r/PoliticalCompassMemes

The Slate article in question: https://slate.com/culture/2026/05/rf-kuang-israeli-taipei-story-gaza-book-booktok.html

>Kuang’s Taipei Story won’t be published until September, and it’s a departure for the author, who has written only one other non-fantasy novel, the publishing-world satire Yellowface. Her new novel is the story of a Chinese American college student who takes an intensive summer course in Mandarin at a university in the capital of Taiwan. But at one “problematic” point in the story, Lily, the narrator, who is in a state of considerable emotional distress, impulsively ducks into a concert hall. The performer is a visiting artist, a pianist from Israel, who plays Liszt, converting Lily into a classical music appreciator. The pianist is unnamed, speaks not a single line of dialogue, and has no interaction with Lily or role in the novel’s plot. He appears on exactly two pages of Taipei Story.

>That’s it—the cause of Instagram comments charging Kuang with having “chosen the side of the oppressor” and with “normalizing a genocidal state,” as well as calls for boycotts of all her books. According to Kuang’s critics, the mere mention of any Israeli character that is not immediately qualified with denunciations of the state itself contributes to the subjugation of Palestinians and constitutes “a propaganda tool of the first rank.” Other commenters have exclaimed “My soul is crushed!” and declared Kuang’s sin ineradicable: “Even if she would remove the character from that none existend state, the damage is done. I personally would never buy one of her books ever again.”

>Kuang wisely has not responded to requests that she address this “issue.” No response or apology can ever be sufficient for the breed of conflict entrepreneurs who live for such online pile-ons and the rich vein of clout they are able to mine from them. If anyone should know that, it’s Kuang, whose work has always exhibited a canny grasp of prevailing political fashions as gleaned from close study of social media. Or, as a friend and Kuang skeptic recently put it: “This is what happens when you cultivate a stupid audience that thinks they’re smart and thinks you’re smart and moral because you do ‘Colonialism Bad 101’ lessons through YA prose.”

TLDR: Online anti-Zionists and Emilies got butthurt an Israeli was depicted in an uncritical fashion and/or without a 'Free Palestine' authorial filibuster.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/michael-bay-to-direct-operation-epic-fury-rescue-movie-1236602590/

Bill himself: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s4484is/html/BILLS-119s4484is.htm

And before any of you ball lickers try to wave it away:
•No it’s not just a meaningless name change, designating something as an interstate means it needs to adhere to specific regulations such as a dividing median between opposing traffic, no intersections nor stoplight, and controlled entrances and exits.

•I don’t care if it would never pass, these ghouls are trying anyways.

https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-facebook-arrest-tennessee-bushart-b8c5808d77f47a2d93497d12cf0daf84

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-irs-investigation-doj-settlement-b2979839.html