn't expect Democrats to be primary ing the head of the Hispanic Caucus. Similarly, Hakeem Jeffries will be in November, if all goes the way we think it's gonna go. The first African American speaker of the House. That should be sacrosanct. The idea that, that Hakeem Jeffries should be in the crosshairs of the Democratic Socialists of America shows you that democratic socialism, two aspects of it, one of which is the radicalism of its view of America, American capitalism and everything else, cannot fit into even the left wing party in the United States. It has to overtake it and overcome it. And I mean, Hakeem Jeffries is not exactly. He's not Mike Johnson. He is a very liberal politician and black, and that should be fine. So socialism trumps identity politics. And it appears anti Israel sentiment that leeches into anti Semitism trumps them all. Because if Hakeem Jeffries were an activist against Israel in his position as minority leader, if he had been introducing bills in 2024 and 2025 for cutting off aid to Israel or supporting an arms embargo for Israel or something like that, he probably would be inoculated. They wouldn't be cheering you're next for him. I mean, the thought that you would cheer your next when what he is going to be next is the first African American speaker of the House of Representatives, that's a journey I couldn't possibly have imagined. The Democratic party would take over in the last decade. And here we are.

[Josh Kraushar]

And you look at not just the power dynamics, but also the dynamics of who's supporting these socialist candidates. And there's been some really good precinct by precinct analysis by smart people who have underscored that it's the wealthiest young, the upscale, the least economically oppressed people in these districts that are the ones that are at the rallies that are screaming for Jefferies to go, that are driving the fuel for these candidates. And it's the working class black and Hispanic voters. And especially in Esplayat's district, it was the working class Hispanic vote that really strongly went for him. But it wasn't enough, given the demographic changes and frankly, the socioeconomic changes in that district. But that's the trend. These are white progressives that. I mean, and it's that alliance of the white progressive left with the. The Islamist extremism that is a very. You know, demographically, if you just looked at representation, you know, there's only 3% radical. You know, it's not the radical Muslim ideology that is that big. It's more that the white progressive leadership of the DSA has sort of jumped on these issues and formed an alliance, and they've provided the fuel for these candidates and for these constituencies.

[Jon Pothorts]

Well, so in Espaillas districts, for example, a good liberal voter, liberal left voter in that district would once have been satisfied and sufficient, thinking proudly that he was a white guy voting for a guy with a very, very thick accent, who himself came in to the United States as an illegal alien, which was trumpeted in his advertising locally here in New York, the first undocumented immigrant to be elected to the Congress. That was actually in his campaign material until 2026. A white liberal living in Washington Heights or Hamilton Heights. That would have been a emotionally satisfying vote. Perfectly emotionally satisfying vote for them. Not only that, but he had risen to the top of the greasy pole. He was head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. And now it's like, nah, that's old news. You know, that's not sexy. That's not transgressive enough. Here we got. We're being given an option to go even further, and we're gonna jump on it now. He only lost by less than half a percent. So that's an interesting aspect of this, is that it's not like Chevalier won going away. He was 49.9 to 49.5 or something like in the election results. And he might live to fight another day. You never know whether that magic will be reasserted. In 2028, if he's still energetic enough to run. But I just think it's very telling that the voting to satisfy your cultural priors has shifted the way that it shifted in that these are symbolic votes, you know, well, to do white educated New Yorker is not voting on affordability. That's a load of crap you just mentioned. It was a load of crap. They're not voting on affordability. They're voting to satisfy their symbolic understanding of what they are supposed to be here in the United States and what the United States representatives should be saying in our national political conversation.

