Now take Vance. Confronted by a stream of anti-Jewish hatred on a Young Republicans WhatsApp group, the vice-president dismissed it as the kind of edgy humour in which kids indulge. He was referring to men in their twenties and thirties talking of sending their political opponents to the gas chambers. Whatever his other flaws, Mamdani does not speak like that. A conservative student last week asked Vance why the US helps Israel “considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours, but also openly supports the prosecution [sic] of ours”.