Is anyone concerned about the political horseshoe on Israel?

ThatRobGuy · Friday at 6:39 PM

As someone who consumes a lot of content (from the furthest left commie stuff you can find, to the alt-right type of content)...not because I agree with either of those positions, but merely because I find it interesting to know what makes other people tick...

I've seen a pattern of social media influencers from both wings sharing each other's content.

Just as an example:

91K views · 4.8K reactions | Please share! | Womanpropaganda

Please share! .

www.facebook.com

If you're familiar with this guy's content...it's not necessarily someone you want to be associated with.

Likewise, if someone's a far-left influencer, praising Marjorie Taylor Greene for "getting it right" on Israel doesn't necessarily send a great message either.

Speaking as someone who feels that criticism of the Israeli government is not only valid, but appropriate, I certainly don't think it does me any favors to have similar criticisms being associated with BOTH the far-left and far-right.

RocksInMyHead · Friday at 7:09 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
As someone who consumes a lot of content (from the furthest left commie stuff you can find, to the alt-right type of content)...not because I agree with either of those positions, but merely because I find it interesting to know what makes other people tick...

I've seen a pattern of social media influencers from both wings sharing each other's content.

Just as an example:

91K views · 4.8K reactions | Please share! | Womanpropaganda

Please share! .

www.facebook.com

If you're familiar with this guy's content...it's not necessarily someone you want to be associated with.

Likewise, if someone's a far-left influencer, praising Marjorie Taylor Greene for "getting it right" on Israel doesn't necessarily send a great message either.

Why? Personally, I think it's good to recognize that even people you disagree with on 99% of the issues can still agree with you on something. Reflexively condemning everything that a person says just because you think they're a horrible person isn't productive. It gives me the slight hope that maybe we can walk back from the toxic brink we currently find ourselves on.

ThatRobGuy · Friday at 7:16 PM

RocksInMyHead said:
Why? Personally, I think it's good to recognize that even people you disagree with on 99% of the issues can still agree with you on something. Reflexively condemning everything that a person says just because you think they're a horrible person isn't productive. It gives me the slight hope that maybe we can walk back from the toxic brink we currently find ourselves on.

If it's because of the same underlying reasons, that's one thing... but that's not the case in this instance.

If Joe says
"I support abortion because it's a woman's choice for what happens with her body"

And Dave says
"I support abortion because it's mainly minorities who get abortions, and that'll mean fewer Black people around a few years from now"

Then their positions are not the same.

RocksInMyHead · Friday at 7:25 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
If it's because of the same underlying reasons, that's one thing... but that's not the case in this instance.

If Joe says
"I support abortion because it's a woman's choice for what happens with her body"

And Dave says
"I support abortion because it's mainly minorities who get abortions, and that'll mean fewer Black people around a few years from now"

Then their positions are not the same.

In this case, the positions appear to be generally unified. Genocide is wrong. Starving children is wrong. Bombing civilians is wrong.

ETA: I'm guessing the first guy you linked is some kind of antisemite or neo Nazi - I'm not familiar with him at all (thanks for giving him clicks and views /s), but someone taking your content and twisting it to suggest that it supports their hateful message is nothing new and happens all the time. If we saw people on the left taking his video and reposting it, saying "oh look, even this guy agrees with us!" yeah, that would be all kinds of dumb, but I don't think that's happening.

In the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene, while she's said some pretty racist things about Jewish people in the past, her criticism of Israel in this situation has been pretty measured and accurate. And, notably, she started out supporting Israel in its retaliation for October 7th (because if there's anyone that MTG hates more than Jews, it's Muslims!), so the shift is worth commenting on.

ThatRobGuy · Friday at 7:50 PM

RocksInMyHead said:
In this case, the positions appear to be generally unified. Genocide is wrong. Starving children is wrong. Bombing civilians is wrong.

ETA: I'm guessing the first guy you linked is some kind of antisemite or neo Nazi - I'm not familiar with him at all (thanks for giving him clicks and views /s), but someone taking your content and twisting it to suggest that it supports their hateful message is nothing new and happens all the time. If we saw people on the left taking his video and reposting it, saying "oh look, even this guy agrees with us!" yeah, that would be all kinds of dumb, but I don't think that's happening.

In the case of Marjorie Taylor Greene, while she's said some pretty racist things about Jewish people in the past, her criticism of Israel in this situation has been pretty measured and accurate. And, notably, she started out supporting Israel in its retaliation for October 7th (because if there's anyone that MTG hates more than Jews, it's Muslims!), so the shift is worth commenting on.

Her criticism in this case may be valid "on paper", but is it aimed at serving different ends?

If a person is critiquing Israel because it fits in with some broader antisemitic trope, then that's not the same as more objective critiques.

For example:

Israeli settlers are forcing Palestinians out of their homes, and taking over the territory because they believe that every non-Jewish person is "goy" whose purpose on this earth should be to serve the Jewish population

...that can be a legitimate critique that's based in reality, or something Richard Spencer would say to get others to hate Jewish people (more broadly)

jacks · Friday at 7:53 PM

Not sure what a "political horseshoe" is, but yes I'm concerned. "Criticism of the Israeli government" is perfectly valid, however it can quickly become antisemitic rhetoric. This is a fine line that people have trouble negotiating. I believe Israel feels threatens and is in the mindset of fighting a war. Many atrocities happen in war, this conflict is no exception. And like all wars, it is the innocent that usually suffer the most.

perplexed · Friday at 8:05 PM

RocksInMyHead said:
In this case, the positions appear to be generally unified. Genocide is wrong. Starving children is wrong. Bombing civilians is wrong.