[Josh Kraushar]

Absolutely. And I will add one thing which is sort of the elephant in the room, no pun intended, but Trump's. I mean, the role of Trump and I think particularly the ISIS role in deportations and the, the Minnesota violence and the, I mean, that episode you could see in real time as we were covering it at Jewish Insider. If you remember, like in 2025, Democrats were racing to run to the middle. Rahm Emanuel got into the like teasing the presidential campaign. Josh Shapiro was the flavor of the moment. There was a real momentum in the Democratic Party to find someone who was not Kamala Harris, who could actually appeal to working class swing voters. And that was where the energy in the party was. Seth Moulton came out against and then backtracked against trans athletes. There was this whole energy until April of 2025. And that was when Trump just unleashed ICE. And that had a disproportionate impact in a lot of these urban and Hispanic communities, including Espaillatz district. So, I mean, I will say that something got set off in the Democratic zeitgeist at that moment where that was when we started seeing the rise of Madani. That was when you started seeing these far left candidates getting purchased out of nowhere. That was when you started seeing the willingness of even Democratic Party pragmatists to say Trump is so evil that we're not gonna condemn anything from our own side. So I do think that there's some of that and I think that may be why you're seeing it in particular in some of these urban majority minority districts where there is that, especially ICE and immigration, that's hanging over. You're right that Espada is a. I think he an undocumented immigrant and that's a big part of his story. But he also comes across as not as much of a fighter in the broadest of senses. I think that's what a lot of these voters in the Democratic primaries are looking for right now.

[Jon Pothorts]

I think that's a very important point because it wasn't just ice by the spring of 2025, right, it was Doge. It was Trump's full throated support for Israel against the Hamas and to conclude the war in Gaza on terms favorable to Israel. He was a kind of wrecking ball of all of these assumptions that were being made by the Democratic left going at the campus antisemites. The people who were like Darieliza Chevalier, who organized Qad at Columbia, wasn't just part of it, but was the organizer of it. And it was like the perfect storm. Just as for some of us, there was a kind of almost, oh my God, I can't believe this is all happening. Like they're closing cabinet departments, they're supporting Israel, they're engaging in Title six action against antisemitism at universities, like this is a dream come true. But for them it was the ultimate nightmare. And then, and then the fact that there was a kind of armed element to it in the form of ICE going into Cities, occupying Washington D.C. you know, being sort of like on, on every street corner in downtown Washington D.C. these ICE agents masking when they fought people in or were, you know, deployed in Minneapolis. It was a kind of assertion of what was like the Handmaid's tale for the left come to life. And the left has a lot of life in it. And there are reasons why people don't really understand this, why the left has so much life to it, but it's the same reason that so many conventional Republican politicians were knocked off and knocked over in the 2000 and tens, which is you got no juice. I'm not getting anything out of you. You're just getting along to go along, which is what American politics has usually been like and been about. It's how you get to the top of the greasy pole. You offend as few people as possible, you make as many friends as possible, and you kind of slip your way up, you know, you slide your way through and then climb up, right? And now this is like, that's compromising. You have no principles, you stand for nothing. You, you believe in nothing. And at least these people will fight. They will fight.

[Seth Mandel]

The thing is now in 2014, the big moment was Dave Brat primary, Eric Cantor. Right, because Eric Cantor was number two, the whip.

[Jon Pothorts]

Yeah, he was the whip. He was the number for the House whip.

[Seth Mandel]

And Dave Bratt was a professor. And I mean, not to be dismissive of some. But he wasn't a political, he wasn't a political animal is what I'm saying. He was somebody who came from the outside. And I remember the shock at watching those primary returns come in, because it was still unusual at that point to have somebody in leadership get knocked off by somebody whose name you just learned when the polls closed. That was like the shot across the back. And it just kept happening. And now in both parties, right?

[Jon Pothorts]

