Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

If you pressed him on it, he’d just say, “Who said anything about Jews? Why are you bringing Jews into this? What, you just automatically assume that if someone’s a sinister, manipulative puppetmaster, they have to be Jewish? That sounds kinda racist if you ask me.” I cannot describe the degree of bad faith this person uses, like his brain operates in permanent bad faith. My center-right brother mentioned that Robespierre was called, “The Incorruptible” (because he was a true believer) and also, “The Angel of Death,” and my fash brother started attacking him, like, “Oh, so you think Robespierre was an ‘incorruptible angel,’ why do you love Robespierre so much?” I’m 100% sure he didn’t even know who Robespierre was before the conversation.