On Friday’s MSNBC Reports reporter Ben Collins responded to Kanye West’s Thursday anti-Semitic diatribe by warning that “Republican podcast circles” may not go as far as he did, but support “those same talking points.” Such an incendiary claim requires solid evidence, but none was forthcoming.
Collins began by condeing that “within Republican circles, within the official channels, you will hear nothing but condemnation about this” and his assessment of West’s lunacy was harsh, but completely fair, "And Kanye, there's no other way to put this. The stuff he was saying yesterday was Nazism. It wasn’t just, you know, bog-standard dog whistle white supremacy stuff that you would frequently hear on InfoWars. This was straight up Nazism, saying that Hitler-- he liked Hitler and Hitler had a lot of good ideas and that he said that he said he loved a lot of those ideas. This is not-- he's not dancing around this thing.”
However, his next point was not fair:
You know, there are a lot of people who are pushing those same talking points and, you know, saying that while they don't agree with the classification that all the Jews are doing this, that Kanye might have some good points, that’s a lot of stuff you hear in the Republican podcast circles right now, trying to thread the needle and move the Overton Window over so that overt Nazism is the far-right now and somewhere in the middle is Republican talking points. It’s very grim stuff.
At this point it would have behooved Collins to provide a list of several conservative podcasters—not just one or two fringe cases—to back up his fearmongering but, since his job consists of monitoring online crazies and portraying them as more popular and influential than they are, he didn’t.
Host Lindsey Reiser followed up with other panelists with statements from the Republican Jewish Coalition and Kevin McCarthy, giving at least some semblance of balance to the segment, but Collins’s irresponsibly broad assessment went unanswered.
This segment was sponsored by Wayfair.
Here is a transcript for the December 2 show:
MSNBC Reports
12/2/2022
11:32 PM ET
BEN COLLINS: Yeah, within Republican circles, within the official channels, you will hear nothing but condemnation about this. This is a man who met with the president with Nick Fuentes, the same guest that was on InfoWars yesterday. He met with him nine, now ten days ago, two days before Thanksgiving. This is a very recent development.
And Kanye, there's no other way to put this. The stuff he was saying yesterday was Nazism. It wasn’t just, you know, bog-standard dog whistle white supremacy stuff that you would frequently hear on InfoWars.
This was straight up Nazism, saying that Hitler-- he liked Hitler and Hitler had a lot of good ideas and that he said that he said he loved a lot of those ideas. This is not-- he's not dancing around this thing.
That's exactly what he was talking about. So within those circles, you hear a lot of that, you hear people saying, we must condemn this, we must get away from this thing, but, you know, there are a lot of people who are pushing those same talking points and, you know, saying that while they don't agree with the classification that all the Jews are doing this, that Kanye might have some good points, that’s a lot of stuff you hear in the Republican podcast circles right now, trying to thread the needle and move the Overton Window over so that overt Nazism is the far-right now and somewhere in the middle is Republican talking points. It’s very grim stuff.
LINDSEY REISER: Oren, I want to read part of a statement from the Republican Jewish Coalition, condemning Ye and it reads in part “conservatives who have mistakenly indulged Kanye West must make it clear that he is a pariah. Enough is enough.
But Oren, this isn't the first time we're talking about anti-Semitic comments from Ye. Will he be treated as a pariah now?
OREN SEGAL: Well, I mean, I certainly hope so. It's not just that Ye doesn't care about the Jewish people. It's that his consistent and repugnant anti-Semitism can lead others to a path of violence. We have seen this play out over and over, how these types of statements animate people online and that's why the Jewish community right now feels particularly vulnerable. So, it's really important not just that Republicans and Democrats, but that others in online space try to make it more difficult for him to spread his hate. You know, at the end of the day, people will remember not just the horrible anti-Semitism and hatred that he's spreading, and the platforms that provided that, but what they did about it to create friction so that they are standing up against the anti-Semitism as well.
