A major MAGA civil war erupted into the open in the last week, pitting Tucker Carlson and other “America First” Trump supporters against what Nick Fuentes calls “Israel First” Republicans.
This is a continuation of topics I’ve discussed in previous posts on odd alliances forged by opposition to the genocide in Gaza and reactions to the death of Charlie Kirk.
Tucker Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes on his insanely popular podcast last week. The full interview garnered 17 million views on X.com, 5 million views on YouTube, and no telling how many of his reported 2.6 million Spotify followers tuned in but Carlson was the #2 podcast on the service last week.
For comparison, the top rated show on Fox News (the most watched cable news program) drew 3.7 million viewers.
The top rated news show on broadcast television is ABC’s World News Tonight which averages around 7.8 million viewers.
Tucker Carlson IS the American mainstream media in 2025. If he is platforming the frequently cancelled Fuentes, that’s a big deal.
https://t.co/1DKklzHFSk pic.twitter.com/ht2QMXAkp8
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 3, 2025
It was also interesting to me because the last time I’d seen Carlson discussing Fuentes, he called Fuentes “this child, this weird little gay kid in his basement in Chicago” while interviewing Candace Owens.
But the most interesting thing about the interview was their joint condemnation of Christian Zionists.
Tucker Carlson Calling Out Neocons and Christian Zionists
Carlson had a notably tense interview with U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) four months ago, but I had not expected a full throated attack on the ideology of Christian Zionists like Cruz.
Nick Fuentes: Where does neoconservatism come from? It arises from Jewish leftists who were mugged by reality when they saw the surprise attack in the Yom Kippur war.
Tucker Carlson: Well, that’s a lot of it for sure. But then like how do you explain Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and there are a lot like that: John Bolton, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, I mean, all people I know personally who I’ve seen like be seized by this brain virus and they’re not Jewish.
They’re most of them are self-described Christians. And then the Christian Zionists who are…
Christian Zionists, like what is that? And I can just say for myself, I dislike them more than anybody, because it’s Christian heresy and I’m offended by that as a Christian.
Christian Zionism, for those of you lucky enough not to be surrounded by it on a daily basis (there are more Israel First zionists in Texas than Israel), is rooted in Protestant eschatological ideas about “the rapture” — an idea invented by the 19th Century Irish Calvinist John Nelson Darby.
Today, the movement is led by, among others, Texas minister John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel.
About Christian Zionism
It’s impossible to understand the Israel First branch of the Republican party without understanding the influence of Christian Zionism.
I highly recommend this Tad Delay piece from Parapraxis Magazine for those who want an introduction.
But let’s get back to the blow-by-blow of the political fallout from the Carlson/Fuentes tête-à-tête.
Nick Fuentes Is Cancelled No More
Ali Breland in The Atlantic wrote a mammoth piece decrying that “The firewall against Nick Fuentes is crumbling” and bemoaning the fact that Carlson had given Fuentes “access to one of the largest audiences he has ever had.”
She also lists a greatest hits of Fuentes’ racist and anti-Semitic statements, that had Carlson himself comparing the young influencer to David Duke just weeks ago.
But most importantly, she bemoaned Fuentes’ influence on today’s GOP:
In a 2021 episode of his livestreamed show, Fuentes said he wants to drag the Republican Party “kicking and screaming into the future, into the right wing, into a truly reactionary party.” His vision is coming true. Consider the leaked group chats of Young Republican leaders that were revealed by Politico earlier this month. The messages are full of the kind of anti-Semitic and racist jokes about the Holocaust and Black people that Fuentes has made as a livestreamer. Fuentes wasn’t directly referenced in the messages, though he claimed shortly after the leak that there are “Groypers in every department, every agency.” Vice President J. D. Vance called the messages “offensive jokes” and dismissed outrage over the texts as irrational “pearl clutching.” Fuentes celebrated the response on his livestream: “I never thought I’d see it ever, but Republicans are finally learning to play the whataboutism game, and I think that’s absolutely overdue.”
Heritage Foundation President Defends Carlson
But the mess really hit the fan when Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, put out a video on X.com last Thursday defending Tucker Carlson from the “venomous coalition attacking him.”
Roberts’ statement came after changes to their web site excising mentions of Tucker Carlson inspired speculation that they were preparing to disavow him.
