Scott Wasserman, a longtime political observer in Colorado who is Jewish and a liberal, distinctly remembered his response upon hearing about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked another war in the Middle East. 

“It was a gut wrenching event,” he told Colorado Politics. “I remember waking up, I remember hearing about it. I remember realizing, as the news was coming in the scale of the attack, this was not just a terrorist attack. This was on a level that was inconceivable for anyone who had ever paid attention to the issue, who cared about Israel, (who) cared about the Palestinians.”

Then he noticed something else, too, which he described as the “disorienting” experience of seeing allies on the political left somehow blame Israel for the Oct. 7 massacre. 

Most of all, Wasserman worries about what he calls the “new illiberalism” rising in America.

Wasserman, who previously served as deputy chief of staff to Gov. John Hickenlooper and then as chief of staff to both Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia and Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne, had also spent years at SEIU and Colorado WINS, as well in the legislature as press secretary for House Democrats.

Wasserman, who received a bachelor’s degree in Middle East studies from George Washington University, is stepping down down as president and chief executive officer of the Bell Policy Center.

This interview, originally for Colorado Conversations, has been edited for brevity.  

Colorado Politics: Tell us a little bit about your family’s history. You told me once before that your family escaped the pogroms, if you will, and got to the United States.

Scott Wasserman: What’s so interesting is that I think my family’s story is not terribly unique, like many Jews who lived in Eastern Europe at the end of the 19th century ultimately found refuge in America following the very violent pogroms that occurred in Russia and other places of settlement. I only kind of know this through doing my own ancestry.com journey that my grandfather was actually born in 1903, the year of one of the most infamous pogroms that took place in Kishinev, what is now Moldova. But he actually was raised in Kishinev. And I think that, so for me and my family, America was a place of refuge.

Growing up, I was very aware of the fact that my father was a first generation American. He grew up speaking Yiddish and Russian didn’t learn English until later on in life. And so, I think, that my story is one of feeling comfortable in America, but also recognizing that there’s something very different about us ethnically, culturally, nationally. And I think that, reflecting on those experiences, and maybe we will talk about it, it is really hammered home what a refuge the liberal democracy and the liberal democratic republic of America is for Jews, who were fleeing illiberal places and ultimately found a home here. And so that’s my background and part of what I’ve been reflecting on in the days since Oct. 7 and sort of this larger debate that has emerged around Jewish history and kind of where we fit in the world.

CP: You describe yourself as a liberal. Do you mean classic liberalism and how do you define that in the context of American politics?

Wasserman: Yeah, I mean, I think something really interesting has been happening. I mean, if you had asked me five years ago where I stood politically, I would’ve described myself as a progressive. We would’ve talked about I’m a Democrat versus a Republican. I’m not a conservative, and I don’t think anything has necessarily changed about my political opinions or my policy preferences, but I think something that has really become important — and I think there are a number of people who I’ve been dialoguing with for whom the idea of classic liberalism has become really important. And when I say classical liberalism, what I mean is living in a tolerant society and recognizing that that is a paradigm shift, that prior to the emergence of liberalism, people lived in countries and societies in which tolerance was hard to come by, in which your religion, your politics, your cultural preferences were all subject to judgment. And if you did not align with the predominant belief system of the country —

CP: The orthodoxy, if you will.

Wasserman: The orthodoxy — then you would live in the margins in an intolerant state. And so as I reflect upon everything that’s going on in America right now, I think something that has become so important — and I was feeling this way even before Oct. 7 — is that liberalism is the thing we have to protect, that we can all have our policy differences, we can all have our political differences, but if we get into a place where intolerance of any kind becomes the dominant theme, then particularly as Jews, we are in trouble. And I think that’s also reflecting upon the Jewish experience in Europe in the 1800s, where many Jews suddenly after the French Revolution were welcomed into European society, emancipated if you will, made to be citizens. And by the early 1900s were rejected, were kicked down. And so I think I’ve just been reflecting a lot on how important liberalism is, what it means to have lost it and what it means to fight for it.

CP: (The Oct. 7 Hamas attack) has been described as the most horrific attacked on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. I wonder if that changed you, and if it did, how?

Wasserman: First of all, I mean it was a gut wrenching event. I remember waking up, I remember hearing about it. I remember realizing as the news was coming in, the scale of the attack, this was not just a terrorist attack. This was on a level that was inconceivable for anyone who had ever paid attention to the issue, who cared about Israel, cared about the Palestinians, that this was something fundamentally new. I think what was really disorienting and what was really concerning almost immediately after Oct. 7 was that there were those in America who didn’t say that was horrible — I care about the people in the region, I have questions about the politics of that region and the conflict — that there were people who said, “What was Israel even doing there?” That their reaction was not a reaction of disgust about the event. It was somehow putting the blame on Israel on Zionism.

And I want to be clear, and we’ll talk about this later, I’m extremely critical of the current Israeli government. I’m extremely critical of what this war has turned into. But if your initial reaction on Oct. 8 was to somehow say that the attack was warranted or that this was somehow Israel’s fault or Israelis shouldn’t have been there, that was deeply concerning to me because it said to me, “Wait a minute. There are people who have fundamental questions about whether or not a Jewish state should even exist.” And that Jews in America who just frankly learned that their cousins had been murdered and taken hostage were somehow suspect, that our affiliation with the Jewish people, that our connection to the people of Israel, and that our belief that Jews should have a homeland of their own, that suddenly we were suspect. And I think what we’ve seen is that that movement has grown since Oct. 7 to be increasingly illiberal and illogical going so far as to say that if you’re a Jew who is opposed to the war and supports Palestinians, well you’re okay. But if you’re a Jew who, with history in mind, believes there should be a Jewish state, that somehow you and your views should be banished from the public discourse.

