This is a curious comment to me, honestly. I actually did learn about Father Coughlin and some of the antisemitism that passed around as social justice even into as late as the 1960s and 70s. But I also learned that social justice as both a term and a concept predates Coughlin by decades, if not centuries.

Which brings me to my real point. Why should it be sad that (some) millennials don’t know “social justice” was once code for antisemitism? The origins of social justice are not antisemitic, but more than this, to whom was it code for that? I don’t think a reasonable person would even try to argue that that was the only or predominant meaning it had at the time.

And on the other hand, if it’s become so loosed from antisemitism these days — especially given the uptick in antisemitic hate crimes and the emphasis on combating that that social justice causes are advocating more and more — wouldn’t that be a good thing that there is no longer room for such overlap?