There has been speculation that @Heritage is distancing itself from @TuckerCarlson over the past 24 hours.
I want to put that to rest right now—here are my thoughts: pic.twitter.com/F8bcxBIqKI
— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) October 30, 2025
I’ll have more to say on this in the coming days, but today I want to be clear about one thing. Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic.
And, of course, anti-Semitism should be condemned.
My loyalty as a Christian and as an American is to Christ first and to America always. When it serves the interests of the United States to cooperate with Israel and other allies, we should do so with partnerships on security, intelligence, and technology.
But when it doesn’t, conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.
The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won’t start doing that now.
We don’t take direction from comments on X, though we are grateful for the robust free speech debate.
We also don’t take direction from members or donors, though we are inherently grateful for their support. And we’re adding more every day. This is the robust debate we invite with our colleagues, our movement friends, our members, and the American public.
We will always defend truth. We will always defend America. And we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda.
That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains and, as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.
The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail.
Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right.
I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says. But canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person’s thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas in debate.
And we have seen success in this approach, as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left.
As my friend Vice President Vance said last night, “what I am not okay with is any country coming before the interests of American citizens, and it is important for all of us, assuming we are American citizens, to put the interests of our own country first.”
That’s where our allegiance lies, and that’s where it will stay.
The backlash was immediate and intense.
Zionists Speak Out at the Republican Jewish Coalition Summit
Roberts immediately faced incoming fire from a bipartisan coalition of Israel first U.S. Senators, including Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, and Democrat Chuck Schumer.
“Now is a time for choosing. If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very cool and that their mission is to defeat ‘global Jewry,’ and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit in that evil,” said Cruz at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Summit in Las Vegas (6.4 thousand views on YouTube).
“The ‘intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ is only as strong as the values it defends,” McConnell tweeted.
“Last I checked, conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats,” he continued. “But maybe I just don’t know what time it is.”
Schumer told the Associated Press he found Roberts’ remarks “deeply disturbing.”
But nothing could top the rhetoric coming from U.S. Senator (R-SC) Lindsey Graham and U.S Representative (R-FL) Randy Fine.
Lindsey Graham tells Republican Jewish Coalition not to worry about Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes: "I feel good about the Republican Party. I feel good about where we're going as a nation. We're killing all the right people and we're cutting your taxes."
"Trump is my favorite…pic.twitter.com/dTJPy2Uvs0
— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) November 2, 2025
Rep. Randy Fine, who celebrated Israel killing babies in Gaza, tells Republican Jewish Coalition that Tucker Carlson and Reps. Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are "evil."
Carlson is "the most dangerous anti-Semite in America."
"It makes my stomach crawl that I have to… pic.twitter.com/2fXj3pVgXX
— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) November 2, 2025
Graham’s repulsive outburst racked up 848,000 views on X.com where the up-and-coming Israel first Congressman Fine only got 15,000.
I can’t help but hope that the more people see Graham and Fine speaking their truth, the less support they will have.
Roberts Immediately Backpedals
The next day Roberts was interviewed by Dana Loesch and agreed, after a long, awkward pause, that Carlson was “sowing division” by calling out Christian Zionists.
Q: Is it 'venomous' to say that you hate Christian Zionists?@KevinRobertsTX: "Of course it is" pic.twitter.com/srCNracEse
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) October 31, 2025
Roberts also put out a 350 word tweet in reply to Nick Fuentes’ question “what exactly do you abhor about my views?”
But not all of the Republican response was negative as reported by Politico’s Nightly newsletter:
Meanwhile, other conservative group chats in Washington were blowing up with messages in support of Roberts’ stance. “I woke up with more texts about this last night than I did when Trump was elected,” one conservative operative, granted anonymity to discuss private messages, told Nightly. “Everything else has dissipated.”
In a message to Nightly, Carlson professed surprise at the heated reaction to Roberts’ statement. “It’s shocking to me that a principled statement in favor of free speech would be controversial on the right. But it’s also clarifying,” Carlson wrote. “Remember who opposed it.”
Laura Loomer Goes Ham on Roberts
Amusingly, the sharpest attacks on Roberts are coming from Laura Loomer, another right-winger who is frequently cancelled and officially labeled a “conspiracy theorist” by Wikipedia. The main difference between Fuentes and Loomer is there’s no question she is Israel first.
