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How I learned to laugh at neo-Nazis
I write about a lot of Jewish movies and TV across a big range — shows that examine different valences of Jewish identity, like Long Story Short, or that explore Hasidic life, like Shtisel. But there’s one common genre that ticks me off: The dire warning.
This is a common form of Jewishly-inflected media that crosses my desk. Maybe it’s a Holocaust movie or TV show. Maybe it’s about modern antisemitism. Maybe it’s about neo-Nazis. But the intent of all of them is clear, namely, to warn the public about the rise of extremist ideology. “We should all be very worried!” they scream at the audiences. “Nazis are everywhere!”
In Nuremberg, characters observe, in serious tones, that even seemingly normal people can be capable of great evil. Americans, they say, should watch out lest the German hatred arrive on their shores. In shows like A Little Light, about Miep Gies’ heroism in hiding the Frank family, the obvious message is about how everyday people must step up to fight evil Nazis. It’s all painfully heavy-handed.
I agree: We should learn from history, and we should be on alert for rising antisemitism. But this message also gets old. We grow numb to it. If the most effective way to prevent the return of fascism or Nazism was simply telling people “Nazi bad!” then there would never be any issue.
That’s why I was so fascinated when I finally watched One Battle After Another, after it won Best Picture at the Golden Globes and got a slew of Oscar nominations. Much of the movie is in fact a satire of Christian nationalism and its connection to Nazi ideology. And that satirical lens gives it a sharper, and more compelling, take than most of the movies on that topic I’ve covered.
The movie opens with the French 75, a leftist group whose exact commitments are hazy beyond a vague stance for immigration and against The Man. After some politica
l actions — freeing immigrants at a detention center while whooping “Viva la revolución!” — they end up disbanding when a raid goes wrong. The movie picks back up years later with former French 75 explosives expert Pat (DiCaprio) and his now-teenage daughter Charlene (Chase Infiniti), who are living under the assumed identities of Bob and Willa, fearing that an old agent of The Man, Colonel Steven Lockjaw — played to perfection by Sean Penn at his most blusteringly punctilious — might be after them.
As it turns out, he is. See, Lockjaw is trying to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, a group of elite white supremacists and Christian nationalists — each member seems to be part of the billionaire class — dedicated to making the world “safe and pure.” Part of the interview process for Lockjaw involves swearing that he is “American-born by gentile” and never had an interracial relationship. But he has — he had an affair with Willa’s mother, a Black revolutionary member of the French 75. He suspects Willa may be his daughter, not Bob’s, and if she is, she could give away Lockjaw’s past sins to the Christmas Adventurers Club, who already suspect him of being “soft” in his “duty to racial purification.”
Much of the rest of the movie is a slapstick, absurdist chase. Bob, who has spent the last decade smoking weed and impotently lecturing his daughter, barely remembers his days as Pat the explosives expert. He can’t keep up with the new generation of activists, faceplanting into an alley when he tries to join three teens doing parkour across rooftops.
There’s a lot going on — examinations of masculinity in the military industrial complex, ego and political idealism, aging and activism. And, of course, the Christian nationalism and genteel racism woven into our elite institutions.
But One Battle After Another does not make a didactic parallel to the Christian nationalists in our current government; we don’t see a character, for example, brushing off praise for Hitler, as JD Vance did, or pleading for Norway to send us immigrants instead of “shithole countries” like Somalia, as Donald Trump just did. Instead, the Christmas Adventurers Club is simultaneously dizzyingly malevolent and completely ludicrous. Their solemn greeting is, “All hail Saint Nick.” A motherly figure offers banana pancakes to members as they march off to their clubhouse, as though they’re going to an adult Boy Scouts meeting not planning a murder. The secret knock to their underground bunker is tapped to the rhythm of “Jingle Bells.” Their statement of belief feels both true to the core of white supremacy, and completely, obviously unhinged: Members of the club are, they say, “superior to other human beings.”
