https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/12/has-hitler-won-on-the-left
Carl Trueman of Grove City College laments the moral decline in society and the kind of confusion that would lead to people celebrating the 7 October Hamas attack on Southern Israel.
Undoubtedly there is a great deal of moral confusion at the present hour and I think some people allowed emotion to overtake both reason and moral focus when the attacks occurred.
But why the emotion? Because they hate Jews? Overwhelmingly I would say the answer is 'no'. Those who reacted that way are people that have followed events and the long and tortured history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. It's a terrible story and one that is all the more frustrating when it is so little known and understood – and even more poorly reported by the Israel-friendly media.
The Palestinians exploded in rage and there's a reason why they did this. Those who haven't been following the story will tend to see it as a case of innocent Israel minding its own business and being ruthlessly attacked. That's a misrepresentation. In many respects the actions of Hamas on 7 October were more akin to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as ironic as that may seem.
And that is the great irony here – a truth stranger than fiction. The state that builds it very narrative of existence off the experience of the Holocaust has itself succumbed to a fascistic party and racialist ideology – and we need not shrink from that term. That's what Likud is. Revisit the history of Israel in the lead up to 1948. There were fascist factions and they coalesced in Likud and came to power in the 1970's.
Israel was the darling of the Left for twenty years – from 1948 until the Six Day War in 1967. At which point the ugliness began to emerge as Israel seized even more territory and became more oppressive. World opinion began to shift and Israeli society in response shifted far to the Right. Even Netanyahu has been forced to the Right as his latest coalition has outflanked him. Under the current government the extremists have come to power – something unthinkable just twenty years ago. These are not the former militants and fascists of Lehi/Stern Gang or the Irgun. No, these are fanatics from beyond the pale – who have now been mainstreamed. They openly refer to the Palestinians as animals.
None of this excuses the celebration of violence and yet is Trueman concerned when his fellow Evangelicals celebrate America's wars and assassinations? One thinks of Trump's assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020 – a murder defended and celebrated by the Evangelical community, including John Stonestreet of the Colson Center. Should this not raise eyebrows or be a cause for concern? Shouldn't we talk about the moral compass of the Evangelical movement or its rapid slide?
Returning to Israel, the shift to the Right led to other ugly chapters in the history of the Zionist state. Under Right-wing governments Israel collaborated with South Africa (resonating with their racialist statecraft and apartheid project) and Tel Aviv has engaged in widespread assassination – with impunity it might be added. It has an undeclared but well known nuclear weapons programme even while it and its American ally scream in protest when anyone else even seeks to develop nuclear energy. Israel bombed both Iraqi and Syrian reactors – moves that would lead to international outrage had another nation done the same. Israel has committed atrocities in the context of the Lebanese Civil War and so much more could be said.
Did Hamas take hostages? Yes – from their standpoint, the Israelis are holding thousands of their innocent women in children in incognito detention with no hope of trial. They are outraged by this and it the bitterness has simmered and percolated for years and decades – and if this were explained, some might understand why they would be prone to kidnap innocent people on 7 October.
Did they gun down innocents at a desert rave? Yes, they did. But as anyone knows who has been paying attention for the past twenty or thirty years – thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinian children, teens, young men and women have been killed by IDF soldiers and Settler militias. This reality doesn't justify the actions of Hamas – but it's not in a vacuum, a kind of dreamt up pure evil. Rather, it's an evil response to evil.
Is Trueman not concerned that the American Evangelical lobby supports all of this – and largely due to the heresy of Dispensationalism? He speaks of Hitler – what of a theology that supports mass murder and atrocity? One need look no farther than American Evangelicalism.
And while he equates the evolving of ethics of the Left with some kind of triumph of Hitlerism (due to a perceived narrative of Anti-Semitism), is he really going to ignore the elephant in the room? Is he going to ignore the fact that the American GOP has slipped into overt fascism and now almost unconditionally supports a fascistic immoral monster – a criminal, murderer, rapist, serial adulterer, and compulsive liar?
The media neglected to mention that figures like Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who railed against the college presidents for their tolerance of Anti-Semitism is a collaborator with actual Far Right Anti-Semitic groups, ones that used to be beyond the pale, but are now well within the boundaries of the Trumpite movement. Trump's son-in-law may be Jewish and his plastic surgery daughter a convert, but large swathes of his supporters are actual Anti-Semites and many who promote The Great Replacement Theory villainize Jews whom they believe to be one of the responsible factions among the 'Liberal Elite'.
Stefanik is a promoter of GRT and has also endorsed Carl Paladino – a Trump-like figure who has inserted himself into the politics of Western New York. As I often partake of Western New York radio stations, I've been hearing his name for many years. A patently corrupt multi-millionaire, Paladino has openly praised Hitler and like Trump engages in thuggish rhetoric calling for opponents to be executed and the like – including Attorney General Merrick Garland who (it should be pointed out) is Jewish.
Stefanik for her part is a rising star in the GOP and quite popular with the Christian Right. Does her rank hypocrisy not disturb Trueman? There's a real moral problem here. She set herself up as some kind of moral authority or judge of these college presidents. Had they been better briefed, they could have locked horns with her and made her look the fool and hypocrite that she is.
For Trueman to ignore all of this tells me that either he's waded into waters beyond his depth or he's deliberately choosing to obscure these ugly realities and giving these people a pass in order to craft his First Things narrative.
Lost people will be lost. We shouldn't expect any different and history demonstrates how empires fall into decadence – which inevitably leads to perversion and degenerate behaviour. Is it any wonder the hyper-individualist culture of the United States and the West in general would fall into this? Is this not the end result of Classical Liberalism and its democratic regime of rights? The sad truth that no one seems willing to admit is that both sides, both political factions have contributed to the social rot. What passes for conservatism in the United States isn't always conservative but is often Right-wing. They're not the same thing.
