Yeah that's a good page and covers the weirdness of the term well. You read 'rootless cosmopolitan' in English and think 'ah yes, Soviet antisemitism and Stalin's abortive final purge'. And that's not at all wrong! But the term as used by the Soviets is not a simple euphemism like, dunno, 'urban youth' is in the US.
The ideological terms where picked fairly carefully with an eye towards 'ideological soundness' and had multiple purposes. 'Rootless cosmopolitan' was an antisemitic dogwhistle, it was also part of a deliberate effort to shift to a more Russia-centric Soviet ideology. In a way it was also a Russian dogwhistle so tptacek was kind of right after all, completing the pedanticircle.
I'm just kicking back waiting for y'all to resolve this.
I regret (and did even at the time) using the words "dancing around" --- I was just waking up (let's not discuss the unhealthiness of "commenting on HN" being one of the first things I did after regaining consciousness) and even as I wrote it was thinking "this conveys more intentionality than I mean to".
So for that bit, I apologize! People still should aggressively avoid the term. I only saw this thread because I've been on a sort of comment bigotry scavenger hunt with "rootless cosmopolitan" as one of the items.
I don't think there's really anything wrong with your comment, it's a triggery term and jumped out at me in the original piece itself where the author uses it to ironically self-describe. It's a little weird (or maybe he is also Jewish) but I think I get the usage. He's written previously about Bulgaria's Roma community and the discrimination they continue to face so I don't think he's trying to start any shit.
I wouldn't casually use it in English, though, precisely for the reasons you outline.
The ideological terms where picked fairly carefully with an eye towards 'ideological soundness' and had multiple purposes. 'Rootless cosmopolitan' was an antisemitic dogwhistle, it was also part of a deliberate effort to shift to a more Russia-centric Soviet ideology. In a way it was also a Russian dogwhistle so tptacek was kind of right after all, completing the pedanticircle.