They are generally unified but I think it is worth noting the differences
hard right has the attitude America should look after itself and not get involved in pointless wars
and the hard left has the attitude that the powerful west is being oppressive .

DaisyDay · 2025-09-06T08:09:56-0500

Is it news that "Politics makes strange bedfellows"?

durangodawood · 2025-09-06T09:12:55-0500

Its useful to know what bad-motive people are up to.

But dont let them set your own ideological agenda positively or negatively.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-09-06T09:29:56-0500

jacks said:
Not sure what a "political horseshoe"

A political horseshoe simply refers to a scenario in which the farther right and farther left actually converge on an issue (against the moderates) as opposed to the normal political pattern where the far left and far right have polar opposite positions.

...but there are usually differing motivations and reasons for the position.

As another example, anti-war positions can fit that mold.

However, a person can be anti-war because they oppose the use of guns and violence, or they can be anti-war because they're isolationists who don't want to pay taxes for it. (so their position is the same, but for very different reasons)

RocksInMyHead · 2025-09-06T09:36:55-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
Her criticism in this case may be valid "on paper", but is it aimed at serving different ends?

If a person is critiquing Israel because it fits in with some broader antisemitic trope, then that's not the same as more objective critiques.

Sure, but no one is responsible for another person's motives.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-09-06T09:42:47-0500

DaisyDay said:
Is it news that "Politics makes strange bedfellows"?

It's not necessarily news...

But there are degrees to which those strange bedfellows situations can be concerning.

For example, when Rand Paul votes with some Democrats on drug legalization, that's not necessarily cause for concern.

However, if the group waving the Iranian flags at protests and the group with Confederate flags at protests start sharing some talking points, that can be a little more concerning (especially when a few of those talking points happen to overlap with some more mainstream talking points, but in ways that can easily be dovetailed into a much more radical ideology)

The example I provided earlier
Israeli settlers are forcing Palestinians out of their homes, and taking over the territory because they believe that every non-Jewish person is "goy" whose purpose on this earth should be to serve the Jewish population

That's technically a true statement regarding Hasidic settlers, and one I've heard from non-Radical sources.

The problem is that the statement can also be a "page 1" of a sales pitch brochure by Islamists or Neo-Nazis.

durangodawood · 2025-09-06T10:00:22-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
It's not necessarily news...

But there are degrees to which those strange bedfellows situations can be concerning.

For example, when Rand Paul votes with some Democrats on drug legalization, that's not necessarily cause for concern.

However, if the group waving the Iranian flags at protests and the group with Confederate flags at protests start sharing some talking points, that can be a little more concerning (especially when a few of those talking points happen to overlap with some more mainstream talking points, but in ways that can easily be dovetailed into a much more radical ideology)

The example I provided earlier
Israeli settlers are forcing Palestinians out of their homes, and taking over the territory because they believe that every non-Jewish person is "goy" whose purpose on this earth should be to serve the Jewish population

That's technically a true statement regarding Hasidic settlers, and one I've heard from non-Radical sources.

The problem is that the statement can also be a "page 1" of a sales pitch brochure by Islamists or Neo-Nazis.

We cant avoid true things just because bad people happen to agree with them from time to time.

Decent people need to keep their heads on straight, especially in this reality challenged time. Dont deny awkward truths. Put them in proper context instead.

Hans Blaster · 2025-09-06T19:12:16-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
A political horseshoe simply refers to a scenario in which the farther right and farther left actually converge on an issue (against the moderates) as opposed to the normal political pattern where the far left and far right have polar opposite positions.

...but there are usually differing motivations and reasons for the position.

Are you inviting the left and the right here to gang up on you?

ThatRobGuy · 2025-09-06T19:25:44-0500

Hans Blaster said:
Are you inviting the left and the right here to gang up on you?

Quite the opposite, I actually mentioned that a lot of political horseshoe situations are concerning.

I'd prefer if the "reasonable critiques of Israel based on their bad behavior" was the moderate position, or if there was a more mainstream moderate manifestation of that position, but alas, such a position doesn't appear to exist in congress.

The overwhelming majority of moderate republicans and democrats in congress are still in the lock-step "We need to support Israel no matter what they do because they're our biggest ally" trope.

And the people in congress critiquing Israel are doing so on premises (and attempting to appeal to crowds) that I, quite frankly don't want to be a part of.

I don't want to associate with the ilk that determines "which belligerent is in the wrong" by holding up a color swatch that goes from light beige to dark brown or filters everything through a "colonizer" lens. Nor do I want to associate with the "Jewish space lasers" MJT crowd... which, to me, comes across as "ummm...uh...yeah, that's the reason we don't like Israel... it's because they're committing a genocide...yeah, that's why :wink wink nudge nudge:"

Or to put it more bluntly
I'm not going to align with the group that almost always arbitrarily takes the side of "whoever is darker" or "more historically marginalized by US standards"

Nor am I going to get cozy with the folks who are merely leveraging Israel's recent bad actions in this instance as a "socially acceptable paintjob" over top of their preexisting antisemitic tendencies.

I guess there's Thomas Massie and Rand Paul, but I'm not sure they really count as moderates per say.

Chesterton · 2025-09-06T20:32:19-0500

Is it a horseshoe when lots of black commentators are heaping praise on Nick Fuentes, or is that just unexpected agreement among people who are deep down the same? And were we wrong to not expect it?

Is anyone concerned about the political horseshoe on Israel?

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