Some absolutely shocking (but not surprising) hate is being directed at Rep. Barbara Comstock’s House Resolution 257, designed to encourage federal law enforcement to look more directly at anti-Semitic sentiment directed at synagogues and similar institutions.
The resolution points out the obvious rise in hate directed at Jewish communities in particular, specifically directed at Jewish presenters on college campuses since 2015, the tripling of assaults on Jews since 2012, and over 100 bomb threats having been called in to Jewish synagogues in 2017 alone.
The response from the alt-right (and alt-lite) has been vicious at best, as noted by the Anti-Defamation League.
Just to give you one particular snapshot at the hate this has generated? On social media, individuals attached to the alt-right are twisting H.Res. 257 to be a form of anti-hate crime legislation directed at protecting Muslims — and the alt-right folks have been quick to correct who the (((real culprits))) truly are:
Yes — this is really what the critics actually believe.
Insofar as the resolution itself, the text is pretty straightforward in asking federal, state, and local officials to draw their attention to anti-Semitic sentiment and prosecute it fully under existing law. Not new laws; existing ones.
For what has to be the best explanation of what the alt-right really is and how nationalist groups have infiltrated and are quickly defining the movement, this interview of Angela Nagle does the trick — critical of both the alt-right and the “new left” (think Antifa or the Bernie Bros).
Comstock is to be commended for the resolution. Her critics, on the other hand, deserve more questions than answers — or better still, the oblivion they so richly deserve simply by ignoring their rhetoric.