John-Paul Pagano
@johnpaulpagano.bsky.social
I write about bad ideas in politics. Focus on #conspiracism. #Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory.
Bylines: The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Jewish Daily Forward, Tablet Magazine
Substack: johnpaulpagano.substack.com
Bylines: The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Jewish Daily Forward, Tablet Magazine
Substack: johnpaulpagano.substack.com
Zohran Mamdani is the dumbest guy in Zuccotti Park. Literally.
November 7, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Zohran Mamdani is the dumbest guy in Zuccotti Park. Literally.
What won’t the Swedes think of?
August 7, 2025 at 10:12 PM
What won’t the Swedes think of?
The Gawker guys were always a special breed.
August 6, 2025 at 1:08 AM
The Gawker guys were always a special breed.
On the hellsite X, it’s filled with Antisemitism. On the progressive alternative BlueSky, it’s filled with discussion of how phony Antisemitism is.
August 4, 2025 at 11:57 PM
On the hellsite X, it’s filled with Antisemitism. On the progressive alternative BlueSky, it’s filled with discussion of how phony Antisemitism is.
Love how this Intercept-trained college radical thinks that Holocaust-supersession (“unprecedented genocide”) by the Mayor of Athens—Greece is Europe’s most Antisemitic country by far—is a moral victory.
August 3, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Love how this Intercept-trained college radical thinks that Holocaust-supersession (“unprecedented genocide”) by the Mayor of Athens—Greece is Europe’s most Antisemitic country by far—is a moral victory.
Marvel at the malicious idiocy of this prevalent take. Because Hamas is, at best, an irrelevance to these people—if not admirable—they can’t fathom that Israelis might think it’s in their interests to defeat and remove them from power.
August 3, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Marvel at the malicious idiocy of this prevalent take. Because Hamas is, at best, an irrelevance to these people—if not admirable—they can’t fathom that Israelis might think it’s in their interests to defeat and remove them from power.
Regardless of how squalid the Netanyahu government gets, no matter how far Israel falls short of liberal-democratic ideals, the truth--that Jews with the slightest apprehension of history know--is that worrying about optics is a fool's game.
Large swaths of people are just begging for an excuse.
Large swaths of people are just begging for an excuse.
July 29, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Regardless of how squalid the Netanyahu government gets, no matter how far Israel falls short of liberal-democratic ideals, the truth--that Jews with the slightest apprehension of history know--is that worrying about optics is a fool's game.
Large swaths of people are just begging for an excuse.
Large swaths of people are just begging for an excuse.
See, the problem is that you aren’t totally distinct from MTG on the index of Antisemitism.
July 22, 2025 at 11:00 PM
See, the problem is that you aren’t totally distinct from MTG on the index of Antisemitism.
Antisemitic fantasy vs Antisemitic reality in the UK.
July 22, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Antisemitic fantasy vs Antisemitic reality in the UK.
I agree with this commentator’s analysis and share her contempt for middle-class radicalism, but there’s too much commentary in the pro-Israel and anti-Antisemitism spaces that redeploys idioms of the Great Awokening.
July 22, 2025 at 4:00 PM
I agree with this commentator’s analysis and share her contempt for middle-class radicalism, but there’s too much commentary in the pro-Israel and anti-Antisemitism spaces that redeploys idioms of the Great Awokening.
Hi, @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social. Do you understand now that Israel is more than 50% "brown" by the standards you apply here to Palestinians? What I fear, in a time of rising Antisemitism, is a worldview that views Israeli Jews as the paragon of white supremacy.
www.politico.com/newsletters/...
www.politico.com/newsletters/...
July 22, 2025 at 2:22 AM
Hi, @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social. Do you understand now that Israel is more than 50% "brown" by the standards you apply here to Palestinians? What I fear, in a time of rising Antisemitism, is a worldview that views Israeli Jews as the paragon of white supremacy.
www.politico.com/newsletters/...
www.politico.com/newsletters/...
Epstein's "little black book" reads like a witchcraft grimoire detailing arcana about the most powerful people in the world. This whole thing was cooked up by the conspiracy theorist writer's room and it's no wonder that it's a central and enduring myth for the spellbound trash at the Trumpian core.