And you know this because you had moderated at least one debate that I had had with someone else. I was really worried about illiberalism from the right before Oct. 7 — that there were, in my view, people who were espousing a form of Christian nationalism, who were saying that if you weren’t supportive of certain values and certain viewpoints, then you did not have a legitimate role in this democracy or this republic. And so I think after Oct. 7, suddenly the Jew becomes a pawn again in a larger political game. And that is kind of where I feel — like we are 200 days after October 7th — is that on the right we are hearing this almost clash of civilization-like defense of Israel’s actions and this sort of casting all Palestinians as somehow evil. On the left, we are hearing that Israel is a Zionist regime and is a form of fascism, and America should not be an ally. And I think what’s just really struck me and frustrated me is, like, where is our agency and our autonomy as Jewish people in this discussion? And it feels to me like on both sides of the divide, there is this new illiberalism that says, “Well, here’s how Jews fit into our worldview.” And so on the left, what we’re hearing is — we would prefer Jews who don’t have a relationship with the state of Israel, who don’t believe in Zionism and who favor our policies and ideas. “Well, they’re welcome in my America.” And then on the right, what we’re hearing is — well, we love Jews because of their faith in the Bible and their religiosity and we have common values, and if they support Israel and they’re opposed to the protesters, then we accept them.

And so what I call this is the game of “Good Jew, Bad Jew.” And I think what people maybe don’t appreciate is antisemitism — it’s not just hate, right? Antisemitism is when you have a story and Jews play a role in that story, and that can change sometimes in that story. Jews are in power and are the elite. In other versions of that story, we are the weak trying to cause consternation and rebellion, either way. The bottom line and what concerns me is that in either one of those worldviews, there’s a scenario in which I am not acceptable and in which I should not be included in society, in our politics, that if I look back on history, the warning lights are on and that we have reached a period of foment and illiberalism.

CP: What I saw immediately after Oct. 7 is that I saw several organizations on the left, broadly speaking, that basically pointed to Israel and said, “You’re to blame.” And on the right, what we saw, as just noted, is an immediate, clear unequivocal defense in saying, “We’re going to stand by Israel. Do what you must to conduct the war however you see a fit. We stand by you.” And we’ve seen stories about how Jewish Americans who are on the left — broadly speaking, liberal progressives, Democrats — find themselves as you kind of noted, isolated from the group of people that they had for a really long time been working with. Is that a fair description?

Wasserman: Yeah, I think that’s very fair. And I remember very clearly, especially in the first couple months that it got so bad that Jews who identify as Democrats and who had been involved had to write a letter saying that it is not OK for the Democratic party or Democratic elected officials to be lambasting or painting, with a broad brush, Zionism. It’s not okay to basically alienate and one-side this entire story and narrative. And I mean, look, this didn’t come out of nowhere. And I think what’s probably concerning for me and a lot of others is that maybe there had for a long time been people who weren’t saying the quiet part out loud. When I, two years ago, went to Israel and came back and was showing friends and colleagues pictures from my trip or talking to them about experiences, were they leaving the room and saying, “That filthy Zionist! I can’t believe he supports the state of Israel.”

CP: You talk about warning lights coming on. How do you draw the line? I mean, our reporters have been to the protests. We hear them chant, for example, “From the river to the sea. Palestine will be free.”

Wasserman: Look, I mean, this is what a liberal democratic society has to do. I support their right to protest just like I support the right of Second Amendment gun-toting knuckle draggers from my perspective, who say horrible things that I feel threatened by. What purpose does shutting down those protests do? All you’re going to end up doing is further radicalizing those students, perpetuating their belief that they’re under the thumb of an oppressive government. I don’t think that those viewpoints are going to go away. I mean, just because you shut down a protest and arrest everybody doesn’t mean that those ideas then go away. In fact, I would argue they probably get a little bit more dangerous. And I believe very strongly that this is part of the social contract and that you have to be able to tolerate hearing what other people have to say, even though you may find it challenging.

I guess from my perspective, the last thing I want to see is violent crackdowns that just further a narrative that we’re hearing from the left. Now, I saw today that the protests at Columbia University have moved to a different direction, where they’re actually breaking into administrative buildings, where they’re breaking windows. So, now I think I do think that a crackdown of that kind of behavior is acceptable. I think the issue for me, and this is what’s so frustrating, is I want to join these protesters. Listen, I told you earlier, I went to Israel two years ago. The only reason we went to Israel is because Bibi Netanyahu was no longer prime minister of the state of Israel. And I had been boycotting it for the last seven years, much to my wife’s chagrin. I want to be in common cause with many of these protesters. I am opposed to what Israel has decided to do in the days following Oct. 7. But I stand next to a protester, who is also saying that they want to see the destruction of Tel Aviv or that they want to rewind history back to 1947 or send the Jewish people back to Poland, for example.

I can think of at least a dozen other folks who feel very much the same way as me. And our feeling is you’ve made it either willfully or unintentionally impossible for us to join these protests and form solidarity with you because every statement that comes down of their mouth somehow … and I took this up with Rep. Tim Hernandez and still haven’t heard back from him. I said, “When you say free Palestine, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Do you mean free the Palestinians that live in the occupied territories?” Because if that’s the case, I’m with you and I’ve been at this for 20 years. But if what you mean when you say “Free Palestine” is to rewind the clock before partition, before all the history, then I couldn’t be more offended. And what disturbs me is that I don’t get a response, that there really does seem to be this almost joy in the ambiguity. “Well, you’re just going to have to guess, aren’t you?”