The power of a movie or a book is that it lets someone explore and inhabit ideas through the story and characters. If you’re so worried that an audience will miss the intended message that you rush to tell them what it is, you end up preventing them from having the chance to really understand what the work is saying, or consider the questions it’s posing and come to their own conclusions. It rushes viewers to the finish line without giving them a chance to engage with the art.
It was a relief to watch One Battle After Another skewer the extremism of its villains, making them palpably freakish instead of just menacingly evil. It’s more effective to undermine an ideology by making it laughably strange than by scolding anyone who dares to agree with it.
Still, in case you missed the idea that the Christmas Adventurers were neo-Nazis, the end of the movie makes it pretty hard to miss. (Here’s your spoiler alert.) Lockjaw is told he has finally gotten approval to join the club, and is given a corner office. As he kicks his feet up on the desk and proudly leans back in his chair, a hissing noise begins; in fact, the club found out about his crime of interracial sin, and, like any good Nazis, they’re gassing him for it.
After all, there’s really no winning with Nazis.
The post How I learned to laugh at neo-Nazis appeared first on The Forward.
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Gunmen Kill Three People and Abduct Catholic Priest in Northern Nigeria
A police vehicle of Operation Fushin Kada (Anger of Crocodile) is parked on Yakowa Road, as schools across northern Nigeria reopen nearly two months after closing due to security concerns, following the mass abductions of school children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, January 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nuhu Gwamna/File Photo
Gunmen killed three people and abducted a Catholic priest and several others during an early morning attack on the clergyman’s residence in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state, church and police sources said on Sunday.
Saturday’s assault in Kauru district highlights persistent insecurity in the region, and came days after security services rescued all 166 worshippers abducted in attacks by gunmen on two churches elsewhere in Kaduna.
Such attacks have drawn the attention of US President Donald Trump, who has accused Nigeria’s government of failing to protect Christians, a charge Abuja denies. US forces struck what they described as terrorist targets in northwestern Nigeria on December 25.
The Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan named the kidnapped clergyman as Nathaniel Asuwaye, parish priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Karku, and said 10 other people were abducted.
Three residents were killed during the attack, which began at about 3:20 a.m. (0220 GMT), the diocese said in a statement.
A Kaduna police spokesperson confirmed the incident, but said five people had been abducted in total and that the three people killed were members of the security forces.
“Security agents exchanged gunfire with the bandits, killed some of them, and unfortunately two soldiers and a police officer lost their lives,” he said.
Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement on Sunday that Nigeria’s security crisis was “increasingly getting out of hand”. It accused the government of “gross incompetence” and failure to protect civilians as gunmen kill, abduct and terrorize rural communities across several northern states.
A presidency spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Pope Leo, during his weekly address to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, expressed solidarity with the victims of recent attacks in Nigeria.
“I hope that the competent authorities will continue to act with determination to ensure the security and protection of every citizen’s life,” Leo said.
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Israeli FM Sa’ar Stresses Gaza Demilitarization, Criticizes Iranian Threats in Talks with Paraguay’s Foreign Minister
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar made the remarks on Tuesday during a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem with Paraguay’s Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano. The meeting included a one-on-one session followed by an expanded meeting with both countries’ bilateral teams.
Sa’ar told the media, “We support the Trump plan for Gaza. Hamas must be disarmed, and Gaza must be demilitarized. This is at the heart of the plan, and we must not compromise on it. This is necessary for the security and stability of the region and also for a better future for the residents of Gaza themselves.”
He also commented on Iran, saying, “I praise President Peña’s decision in April of 2025 to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. The European Union and Ukraine have also recently done so, and I commend that. The Iranian regime is murdering its own people. It is endangering stability in the Middle East and exporting terrorism to other continents, including Latin America. The attempt by the world’s most extremist regime to obtain the most dangerous weapon in the world, nuclear weapons, is a clear danger to regional and world peace.”