I mean, sure she’s got Alex Jones’ InfoWars and the infamous Project Veritas on her resume, but she’s now a powerful Trump 2.0 administration insider.
As the The Guardian reported in April, she can get people fired, including from the National Security Council.
So it seems likely Roberts felt a cold chill down his back when he learned Loomer had tweeted:
“What @KevinRobertsTX needs to understand is you can respect someone’s right to free speech but also condemn them and their wicked behavior that is rooted in a desire to fracture the evangelical GOP base.
Tucker is the demon who he says scratched him in his sleep.
How’s that for venom?
Loomer next zeroed in on the specific Heritage Foundation staffer she blamed for writing Roberts’ remarks on Carlson.
I’ve been told by multiple sources that @RyanMNeuhaus wrote the speech for @KevinRobertsTX that referred to everyone critical of anti-Semitism and revisionist Christianity as a “venomous coalition”.
If he did not, he’s more than welcome to chime in.
The chances of him being… https://t.co/DL0FPemMDO pic.twitter.com/nv6zngsFgN
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) November 1, 2025
Heads Roll at Heritage
By Friday, Roberts was sending an email to Heritage Foundation staff titled “Heritage’s Stand Against Antisemitism and for Civilizational Truth.”
Per The Hill, the email announced that chief of staff Ryan Neuhaus was vacating his role to become a “senior advisor” to the Simon Center while executive vice president, Derrick Morgan, would be acting chief of staff until the end of the year.
Steve Bannon Confronts Loomer
But this is more than a matter of “the empire strikes back” as this confrontational Steve Bannon interview of Loomer shows.
This is the clip that’s gone viral:
🚨 Steve Bannon shredded Laura Loomer live on air!
The debate turned into a full-blown meltdown — and the clip is spreading like wildfire. pic.twitter.com/UIIxbH1IcL— SilencedSirs◼️ (@SilentlySirs) November 2, 2025
Loomer accused “some on the right” of having “Israeli derangement syndrome.”
Bannon pushed back hard on the Israel first Loomer:
Steve Bannon: “Well, no, no, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on a second. If Netanyahu and the Jewish—hold on, if the Israeli government had dealt straight with us, you wouldn’t have had this problem. They’re liars. They’ve been stone-cold liars. They gave bad information. So I’m not going to let that go unchallenged. That’s just bullshit. OK?”
“Do not—don’t sit there all innocent about what Netanyahu’s—Netanyahu’s government has been atrocious, and we should have regime change in Jerusalem, and we should have it immediately. They’ve lied to the American government. They’ve lied to the American people consistently.”
These divisions on the right may be pitting one loathsome crew of racist reactionaries against another, but it is extremely novel to see the American Republican party and broader right wing tearing itself apart over whether or not to put Israel first.
This was not seen in the Bush-Cheney years that launched the endless “Global War on Terror” and maybe, just maybe it’s a sign that the neoconservative reign of terror may be running out of steam.
UPDATE
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) responds:
The recent speeches given at the RJC conference were filled with hateful rhetoric and lies about not only myself, but my colleague Thomas Massie, my good friend Tucker Carlson, and Americans who sincerely mean it when we say America FIRST.
No other country’s interest should come…
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 3, 2025
Full text:
The recent speeches given at the RJC conference were filled with hateful rhetoric and lies about not only myself, but my colleague Thomas Massie, my good friend Tucker Carlson, and Americans who sincerely mean it when we say America FIRST.
No other country’s interest should come before our own.
But when actual Republican members of Congress and Senators and influential figures take to calling us “dangerous threats” or even dare to call Tucker “Hitler” and publicly announce to cancel us, they are not only doing exactly what Democrats did by calling Republicans “Nazis” and Trump “Hitler” but they are also trying to get us killed.
And what purely disgust me is that they know it.
They know exactly what they are doing and they are doing it on purpose.
Me and my very serious fellow America Firsters are not against anyone, we are only sincerely for our own country, America.
In all the most well intentioned ways.
And that includes every single American citizen and their children and their children and future generations.
It’s not identity driven at all no matter how much the haters trying to get us killed claim.
