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Editors’ Pick

August 15, 2025

Today, Young People See Nazis Everywhere, Unless They’re Looking at Anti-Semites

Lessons of the Sydney Sweeney controversy.

It seems that every week brings with it some fundamentally silly controversy that manages to get the attention of the entire media for a day or two. Last week, it was a fashion commercial featuring a young and attractive actress named Sydney Sweeney, and the punning of “jeans” and “genes.” Left-wing commentators identified the advertisement as a thinly veiled endorsement of Nazi-style racism; some on the far-right agreed and praised it for that reason; sane people, meanwhile, just shook their heads in disbelief. I didn’t expect to cover this news item (if it can be called that) in Mosaic, but then I came across the following analysis by Josh Kaplan:

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