F**king Mondays: Ann Frank Defaced, Britain on Fire, And Kamala Surges!
The Banter's most popular column is back!
A quick note: apologies for the delay in getting this out - I had a schedule conflict and couldn’t finish my Monday column in time. We’ll be back at a regular time next week!
Stories to get your week started:
Ann Frank defaced
On the podcast this past weekend, Justin and I discussed the left wing coalition dedicated to bringing down Josh Shapiro’s potential VP candidacy. Shapiro, who is pro-Israel, has been singled out by pro-Palestinian activists ostensibly because of his position on the war in Gaza. Given every other candidate on Kamala Harris’s short list are pro-Israel and have voiced support for the Israeli assault on Gaza, it isn’t hard to see what is really going on here.
If you had any doubt about the underlying motivation of many pro-Palestinian left wing activists, just look at what happened at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam over the weekend:
Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager from Holland, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany aged 15 in 1945. What exactly were Ann Frank’s crimes against the people of Gaza? In the minds of antisemites the logic is clear: Israel is the Jewish state, therefore all Jews are synonymous with Israel, even Jews who were alive when Israel did not exist.
Never mind the fact that Anne Frank died in the single biggest extermination event in human history, or that Israel was created by the international community directly in response to the Holocaust. A normal person would see that both the Holocaust and what is happening in Gaza are terrible (but certainly not equivalents), that Jewish life is no more or less valuable than Palestinian life, and that everyone deserves to live in peace. But in the minds of hard core leftists, Jews are always the oppressors and their pain and suffering is not only irrelevant, but something to be mocked.
Britain on fire
I am very proud of my country and am an Englishman to my core, but what is happening in the UK right now makes me feel ashamed (via CNN):
Far-right riots swept Britain over the weekend, with outbreaks of anti-immigrant violence in a number of cities and towns, leaving the new UK government scrambling to control the worst disorder in more than a decade.
Crowds of far-right agitators set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers, leaving those inside trapped and terrified, while throngs of rioters in other cities damaged public buildings and clashed with police, throwing objects at officers and smashing their vehicles.
Protests first broke out late last month, after an anti-immigrant misinformation campaign stoked outrage over a stabbing attack that left three children dead in Southport, northern England.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer chaired his first COBRA session on Monday morning – an emergency meeting of national agencies and branches of government – to discuss the response to the disorder. “This is not protest,” he said on Sunday, adding: “It is organized, violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets, or online.”
This is something my own family went through when they arrived in Britain from the shtetls in eastern Europe, so I find watching this unfold particularly unpleasant.
There are of course reasons why this outpouring of hate occurred. Poverty under the conservative government skyrocketed after Brexit, and already struggling communities have basically been left to rot. As is almost always the case, the native population (if there is such a thing) are turning on immigrants in a Trumpian effort to “take back” their country. This isn’t to excuse the violence, but to explain that it did not arise in a vacuum.
Contrary to popular perception Britain isn’t a racist, colonizing, imperialist state. It is actually one of the least racist countries on earth, and one of the most friendly to immigrants. Although not without struggle, my own family managed to thrive in the UK, as have millions of other immigrants who have made hugely positive contributions to life there.
My hope is that the new Labour government is going to address the underlying causes of this horrific outpouring of hate while punishing the vile racists attacking innocent people. Then perhaps it can live up to its more noble ideals and not succumb to the dark forces of nativism.
For Banter Members:
Kamala Harris is surging
Some enormously positive news for the Democrats (via Newsweek):
Vice President Kamala Harris earned Democrats their highest lead over former President Donald Trump in nearly a year, according to a poll from Morning Consult.
The pollster released its latest survey on the 2024 election on Monday, which found Harris leading Trump 48 percent to 44 percent among registered voters across the country. Morning Consult said the poll was conducted between August 2 and 4 and is based on the responses of 11,265 voters.
Morning Consult said that Harris' 4-point lead is a "record-high margin in her favor" and is the "largest advantage for a Democratic presidential candidate over Trump in nearly a year," according to the pollster's election tracking.
While national polls aren’t necessarily good predictors of who will win the actual contest, the dramatic shift is still a very good sign. Trump is still slightly favored to win via the Electoral College, but Harris is gaining on him rapidly. It looks like Harris’s surge in the polls wasn’t just a novelty bounce either, but a tangible trend that is creating panic in the Trump camp.
I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks, but the more desperate Trump becomes, the more the nation needs to be on high alert. Trump is capable of enormous destruction if things aren’t going his way, and he’ll make this the nastiest, most racist campaign of his life if he thinks it’ll get him in the White House. While Harris needs to hit back at Trump’s lies and repulsive attacks, she cannot get into a mud slinging contest with him. Thus far, she’s doing an admirable job and the results speak for themselves.
See you next week!
If you are enjoying The Banter, please consider becoming a member. Members get access to The Emergency Meeting Podcast, all premium articles, and exclusive member chat threads! Your support is greatly appreciated:
Listen to the latest episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast:
For Banter Members:
The Emergency Meeting: DC Gossip Edition - Are Republicans Turning on JD Vance?
The word is in DC that Republicans are turning on JD Vance and a secret campaign has emerged to get rid of him, led by a very notable former Trump staffer. How badly does Vance compromise Trump’s campaign, and what would be the ramifications of dropping him from the ticket? We discuss this and the disaster Trump faces having picked the worst VP candidat…
Thank you guys so much for all you are doing to highlight and push back against left-wing anti-semitism. It’s so hard to find fellow Liberals who are apolitically pro-Israel. It seems all the other Jews who are part of the anti-Trump coalition of influence in media just trip over themselves to prove to fellow progs that they are “good Jews” who hate the IDF and the country as a whole.
My nana always had nice things to say about the British “murdering, Protestant bastards” and “hands stained with blood”, then again she was Irish you know how we are thank god the Brits civilized us.