We are winning and our movement is growing and I thank God for that because my children’s generation deserves hope for their future and their opportunity to live the American dream.
UPDATE 2: And Tucker folded.
Tucker Carlson is publicly apologizing to Christian Zionists after previously saying he “hated them most in the world.”
He says he spoke in anger and now regrets it, adding that some of the kindest people he knows are Christian Zionists.
Carlson explains his frustration came… pic.twitter.com/41zs6CQaWF
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) November 4, 2025
Confusion to my enemies. Go at it!
I needed good news today. It’s not much, but better than nothing!
You go with the Good News you have, the good news you want!
Long Live America 🇺🇸
POPULIST LEFT & RIGHT UNITE!
American Unity 4 Life!
Good news all around…
Dick Cheney died today!
Nick Fuentes said in a recent interview that his favorite source that he reads on the left regularly is Naked Capitalism and Yves. He told that to the Red Scare girls about a week or so ago.
Gtfo
what Aaron says is 100% true. Nick was asked by the Red Scare girls whether he has any sources he likes on the left, and he said he really enjoyed the content on Naked Capitalism for being thoughtful and academically rigorous.
have you noticed any increase in site traffic over the past weeks since that interview in early October? I’ve been visiting daily since then.
I deleted a comment harshly criticizing Aaron, since a search on Kagi (unlike Google, does not down-rate results from small sites) showed the only sort of confirmation to be Aaron’s comment above. But I accept your verification.
There has been no increase in traffic or comments, particularly from newbies. Perhaps Fuentes depicting us as left-leaning was a big turn-off to his fans. But at least he likes us for the right reasons.
I actually found that someone clipped the part of that interview where Nick recommends Naked Capitalism (so you don’t have to take my word for it!).
https://x.com/FuentesUpdates/status/1976726427178615213
Thanks Yves
Thanks for posting this!
He doesn’t really say anything about it being an Economics blog which I find very disingenuous. He refers to Yves as posting a lot of ecology and anti war and Middle East stuff.
Fuentes, if you are reading this, then focus on CLASS issues bro! Stop with the Jew baiting, Nazi loving gobbledygook!
Fuentes will talk about class, as it is not incompatible with his worldview, but he is never going to stop talking about Jews.
The so-called “Jewish Question” has been mainstreamed within the under-40 segment of the American right, and no amount of cancelling, doxxing, imprisonment or shooting is going to change that.
Unfortunately, the left cannot use this issue to help the right further split itself, because the owners of the left in the US have to pretend the issue doesn’t exist. Thus the morally bankrupt boomer-inspired nonsense of trying to talk about Israel while also avoiding using the word “Jew”.
The good news is that demographic change across the board is going to prevail where decades of earnest handwringing and cowardly evasion did not.
The bad news is that this means a real war with Iran is more likely than not, because everyone can see the window for such a war is closing across the West.
That is stunning. What an odd chain of influence. And the topics he says he enjoys reading about here.
Tucker and Candace would do well to read this blog, too.
I never read that part about “killing for Jesus” in the Bible. Could someone enlighten me where Jesus tells his Jewish brethren to smite back harder if one suffers a smite?
And, yes, it is perverse that soul-less Adolf is the historical parallel of what is being done in Gaza. Gaza is the modern day Warsaw Ghetto.
From Matthew:
Matthew 27:17-26 (KJV)
Note the translation. These Passion verses, read every Good Friday, have caused quite a few issues between Christians and Jews over the years.
The “confusion” is in no way restricted to the GOP, or America.
The Democratic party is likewise wracked by commentator focused dissent. The UK political system is ripping itself apart over the same issues. It’s ‘Normality first verses Israel first” all over.
The ADL, AIPAC, et al. have sown the wind by claiming opposition to Zionism was anti-Semitism, and I don’t think Fuentes is even the ultimate whirlwind. I feel bad for Katie Halper, the Mates, Max Blumenthal, Finklestein, etc. They are doing their best to counter this “Hail Mary” effort to keep things Israel First, but it’s an almost impossible task. The horrific statements coming out of Israel’s cabinet about the genocide don’t help.
When the economy crashes and we get undeniably wrecked in one of the wars we start, shit is really going to hit the fan and yes, then we will see things get VERY ugly and I fear that all the wrong Jews will be punished for the sins of the zionists.
