Far Right Watch in West MI: The Acton Institute, anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric and equating antisemitism with the end of liberty in America

This week, the Acton Institute posted a story by one of their contributors, Mike Cosper, who does Christian podcasts for various religious media outlets.

Cosper posted an article entitled, There Shall Be None to Make Him Afraid: American Liberty and the Jews.  In my opinion the article is all over the place, where the author is trying to make connections that make no sense. 

The article begins with talking about the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, although Cosper doesn’t call it a murder and offers questionable information to justify the police murder of the 18 years old Brown. Cosper continues to make wild claims with the next paragraph, stating: 

“The impact is easy to trace. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) departments were opened in academic, corporate, and government institutions. The New York Times published the 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize–winning work of revisionist history that reframes America’s founding myth around the institution of chattel slavery and not the personalities and ideas of the founding. A new race consciousness permeated Hollywood, reshaping unwritten criteria for casting and awards.”

Clearly, Cosper is of the persuasion that DEI practices are somehow radical and that Hollywood is to blame for much of the race-centered culture war. Of course this is nonsense, since the response to the police murder of Michael Brown was rooted in an abolitionist critique of policing which has existed for decades within the Black Freedom Struggle. DEI workshops and trainings had nothing to do with the Movement for Black Lives and the national outrage over the police murder of Black and other BIPOC people.

Cosper then makes another ridiculous claim that Black Lives Matter chapters around country “celebrated the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7.” It is true that the Black Freedom struggle and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle has deep roots (see article in the Nation), but to claim that the Movement for Black Lives is antisemitic is just not based in fact. I would also suggest that people read Angela Davis’ book, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement.

Ultimately, the article that Mike Cosper posted on the Acton Institute site argues that BLM activists and Kyle Rittenhouse are the result of right and left “radical binaries.” Again, an absurd comparison, where Cosper offers no meaningful articulation of his claim. 

Cosper then makes another leap in his so-called analysis, to suggest that the existence of antisemitism should be how we measure the social fabric of the country. In a section subtitled, The Canaries in the Coal Mine, Cosper states: “Anti-Semitism’s reemergence here and now ought to serve as final, damning proof of the corruption of the political ideologies that have come to dominate our culture.” While I agree that antisemitism should be rejected and not tolerated in social justice movement politics, it is not the only measuring stick. Anti-Blackness, white supremacy, xenophobia, transphobia, anti-Islam and any form of collective discrimination and systemic oppression should be rejected.

Lastly, Cosper then uses George Washington as a model for rejecting antisemitism, based on some letters he wrote to Jewish communities after he became President in 1790. While I get the sentiment reflected in the letters that Copser cites, we should not forget the fact that under Washington’s presidency, chattel slavery was legal, that women were the legal property of their husbands and those who didn’t own land couldn’t vote. In fact, the only people who could vote when Washington was President were white men who owned land. In addition, Washington was part of a landed gentry system that continuously engaged in the theft of Indigenous land, which was reflected in how Washington saw Indigenous people when he said, “Indians are both beasts of prey, tho’ they differ in shape.” 

If Mike Cosper thinks that George Washington is a model for how to treat people, because he wrote welcoming letters to Jewish communities, while simultaneously marginalizing Black, Indigenous, immigrant and non-christians communities, then that is a pretty fucking low bar for what liberty means. 

Once again, a contributing writer to the Acton Institute displays both their ignorance and ideological bias, thus making it clear that the Acton Institute always supports the dominant narratives of the Capitalist Class within the US.