For Gen Z, It’s Not Weimar—It’s TikTok

Commentators on both the Left and the Right have begun warning that America is slipping into a new Weimar Republic. Popular podcasters Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher from one side and writer Rod Dreher from the other have been issuing increasingly hyperbolic warnings that the growing anti-Semitism we are seeing on college campuses, online, and in public life signals an ideological unraveling. They suggest that we are witnessing the return of an old ideological fever.

On his “Prof G Media” newsletter, Scott Galloway complained that he gets “Weimar Republic vibes” whenever he returns to America from Europe:

The demonization of immigrants and hollowing out of institutions; the demagogue vilifying Americans as the enemy within with rhetoric inspiring violence, while decent people refuse to condemn it; the weaponization of the legal system; the K-shaped economy where incumbents always win and everyone else, especially young people, falls behind. The question isn’t why trust in America is eroding, but where the absence of trust is leading us. Somewhere dark. Trust is infrastructure—invisible until it fails, causing a catastrophe.

Galloway isn’t alone in this framing. Kara Swisher echoes and amplifies it. On her Pivot podcast, she doubled down on Galloway’s Weimar worries, comparing White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—who is Jewish—to Heinrich Himmler, one of the highest‑ranking officials in Nazi Germany. Galloway himself has leaned heavily on historical parallels, citing historians Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder as his guides and arguing that America doesn’t yet resemble the Third Reich but “the late‑stage Weimar Republic.”

Amid these warnings from the Left, there are also more measured versions of the same analogy from Rod Dreher, who has spent the last decade invoking Weimar comparisons. Since 2016, Dreher has been warning that America is “starting to feel like Weimar Germany,” pointing to cultural fragmentation, institutional breakdown, and rising extremism that resemble the conditions that preceded the rise of the Nazis. And although he is not as strident as Galloway and Swisher, Dreher ultimately shares their conviction that America is drifting toward a Weimar‑like unraveling. With both the hyperbolic and the measured camps converging on the same historical analogy, the Weimar narrative now dominates the way many interpret today’s anti-Semitism—as if it were the return of a fully formed political movement.

But if we are being honest, we would have to acknowledge that most of what we are seeing—especially among Gen Z—doesn’t look anything like pre-war Weimar in 1933. With the exception of a few “true believers” or those moral entrepreneurs who have found a way to monetize their anti-Semitism on their podcasts on both the Left and the Right, the movement isn’t ideological, organized, or driven by a coherent worldview. It is imitation.

Anti-Semitic jokes, memes, and slogans are spreading because they are easy to copy—not because millions of young Americans have suddenly embraced an anti-Semitic doctrine. There is no organized youth mobilization or contemporary analogue to the Hitler Youth channeling them into ideological extremism. They are not trying to rebuild a fallen nation or avenge a historical defeat. They are not motivated by a theory of race or a vision of national renewal. They are doing something much more banal—but still dangerous. They are imitating what they see.

The danger right now isn’t a revival of Weimar-style extremism or ideological conviction. Rather, the danger is mimetic contagion—a generation swept up in social contagion that in some ways can be even more unsettling because contagion can travel farther and hollow out moral judgment more quickly than ideology ever could. Gen Z lives in an environment where identity, humor, and rebellion are posted online and rewarded algorithmically.

In that world, ideas spread simply because people see them and are entertained by them. This is the core insight of mimetic theory: people imitate what is socially rewarded. They are attracted to what gives them validation.   

As a result, anti-Semitism spreads because it is transgressive. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism has become edgy, signaling belonging because it aligns with certain narratives—even when they are false—and it circulates easily in meme form. Anti-Semitism offers a simple villain in a complex world that always needs a scapegoat. Sadly, the Jews have been forced to play that role for centuries. None of this requires ideology. It only requires an audience.

When a meme or a slogan like “From the River to the Sea” becomes socially contagious, young people repeat it without even understanding it. In fact, The New York Times and NPR both took it upon themselves to publish articles trying to explain to readers what the slogan meant, as it was clear that most of those proclaiming the slogan had no idea which river and which sea they were referring to. But they repeat it because others repeat it. They repeat it because it feels like the language of their group. It is the fastest way to signal solidarity with a bit of rebellion. This is not Weimar. This is TikTok.

The Weimar analogy imagines a mass movement with leaders, doctrines, and goals. But what we are seeing today is not an ideological movement. Most of those who are spreading anti-Semitic content are not joining organizations, they are joining trends. It is what René Girard, the French theorist of imitation, would call “a swarm.” Weimar anti-Semitism was ideological, while Gen Z anti-Semitism is mimetic.

Gen Z memes are not trying to destroy democracy and resurrect fascism. They are not trying to build a political movement. They are doing something that in some ways is far more chilling: they are treating anti-Semitism as entertainment—not because they believe it but because they no longer concern themselves with who might be hurt by what they may have come to believe are funny memes. 

The danger is real—but it is not the danger of organized political extremism. Rather, it is the danger of a generation that has lost the ability to distinguish irony from ideology. If the problem of Gen Z anti-Semitism were ideological, we would need ideological counter arguments. But if the problem is mimetic, we need to find a way to interrupt the contagion. 

The Weimar analogy seems attractive because it gives us a familiar story with familiar villains. But it blinds us to the fact that today’s anti-Semitism is emerging from a generation that is not ideologically committed but, instead, socially vulnerable. They are not driven by belief; they are driven by imitation.

We are not living in Weimar. We are living in a world where the crowd no longer needs ideology to find a scapegoat to blame. It only needs a meme. The encouraging reality is that mimetic contagions have short half‑lives. Like all trends, they flare, spread, and then lose force once their mimetic energy dissipates and the crowd moves on to a different scapegoat. But even a passing trend can leave wounded people in its wake—and that is exactly what is happening today.