DW, Leni and Spike: They Got Shame

 In August 1990, Spike Lee penned a defensive op-ed in The New York Times titled "I Am Not an Anti-Semite," responding to accusations that his film Mo' Better Blues peddled antisemitic stereotypes through its portrayal of two Jewish club owners, Moe and Josh Flatbush, as greedy exploiters of Black jazz musicians. Lee insisted he was no bigot, just an artist crafting "honest portraits". He decried a "double standard" in Hollywood, where Black stereotypes abound without uproar, yet his brief depiction of Jews drew fire. He invoked whataboutism, comparing 10 minutes of screen time to 100 years of racist cinema, and accused detractors of hypocrisy for ignoring D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation—a film that glorified the KKK and incited lynchings—while scrutinizing him under a microscope. Ironically, Griffith and Leni Riefenstahl made similar pleas: Griffith denied racism, claiming Birth of a Nation was mere historical art; Riefenstahl swore she wasn't a Nazi propagandist, insisting Triumph of the Will was aesthetic documentary. All three hid behind "honesty" while mainstreaming hate.  Mo’ Better Bigots.

Thirty-six years on, in 2026, Lee no longer seems bothered by the "anti-Semite" label—he wears it like a badge, much like his hero Louis Farrakhan. At the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, Lee strutted courtside in a keffiyeh-patterned hoodie and bag strap with Palestinian flag colors, including the upside-down red triangle—a symbol popularized in Hamas propaganda to mark Israeli targets for destruction. Timed against Deni Avdija's historic debut as the first Israeli All-Star, it wasn't subtle solidarity—it was a targeted provocation. Lee has doubled down on pro-Palestine messaging since Israel's war on Hamas began in 2023, sharing Palestinian flags on Instagram and railing against accusations: "I just find it insane that if you speak about what's happening in Gaza…you’re antisemitic." This echoes Farrakhan's playbook—framing anti-Israel fervor as anti-racism while dismissing antisemitism charges as smears. Lee's history with Farrakhan vibes (like in Malcolm X, which nods to Nation of Islam themes) and his refusal to backpedal suggest he'd embrace the label now, not deny it as in 1990.

So the historical parallels sharpen: Griffith revolutionized cinema with The Birth of a Nation, pioneering narrative techniques like cross-cutting and close-ups -- using them to rehabilitate the Ku Klux Klan as heroic defenders of white purity against caricatured Black villains, fueling a KKK resurgence. Griffith denied bigotry, calling it "history". Riefenstahl elevated documentary form in Triumph of the Will, with innovative camera work and mass spectacle to humanize Hitler and glorify Nazism at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. She claimed it was pure art, not propaganda, denying her complicity till death. Lee, like his forebears, denies bias while indulging it: Mo' Better Blues revives Shylock tropes, and his 2026 All-Star stunt normalizes symbols tied to Hamas, a group whose charter calls for Israel's destruction. 

Lee might consider that history will place him in a ninth circle with Griffith and Riefenstahl—three cultural giants whose genius betrayed their fealty to normalizing eliminationism: Griffith—the KKK; Riefenstahl —the Nazis; Lee—Hamas.  In Inside Man, Lee's heist thriller, Christopher Plummer's character is the hidden enabler of Nazi Judeocide, profiting from collaboration behind a facade. Perhaps that's Lee's subconscious confession: the "inside man" of Hollywood, subtly enabling Judeocidal rhetoric under empowerment's guise, forever damned in the frozen circle of treachery.

Preserved on film.

MAGA Weren't Who You Thought They Were – And YOU Let Them Off the Hook

The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is often romanticized as a crusade to restore America to greatness through equal opportunity, individual rights, traditional family values, and a fight against big corporations and corrupt politicians who exploit ordinary people. This vision stands in stark contrast to the left's emphasis on viewing society solely through lenses of oppressor and oppressed, complete with hierarchies of marginalized identities that reward the accumulation of victimhood points—at this point anyone who chants "Free Palestine" loudly enough.

Yet this idealized portrait of MAGA's origins is flawed from the start. MAGA, much like its predecessor the Tea Party, was never truly about articulating or pursuing those precise lofty restorations. It served primarily as a necessary, if painful, corrective to the accelerating socialization of American society—a process that gained momentum with the 2008 election but had deeper roots, perhaps traceable to post-Iraq War Democratic realignments or even cultural blueprints evident in media like The West Wing. With "woke" ideology far from defeated, that corrective effort continues today.