July 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Epstein's "little black book" reads like a witchcraft grimoire detailing arcana about the most powerful people in the world. This whole thing was cooked up by the conspiracy theorist writer's room and it's no wonder that it's a central and enduring myth for the spellbound trash at the Trumpian core.
This new standard means that we will have to stop reporting the news throughout Russia and most of the Middle East.
From the ADL's 2025 Antisemitism Around the World heat map:
www.adl.org/resources/le...
From the ADL's 2025 Antisemitism Around the World heat map:
www.adl.org/resources/le...
July 7, 2025 at 4:01 AM
This new standard means that we will have to stop reporting the news throughout Russia and most of the Middle East.
From the ADL's 2025 Antisemitism Around the World heat map:
www.adl.org/resources/le...
From the ADL's 2025 Antisemitism Around the World heat map:
www.adl.org/resources/le...
Maybe it's not just the Democratic establishment, but also its progressive challengers, who will use the Jews.
June 30, 2025 at 4:21 AM
Maybe it's not just the Democratic establishment, but also its progressive challengers, who will use the Jews.
No, no, a thousand times no, @nytimes.com. RFK, Jr. is not a “vaccine skeptic.” He is a conspiracy theorist.
And you need to report that, because conspiracism gets people killed. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/h...
And you need to report that, because conspiracism gets people killed. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/h...
June 25, 2025 at 2:53 PM
No, no, a thousand times no, @nytimes.com. RFK, Jr. is not a “vaccine skeptic.” He is a conspiracy theorist.
And you need to report that, because conspiracism gets people killed. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/h...
And you need to report that, because conspiracism gets people killed. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/h...
Dear reader, there's no way I'm going to survive being stuck between Trump and this for the next 4 years.
June 25, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Dear reader, there's no way I'm going to survive being stuck between Trump and this for the next 4 years.
It's a remote third possibility, but also it may be that a few of us don't want someone who can't recognize Antisemitism when it calls itself "Antizionism" presiding over the world's most Jewish city during a time of rising Antisemitism.
June 25, 2025 at 12:59 AM
It's a remote third possibility, but also it may be that a few of us don't want someone who can't recognize Antisemitism when it calls itself "Antizionism" presiding over the world's most Jewish city during a time of rising Antisemitism.
This might be the holotype of Middle East statecraft.
June 22, 2025 at 4:41 AM
This might be the holotype of Middle East statecraft.
“Globalize the Intifada” is a political symbol with a clear, primary meaning.
June 18, 2025 at 5:34 PM
“Globalize the Intifada” is a political symbol with a clear, primary meaning.
I hope someday we can return to trusting that these people won’t develop nukes.
June 14, 2025 at 1:43 PM
I hope someday we can return to trusting that these people won’t develop nukes.
I was adrift in seas of anxious confusion until this moment.
June 14, 2025 at 12:44 AM
I was adrift in seas of anxious confusion until this moment.
“Choose well, Jews, lest you be murdered with the tacit approval of right-thinking folks like me” is not the social media flex I’d hope to see in the wake of an anti-Jewish hate crime. Can’t wait for the post-Trump era.
June 2, 2025 at 10:58 PM
“Choose well, Jews, lest you be murdered with the tacit approval of right-thinking folks like me” is not the social media flex I’d hope to see in the wake of an anti-Jewish hate crime. Can’t wait for the post-Trump era.
In the early 70s, Clifford Geertz observed that the advent of independence was almost necessarily anticlimactic in light of its overpromises to the postcolonial imagination. Today we see the hideous culmination of that disappointment in radical Anti-Zionism.
May 24, 2025 at 12:45 AM
In the early 70s, Clifford Geertz observed that the advent of independence was almost necessarily anticlimactic in light of its overpromises to the postcolonial imagination. Today we see the hideous culmination of that disappointment in radical Anti-Zionism.
I hate modern liberal discourse like this, which seems to hold that there is no relationship between an elite class whose only relationship to foundational American political values--like freedom of expression--is one of contempt or neglect, and the whirling social abyss in which Trumpism took hold.
May 23, 2025 at 9:09 PM
I hate modern liberal discourse like this, which seems to hold that there is no relationship between an elite class whose only relationship to foundational American political values--like freedom of expression--is one of contempt or neglect, and the whirling social abyss in which Trumpism took hold.