A Home for Jew Haters

By Noah Rothman

Friday, July 11, 2025

 

The annals of public relations disasters are replete with debacles that should keep corporate and institutional brand managers awake at night. Who can forget the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad, in which the influencer subdued an incipient riot with soda? “I want my life back,” British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward quipped amid his firm’s unsatisfying efforts to contain a disastrous 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill. Abercrombie & Fitch’s claim that their brand catered exclusively to “thin and beautiful people” and the “cool kids” haunted the company even after its corporate officers apologized for the remark.

 

In the future, students of spectacular PR malfeasance may look to Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin for yet another example of what not to do.

 

During a recent appearance on PBS’s NewsHour, Martin was pressed for his thoughts on New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani and his defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada.” Correspondent Amna Nawaz observed that Martin’s “Jewish colleagues” have deemed that call to action “very disturbing” and “potentially dangerous.” When Martin was asked if he understood their concerns, the DNC chair demonstrated that he did not.

 

“You know, there’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100 percent of the time with,” Martin insisted, as though popularizing the concept of anti-Jewish terrorism was just another policy preference. “There’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani, that he said,” Martin added. “But at the end of the day, I always believe,” he continued, “that you win through addition. You win by bringing people into your coalition.”

 

You see, the Democratic Party is a broad coalition. “We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have the labor progressives like me,” Martin observed. “And now, we have this new brand of Democrat, which is the leftist.”

 

You sure do, Mr. Chairman. Martin concluded by asserting that his party is a “big tent party,” a political home to millions of Americans with diverse perspectives, including those who promote antisemitism. And that’s okay. “We should celebrate that as a party and recognize, at the end of the day, we’re better because of it,” Martin concluded.

 

Taken literally, which far too many of its subscribers do, the phrase “globalize the intifada” would yield to an international campaign of terrorism targeting Jews of all ages with bullets and bombs in places like pizza parlors, commuter buses, and shopping malls. The phrase is bandied about by anti-Israel/pro-Hamas demonstrators, and companion slogans often accompany it. Among them, “there is only one solution,” “from the river to the sea,” “Jihad of victory or martyrdom,” and “by any means necessary.”

 

Zohran Mamdani wants you to pretend that these are all merely florid metaphors, ignoring the violence and vandalism that so often accompany their expression. No one else is obligated to pretend along with him. Martin’s decision to welcome this collection of despicable malcontents into his party’s coalition was a choice. It is not, however, a choice that every Democrat is willing to make.

 

Dean Phillips, the representative who made a name for himself as one of the earliest Democrats willing to acknowledge the extent of Joe Biden’s decrepitude, was asked recently about Martin’s remarks. After all, the DNC chair had explicitly placed Phillips at one end of the Democratic spectrum with the Mamdani-style “leftists” at the other. “Is there room for you and Mamdani in the Democratic Party?” CNN anchor Omar Jimenez asked.

 

“The answer, ultimately, I think, is no,” Phillips replied with little hesitation. “Yes, you want diversity,” he continued. “But, when you have socialists, when you have socialists in the Democratic Party, I don’t know how anybody could argue that that would be beneficial for the party or for the country.”

 

That’s how you manage a brand’s reputation — at least, one that is attempting to appeal to the broadest possible array of Americans, most of whom don’t want to see their country burn and their neighbors terrorized. Not that Phillips’s response required much of him beyond some modest bravery and decency. Still, his example should shame those within his coalition who lack the capacity for either.