Jesse Arm
@Jesse_Leg • 15,554 subscribers
Vice President, External Affairs @ManhattanInst. Views mine.
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The DSA has become more than a political organization—it functions as a community-building institution that gives lonely, nonreligious downwardly mobile young people from elite backgrounds purpose, identity, friendships, and practical political training. That social infrastructure produces highly committed activists who can be deployed across the country to help elect candidates and gradually normalize hard-left politics. The movement's objective is not merely to elect self-described socialists in the short term, but to build a durable political infrastructure capable of advancing a truly Marxist agenda over time. Figures like Zohran Mamdani help legitimize the ideology, while allied candidates in more moderate or conservative states adapt the same agenda to local political realities—downplaying labels, emphasizing populist themes, or even running as independents—to make those ideas electorally viable where an explicit socialist would struggle.
Jesse Arm753,521 views • 2 months ago
Let this be a wake-up call for self-respecting Jewish Democrats, especially those from my home state of Michigan, and any other Democrats who would prefer their party not descend into the depths of full-blown Islamoleftism: you are losing your fight. Tonight at the Michigan Democratic Party convention, Jordan Acker—the incumbent Jewish University of Michigan Democratic Regent whose house and car were repeatedly vandalized with antisemitic graffiti by fanatical-left Palestine obsessives—was denied the party's re-endorsement and lost his seat. Instead, they chose Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, who recently praised Hezbollah and the Iranian terror regime. The Corbynization of America's Democratic Party is near complete.
Jesse Arm1,096,777 views • 6 months ago
In the latest episode of his podcast, Tucker Carlson and his guest go all in on a rambling, incoherent conspiracy theory alleging that Israel, Palantir, and Erika Kirk—not Tyler Robinson—were involved in Charlie Kirk's murder. He also suggests that the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, PA was staged.
Jesse Arm645,386 views • 4 months ago
Quite the flip. But, I mean, yeah. If you devote your program to alienating conservatives, Trump supporters, and Evangelical Protestants throughout the West, you’re likely to attract the opposite audience: progressives, Trump haters, and Islamists from the Third World.
Jesse Arm466,248 views • 5 months ago
Thomas Massie is going to lose tomorrow. And it’s not going to be because he’s anti-Israel. He’s always been anti-Israel. He’s going to lose because Kentucky has closed primaries—and MAGA Republicans do not like libertarian conspiracy mongers who vote to defund ICE, dox random Americans to insinuate they’re guilty of child rape, and whose super PACs pump out grotesque, low-IQ antisemitic garbage. His brand of slopulist politics may have some appeal among leftists, right-coded pundits who share policy goals with the far-left, and America-haters across the Third World, but not within MAGA.
Jesse Arm298,630 views • 5 months ago
I’ve been critical of Josh Shapiro in the past, but his condemnation of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner’s comments comparing law enforcement to Nazis is strong. "That kind of rhetoric is unacceptable. It is abhorrent. And it is wrong. Period. Hard stop. End of sentence.“
Jesse Arm434,441 views • 9 months ago
I agree with Dave. The frame that most of the media has run with here is absurd. Macklemore is not some brave dissident being silenced for uttering the words “Free Palestine.” Drake just put out a song in which he included a line saying "Pray for Gaza" and no one is going to be banning him from stadiums. Macklemore is a washed-up, increasingly irrelevant (aside from doing shit like this to stay in the news) rapper who used his opening slot for one of the world’s most beloved musicians to subject a captive audience to an anti-Western political grievance rally. The objection is not simply that he expressed sympathy for Palestinians or wrongly accused Israel of genocide. He performed “Hind’s Hall,” his anthem celebrating the lawless activists who vandalized and occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia—trapping and harassing a janitor inside—and used the stage to praise radical organizations including Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group that explicitly endorsed the murder of Americans in the October 7th massacre and has called for “unrest and violence in America” in service of efforts to “undermine and eradicate America.” This is also a man who previously appeared onstage dressed as a hooked-nose Jewish caricature and has suggested George W. Bush carried out the 9/11 attacks. He is not merely “pro-Palestinian.” He is a conspiratorial provocateur who generates attention by turning concerts into political spectacles and alienating large portions of the far more famous and talented Ed Sheeran’s audience. Robert Kraft owns Gillette Stadium. He is entitled to decide that it will not provide a platform for someone with that record. More broadly, it is encouraging to see prominent American Jews finally show some spine: defending themselves aggressively, punching back, and refusing to recede into the background while Islamist sympathizers dishonestly recast themselves as victims. I’m glad to see Macklemore face some actual consequences for being a dirtbag beyond merely having to take a field trip to the local Holocaust museum. There is a legitimate question of strategy—not whether Kraft had the right to bar Macklemore, but whether doing so was wise. Before Kraft’s intervention, Macklemore was a washed-up rapper desperately grasping for relevance. Now he is a martyr, other artists have quit Sheeran’s tour in solidarity, and his defenders can portray him as the victim of a powerful billionaire class determined to silence pro-Palestinian speech. You cannot cancel people into liking you, and Jewish organizations have only so much institutional capital to expend. Wasting it on Macklemore risks making him more prominent, reinforcing his preferred narrative, and associating Jews with the cancellation of musicians while accomplishing nothing meaningful against antisemitism. Kraft could instead have let him perform—and let Americans boo him, reject him, and defeat his arguments in a free and open society. But that strategic miscalculation does not transform Macklemore into the persecuted party or make the objections to his conduct any less legitimate. Ultimately, though, I'm with Dave and Bob Kraft on this one.