But Trump as a. Trump as a figure, if you are a Democrat and you do believe that Trump is the most evil person on earth, and then you have to ask yourself the question, why is he? And how did he do this and how did he do it twice, and how did he do it after the insurrection and how did he do it after all of the trials and everything like that? You got to say, he knows something we don't know, which is playing it within the boundaries. Being within the boundaries is a loser's game. And you've got to go outside and wrench your way in to make change and to get rid of the bad guys. And you can't use a nice institutional reestablishment of guardrails and saying that what Trump does is tell. What we need to do is get back to the glory days of Clinton or something like that. It's like, no, he's changed everything now. The Republican Party is definitively evil. They must be destroyed. They are Israel's Kadamites. We must take down Israel. We must take down American capitalism, which is not working for us. And so that is Trump's effect. Politicians have enormous effect on the other party when they succeed. George W. Bush's message in 2000 of compassionate conservatism was a response to Clintonism. It was a way of trying to reach out to the center while remaining fluent with the past, because Clinton had redefined the center, and the center required you to say that you cared and you did whatever, blah, blah, blah, whatever. That was not the Republican message before that. That was not where the party was before that. And so you have to look to the opposition sometimes to find out where the new power is going to be. It's just that the Jew hatred is unbelievably unnerving. I understand why socialism might suddenly have a renewed appeal in the United States. There is a lot of income inequality. We are seeing enormous numbers of corporate executives and people like that making sums of money that no human being has ever made before. And young people are not sure what's going to happen with their careers. The market doesn't seem to be helping them that much. All of that, you can see where the attractiveness of a term like socialism for people who did not live through any, any socialist era in their life and know what evils socialism created for people all around the world. In theory, saying basically the power should shift toward the poor and away from the wealthy. And that for example, here in New York, that the city should set rent prices, which just happened last night. The city council agreed to a rent freeze for all rents for 2 million rent stabilized apartments. An enormous intrusion on the private marketplace that Mamdani did promise and that supposedly is a way of enforcing his affordability agenda. Although of course, as always the case with price controls, it's only going to make things more expensive and not less as time goes on. So welcome to everybody who is foolish enough to believe in price controls. And that's where we are. We are in a revolutionary. We have an outside the box president and so we're gonna have an outside the box rival party.

[Josh Kraushar]

Well, I'm reminded of the David Axelrod line, which is, I'm paraphrasing, is that basically people pick presidents that are the opposite of those before them and they go in the exact opposite direction after someone's been around for long enough. And we saw that with, look, we saw that with Trump kind of as a backlash against the progressivism of Barack Obama. We are seeing that now with the, and by the way, I think the Democratic view of being opposite to Trump was just simply being anti Trump, to the point where Kamala Harris basically had Liz Cheney and Elizabeth Warren the same week campaigning for her in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign. And that was sort of the reason operandi for the Democratic Party for much of the first Trump term and into 2024, that you build a big broad coalition that's anti Trump that says democracy dies in darkness, that we're for institutions. Like there was something that was like a throwback to frankly, now, different times. And I think if you're just looking at this through a political lens, there is something entrepreneurial and what these very radical folks are doing, which is that, no, we can't just have the. That was really. There was no substance to the anti Trumpness of the last decade. We actually want to put some meat on the bones and they're putting a very socialist populist and frankly like anti Semitic meat on those bones, which I find awfully disturbing. But they're in some ways they're trying to take a page from Trump's initial 2016 playbook, which is, as you said, John, we don't want to abide by any rules. We're going to play the same games that Trump did, it worked out for him. Why shouldn't we try it ourselves? And that's the dangerous. If both parties kind of succumb to their most radical and extreme voices, we're in a pretty big world of hurt as a country.

[Jon Pothorts]

Well, look, in 2017.

[Seth Mandel]

And also, is it a sense, is, it seems to me, a source of protection for the candidates themselves. Right. The Colorado candidate, Murat, sorry if I'm forgetting her name, Kiros. But the one Kiros, this is. Nobody knows who she is before, really before yesterday. I feel like, you know, nobody being the universal nobody, you know, in the general world. And yet she's going, the squad and the DSA factions are going to feel extraordinarily protective toward Kiros if and when, if she gets into Congress. Right. I mean, they're going to, they, they now will identify her as someone who must be protected at all costs. That's the other side of this anti Israel, anti Semitism stuff with the candidates that it is a way to, to find your protectors in the prison yard of Congress in a weird way and you know, and have a big brother or big sister always be watching your back. And because they are, because they will say to you, well, they're accusing Adam Hamawi of being, you know, a terrorist just because he volunteered for an Al Qaeda cutout. You know, it's like the guy who testified on behalf of the blind sheik, testified on behalf of the blind sheikh. You can't make that not be what happened. But because they did that, it's going to offer them a level of protection that they didn't used to have because of the rally round, the flag effect of the DSA and squad and all this stuff.

