I recently had the honor of speaking at UC Berkeley on a panel entitled “Conservative Women in Media” with Allie Stuckey and Antonia Okafor.

Our event attracted a disparate and engaged crowd, most likely due to the different specialties of each of the panelists. Antonia Okafor is a strong Second Amendment activist, Allie Stuckey is passionately pro-life, and I major in international relations and Middle Eastern studies, with a focus on Israel.

The event was incredibly successful and encountered no issues from the administration or students, aside from our flyers being destroyed and covered up, presumably by the International Socialist Organization.

In my mind, I had prepared for an onslaught of emotional questions from leftist students. But during the Q&A, not a leftist student, but a self-proclaimed National Socialist and self-proclaimed United States Senate candidate, decided to ask me a question about Israel and the “vast Jewish conspiracy.”

I will not use his name in this article because, although he tried to steal my platform in Berkeley by overstepping the “one question rule,” I will not be giving him an undeserved platform here at Lone Conservative.

Even before he asked his conspiratorial questions, I knew he was trouble when I saw him snickering each time Okafor mentioned “Judeo-Christian values.” When the moderator decided to call on the National Socialist, I knew the question would be directed towards me.

“Why do you shill for Israel and the international financial Jews?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t shill for Israel,” I said while he continued to interrupt. “I’m American so I support our strong allies.” I continued to argue that our relationship with Israel is beneficial because of their technology and intelligence sharing, common values, consistent voting record with us in the United Nations, and the fact that we just opened a military base in Israel, among many other reasons.

“All of the central banks are Jewish banks,” states the anti-Semite, (or “counter-Semite” as he describes himself) in a pathetic attempt to blame all the problems of the world on 0.2% of the world population.

This “US Senate candidate” who very well may be the lovechild of David Duke and Alex Jones, somehow managed to figuratively put on a Klansman robe over his tinfoil hat.

“North Korea doesn’t have a central bank and you want to bomb them,” he continued, “Iran doesn’t have a central bank and you want to bomb them, Saddam Hussein didn’t have one.”

So rather than supporting a strong US ally, this buffoon prefers to focus on some of the most oppressive and isolated regimes as models for governance, in his view, because they haven’t been penetrated by “the international financial Jews.”

He continued to blatantly disregard the code of civility outlined at the beginning of the lecture, and ranted about the apparent evils of Israel to the point where I had no choice but to interrupt him, saying, “I am trying to answer you, but you keep talking because you think this is your platform; it’s not your platform, it’s our platform.”

The rabid anti-Semite eventually called our ally Israel “a terrorist state” and even called for going to war against Israel. Trying my best to take him seriously, I responded, “If you want to defund Israel, you can make that argument, but you must also defund Afghanistan, that’s getting 5 billion dollars, while Israel is getting 3.2 billion,” I proceeded, “you better defund Egypt, you better defund the Palestinians, who use our money to pay terrorists who kill innocent Israelis and Americans.”

He continued to spew his anti-Semitic hatred, but in order to allow more of the audience to ask questions, we had to cut him off.

After the panel, I met with wonderful students and parents to take photos. Meanwhile, he waited for me outside to ask whether he could “debate“ me on his podcast, and also told other attendees that he believed in the Final Solution, that is, that all Jews should be murdered. He later tweeted to me his topic of choice to debate: whether or not the Holocaust actually happened.

As great as I felt using facts against a man whose worldview is so far removed from reality, you aren’t changing minds by interacting with him and giving him a platform. A platform which that would be greater than anything he could get on his own.

Berkeley is quite possibly the most liberal place in the country, and I was surprised to be encountering a Nazi running for office there. Then I realized, he’s been forged in the same radical furnace as Antifa. They’re both willing to advocate for the use of violence and intimidation to gain power through fear and exploit divisions through identity politics as a means to their horrendous ends.

As conservatives, we must continue to reject the attempt to mainstream these fringe movements because they are antithetical to the values that make America great.

Watch the entire video of the event below:

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Kassy Dillon Kassy Dillon is a political commentator, media strategist, and the founder and president of Lone Conservative. While attending a small women’s college in Western Massachusetts, she founded Lone Conservative, an online publication created to give a voice to conservative college students. She frequently makes media appearances and writes on topics involving the Middle East, free speech, and cultural issues on college campuses. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the Daily Wire, the Washington Examiner, and Campus Reform.

The views expressed in this article are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Lone Conservative staff.