This is not about anti-semitism

I listen to a lot of podcasts, mostly about television and film, sometimes books, and occasionally scams and murders. The other day I had a bit of a drive ahead and nothing cued up, so I went back into the archive and listens to an old movie podcast from 2017. The topic of the podcast was Hallmark Christmas movies, but apparently the episode was recorded a day or two after a mass shooting at a synagogue. I would need to dig around to figure out which shooting, but I don't think there's any point to that.

The hosts, two straight men about my age who write about sports and politics when they aren't talking about Christmas movies, were expressing a kind of despair about the shooting that I haven't heard since at least before the 2024 election. They were bereft and surprised. They said the Fox News pundits who dog whistled antisemitism were complicit and morally bankrupt.

Listening to their shock felt like time travel. Do I even remember what it was like to be shocked and dismayed by the things happening in political and cultural discourse? Can I even remember who Lou Dobbs is or why I would be mad that he says that Trump is going to protect Americans from George Soros? I can not.