[Jon Pothorts]

Well, we saw that in 2019. Right. We saw that when the all about the Benjamins moment came along and Ilhan Omar said that people supported Israel because it was all about the Benjamins. And the intent of the leadership of the House, of the Democrats in the House, was to censure her, was to punish her for saying what she said. And when they got together as a caucus, the caucus told Nancy Pelosi they would not agree to punishing Ilhan Omar. And they therefore issued a statement decrying antisemitism and Islamophobia. That was a moment in time at which the Democratic Party institutionally could have provided consequences for explicit anti Semitic action. And when push came to shove, it did what you're talking about, which is it had her back. It was not going to hand the Republicans any issue here. And it had turned out anyway, two years earlier, of course, an enormous effort was made to tag the Republican Party as the anti Semitic hate party because of the Charlottesville confrontation, right? With the Proud Boys or whoever it was, marching saying, Jews will not replace us. And then that poor woman getting killed by being rammed into by a car. And this idea was, okay, well, it's now clear the world of people in 2015 who went crazy with the anti Semitic rhetoric on Trump's behalf, against me, against Seth's wife Bethany Mandel, against, against Ben Shapiro and all of that, these social media swarms that hit us. And then Trump gets elected. Trump gets elected saying he wants to make a real estate deal between Israel and the Palestinians, which is an unnerving phrase for some of us. And then comes Charlottesville. And then, you know what happened? Trump, it turned out, wasn't so bad, right? He recognized the. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. He recognized Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, he recognized Jewish sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and he started the process of the Abraham Accord. So by then, the idea that you would have this easy target where antisemitism was just part of the brief you made against Trump, he was not only anti women and anti this and anti that and a crook and monster, but he was also hated Jews. And therefore Jew hatred could be opposing, that could be part of the Democratic brief. And Trump took that away from them and therefore also provided an opening for these explicit anti Semites in the party who themselves. Now, I'm going to just go back another six years and then drop it. The moment that changed the Democratic Party forever came at the convention in Philadelphia in 2012, when the platform was being read aloud and things were being agreed to by voice vote. And when it came up that the passage that was in every Democratic platform that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel came up, there was a vote called. A vote was called against it. And the delegates on the convention floor voted against Jerusalem being named, the being referred to as the capital of Israel. At which point the chair, using the powers of the chair, called instead for a voice vote. The voice vote was overwhelmingly no. And he, Antonio Villaragoza, the then mayor of la, said, the ayes have it, Jerusalem remains the capital of Israel. Clearly, the intent, after briefly looking off

[Seth Mandel]

stage, if you were watching it on tv, you saw him cast a glance like, what do I do here?

[Jon Pothorts]

Right? So the point here is that the grassroots, or whatever you might want to call it, the organizing heart of the Democratic Party, made clear its feeling about Israel as early as 2012.

[Josh Kraushar]

Well, I'm thinking 2016 too, being at the Democratic convention. And that was when the Democratic convention coincided with the dumping of the Hillary Clinton emails. And that was when Debbie Wilestrom and Schultz was ousted and Hillary Clinton was booed at her own convention. And I think people now remember that as sort of this patriotic kind of convention with a lot of the moderate and military leaders speaking on Hillary Clinton's behalf. But if you remember the beginning of that convention, it was also those very radical elements that were just responding in furor and taking on their own party's nominee at the very beginning of that. And it shared a lot of that same grassroots nihilism that we're seeing now. Look, I think that moment in 2018 too, John, we all talk about, a lot of people talk about Nancy Pelosi was this really strong leader who never would have tolerated such kind of, you know, craziness within her own caucus. Well, no, like, she backed down and she was just as vulnerable to the same forces that Hakeem Jeffries is facing. And she was very weak. If you call that, you know, if you care about anti Semitism. That was a moment of weakness for Nancy Pelosi. And it was a sort of a proof that that whole facade, that whole narrative is really a lot of it's born out of self interest and not in reality. But, yeah, I mean, there's. I think you can look at, you take the picture back to 2012, and you can see these moments where the forces of darkness kind of creep in slowly but surely.

