Musk: Empowering anti-Semites?

Elon Musk has an explanation for the mess he’s made of Twitter, said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times: It’s all the Jews’ fault. In a “ferocious, spittle-flecked attack,” Musk claimed last week that ad revenues at X—as Twitter is now called—had sunk 60 percent because of pressure on advertisers from the Anti-Defamation League. In several posts, he accused the Jewish rights group of “trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic,” and threatened to sue the ADL for defamation, saying he’s owed at least $4 billion in damages. Musk also engaged with a post from a white supremacist that promoted the hashtag #BanTheADL, and asked if he “should run a poll on this.” What has the ADL done to so infuriate the tech mogul? In May, it published a report showing how “vile anti-Semitic content” boomed after Musk bought the platform, reinstated previously banned accounts, and fired content moderators. As his “outburst of anti-Semitism” makes clear, Musk has “gone utterly off the rails.”

“Musk’s criticism of the ADL isn’t anti-Semitic,” said David Harsanyi in the New York Post. Run by a former Barack Obama appointee, the group has become a “leftist social-justice outlet” that ignores progressive anti-Semitism while “exaggerating the threat of anti-Semitism on the Right.” It “dishonestly” frames Musk’s devotion to free speech as endorsement of anti-Semitic content. Yes, there are Jew haters on X, but that’s “an unfortunate price” of open discourse. There are “valid reasons to criticize the ADL,” said Philip Klein in National Review. But by singling out the ADL among the many groups that have criticized hate speech on X, Musk validates the toxic views of those who “see Jews as uniquely responsible for the world’s ills.”

The irony is rich, said Margaret Sullivan in The Guardian. A self-proclaimed free speech “absolutist” is targeting the ADL for engaging in free speech. If anyone is culpable for wrecking X, it’s Musk, who has hemorrhaged users and advertisers with “a series of stunningly bad decisions.” The thin-skinned billionaire has gone beyond blaming the ADL for X’s business woes, said Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic. He said they were “one of the biggest generators of anti-Semitism” on X because of their “aggressive demands,” feeding the age-old conceit that Jews bring about their own persecution. But no matter “how many Jewish scapegoats he slaughters,” Musk won’t be able to fix his platform’s woes. They “stem from his own inadequacy, not Jewish mendacity.”

The convictions of and lengthy sentences given to the far-right Proud Boys “are a victory for democracy,” said Jon Lewis in CNN.com. Convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role orchestrating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced last week to 22 years—less than the 33 years requested by prosecutors, but still the longest sentence given to anyone involved in the insurrection. Earlier, he turned down prosecutors’ offer to plead guilty and serve nine to 11.5 years; Tarrio said he was pressured to testify that he communicated with President Trump before the attack. Four other Proud Boys recently received sentences ranging from 10 to 18 years for serving in what prosecutors called “Donald Trump’s army.” Judge Timothy J. Kelly called Tarrio the insurrection’s “ultimate leader,” who helped plan and direct the attack from outside Washington, D.C., texting subordinates as the violence at the Capitol escalated: “Don’t f---ing leave.”

Tarrio and his co-conspirators are “hardly sympathetic figures,” said Christian Britschgi in Reason, but these sentences amount to an unjust “trial penalty.” They’re “receiving sentences one might get for murder” as punishment for insisting on their right to a trial, rather than accepting plea bargains. Average sentences for federal felonies are seven years longer when defendants go to trial— a penalty that liberals and libertarians usually “harshly criticize.” Severe sentences can cut both ways, said Shane Burley in MSNBC. Left-wing activists have also been charged with crimes after protests, and progressives should be “wary” of the idea that “participation in a demonstration makes you an accomplice to violence.”

The violent attempt to prevent “the peaceful transfer of power” was no ordinary protest, said Matt Lewis in The Daily Beast, but sadly, Republicans are now portraying the Jan. 6 rioters as victims and even as “good guys.” Two Republican presidential candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, claimed that the Proud Boys were denied due process by politically motivated prosecutors. DeSantis called the sentences “excessive,” while Ramaswamy pledged to pardon all “nonviolent” participants if elected. So has Trump. This means that the fates of the hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters who’ve been convicted will be on the ballot in the 2024 presidential election. Indeed, the election may determine “whether Donald Trump is in a position to pardon himself.”