And also, simply because there is a conservative element in a society does not mean it's compatible with Christianity. Conservative only has meaning when it's contrasted with something else.
We can talk about the conservatism of the Roman Republic versus the post-Second Punic War slide into chaos and empire. One can definitely contrast the old Roman virtue with that of the period leading up to the Gracchi and after. Austerity and altruism were replaced by decadence very much along the lines of what we're witnessing today. And yet, that doesn't mean that the old Roman conservative values were Christian. Not for a moment. The same is true in the West and specifically in America. When the 'Greatest Generation' is compared to the Millennials they look pretty conservative – maybe even moral. But don't be fooled into thinking that generation was Christian. And besides, they're actually the ones who sold out and gave into decadence. It's just that people didn't realize it until a generation later when the seeds they planted bore fruit.
I'm far more concerned about the utter moral collapse that has taken place within the Evangelical movement and its inseparable alliance with Right-wing forces. The road has been paved to fascism and we see this with not only the anti-democratic moves being made by this Trumpite faction but also with the outright insurrection that took place three years ago. And Stefanik is fully on board the Trump train when it comes to all of these narratives about the 'stolen' election and January 6.
I am baffled that the author of Republocrat who in 2011 seemed rather concerned (and rightly so) over the Right-wing culture of Evangelicalism and its slavish devotion to propaganda outlets like FOX – seems now to have joined the camp.
I am concerned that Trueman (who I once respected) has now signed on with the Evangelical project – is a rising star in the movement, and in addition has moved over (it would seem) into the ecumenical camp. From his contributions to ECT-inspired First Things, to his collaborations with Colsonites like John Stonestreet, Trueman seems to be on board with the ECT/ecumenical agenda – regardless of whether or not he officially 'signs' on.
While some of his recent work on the self and modern confusion with regard to gender and the like has been helpful, I'm not sure he should be listened to without qualification and without some doubt and some questions with regard to his level of discernment. This article is case in point. I think he too is losing his way and this latest offering only adds to my already growing doubt.
Lost people being outraged over Israeli conduct and fifteen years of a Gazan siege is understandable. Anyone with any understanding or moral sense should be outraged by the actions and policies of Tel Aviv. The response to the break-out was ill-advised and misguided. Let it also be said that while a mass murder did take place, the numbers of October 7 dead were greatly amplified by the Israeli army response – the very sort of indiscriminate counter-attack that would lead to Russia being condemned by the Kremlin's response to the Chechens in the Moscow theatre (2002) or at Beslan (2004). And the mass rape narrative is highly suspect to say the least and thus far lacking evidence.
That said, no slaughter should ever be celebrated – even though Evangelicals routinely celebrate atrocity in their churches by means of lies and romanticised narratives regarding America's wars and proxy wars which have resulted in millions of deaths since World War II. It is truly an abomination.
The moral collapse in society is a cause for concern but there's nothing to be done about it apart from the preaching of the gospel. I'm sure Trueman would disagree and that's fine. The point can be debated but the New Testament Scriptures are quite clear on this point.
While the collapse of societal morals should trouble us, we should be far more concerned about the state of Evangelical morality and its rapid collapse. Trueman's efforts are not helping and in this case he's not even addressing them.
To cast the whole Palestinian question in terms of a pseudo-woke Cultural Marxist narrative is offensive. There might be some who think that way but there are many more that do not and the outrage over Israeli policy goes back decades before anyone was even talking about this nonsense. Trueman knows this and thus I find his tact to be not only myopic but self-serving.
There's no doubt the term genocide has been abused and I would hesitate to use it even with regard to the mass slaughter in Gaza but there's no doubt that Netanyahu's policy is to drive the people of Gaza out. Their choice is to leave or die. And what about the shocking things being said in Evangelical circles? To be honest they do in fact sound genocidal and I don't think too many within that unfortunate movement would care if Netanyahu just started slaughtering them. It's interesting that Western media seems quite keen to ignore the large-scale executions of Palestinians that are taking place. It certainly generates a lot of questions.
If Trueman wants to argue the American system of higher education is completely corrupt and money driven I'll be the first to agree. I have a son in college.
But why is it this way? As a British citizen, one would think he would have a little more insight. The American system is money driven. The schools are technically non-profits but that's not how they operate. They operate like businesses and thus the system of higher education has degenerated into a big racket that has little to do with academic achievement or prowess. There are kids in my son's classes that shouldn't have graduated high school but because they have the money (or access to it) – they get to go to college. And because it's all about the money, the quality of the education has most certainly been 'dumbed down' to accommodate them.
Is Trueman ready to criticise the privatised models of American education that are rooted in capitalist ideology? It's a long overdue conversation but I have a feeling that's not the direction he wants to go. His employer (Grove City College) would certainly not encourage such a conversation.
If he wants to have a larger discussion about Hitler's 'victory', then by all means lets revisit the post-World War II period and the role Nazis played in the government of West Germany, within South America, and also the many 'ex-fascists' directly in the pay of US intelligence. We can talk about the Cold War and how various war-era fascists were rehabilitated and used to organise anti-communist blocs within their respected countries. We can talk about the resurgent Right in Europe and the way actual fascists are even now shaping EU policy with regard to questions like immigration.
In other words, Trueman's arguments are shallow at best and misleading at worst.
I have appreciated Trueman at times in the past. Something has happened and once again this article only confirms my growing concern with the direction he has taken.