[Jon Pothorts]

So my point here is that, right, that this is a long provenance. It's not just, oh, my God, Trump was reelected and then the Democratic socialists popped up in 2026, and Mamdani pops up in November of 2025. They are standing on the shoulders of a lot of people who came before them. And there have been penumbras and emanations and moments over the course of the last, certainly the last 15 years, and I would say the last 25 years that show that this was where the Democratic Party was headed. And now this tree takes a long time for a tree to grow to maturity. And this is not a fully mature tree, but 25 years is a long time for a tree to go from being like, you know, a twig to something that is bearing fruit. It's now bearing fruit. And it was cultivated, it was kept alive, it was nourished, it was fed. And now it is, you know, now it is the vanguard.

[Seth Mandel]

And that's the scary thing about when you hear people like Tom Suozzi was correct. You know, in New York, former congressman who came back to, you know, retake his seat in New York because they needed a moderate, non crazy Democrat saying like the DSA is organizing and, and you know, the moderates like us out here were out here complaining or worrying or whatever. But Tom Suozzi is not, and this is not a criticism of Suozzi at all. But Tom Suozzi, a, a recently retired before he came back and then unretired, you know, a Brett Favre sort of figure, is not in a position to build the Democratic, to build any part of the Democratic Party's machinery, the apparatus. Right. I mean, in other words, the guys who are saying, we get it, they're organizing, they're building, we are not, are not in a position to actually build a competing structure within the party. So what happens, you have, Thomas, you have, you know, the, I mean, the Jewish insiders reporting on Steny Hoyer was very good because it, you know, it explained the day of the primary, there was this great article that explained how Steny Hoyer called in favors and, and arranged for his chosen successor to be picked and to win the primary way ahead of time. He is a pro Israel, you know, figure of B'. Afo. And he, and, and so. But Steny, but that's it. That was Steny Hoyer's swan song, right? Steny Hoyer's out. And now his chosen successor is not a power broker, but somebody who got in because Steny Hoyer cashed in all those chits and favors and, and whatever. And he's now starting, you know, now Bo' AFO is just sort of starting from scratch. And so what, what happens? How do the Democrats who want to organize, who understand and say publicly, we get it, we have to build something, we have to work. How do they do it? Who among them is in a position to do something like that?

[Jon Pothorts]

Can I, I just want to quickly answer that, which is that by definition, they're not builders. These are institutionalists. That means that they, they exist inside and accept and believe in the structure that they have lived in forever. If you tell them your house is burned down, the house is burned down, you now need to build a new house. And they don't have, they don't know how to build a new house. No one taught them carpentry. They were living in a, in an existing house. They're not carpenters. They're, they're tenants. And so the house is no longer there. It blew away in a hurricane or something like that. And Then over here are the, you know, are the people who have been building little houses all over the place. They know how to do it, and they're not gonna show and they're not gonna teach you how. You were the other type. They are the makers. You are the resident. And so you're either gonna have to move into their house or you're gonna be homeless.

[Josh Kraushar]

