The Dictatorship
Rising antisemitism in Britain is a frightening preview of America’s future
Great Britain saved my family from Nazism.
On the eve of World War II, many countries, including the United States, still limited Jewish immigration. But in July 1939, my grandparents were able to flee Germany for England. They settled in London, and two years later, my mother was born. Eight years after that, they emigrated to the United States. The family they left behind died in Hitler’s death camps.
Most European Jews were unable to escape — in part, it must be pointed out, because of British policy. Many of them would have gladly taken refuge in Palestine, then a British colony. But in May 1939, the British government effectively ended Jewish immigration to the territory. Still, for my family, Britain will always be viewed fondly as a safe haven from the horrors of the Holocaust.
That fondness makes the current situation for British Jews uniquely painful. Once a nation that welcomed victims of the Nazis, today the U.K. is increasingly a place where Jews are forced to look over their shoulder and hide their Jewishness. For American Jews, what’s happening across the Atlantic offers a disquieting preview of our possible future.
Last year, violent assaults against American Jews reached the highest level since 1979.
Over the last 2 1/2 years, but particularly in the last few weeks, antisemitic violence and harassment have become the new normal for British Jews. Last week, in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green in London, two Jewish men were stabbed by a knife-wielding attacker. This violence follows multiple arson and attempted arson attacks on synagogues, Jewish businesses and a Jewish ambulance service in London. And last fall, two Jewish men died after a man attacked worshippers at a Manchester synagogue.
In 2025 there were 3,700 antisemitic incidents in the U.K.according to the Community Security Trust, which reports on antisemitic activity. That’s an extraordinary number considering that there are fewer than 300,000 British Jews.
As British Prime Minister Kier Starmer (whose wife and children are Jewish) said last week, “People are scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish.”
The situation is so bad that in response to the violence Britain raised its national terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe.”
The oft-heard explanation for this increase in antisemitic hate is that it’s a response to anger over the war in Gaza. Even if one accepts the argument, someone attacking a Diaspora community because they don’t like the actions of the world’s only Jewish state is collectively blaming all Jews for the actions of other Jews. That would be akin to targeting Russian emigres because of the war in Ukraine. Of course, no such attacks have taken place. Jews, however, have not been so lucky.
The more accurate explanation for the increase is that antisemitism is the world’s oldest and most enduring hatred — and Jews are being targeted because of anti-Jewish hatred. Indeed, the largest spike in antisemitic incidents in Britain came right after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. There was “an immediate and significant spike in recorded cases of anti-Jewish hate,” CST reports, before the thrust of Israel’s military response to the horrors of that day. There were close to 4,300 antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom in 2023 — an increase of 2.5 times over the previous year.
It wasn’t Israel’s actions that led to increases in antisemitism. It was the murder of Israeli citizens that put Diaspora Jews in harm’s way.
Jewish politicians are increasingly finding themselves under attack, targeted with antisemitic slurs and death threats.
This wave of antisemitic violence is not limited to the United Kingdom. A new report out this week by the Anti-Defamation League shows that even as there was an overall decline in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. last year, violent assaults against American Jews reached the highest level since 1979. Three people were killed in antisemitic attacks, the first such deaths since 2019. More recently, a man inspired by the terrorist group Hezbollah who was armed with a gun drove a car into a Jewish community center in Michigan.
Every day, it seems, comes word of a new incident. Data compiled by the New York Police Department showed that Jews were targeted in 60% of confirmed hate crimes in the city in April — even though Jews make up a mere 10% of the population.
Earlier in the week, Nazi swastikas were spray-painted on a Jewish community center in Queens. At New York’s New School, the university’s student senate voted to end funding for Hillel, a religious and cultural institution that serves Jewish students on campuses across the country. This is part of a larger nationwide effort to target Jewish institutions on university campuses and demand that American Jews end their support for Israel.
Today, Jewish politicians are increasingly finding themselves under attack, targeted with antisemitic slurs and death threats. According to a recent New York Times article“Protesters have called members of Congress ‘dirty Jews’ during town hall events and thrown red liquid — meant to look like blood — on their front lawns.”
Even a tweet put out by the children’s show “Sesame Street” marking Jewish American Heritage Month was inundated with antisemitic and anti-Israel messages. Anyone who argues that this wave of anti-Jewish hatred is driven by opposition to Israel’s policies is kidding themselves.