Consider the supposed core principles. Equal opportunity, individual rights, and old-fashioned family values proved too nuanced and complicated for MAGA's broader appeal. The movement excelled at opposition—boycotting brands like Bud Light, reshaping debates around gender-affirming care, and potentially achieving breakthroughs in legal challenges against entities like Planned Parenthood (as seen in Missouri cases highlighting controversial medical claims about infant pain). These represent real cultural shifts, even if imperfect or incomplete. No political force wins every battle.

The notion that MAGA once aggressively confronted big corporations and politicians preying on the little guy also requires scrutiny. Corporate profits and size rarely troubled the movement until the COVID vaccine mandates, where objections centered on government coercion rather than capitalism itself. Big government drew ire primarily through taxation, while a strong military—or even the military-industrial complex—faced little inherent opposition when aligned with national priorities.

Recent criticisms highlight supposed betrayals. Complaints about Latino performers at the Super Bowl, for instance, were not mere linguistic or ethnic whining. They targeted figures like Bad Bunny, whose anti-ICE positions, pro-open-borders messaging during performances, and high-profile sponsorships struck directly at immigration concerns central to MAGA. The backlash reflected substantive policy disagreements, not blanket prejudice.

On the Epstein files, accusations of MAGA-led cover-ups miss the mark. Government bureaucracy—redactions and delays—drives the opacity, operating independently of any specific administration. Recent revelations from FBI interviews and documents show Trump contacted Palm Beach police in 2006 during early Epstein probes, reportedly expressing relief that authorities were intervening and noting that "everyone has known" about the behavior—undermining persistent smears linking him personally to the scandal.

Foreign policy charges fare similarly poorly under examination. Claims of "selling out" to Iran overlook that U.S. foreign policy has never hinged on body counts alone—a pattern stretching back over a century, not a MAGA innovation. Complex realities, as analyzed by non-partisan observers, defy simplistic moral outrage over casualty figures. Issues with Qatar trace to 2002 decisions predating the movement, with current handling arguably more assertive than prior approaches. Turkey's NATO tensions persist until fundamental changes like expulsion or U.S. withdrawal—challenges transcending any single political wave.

Fears of MAGA demanding unchecked governmental authority or craving dictatorship clash with constitutional limits and the movement's anti-abusive-state instincts. Libertarian purists may recoil, but this reflects pragmatism, not authoritarianism.

Even the observation that segments of the right—especially Gen Z—are echoing "Free Palestine" alongside the left positions those voices as left-adjacent and marginal within broader MAGA and GOP circles. This fringe, however vocal on influential platforms, remains a minority—dangerous in historical parallels to small groups seizing power (Bolsheviks, Iranian revolutionaries), yet containable, as seen in past neutralizations of figures like Charles Coughlin in the 1940s or earlier fringe elements through institutional pushback.  Figures like Steve Bannon played key roles in MAGA's rise—expelling birthers to make Trump electable in 2016—though sidelined later. Others, like Tucker Carlson (a Democrat until recently), align more with heterodox critics than core MAGA. These elements do not define the majority.

The greater peril lies with Democrats, who have fully embraced woke frameworks and appear to pursue power through strategies reminiscent of electoral consolidation in cities like New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles—mirroring historical authoritarian ascents.

MAGA was always more Trumpian marketing slogan than libertarian manifesto. Projecting grand ideological restorations onto it invited inevitable disappointment. As ancient wisdom counsels—echoing biblical and rabbinic teachings—expect little, and disillusionment follows less readily. The movement's fringes draw cues from the hard left, rendering them expendable, but its core endures as resistance against socialization, capable of tangible cultural and political impacts.

In the end, MAGA never fell from lofty heights, because those heights were never its terrain. It remains an imperfect, vital counterforce for everyday Americans in a landscape where woke persists and identity-driven tactics consolidate elsewhere.  But if you built them up in your head as some pure, principled army of small-government libertarians ready to restore equal opportunity and smash the corrupt elite—and then got shocked when they turned out to be a blunt, populist hammer swinging against whatever felt like the latest overreach, with no interest in your - or any, really - carefully curated ideology - they were off the hook the moment you made that assumption.

They weren't who YOU thought they were.