MAY 8, 2025
Sebastian Bennett is a foreign affairs officer in the nation’s capital. He has held a number of jobs in government, including as an aide to a Senator on Capitol Hill and as a presidential management fellow at a major federal department. Sebastian has also worked for think tanks, both in the nation’s capital and in Madrid. He was also a White House Intern. Sebastian has a post-graduate degree in international relations. Due to the sensitive nature of his current position, he is writing for The Daily Dissident, which he co-founded, under an assumed name.
It’s not easy being Jewish. It never was. For good reason, major Jewish holidays, so it goes, follow the same narrative arc: They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s eat. Yet Jews’ collective subconscious, haunted by historical persecution, may need updating to account for a more accommodating climate. To loosely paraphrase a Zionist proverb, there seem to be plenty of unconditional friends for a people unconditioned to having Continue Reading...
It was the pictures of Palestinians swimming and sunning at a Gaza beach that rubbed Yehuda Shlezinger, an Israeli journalist, the wrong way. Stylish in round red glasses and a faint scruff of beard, Mr. Shlezinger unloaded his revulsion at the “disturbing” pictures while appearing on Israel’s Channel 12. “These people there deserve death, a hard death, an agonizing death, and instead we see them enjoying on the beach and having fun,” complained Continue Reading...
"A specter is haunting the world — the specter of American isolation. Signs of a retrenchment start with Congress’ reluctance to authorize additional military assistance for Ukraine to defend it from a revanchist Russia. An aid bill finally made it to Biden’s desk for a signature this week, but it took the GOP-led House months to pass their version of the legislation, with many Republican leaders claiming the U.S. should focus instead on Continue Reading...
"LAST NOVEMBER, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) awarded Donald Trump its highest honor, the Theodor Herzl Gold Medallion. Nine days later, the former president dined with two of America’s most prominent antisemites, rapper Kanye West and white nationalist provocateur Nick Fuentes. Noting the proximity of the two events, The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner asked ZOA president Morton Klein an uncomfortable Continue Reading...
"It’s an Oscar tradition: a serious political speech pierces the bubble of glamour and self-congratulation. Warring responses ensue. Some proclaim the speech an example of artists at their culture-shifting best; others an egotistical usurpation of an otherwise celebratory night. Then everyone moves on. Yet I suspect that the impact of Jonathan Glazer’s time-stopping speech at last Sunday’s Academy Awards will be significantly more lasting, with Continue Reading...
"My father was something of a lapsed Jew. An ardent atheist, he thought all religion, including Judaism, was a dangerous anachronism. He couldn’t speak a lick of Yiddish, unlike his Russian-born father, and disliked most Kosher food. Borscht Belt humor was lost on him . . . " Continue Reading...
Two Jews may have three opinions but they’re likely to share political preferences. At least that goes for American Jews, who tend to lean left. “Jews earn like Episcopalians,” the sociologist Milton Himmelfarb once wryly observed, “and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Politically conservative Jews have long rued this supposed contradiction, viewing each election cycle as an opportunity for their coreligionists to come to their senses. Many had hoped Continue Reading...
It was of no karmic significance that Art Basel Miami Beach, arguably the nation’s premier art fair, opened soon after the UN published its latest climate report. The two were entirely unrelated. Nevertheless, global warming might have been a central theme at the annual extravaganza, which claims to feature the “highest quality” contemporary art, given the threat it presents. The UN report underscored the point, warning that dramatic action is Continue Reading...
At a critical moment in the 2016 presidential campaign, President Obama met with Republican congressional leaders and, after presenting them with evidence of Russian tampering, asked that they uniformly condemn it. GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others refused. The evidence just wasn't there. But it was. And many of the same lawmakers eagerly condemned Hillary Clinton's perceived misdeed, as reported by the FBI. So much for Continue Reading...
Liberal democracy faces grave dangers, most significantly, perhaps, from rapacious capitalism that unremittingly concentrates wealth. Putin is another threat. After consolidating his own power in Russia, he has stepped up a campaign against liberalism abroad, first in Russia's "near abroad" in Eastern Europe, and now the US. Is Trump his latest trophy? Continue Reading...
For eight years, the GOP employed strategic obstructionism to stymie Obama's mildly progressive agenda, even when his proposals, such as the Affordable Care Act or the stimulus, closely aligned with their own. Putting country first? Nope. This was pure partisanship in the service of partisanship. And it worked! Continue Reading...
Is the so-called "liberal," "elite" media really as cosseted and cloistered as its critics suggest? Actually, yes. Like the Democracy Party, the media - defined here as the mainstream variety - largely comprises well-educated, coastal types who have little in common (and often disdain) middle-America, working class whites. Little wonder it has earned the latter's ire. Continue Reading...
What happens when the purported party of the working class abandons its proletarian roots, while the other major party pushes crazed conspiracy theories, paranoia, and racism as an obfuscatory tactic to conceal its plutocratic agenda? A virulent populism that threatens the republic. Whose to blame for Trump? We all are. Continue Reading...
How did a clownish buffoon rise from obscurity to lead one of the world's great civilizations that produced soaring art and culture? Historians have been asking the question since the demise of the Third Reich. Hitler confounds. Here are some clues: cunning exploitation of nativist fears, exploitation of irresistible propaganda, and "bottomless mendacity." Found familiar. It should. Continue Reading...