This is absolutely, very likey, unfortunately, non-Zionist Jews being cast guilty by association.
I’m not so used to the word for word output from the hard right but my god, it’s worse than I thought. And Graham, how someone can proudly make a public statement like that is mind boggling.
And never forget, he’s DC neo-con establishment, not some kind of MAGA outsider firebrand.
We antizionist Jews will be deported to Israel with the rest of the Zionist Jews. We will be treated like Palestinian prisoners are there. They will torture us with glee given the chance.
Unfortunately, what goes around comes around. Seems to me there are a lot more innocent Palestinians than there are “innocent” jews
Well then we need to teach our countrymen NOT to kill Jews!
Just like we need to teach them that deporting immigrants isn’t the answer either!
To be Christian and to believe in Jesus is to practice TRUE FORGIVENESS.*
ECONOMIC POPULISM UBER ALLES
*…of Debts
Yes, it’s an argument between those who want to go after the Jews right now (Fuentes), versus those who want to make use of them before disposal (Graham, Cruz, et al).
It beggars decency, it destroys reason to listen to those in Israel celebrating the assassination of Rabin.
It is this same crazed, stultified mindset that celebrates the rape of prisoners, many of whom are kidnap victims.
I see the end of Israel. At the hands of Israelis.
Thank you for this, a rational deconstruction of the situation is in order. First, I will not forget that the Gazans are still starving, huddled in the rubble of their homeland. All of historic Palestine is their homeland, but that is not exactly, or even necessarily part of the discussion here.
Pandora’s box has been opened, all the evils of world have been released, the last spirit still hiding on the bottom is hope. I will maintain it for the Palestinians.
A cynic would maintain that Pandora’s Hope is the last and greatest curse.
Probably the only and greatest positive for the Gaza Palestinians is that Gaza will be upwind of the sources of the atomic fallout.
I really think at this moment that it will come to that.
Stay safe.
My fears run along the same lines. Religious fanatics with nukes trapped in a desperate situation….
Without hope, there is only revolution.
True, but I maintain that Revolution(TM) is itself a form of Hope. The hope that ‘things’ will be better after the dust settles. That is why I have always empathized with the anarchists. Most of them I have met do not delude themselves anywhere near as badly as the “average” citizen does.
Remember the days of “The Ongoing Permanent Revolution?” If we could replace some of the religious fanatic politicos with existentialist politicos….
Stay safe.
I long held with an anarchist rational, it requires an evolution of our human understanding of the relationship we must have with each other (for me, including all life on earth), absent hierarchy. There is a popular misunderstanding of this basis.
Hope may be a stand in word for a demand. Power concedes nothing without demands. Demands denied lead to revolution.
As is often the case in these threads, we go off on tangents.
I hope, I demand justice for the Palestinians.
The only nukes I can imagine flying would be from the Israelis if they were pushed against the wall, they wouldn’t be falling first on Tel Aviv. Only Pakistan has said anything on this regarding a nuke attack on Iran.
“[anarchy] requires an evolution of our human understanding of the relationship we must have with each other” Well said.
As Thoreau wrote in Civil Disobedience “That government is best which governs not at all, and when humanity is ready for it, that is the government we shall have.”
We still have a chance at it, but modern society has to collapse without revolution first, as far as I can tell.
NC introduced me to a movie many years ago called Oh Lucky Man! Near the end, there’s a bit of graffiti I can’t forget: “Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.”
Revolution has come with religion.
It could come with intellectual theories of ideology. It can exist in left or right centers. Left being a social holding of all material concerns, right being a jungle battle for a king of the heap. As I was saying, evolution.
We have had a slow rolling revolution with capitalism and its progeny imperialism for hundreds of years, with only a few setbacks in its arc of history.
Will humanity, now including all, be ready for it?
Ready by need, by spirit if it can throw off its shackles.
Inject that REVOLUTION straight into my veins!
The tangents are where the real discoveries lie.
I’m convinced that education is the key to enlightenment. Being merely Terran humans, we must strive to ascend; we were not born with functional “wings” with which to accomplish that difficult task.
True revolutionaries seize the means of communication first, and next the educational bureaucracy. When co-opting the organs of state security become a primary goal, you know that the revolution is over.
