There’s a large building I walk by in Miami that always has one, sometimes two, armed guards in full bulletproof body armor standing outside. Curiosity got the better of me one day, and I looked up what was inside that needed such heavy-duty protection.
It’s a Jewish center with a daycare.
Recommended Stories
On an unrelated note, Dan Bilzerian, an influencer with more than 29 million Instagram followers, just announced a run for Florida’s 6th Congressional District, while blasting his opponent, incumbent Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), as a “fat Jew.”
To be clear, there’s plenty to criticize Fine for. For example, the congressman has made what I consider to be vile and inhumane statements about Muslim people, called for the Gaza Strip to be nuked, and suggested that there’s no such thing as an innocent Palestinian. But no matter how controversial the target, using someone’s identity pejoratively such as this — i.e., “Fat Jew” — is textbook antisemitism that’s always immoral and unacceptable.
Yet when TMZ confronted Bilzerian on his blatant antisemitism, he responded by simultaneously insisting that he’s not antisemitic but also that it’s a “made-up term.”
After the clip went viral, Bilzerian followed it up on X by writing, “There will be no more apologies, Jewish cancel culture is dead, we are done with it.”
So, Bilzerian is not apologizing for, or even really denying, his virulent antisemitism. Yet a certain subset of internet personalities is nonetheless heralding and embracing him.
“I endorse Dan Bilzerian for Congress,” former UFC fighter Jake Shields announced to his 900,000 followers on X.
“I am voting Dan Bilzerian for Congress,” the streaming star “Sneako” added. (He does not live in Florida’s 6th Congressional District.)
Meanwhile, while Bilzerian has received plenty of criticism for his comments and is almost certainly not going to win any congressional election, the career-ending consequences that would’ve typically faced any public figure who engaged in such virulent hatred haven’t, and won’t, materialize.
Something here is deeply broken.
For a long time, political media and culture were hypersensitive and ultra-censorious, stifling debate and ruining people’s lives on a whim. But now, the cultural pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and it seems as though there are no standards at all. Those of us who argued against the illiberalism of “cancel culture” never imagined that things would swing so far in the opposite direction that you can blatantly lie to your audience or defame random people and remain, unpunished by audiences, at the top of the podcast charts.
This, too, is unsustainable.
PUBLIC UNIONS MAKE BLUE STATES UNGOVERNABLE
Words aren’t violence. But they’re also not inconsequential. And an online culture where people feel totally empowered to abandon all norms of decency to spew hatred and lies for virality’s sake is ultimately one that bleeds into the real world — and leaves more innocent people living in fear.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