Jesse Arm51,782 views • 1 month ago
In part, this is happening because of detached-from-reality, entitled behavior like this from leftists:
Jesse Arm164,642 views • 6 months ago
Abdul El-Sayed is quite obviously a different kind of Democrat—far more extreme than Michiganders are accustomed to seeing at the top of their ballots. But Mike Rogers is also a different kind of Republican—not a Bulwark or Lincoln Project–style “Never Trump” obsessive who flipped his entire worldview on a dime because the grift was too good to pass up, but a moderate willing to acknowledge when Michigan’s interests and the president’s approach diverge. El-Sayed has spent recent weeks defending terrorists in the Muslim Brotherhood. Rogers has been visiting black churches, pledging to carry on John Conyers’s work addressing food deserts in Detroit. That helps explain why Rogers is vastly outperforming Republicans in comparable and even much redder states while El-Sayed is underperforming his fellow Democrats. El-Sayed’s signature health care proposal would eliminate private health insurance and dismantle Obamacare, forcing the vast majority of Americans—millions of workers and their families—into a DMV- or Post Office–style government-run system that will degrade care while imposing enormous new tax burdens on everyone. His opposition to investing in the infrastructure that moves fossil fuels threatens to make the gas and home heating Michigan families depend on even more expensive. These are radical departures from the Democrats those families have supported for years. And El-Sayed campaigns with a top surrogate who says America deserved 9/11 and is worse than Al-Qaeda. Voters don’t have to agree with Rogers on everything to recognize the gulf between a Republican willing to break with his president over Michigan’s interests and a Democrat who embraces someone with that much contempt for America. There are Democrats deeply uncomfortable with this nominee, particularly in Michigan’s reliably Democratic black and Jewish communities. But disliking the Democrat doesn’t automatically make someone comfortable voting Republican. Exhibiting independence like this gives those voters a concrete reason to see Rogers differently.
Jesse Arm25,193 views • 23 days ago
Donald Trump likes to call Chuck Schumer a Palestinian. But truth is, Schumer's recent behavior is decidedly un-Palestinian. When Schumer loses a war, like he just did in Michigan, he immediately surrenders. Abdul El-Sayed will show him no mercy if he makes it to Washington.
Jesse Arm79,262 views • 2 months ago
Why is hasanabi so fixated on the Manhattan Institute? Because we aren't just reflexive partisans. We are opponents of the Communist-lauding, Jihadist-sympathetic, and anti-American Third Worldism that Piker subscribes to. But we're also willing to work with patriotic Americans of every political stripe—Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals—who look at Piker's attempts to cast America and the West as history's permanent oppressors, excuse or romanticize violent movements simply because they oppose the United States or Israel, reduce every conflict to "colonizer versus colonized," and import that worldview into our own domestic politics, and say: no thanks. And the notion that we're all paid mercenaries is pretty funny. Yes, Hasan, if I weren't making the big think tank bucks, I'd be back home in Michigan knocking doors for Abdul El-Sayed, explaining to people in Detroit why they should vote for the candidate whose policies are most favorable to the brave mujahideen fighting the America-allied Jews in Gaza, instead of the candidate focused on bringing more investment and manufacturing back to their own state.
Jesse Arm80,749 views • 3 months ago
As an ultra-MAGA, far-right, pro-Trump fanatic, I do hold some controversial views. For example: • I think an outdoor UFC fight at the White House to celebrate America 250 sounds cool. • I like fixing fountains. • I do not believe patio construction is a moral atrocity.
Jesse Arm123,716 views • 5 months ago
We can appreciate Mitch McConnell's long and storied record of public service while also arguing for transparency and acknowledging that America should avoid further descending into gerontocracy. I discussed this yesterday with Jake Tapper 🦅 & Meghan Hays on CNN's The Lead CNN.
Jesse Arm89,700 views • 3 months ago
Here’s the thing about “ugly fuck”-gate. James Talarico actually seems to understand something that the median Democratic comms staffer in Washington clearly does not. If Democrats want to seriously compete in places like Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, etc. this cycle, then there is simply no such thing as too much moderation—especially if you’re the kind of Democrat who was recently saying there are six biological sexes, God is nonbinary, being white requires apology, the southern border should be a welcome mat, or campaigns ought to go vegan. Cursing out Stephen Miller doesn’t help them get where they’re ostensibly looking to go.
Jesse Arm113,351 views • 5 months ago
There’s an asymmetry in our politics that I find increasingly frustrating. I’m perfectly happy to condemn bigotry, extremism, and conspiratorial garbage when it comes from the right. I do it all the time. And I’m quite happy that three of the most prominent traffickers in such bile—Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie—have been repudiated by the president and excised from the GOP. But when similarly ugly behavior emerges on the left, getting Democrats to offer the same unequivocal condemnation can feel like pulling teeth. Part of the problem is that the mainstream left has failed to articulate an affirmative political vision that extends beyond opposition to Trump—or to draw clear lines against its own extremes. The result has been a sustained trend of ceding ground within the party to radical socialists and figures who have expressed sympathy for Islamist terrorists.
Jesse Arm33,822 views • 1 month ago
If Abdul El-Sayed wins narrowly while underperforming more mainstream Democrats in comparable states, AOC will call it a sweeping mandate for the far left. If he loses, they’ll blame the media, AIPAC, and centrist Democrats. Heads they win; tails someone else failed them. What gets lost is El-Sayed’s own record: supporting defunding the police, opposing fossil fuel infrastructure, and advocating the elimination of private health insurance—then pretending otherwise. Beyond his ideological radicalism, El-Sayed has compounded his problems by being dishonest with Michigan voters. And that’s to say nothing of the anti-Americanism he embraced by bringing Hasan Piker onto the campaign trail, or concerns about his family’s reported ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Jesse Arm12,021 views • 15 days ago