Look at the boy rant. Apologies to all. Stay safe.
One account in Greek lore had the gods denouncing Prometheus. Specifically, this time, for helping humans to forget the looming inevitability of our fate. He did this by giving us hope.
Ever since, humans were freed from living with despair, having traded it in for the ignorant bliss of a false sense of security.
Now let’s see the corresponding Dem schism on the current and plausible Israeli government. I’m not holding my breath.
Dem support for Israel seems mostly driven by AIPAC money, which is becoming politically toxic.
The clearest battle lines on the Dem side this year came in the NYC mayoral race. We’ll find out how that turns out tomorrow.
I suspect an alternative route to channel funds to Dems can be found, assuming it hasn’t already.
Right now Harris has moved ahead in polls for 2028 at Newsom’s expense, but it’s early.
They’re already facilitating donors contributing directly to candidates through semi-sophisticated online passthrough links.
This early polls mean nothing. At this point in the 2008 primary, Joe Lieberman was way out in front IIRC.
Or not. Trump endorsing Cuomo along with the apparent stupidly toxic nature of Cuomo’s ad and social media campaigns (and yes I am including the PACs in this) are going to be the stated reason for his loss.
I called it desperation a few days ago, but the increasingly offensive nature of the ads along with things like the Halloween AI thing that you, iirc, linked have been so politically tone deaf it goes beyond that. I wasn’t able to shake the feeling something else was going on. And that is the misdirection being set up for the inevitable blame regarding his loss. I will be surprised if closest the “analysts” are going to get to Israel isn’t some mention of the racist tone of Cuomo’s attacks on Mamdani’s background and religion, if there is anything at all. (Not to mention the Dem Zionist/Israel first team is not going to want to highlight how much Jewish support Mamdani has.) Hell, I think Mike Bloomberg even did his bit by coming flat out with how many millions he spent on Cuomo and PACs. He plays spoiler well enough not to think that was going to help Cuomo.
The media will do their best going forward to make Mamdani’s failure as mayor to be all about socialism ignoring any mention of genocide or the knives in his back for noticing it.
I suggest that we see how things play out after Zohran becomes mayor-elect Tuesday. The split among Democrats should heat up nicely.
The problem is that the purported rebels (AOC, Bernie, etc) in the dem party don’t aspire to be rebels, they aspire to ‘persuade’ the establishment to let them have more control and influence. The establishment said, “no” quite clearly, and the rebels accepted the answer.
I see no evidence Zohran is any different. I hope I’m wrong.
This contest in the GOP is between the neocons and the not-neocons for leadership of the party in the upcoming (next pres election) succession to the T presidency. Thus, the rancor. / my 2 cents
One should point out that many prominent Jews were against the creation of Israel and predicted the outcome we have now. Assimilation–the thing that Netanyahu says is worse than the Holocaust–is the true “all men are created equal” measure of humanism. This is why the founders made freedom of religion a cornerstone and a break with all those European wars using religion as an excuse.
So we should of course distinguish Judaism from the villains who hide behind it. And the Dems these days have plenty of those same villains.
America was meant to be a secular republic and therefore a self styled Judaic state has nothing to do with us. Oir current grotesque embrace of fanaticism is all about boiling the frog. That frog may be about to leap out of the pot.
Let us build a kitchen counter to catch the frog when it inevitably jumps!
And money, like time, heals all wounds….and heals them faster. So yes, we’ll see….
Bari Weiss https://x.com/bariweiss/status/1985387656134430845
Zei Squirrel replies:
https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1985408891627184626
You love to see it. Thanks for the good news.
When you’re explaining, you’re losing!
At this point I don’t see it as “tearing MAGA apart” but it certainly has raised the temperature of speech. Mostly what I see is those distrustful of the whole Israel program are becoming more vocal. It the past you might see “well, we have to agree to disagree”, but now it’s “you’re an Israel Firster”.
But there is a much larger group in the middle who aren’t interested in pre-millenialism or the 144k remnant but do see Christians as in a long-term war with Islam that only ends with triumph for one or the other. From this POV if Israel is eliminating Muslims in Iran or in Arab countries, that’s fine. That extends to what’s going on in Sudan and Nigeria and other places.
So-called Sharia law or “no go zones” in the US are much more important to this MAGA faction.