Sa’ar added that Iran’s long-range missile program threatens not only Israel but other countries in the Middle East and Europe. “The Iranian regime has already used missiles against other countries in the Middle East. European countries are also threatened by the range of these missiles,” he said.
Lezcano praised his country’s decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem. “Paraguay’s sovereign decision to open its embassy in Jerusalem was made in faith and responsibly. It reflects the coherent foreign policy that we consistently and clearly hold with regard to Israel,” he said. He added that Paraguay “unequivocally and unquestionably supports the right of the State of Israel to exist and to defend itself,” a position reinforced after the October 7, 2023, attacks.
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In Economic Speeches, Trump Claims Inflation Victory Nearly 20 Times Even as Prices Bite
US President Donald Trump gestures on the day he delivers a speech on energy and the economy, in Clive, Iowa, US, January 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Donald Trump has cast himself as Republicans’ chief messenger on the cost of living in an election year, but a Reuters review of his speeches shows a president repeatedly declaring inflation beaten while rarely acknowledging the strain many Americans say they still feel.
In five speeches on the economy since December, Trump asserted that inflation had been beaten or was way down almost 20 times and said prices were falling almost 30 times, assertions at odds with economic data and voters’ daily experiences. Much of the remaining time was spent on grievances and other issues, including immigration, whether Somalia was a country, and attacks on opponents.
Taken together, the speeches portray a president struggling to reconcile his central claim — that he has fixed the cost-of-living crisis — with inflation near 3% over the past year and voters’ lived experience of paying more for grocery staples. The price of ground beef, for example, is up 18% since Trump took office a year ago, while ground coffee prices are up 29%.
Republican strategists told Reuters that his mixed messaging on the top issue for voters risks creating a credibility gap for him and the Republican Party ahead of the November midterms, when control of Congress will be at stake. Opinion polls show voters are deeply unhappy with Trump‘s handling of the economy.
“He can’t continue to make claims that are demonstrably false, particularly at the expense of Republicans who are in competitive House districts or Senate races,” said Rob Godfrey, a Republican strategist. Trump “must be disciplined and focused,” he added.
One source close to the White House said the president needed to hit the issue of affordability harder and through personal visits to critical districts.
“He needs to bring the message out because the message is not resonating,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to more freely discuss the issue.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said Trump’s focus on illegal immigration in his speeches is directly connected to his argument that people in the country illegally have an adverse impact on the economy. Desai said it causes “public services being overburdened, business activity disrupted by crime, housing markets flooded, and workers’ wages depressed.”
Trump has repeatedly stressed that much work remains to clean up the economic mess he says his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, left him, Desai added.
TRUMP VEERS OFF MESSAGE TO RAIL ABOUT IMMIGRATION
The Reuters analysis found that Trump – when not declaring inflation beaten – devoted nearly half his speaking time to grievances and other issues.
In about five hours of speaking time, he spent roughly two hours straying into about 20 topics unrelated to prices, the Reuters review found. When he veered off message, his top issue was illegal immigration, which he spent a total of about 30 to 40 minutes talking about.
In the speeches he insulted Somali Americans in Minnesota, who voted against him in the 2024 election. He referred to Somalia as “not even a country” – and in four speeches he disparaged Somali-born Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
A progressive, high-profile Democrat and Muslim, Omar has been a frequent Trump critic, especially over his immigration policies.
“Every time the president of the United States has chosen to use hateful rhetoric to talk about me and the community that I represent, my death threats skyrocket,” Omar said last month, the day after a man sprayed a foul-smelling liquid on her at a town hall event.
Trump also talked about men in women’s sports, Venezuela, Iran, the Islamic State militant group, Greenland, Ukraine and Russia, military recruitment, his false claim that the 2020 election was rigged, US weaponry, his exaggerated claim to have ended eight wars, and even how much a Fox News anchor likes him.