In short, what has risen to crisis levels in the U.K. is increasingly becoming the norm in the United States. But while Starmer finally spoke out publicly about the wave of violence — after months of pleading from Jewish leaders — most political leaders in the U.S. are silent. President Donald Trump has had little to say about the antisemitic spike. Democratic politicians put out the usual “thoughts and prayers” statement, solemnly condemning anti-Jewish hatred when violence occurs, but few do more than that.
As the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland plaintively asked last week, “Where are those who are usually so vocal in their opposition to racism, now that one of Britain’s oldest minorities is facing a violent, murderous threat on the streets? Where are the actors and celebrities who ordinarily waste no time in declaring their solidarity with the oppressed, even those many thousands of miles away, now that British Jews are stabbed in London for no reason other than that they are visibly Jewish?”
The same should be asked of American cultural and political leaders. Where is the sympathy and concern for a vulnerable minority group in America? Where is the outrage that American Jews are under assault and living in fear?
Just as my mother views Britain as her refuge from antisemitism, for me it is America, which welcomed my family and gave us the opportunity to live out the American dream as Diaspora Jews.
For my family and millions of other Jews, the U.S. and Britain gave us not just a home but an opportunity to live our lives as Jews, free from fear and intimidation. That sense of belonging is increasingly under assault. Our American dream is slowly morphing into a nightmare.
Does anyone aside from American Jews care?
Michael Cohen is the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast “That ‘70s Movie Podcast.”
Virginia Democrats entered the redistricting fight believing that redrawing the map would tilt the state decisively in their favor and give them control of the U.S. House.
Instead, the party’s aggressive push to reshape congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms spiraled into a political and legal headache that stands to boost Republicans after the Virginia Supreme Court blocked their redistricting plan on Friday.
In fact, the Cook Political Reportwhich has been closely tracking developments in the mid-decade redistricting war, says the GOP now holds an advantage because of rulings from the Virginia Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans are likely to gain six to seven seats, according its newly updated analysis.
The Cook Political Report maintains Democrats are still positioned to retake the House. “But they are no longer overwhelming favorites,” it said.
Democratic political strategist and pollster Cornell Belcher agrees, saying his party wasn’t harmed by the Virginia court decision — it just wasn’t helped.
The ruling, he told MS NOW, “certainly makes it more difficult for Democrats to win because Republicans are rigging the system in real time.” But Belcher said Republicans run the risk of overreaching and making themselves “more vulnerable to a wave.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision as an assault on voting rights, telling MS NOW’s “Velshi” on Saturday, “This isn’t just Black people’s fight. It’s certainly everybody’s fight. It’s going to take an all-hands-on deck effort, and everybody has a stake in preserving a multi-racial democracy as part of the effort to preserve American exceptionalism.”
Still, some conservatives, pointing to a Fox News redistricting tracker, are now touting“massive seat gains” for Republicans as the battle over congressional maps intensifies.
The controversy in Virginia centered on a Democratic-backed proposal that would have dramatically reshaped the state’s congressional districts, potentially turning the state’s current 6-5 Democratic edge in the House into a near 10-1 advantage.
Republicans denouncedthe plan as an extreme partisan gerrymander, calling it a “desperate grab for power.” Virginia Democrats drew backlash because they had previously championed an independent redistricting processin 2020 as a safeguard against partisan mapmaking. Critics argued the party abandoned those principles once it saw an opportunity to expand its congressional advantage.
The redistricting fight in Virginia consumed months of political oxygen while lawsuitsmounted before Virginia voters ultimately approved the redistricting proposal in an April referendum in what would become a short-lived victory for Democrats.
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones immediately filed a joint motionasking the high court to delay its decision as Virginia Democrats vowed to fight what they described as an effort to overturn the will of voters.
While it may not be the redistricting wipeout Democrats had hoped for, they expressed confidence after the ruling that they will carve out a path to regain House control.
“Make no mistake, Democrats will not roll over while Republicans undermine our democracy to entrench their power. This is not over. Democrats will use every tool at our disposal — the courts, Congress, and public opinion — to fight back on behalf of all Americans who believe in and seek to uphold fair elections, democratic representation, and the sacred right to vote,” Democratic National Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
“The will of voters of Virginia and California are being challenged by Republicans,” Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., told MS NOW’s “The Weekend” on Saturday. “It’s really unbelievable. We’re going to have to fight back because there is no alternative at this point.”
The Virginia battle also reflects a broader national reality: Both parties increasingly view redistricting not as a procedural exercise, but as a high-stakes weapon in the fight for control of Congress.