There does seem to be quite a lot of fairly powerful people who are “killing all the right people” to coin a phrase from today’s firehose of insanity.
I would like to point out the importance of the use of the Scofield reference bible among conservative Christians. My husband, who grew up as a conservative Baptist, used this specific bible (KJV translation plus Scofield’s reference notes) in church. He’s noted that it was widely used in conservative Christian denominations. This specific reference bible popularised dispensationalism in America.
https://www.wrmea.org/2015-october/the-scofield-bible-the-book-that-made-zionists-of-americas-evangelical-christians.html
An excellent point. I thought about bringing that up but it’s a whole ‘nother rat hole. It’s notable that the publication of the Scofield Bible (in England) preceded the Balfour Declaration by just a few years. All stuff I dismissed as conspiracy nonsense pre 10/7 and no longer do.
Thank you! Very informative and important.
And let’s name the pre-millennialist heresy it spread: Darbyism. Darby was a 19th-century English Calvinist who invented an interpretation of Daniel 7 and the Apocalypse of John that ran directly counter to orthodox Christian eschatology that had been in place since Augustine–in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions.
And Hal Lindsey’s Late, Great Planet Earth and LaHaye’s Left Behind series played their part.
”We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes.”
Away from me, Satan!
I was torn on whether or not to include that but it’s so repulsive I had to. Also he brags about how Trump has already run out of bombs…not seeming to realize that’s got more to do with our degraded industrial capacity than Trump’s bellicosity.
Not sure why you were torn, it’s the money quote of the 21st Century! Remember, this is Naked Capitalism, and that quote is as naked as it gets…
There is a sort of irony if not inevitability going on here. You have the MAGA movement whose core belief is putting America first which has thoroughly soaked through the electorate. But there has been a concerted effort to high-jack this movement and try to make Israel first a priority of MAGA and they are not having it. Tucker Carlson seems to be at the forefront of all this. Whatever his faults, he makes no secret of the fact that his identity is of a proud American and a loyal christian and he would be typical of American conservatives last century. The effort to jam Israel into MAGA and corrupt 1st Amendment laws for theiris benefit is something that MAGA is chocking on and it does not matter if Trump himself is trying to make this happen. In fact, Trump saying that he is the spiritual head of MAGA is something that I believe a lot of MAGA supporters do not believe. Carlson may be the true leader here. To be frank, there is no I(srael) in Make America Great Again. And with all the footage of the massacres and slaughters that Israel has done over the past two years, it may be that MAGA supporters are now seeing the Albatross that MIGA people are trying to tie around their neck and they are not having it. It’s MAGA they will tell you.
one thing that is coming up frequently on Twitter is reminders that Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, Graham and others were not early adopters of MAGA and some of them were never-Trumpers at one point.
I do hope that this bears some fruit.
Before reading the post, I was prepared to doubt. It felt like MAGA was just as impotent as progressive movments in team Dem, after AoC won.
First letting Elon walk all over them on the visa issue, then seeming to roll over on demanding the Epstein list. It would be nice if now we could actually see some change effected by popular (not campaign-donor) demand.
I find it ironic that in the 80s, we were all worried about a Christian Theocracy (I remember how Frank Zappa pilloried Pat Robertson, who ran for President in ’88 for this reason.)
Instead, we should have been worrying about a Jewish theocracy. One that captured the right with Christian Zionism.
I agree that this obsession with Israel by certain folks who identify as Christian is heresy. No one nation is “special” or chosen; the Old Testament refers to the 12 tribes of Israel as God’s chosen, and that ended with Jesus’ death and resurrection according to the Bible.
People like Hagee are heretics whom Jesus warned us about. Romans 10:9-11 says:
We are all equal before God’s eyes – Jew, Christian, black, white. Either accept Jesus or you’re going to Hell.
As for how MAGA fits in, I suspect, as others do, that characters like Graham and Mitch McConnell never were big fans of America First to begin with, and have cynically tried to co-opt it and twist it to suit their priors.
It is still Christian theocracy at the heart of the Israel obsession. If you believe in the Rapture, then Jesus can’t come back home until there’s an Israel to sacrifice for him. When you talk to the true believers from the Virginia and Maryland and DC area, the real prophecy heads, you hear things that aren’t that different from what the naughtzis said about Jews needing to suffer because they killed Christ.