TRUMP‘S MEANDERING WORRIES STRATEGISTS
“Inflation is stopped. Incomes are up. Prices are down,” Trump said in an Iowa speech on January 27.
Only twice in the five speeches did Trump acknowledge that prices are still too high, but he blamed them on Biden. Trump was elected in 2024 because of voter unhappiness with Biden’s handling of inflation – which spiked to over 9% in 2022 – and illegal immigration.
Democrats caused prices “to be too high,” Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania on December 9. “But now they’re coming down.”
In the same speech he called the term “affordability” a Democratic “hoax”. After a public backlash, he has ceased saying that in more recent speeches.
In four of the speeches Trump repeatedly and haphazardly switches topics, often when he is in the middle of talking about the economy, the Reuters review found.
Four Republican strategists interviewed by Reuters said Trump‘s meandering style – which he proudly calls “the weave” – risked drowning out his core economic argument that he has brought inflation and prices down.
Speaking to world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 21, Trump spent the first 22 minutes on topic, then suddenly, for the next 22 minutes, insulted Europeans, said they would be speaking German if it wasn’t for America, called NATO ungrateful, and decried the “crooked” media before pivoting back to the US economy.
Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said voters want to hear what Trump is doing to lower costs. “But they have no memory of what Trump says about economic issues because of the volume of his own rhetoric.”
One source familiar with the White House’s thinking said Trump was likely to use his State of the Union address on February 24 as the kickoff for more intense domestic travel to amplify his message on affordability.
TRUMP DOES OFFER SOLUTIONS
For many Americans, the economy still feels unforgiving. Prices remain high, even though the inflation rate has inched down since Trump took office, from 3% to 2.7%. A lower inflation rate does not mean prices are decreasing – just that they are growing at a slower pace, economists stress.
In the 12 months through December 2025, food costs were up over 3%, while average hourly earnings were up only 1.1% year over year. The unemployment rate was 4.4% in December, up from 4% when Trump took office in January 2025, according to government data.
In some of the speeches Trump correctly identifies a drop in prices for a few everyday goods, including eggs and gas. The cost of eggs fell about 21% in December from a year earlier after being 60% higher during Trump‘s first months back in office. Gas prices are about 4% lower since January last year.
But the cost of an average grocery basket has risen. The price of coffee, beef, and some fruits, among other items, has risen in the past year.
Trump does offer solutions in his speeches, including his tax cuts that kicked in last month that will produce greater savings for tens of millions of families; the scrapping of taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payments; his plan to reduce mortgage interest rates; a proposal to lower housing prices; and deals with health insurance companies to reduce drug prices.
Most economists expect US households and the economy at large to benefit in the months ahead from the tax cuts. But Trump‘s more recent proposals are unlikely to have a significant impact on the cost of living between now and November, some economists told Reuters. One of Trump‘s ideas – to cap credit card interest rates to 10% for a year – could even backfire since it could limit access to credit for lower-income families, some economists have warned.
Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which supports candidates for the House of Representatives, said Trump and Republicans were helping working families. “Voters are seeing this clear contrast, and the best is yet to come.”
Some 35% of Americans approve of Trump‘s overall handling of the economy, according to a January 25 Reuters/Ipsos poll, up slightly from 33% in December. But it is well below his initial 42% rating on the issue when he first took office a year ago.
FALLING INTO BIDEN TRAP
Former economic officials in previous administrations say Trump is falling into the same trap Biden did in 2024 when confronted with persistently high inflation.
Biden kept claiming the US economy was strong and urged voters to look at other economic data. That strategy failed badly and Democrats were punished at the polls.
The officials agreed it was important for presidents to show voters they understood their economic pain, especially in an election year.
“We definitely talked past people on inflation,” Jared Bernstein, the head of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview.
“What we typically did was to say, ‘A new report just came out on jobs, it’s very strong,’ and that was all true. But the fact is that there wasn’t much we were able to do in terms of the price level.”