Our politics are nearly binary. That is, hopefully, a good thing.
I told my kids a factoid that was hard for them to swallow. In the 1970s, Howard Cosell was both the most liked and most loathed sports broadcaster at the same time. My kids wondered how such a state of affairs could exist. There is no question that he always seemed to be at the big games, with his famous yellow ABC jacket for Monday Night Football. He appeared with Muhammad Ali during those critical points in his career. Some loved him for his sports knowledge and NYU Law School erudition. Others could not stand his nasal voice and his often patronizing broadcasting.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky tells the story of the relationship between the Jewish people and God as a story of a man and woman. The wife says that they have grown apart. The husband says that he has not moved; only she changed. There is a statement in the Old Testament where God states that He has not changed. And that is a fundamental concept in religion: God, the Omnipotent, does not change. He is as He always has been and always will be. If our relationship with Him has changed, then we only need to go to Walmart to buy a mirror to see where the problem lies. The former chief rabbi of the U.K. was once visited by a very big rabbi in Brooklyn and told him that he finds himself in difficult times. The rabbi told him that he put himself into difficult times.
Last week, we had the worst day of the otherwise joyous Jewish calendar: the ninth day of the month of Av. On that day, both Temples were destroyed in Jerusalem, one at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians and the second over 1,900 years ago by Titus and his Tenth Roman Legion. You can see the triumphal Titus Arch here with images of the menorah and other items taken from the Temple. The latter event is well documented, and burned wooden beams from the destruction of the First Temple were recently discovered. On that day, we fasted for 24 hours and spent much time on the floor saying special prayers that recall the destruction of these and other events, including German communities wiped out during the days of the Crusades. Interestingly, the prayers say a bit about the ones doing the destroying. They focus primarily on our failures that brought about the destruction. This does not free those who killed and plundered, but it also doesn’t let us say that we’re mere victims. If we had been better with God, the outcomes would have been different.
One point that many have made about Ben Shapiro is that his views have not changed. While one can run parallel videos of Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens saying diametrically opposed things with only a short period of time between the recordings, since Shapiro was a teenager, he has put forth a consistent view of America, private property, rights and obligations, and America’s place in the world. Whereas Carlson in the past condemned Iran and Islamic terror, he today says that the latter is a figment of Western civilization’s imagination and appears to blame the US for the current war against the Mullocracy. I have yet to see a video showing Shapiro contradict himself, though he admits that he did not support Donald Trump in 2016 but by 2020 became an enthusiastic supporter and fundraiser. While Carlson has explicitly stated that he thinks little of Trump today, Shapiro has made it clear that he sees Trump as the most consequential president in his lifetime.
And with almost every issue, one is presented with a stark choice that leaves very little room in the middle. Can people change their “gender” and thus access locker rooms and bathrooms all via the anti-biological claim of the person involved? Is climate changing in such a manner that we need to radically alter the way we live, or are climate events relatively normal and man’s activities make no difference in temperatures, coastlines, or the rest? Should the US continue to play its post-war outsized role in protecting sea lanes and promoting freedom, or should we just keep to ourselves and hope for the best on the other sides of the two oceans? Should we control our borders or throw them open to anyone who can somehow make his or her way to the Rio Grande? Is Israel an ally or a genocidal monster? Are all Jews guilty of crimes by virtue of Israelis protecting home and hearth? Did Israel do anything wrong in responding to the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust? Will the US go forward in a capitalistic or communistic direction? In these and other issues, the choices are black and white. We’re not talking about parsing income brackets for taxation; we’re talking about worldviews, and in virtually all of the above, tell me where you stand on one of the topics, and I can tell you your views on the others. There is very little heterodox thinking, because by the Democrats one is not allowed to question abortion or illegal immigration. There is no place for a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat. And while the Republicans still have some wiggle room—Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), for example—people who have a normal, often religiously based, view of the world choose the normal and generally sane options on all of the above.
Recently, Elon Musk was interviewed by a British journalist. She described the Tesla boss’ views as “far right”. Musk noted that his views were normal, but due to the radical movement of the left—with the media in tow—so far to the extreme on all issues, anyone holding a relatively moderate view is considered a right-wing nutjob. A closed and controlled border? Sounds like McCarthyism. Respect for gun rights. Now, you’re completely wacky. A demand for picture ID for elections. How dare you endanger our ability to cheat! Everything goes by perspective. I had a friend whose home never had formal dinner. It was each one for himself. When he got to Harvard, it was the first time that he witnessed a formal dinner meal with a daily periodicity. If a person grows up in a home with the endless lawn signs of nobody is illegal, stop Israel’s genocide, wear a mask or go to jail, etc., any view to the contrary would seem to be from Mars. Remember when we were castigated for noting that Wuhan started the virus and just happened to have a virus institute that worked on similar types of viruses? It took great effort to overcome Fauci, Biden, and the lapdog media to get the truth out, namely that the COVID-19 virus was engineered and somehow escaped the Chinese virus institute. Truth is always the casualty of the left because it generally gets in the way of their ideological goals.
The Babylonian Talmud has over 2,700 double-sided pages. One of the reasons why it is so long is that it includes numerous arguments over Jewish law. Much space is given to rabbinic opinions that we reject. Someone once asked why we have so much written about positions that we do not accept. The answer was that we should know these opinions should they ever pop up again—to know that they were rejected. One can certainly listen to Tucker and Megyn and the whole crew. The question is: do you accept Tucker’s most recent opinions, such as Russia and Qatar being wonderful, Islamic terror not really being a thing, Israel controlling Trump, etc? 2026 and 2028 will give Americans the opportunity to reject the lunacy of political opinions detached from our shared reality.