I feel like what the West did is empower the worst elements of Israeli society to support the worst elements of western society. Which is why I expect everything that we see in Gaza to be visited on the US soon. That much evil will always find a target.
From my understanding Chrietian Zionism predates Israeli Zionism. And as you hint at, it is incredibly anti-Semtic. After all it requires all Jewish people to move to Israel, no matter if they want to. And it results in the vasy majority being butchered (I believe a few are saved).
On the opposite side of that I saw someone propose a hypothetical reason for Israel being so open about their brutality in Gaza. The idea, which the proponent admitted he had no evidence for, is that such brutality will result in a backlash against non Israeli Jews. Forcing them to more to Israel and providing a boost to the population and economy. It is an interesting thought.
The “movement” was only ever intended to be a cynical PR exercise. Neither Trump nor the GOP had any intention of following through on any of it. It was only ever a slogan to razz up the base for the elections, nothing more. But now they’re in trouble because a lot of the base is now looking to cash the cheque.
It reminds me very much of Obama’s hope and change. And it was the disillusionment of that proposal that brought us Trump in the first place. disillusioned Obama voters found A New Hope in maga.
Fool them once shame on them, fool them twice shame on you. And burn it all down
A new TACO!
I have always said they eat their own … yet its tossed salad on a good day …
So, Tucker apologized, but zios don’t accept apologies, they demand fealty.
What is going to happen next? Most likely, the zios will continue their campaign against Tucker’s crew and Tucker’s crew will HAVE to fight back. I suspect a rubicon has been crossed on this, whether these MAGA rebels know it or not.
I think bringing on Nick Fuentes was a ‘crossing the rubicon’ moment. Zios love fascists, but cannot accept an anti-Israel fascist.
Tucker’s sticking to his guns on the America First part, just apologizing to the Christian Zionists for calling them heretics.
We’re killing all the right people…
Like Charlie Kirk?
Anyone else notice Loomer injecting a lame “Who are we uniting with, then?” while Bannon is saying the quiet part out loud? I don’t yet know what to make of that.
Excellent rundown of whatever the hell is going on with the American right and Israel. I’m a “Leftist,” I’ve been trying to advocate for the Palestinian cause for over two decades now, and while I still think of some of these rightwing influencers as, um, not incredibly intelligent, I also see that there’s something in them (Owens, Carlson, etc) that is very righteous and powerful when it comes to Gaza–maybe it’s their faith? Nat’s initial framing of the story in terms of viewership is really helpful: Fuentes’ numbers are bigger than the msm outlets condemning him. On some level, this story is also about the corporate media’s inability to massage the narrative.
Perhaps you misspoke. Those aren’t Fuentes’ numbers, those are Tucker’s numbers.
Misread–sorry about that.
But my understanding is that Fuentes’ numbers are even bigger than Tucker’s. I’m relying on Dave Smith here, who went over the numbers on his podcast in order to push back on the idea that Carlson was ‘platforming’ Fuentes, when in fact, so he said, it was more accurate to say that Fuentes was platforming Carlson–since Fuentes has the bigger audience.
I admit I have a hard time following audience calculations in the new media landscape, since views/listens include Youtube, X, iTunes, Spotify, etc. But it seems clear that BOTH Fuentes and Carlson have bigger audiences than mainstream outlets like CNN, NYT, MSNBC, Fox and the Post.
No Fuentes is big but not Tucker big. He’s growing fast this year and will soon outreach the cable news shows but isn’t quite there yet.
In the month following the Kirk shooting, I saw a /lot/ of YouTube posts essentially accusing Israel/Mossad of being involved in the hit. I’m always curious about Conspiracy Theories (some of them turn out to be true!), so I probably clicked on something early on which triggered YT to offer me a lot More Of The Same.
In any case, I’m all for it; always glad to see Right Wing Nuts fight among themselves, and always glad to see Americans becoming skeptical of – and angered by – Israel’s influence over US politics. OTOH, I wouldn’t want to see the USA go full Nazi and target Jewish Americans, which, sadly, would be the natural result of Far Right racist/sectarian anti-Semitism.
Interesting that AIPAC is starting to lose control over both Parties at the same time (see: Mamdani).