The Dictatorship

Rising antisemitism in Britain is a frightening preview of America’s future

Published

1 month ago

May 9, 2026

May. 9, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

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.”

The Dictatorship

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Published

6 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Jun. 10, 2026, 6:14 PM EDT

A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.

Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.

Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.

Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.

The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”

Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.

Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”

Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.

A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.

Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Trump is accelerating our Social Security insolvency crisis

Published

6 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Jun. 10, 2026, 5:50 PM EDT

The date when Social Security’s trust fund is expected to run out of money just got bumped up. The fund is now projected to empty in 2032according to a new report released by Social Security’s trustees.

The new depletion date isn’t an earth-shaking change — it’s only a quarter earlier than the estimate in last year’s report. But it illustrates how President Donald Trump’s policies are degrading a program he promised to never jeopardize — and accelerating an approaching crisis in how our government will assist the elderly and disabled.

The report names three factors that contributed to the earlier insolvency date. One is a declining fertility rate, but the other two drivers can be traced back to Trump: a drop in immigration into the country, and the “substantial effect” of the tax policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last summer.

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities.

Reduced immigration during Trump’s second term — especially when coupled with a declining fertility rate — strains Social Security because the program is funded through payroll taxes. Those come out of people’s paychecks, and fewer workers supporting an aging population means the program receives less revenue. Indeed, Social Security already has been tapping its trust fund for the better part of the past two decades because the program’s costs have exceeded its cash income. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out last yearlast year’s tax cuts were a boon to the rich but a bust for the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.

To be clear, if the fund is depleted, Social Security won’t go belly up. Benefits will continue to be paid out, but there will be a large drop in the amount. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the “average monthly cut would total $500, which is more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month.”

That would be a huge blow to the budgets of many older Americans. Social Security is a major source of income for most retirees, and roughly 40% of beneficiaries over the age of 65 rely on it for most of their income. And it would mark the destabilization of the sole source of retirement security for most Americans that is supposed to be insulated from ups and downs — unlike 401K plans. As the CBPP has pointed outSocial Security is “most workers’ only source of guaranteed retirement income that is not subject to investment risk or financial market fluctuations.”

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities. His cuts to the Social Security Administration have left offices understaffedincreased wait timesand reduced quality of customer service.

Ultimately, Trump is exacerbating a colossal social safety net problem that predates him, and the trust fund will hit dire straits after he has left office. Democrats need to have clear plans for shoring up the program and making it robust for the future — which will require not being sheepish about taxes as a tool for renewing the social contract. And when Republicans try to claim that they, too, are champions of Social Security, all Democrats need to do is point to the truth.

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.

The Dictatorship

Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 6.10.26

Published

6 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The latest from Northern Ireland: “The family of a man who lost an eye in a knife attack appealed for calm on Wednesday after the incident triggered a wave of anti-immigrant violence in Belfast overnight, with masked men burning families out of their homes and torching vehicles. The appeal ‌came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with attempted murder and as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and politicians in Northern Ireland condemned the violence by ‘masked thugs’ that had targeted ethnic minorities.”

* In related news: “The British government hit out at X owner Elon Musk Wednesday, accusing him of whipping up tensions online ahead of disorder in Belfast.”

* The tenuous state of a dubious ceasefire: “Trump said the U.S. is going to hit Iran ‘hard’ today when pressed by reporters in the Oval Office about his statement earlier that Tehran will ‘pay the price’ for taking ‘too long’ to reach a peace agreement. ‘Well, we’re going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard, resuming bombing,’ he said.”

* The latest casualty figures from Lebanon: “Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon has killed at least 3,666 people, including 131 healthcare workers, and injured more than 11,300 since the U.S. and Israel began their war with Iran in late February, the Lebanese health ministry reported yesterday.”

* The changing nature of modern warfare: “Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.”

* This seems like a reasonable request: “Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee demanded Wednesday that Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick for acting director of national intelligence, submit to a full security check before assuming the post, including an examination of his financial holdings and foreign contacts.”

* Some market trends can’t be stopped despite the White House’s best efforts: “Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said.”

* A bizarre schedule for a nonemergency vanity project: “Federal officials are laying more groundwork to begin construction on President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, sharing additional documents that detail the project’s scope and an aggressive timetable for potentially completing work before Trump’s term ends. According to National Park Service documents posted this month, the administration envisions 20 hours per day of construction on the arch, year-round, in hopes of completing the project within two to three years.”

See you tomorrow.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”