Kanye West, Louis Farrakhan, and the Left’s Double Standard

Kanye West recently became the object of worldwide opprobrium when he tweeted: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” The tweet was removed, his account was locked, and he has faced a storm of justified criticism over his paranoid anti-Semitism. JP Morgan Chase even canceled his bank accounts. There is no indication, however, that Louis Farrakhan, whose Jew-hatred is abundantly documented and far longer-standing than West’s, has never been subjected to any comparable treatment from his Leftist friends who are piling on Kanye these days. Why the double standard?

That most unhinged exponent of the Left’s propaganda industry, Rolling Stone magazine, tried to pin an accusation of hypocrisy on Ben Shapiro for writing: “Two things can be true at once. Kanye’s moves toward pro-life, faith, and family conservatism are encouraging; his ‘death con 3’ posts and Black Hebrew Israelite language are clearly anti-Semitic and disturbing.” The real hypocrisy, however, is not Shapiro’s, it is the Left’s, for embracing Farrakhan while excoriating Kanye West.

The Daily Caller reported in October 2020 that Farrakhan “has blamed Jewish people for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Holocaust, and referred to them as ‘satanic.’ He also praised Adolf Hitler as a ‘very great man.’ At a Nation of Islam event in February 2018, Farrakhan asserted that ‘Jews were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out, turning men into women and women into men.’ ‘White folks are going down,’ he also said, according to CNN. ‘And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.’”

In February 2020, Farrakhan declared: “Mr. Trump killed my brother Qassem Soleimani. Mrs. Clinton killed my other brother Muammar Qaddafi.” In December 2019, a neighbor of a couple that murdered Jews in a kosher market said that Farrakhan had inspired them. In April 2019, Farrakhan said that “Jesus died because he was 2,000 years too soon to bring about the end of the civilization of the Jews.”

This is a longstanding pattern. In February 2019, Farrakhan said: “The wicked Jews want to use me to break up the women’s movement.” He gently chided Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) for apologizing for her own anti-Semitic remarks: “Sweetheart, don’t do that. Pardon me for calling you sweetheart, but you do have a sweet heart. You sure are using it to shake the government up, but you have nothing to apologize for.” Farrakhan’s rhetoric has led to violence. In April 2021, a self-described “follower of Farrakhan” crashed his car into a Capitol barricade and charged at police with a knife.

Nonetheless, Farrakhan continues to enjoy respect and wield influence on the Left. During the 2020 campaign, a Joe Biden ad featured a rapper who referred to Farrakhan as his “mentor.” He is friendly with Barack Obama. A taxpayer-funded mural in New York features his image. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Gaza) wrote a column for Farrakhan’s blog. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has denounced Kanye West, but she has never denounced Farrakhan. Ilhan Omar has never denounced Farrakhan. Rashida Tlaib has never denounced Farrakhan. Nor has Joe Biden.

The double standard is glaring and obvious. The Democratic Party establishment is increasingly anti-Semitic. The House of Representatives couldn’t manage to censure Ilhan Omar in 2019 after her repeated anti-Semitic remarks, opting instead for a catchall, virtue-signaling condemnation of “hate.” When the same people who defended Omar and stood proudly with Farrakhan condemn Kanye West for saying the same kinds of things their own friends and allies say, there’s the real hypocrisy. The Democrat Party is anti-Semitic until it becomes politically expedient for Democrats to denounce anti-Semitism, but when they issue these denunciations, they never break off relations with people who frequently and unrepentantly traffic in anti-Semitic rhetoric.

What Kanye West said was as reprehensible as it was idiotic. But JP Morgan Chase and the others who attacked West afterward were clearly only attacking him because he has publicly broken ranks with the Left’s race-baiting establishment and has defended Donald Trump. If they were attacking him for anti-Semitism, there are plenty of their friends that they’re going to have to throw under the bus. Don’t hold your breath.