James Kirchick

This past weekend, a deplorable minute-long video appeared on my X feed. In it, the instantly recognizable actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, most famous for his role as Vizzini in the classic 1987 film The Princess Bride, delivers a hateful rant belied by his grandfatherly demeanor and dulcet tones. He says,
The Israelis invaded somebody else’s territory, they took people’s homes, and they did many of the things that the Nazis did to the Jews. You can’t be more evil than what they’re doing.

J. D. Vance and Abdul El-Sayed have very little in common ideologically and seem to like each other even less. As part of a nasty exchange of personal insults last month, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan implied that Vance’s grandfather would disapprove of the vice president’s Indian American wife. In response, Vance called El-Sayed “very, very evil” and warned him to “keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth because she’s way out of your league.

When I saw that the commentator Max Blumenthal was going to speak in Washington, D.C., about his recent trip to Iran, I couldn’t stay away. I have long been fascinated with Americans—especially privileged, well-connected Americans—who, out of alienation from their own country, show an admiration for distant authoritarian lands.

Barney Frank might not draw a connection between his coming out as gay nearly four decades ago and his coming out against left-wing dogmatism in the Democratic Party today. But the parallel is unmistakable: The 86-year-old former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts is shining a light on a sensitive subject that many people wish he would keep quiet about.