“It’s a really sad state that our country is in when both political parties are using redistricting as their main strategy to win midterms,” former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. said in a social media post Saturday. “Both parties are not presenting strong cases as to why their policies and accomplishments are why the American people should vote for them.”
In Tennessee, Republicans approveda new congressional map on Thursday that splits the state’s only majority-Black district into multiple districts, a move Democrats are denouncing as Jim Crow 2.0.
“This is an attempt to take away, to destroy, to silence Black majority community of Memphis and it is an attempt, in one of the most significant, probably since the end of deconstruction to take away Black political voice in the United States Congress,” Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson said Saturday on MS NOW’s “The Weekend.”
The nationwide redistricting fight began after President Donald Trump pushed Republicans in Texas to pursue an aggressive congressional redraw aimed at strengthening the GOP’s hold on the House ahead of the midterms. Democrats in blue states fought back with redistricting strategies of their own, most notably in California.
Trump has seen his approval ratings dip to new lows, according to recent pollsas the war with Iran drags on and gas prices continue to soar, causing political headaches for Republicans just six months ahead of the midterms.
Still, Republicans are counting the redistricting rulings in the South as victories.
“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Republican National Committee Chairman Gruters in a statement. “We took them to court, and we won.”
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
A nationwide campaign is underway to systematically dismantle Black political influence.
In Tennessee, Republicans are working to eliminate a congressional district that allows the majority-Black city of Memphis to choose its own representative.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed off on a new map that eliminates a South Florida district, which had a near-majority Black electorate.
And in Louisiana, Republicans threw out thousands of votes that had already been cast so they could pass a new map that eliminates a congressional district that includes the majority-Black city of New Orleans.
Following the Supreme Court’s lead, Republican lawmakers have cast these as mere partisan exercises or even an attempt to be “race neutral.” But the pattern is not subtle, and Americans should not pretend otherwise.
At every turn, we are told this is not about race, that it’s just politics, that they’re just respecting the process.
Please. This is not some theoretical exercise being debated in a classroom. This is a threat to the multiracial democracy that our ancestors built over the last 250 years, often at great cost to them and the country.
I don’t think Americans fully understand the emergency of this moment.
I don’t think Americans fully understand the emergency of this moment.
The Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court gutted last week, was not some symbolic achievement. People bled and died for that law. Entire generations organized, marched and fought in courtrooms and legislative chambers so Black Americans could fully participate in democracy and wield real electoral power.
Now we are watching that progress get chipped away in real time, while some who should be on the frontlines protesting continue to debate whether it’s actually happening.
Trust me, it’s happening. And what frustrates me most is that America has seen this movie before.
After Reconstruction ended, the 14th and 15th amendments to guarantee basic rights for formerly enslaved people were still in place. Black Americans were still citizens. On paper, Black men still had the right to vote.
But then states stopped enforcing those rights. Courts weakened them. Governors aided and abetted the rollback. Business leaders looked away. And slowly, methodically, rights that existed in theory stopped existing in practice.
That is the part of American history people love to skip over.
The collapse of Reconstruction was not just about Klan terror and white lynch mobs. It was about institutions. It was about statehouses. It was about courts. It was about people in power deciding they’d had enough of multiracial democracy.
And for nearly 88 years, between the end of Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black Americans fought to claw back the electoral power that had been stripped away.
Eighty-eight years.
That should haunt all of us right now, because too many Americans have convinced themselves that democratic progress is permanent, that the arc of history, once it bends toward justice, cannot swing back.
But democracy is not a destination; it is a marathon with no finish line.
Rights are only as strong as the institutions willing to enforce them — and the people willing to defend them.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still exists today, on paper. But states have moved with extraordinary speed to dilute the voting strength of Black communities, redraw districts and weaken the electoral influence Black voters built over generations. And too often, the courts have responded by insisting Americans should ignore the obvious.
Again: trust your eyes.
I grew up a Black woman and a Democrat in Nebraska, a red state many people in national politics would probably write off entirely. But thanks to a quirk in state lawmy congressional district delivered electors for Barack ObamaJoe Biden and Kamala Harris in the Electoral College. I know what can happen when voters are actually allowed to build coalitions and choose representatives responsive to them.
That is what democracy is supposed to do.
Voters deserve the opportunity to select representatives of their choice, even if the broader state leans one way or the other. Their voices should not be diluted because the people in power dislike the outcome.