And adding to that, I would say that when you do see the Democrats getting their act together, it's when things hit rock bottom. Like, it's never darkest before the dawn. And San Francisco's an interesting example of that, where they elected a socialist anti incarceration da. Crime went up, homelessness went up, the city was unlivable, the mayor was on the left. That they actually elected a Bloomberg kind of acolyte, Daniel Lurie, a more moderate candidate not that long ago because things in San Francisco got so bad that even the most progressive Democrats realized we can't keep going on like this. I think in these legislative primaries where these are just, you know, the Congress has become sort of a glorified talking society and arguing society and social media, you know, show off for social media society, it's. The consequences seem a little less significant. Obviously we see what's going on, but I don't think a lot of voters are looking at this as having a direct impact on their daily lives, which is why we don't see as much governor's races turning on these socialist themes and extreme themes. They tend to be more pragmatic. It's these congressional primaries where we see the most of the action. But, like, look, I think in a weird way, like in New York City going back full circle, if Jessica Tisch wasn't NYPD commissioner and, you know, Imam Donnie actually, you know, really let his, you know, full freak flag fly. You know, things would get bad in New York City and people would get upset, and then they would realize there would be a consequence to all of this radicalism and there would be a backlash. We saw that during 2020 and 2021. The problem is this is sort. I mean, I will say that, you know, and looking at Mamdani, he clearly understands that, you know, he's trying to kind of see how far he can go. But by keeping Tish on board as commissioner and Menon as a check at the city council level, like the worst, you know, it could have been worse. It could even be worse if those folks were not in place. So I think, sadly, like, for people to actually realize the consequences of their decisions, things do have to actually you know, people have to just let governance just collapse according to the ideology that these people campaign on. And that would create the backlash. But we haven't seen that because there are enough people in institutions that are keeping things afloat in a lot of these places. And where that hasn't happened, where crime, for example, was going out of control in many cities post 2020, you did see a moderate backlash within the Democratic Party, except people have forgotten about that and now feels like ancient history.

[Seth Mandel]

Could it, could it come from anger at Mamdani from within New York Democrats? Is it possible that, you know, there are people like Nidia Velasquez who, you know, chose her own successor in Congress but then ended up taking on Mamdani because Mamdani was, you know, sort of the new. Whatever it is. Mamdani crossed certain people who were on their way out the door, I guess is one way of saying it, a spy. It is an interesting example of that also. And there's a couple of stragglers left like Tish James, the attorney general, who is like Bondani is out over his skis. He's too big for his British. Is there any.

[Jon Pothorts]

They are pipsqueaks. Tish James didn't get Trump. She was supposed to get Trump. Nydia Velazquez can barely speak English. They are pipsqueaks. He won 900,000 votes. They are pipsqueaks. Nia Velazquez probably hasn't gotten more than 75,000 votes in her district ever, even though she's won it for 30 years or however long she's been a con. This is not. There is no Institutional Democratic force to counter Mamdani without the kind of collapse that Josh is talking about. And the question about him is whether, given this unprecedented early political success in having coattails and this success he's had in getting the rent freeze, is he going to start feeling his oats and saying, I don't need Jessica Tisch anymore. I don't like her. I don't want her. I don't need her as a building her independent power base to run against me in 2029. I'm going to ditch her for somebody who is more favorably inclined toward my views of things. Watch that space. That could, that could really, really happen. Josh Kra, thank you so much for joining us. And having such a, you know, you're, you're, like, actually reporting on things, so you're like, you have substantive things to talk about, whereas we're just, like, shooting it over here every morning.

[Josh Kraushar]

So thank you, but I'm in the middle of everything. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's like ptsd, having to kind of report on all the crazy.

[Jon Pothorts]

Sorry about that. But we are very much in your debt for the brilliance of the job that you're doing at Jewish Insider and you and your colleagues, Mr. Bretterman and others who are, who are Gabby Deutsch

[Josh Kraushar]

and

[Jon Pothorts]

everybody who is like, just knocking it out of the park every day.

[Seth Mandel]

So we'll be back and have just released an app. Is that right? Maybe we should.

[Josh Kraushar]

Thank you. Yeah. The. We have a brand new app which is very, if I can say so myself, very elegant. You can easily read all the stories, share them, easy to log in. I really couldn't commend it enough. So I've been. I was on vacation last week and I was actually using it to kind of catch up on all the news that was going on. So it is downloaded on the Apple Store or Google Store or wherever you get your apps. But it is a really, really good product. That's an expansion.

[Jon Pothorts]

I'm excited. Jewish Insider app. Okay, Josh Krashow again, thanks. And for Seth and our absent colleagues, we'll be back on Monday. I'm John Pout Horiz. Keep the candle burning.