Anyone who believes in multiracial democracy needs to understand where power is actually built in this country. State legislatures draw the maps. Governors sign the laws. State courts interpret voting rules. Secretaries of state oversee elections. America’s democracy is shaped in the states.
That is where this fight is being lost right now. And that is where it has to be won.
Because history tells us what happens when attacks on voting rights are treated like ordinary politics instead of what they actually are: an assault on who gets to wield power in America.
We have seen rights survive on paper while disappearing in practice before. We don’t have another 88 years to fix this.
Trust your eyes, then refuse to look away.
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ByJason Page
When asked for comment about the $1,000 price tag to watch the U.S. take on Paraguay in the opening match of the World Cup next month at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, President Donald Trump, who loves to gloat about his wealth, said, “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.” There are probably lots of people who agree with Trump on that point – if only grudgingly. On its face, paying $1,000 to watch the 14th-ranked U.S squad take on a Paraguay team that’s ranked 40th, may seem absurd. But is it any more absurd than, say, paying $1,000 to watch the NBA’s lowly Sacramento Kings take on Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors for a regular season game?
Trump has jumped into the debate over how much the experience should cost for those planning to attend one or more of the 104 matches.
As the big tournament approaches, Trump has jumped into the debate over how much the experience should cost for those planning to attend one or more of the 104 matches being held across North America. From jacked-up train fares that have been announced in the New York/New Jersey area to outrageous ticket prices on the primary and secondary markets, there have been some predictions that we may have reached the breaking point when it comes to consumers and live entertainment.
But FIFA President Gianni Infantino rationalized World Cup ticket prices that are as high as $32,970 for the July 19 final at MetLife Stadium by asserting that those prices are in line with the marketplace for similarly high-profile events in the U.S. And though many people hemmed and hawed in response, he might be (at least partially) right. Too many Americans already pay exorbitant ticket prices for sporting events that aren’t anywhere near as rare as World Cup matches on our soil.
The Colorado Rockies, for example, haven’t made the playoffs since 2019 and won 43 of 162 games last season. Still, an average of more than 30,000 people showed up per game. If you want a lower infield box seat to see the Rockies play the Arizona Diamondbacks May 15, you will pay $200. Trust me, those seats won’t be empty. And it only gets more expensive from there after you pay for parking and concessions and a foam finger.
Of course, some people are specifically complaining about the role dynamic pricing plays in making tickets for the World Cup more expensive. And while ticket prices that fluctuate real-time based on demand, market conditions and a myriad of other variables are a problem, Americans have generally been less vocal about the fixed ticket prices at big sporting events.
One of the big buzzwords in politics today is affordability. But we grant an exemption to sports. On the morning of the Jan. 19, 2026, college football’sNational Championship game, the lowest tickets were selling for $3,910 and the average price for a ticket was $5,740the most expensive ever. The day before this year’s Super Bowl, tickets on Ticketmaster started at $10,000.
All we hear about is an economy where people can’t afford the simple and most essential things. But who is filling up every single arena and stadium in California for all these pro sports teams? In the NHL, no California team plays to less than 91% capacity. In the NBA, it’s the same story. In Major League Baseball, the Padres and Dodgers are sold out virtually every night for 81 home games. And the woeful Angels average 32,000 fans for home games (although many of those tickets are downright affordable by today’s prices.)
The day before this year’s Super Bowl, tickets on Ticketmaster started at $10,000.
And it’s not just a problem in the sports world. Look at the size of the audiences for Taylor Swift and other big music acts around the country, where the best seats can easily top out in the low four figures. These aren’t just trust fund babies paying the freight for these games and entertainment venues on a night-in, night-out basis. These are everyday folks that no matter what the price is, decide that they’re going to see something that touches a chord within them.
The point of all of this is to say that people, even in an economy where there is an affordability crisis, are still willing to spend big bucks for the biggest events. Whether it’s star-studded concerts, weekly sporting events, or the highest profile games and tournaments, people will grumble and then plunk down the money required for access. While Major League Soccer has its fan base, this complaint about the World Cup tickets being too high may simply be a consequence of North American sports fans not seeing the value proposition of the World Cup.
As sickening as some of these ticket prices appear to be, the only thing that will ever bring about a change in those prices, is everyday folks not picking up the tab. Until now, they appear willing to do so. Will the World Cup be a turning point in that regard? We’re about to find out.
Jason Page
Jason Page is the host of the nationally syndicated daily TV show “SportsWrap w/Jason Page.”
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