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Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, Hanania was right again *
Two months ago, Richard Hanania predicted that Nick Fuentes and the groypers would become a major force in mainstream Republican politics. At the time, there was a fair bit of TheMotte discussion (including by me) which could be described as dismissive. Some choice quotes:
Yeah, about that... A few days ago Nick Fuentes did a full interview with Tucker Carlson. This was a mild surprise at most, given that Tucker has been dabbling in less-than-sympathetic viewpoints on Israel and Jews as of late. A lot of people thought that this would be the nail in the coffin cementing Tucker as a fringe figure, and that his days headlining major conservative events would end.
This appears not to have happened:
The Heritage Foundation is the Conservative Establishment think tank. It doesn't get more mainstream than them. What is striking is that the statement doesn't just contrast America with Israel, it contrasts Christians with Israel, a tacit acknowlegement of the legitimacy of Christian discomfort with Israel specifically because of their rejection of Christ. This isn't quite total groyper victory, but one can see it on the horizon.
From a realpolitik perspective, I think this is bad. The groypers are right that Israel doesn't act in America's interests and that many American Jews have dual loyalty. That's how coalitions work. A few billion dollars in aid and geopolitical cover is a small price to pay for having the ethnic group that controls international finance and global media on your side. Rooting-out infidels might be a good strategy if Christ is King, but if he isn't, and it turns out we're all alone on this big round rock, then the groypers are blowing-up the conservative intelligentsia for no good reason.
*Apparently this is a series now.
Israel does not get our support because the gentiles are doing some dispassionate analysis on the benefits of supporting Israel. If that were the case, there would be nothing to criticize. Israel is getting our support because Zionists who consider Israel the most important country in the world relentlessly lobby for Israel, and have been doing so for decades, sometimes smearing opponents as antisemites. Truman complained about their advocacy, Nixon complained about it. Congressmen in the 80s who criticized Israel would lose their seat. “They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby” was written in 1985! We are not talking about a new thing. Mearsheimer’s analysis on this has gone uncontested. Israel gets our support because of advocacy networks (including media influence) and, at least in one recent instance, a secretive cabal of billionaires that likened itself to the Sanhedrin, the leader of which funded Epstein’s child trafficking blackmail operation that ensnared Bill Clinton, Trump, and British Royalty.
Even if you love Israel, you should want America to have the upper-hand in deals. We can continue to support them if they gradually pay us back. Israel has subsidized synagogues, healthcare, and education. When America funds Israel we are funding some Israeli’s man’s lavish parties and vacations, because he doesn’t need to pay as much in taxes for his nation’s defense. We are funding Rabbis, as they benefit from Israel’s subsidies for religious institutions; this includes Rabbis in America who studied in Israel or are funded through an Israeli organization. Meanwhile, Israel is applying tax pressure on the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem; they are required to pay taxes while not receiving the same subsidies as Jewish institutions. Meanwhile, Israel-connected billionaires are putting down funds to get rid of Thomas Massey. To me this is all offensive on principle, not because of the dollar amount.
This is a point I've brought up privately to Jewish friends of mine: Israel is burning through goodwill that they and their parents and their grandparents have spent decades building in the American public. When I came through public school, I studied the Holocaust more often than any single event outside of the Declaration of Independence and the Walking Purchase. I read at least three full books in the curriculum that I can remember: Night, Numer the Stars, and of course The Diary of Anne Frank. There might have been more that I'm forgetting.
Making sure that every American public school student learned that the Holocaust was the worst most uniquely horrible thing that ever happened in human history, often taught with questionable historicity (shoutout @SecureSignals), was a project of lobbying by Jewish groups. Making antisemitism into the worst, stupidest, lowest class, most unacceptable prejudice was a project of lobbying. Making Nazi gangs into the world's worst villains that don't need to be humanized in Sons of Anarchy or Breaking Bad wasn't an accident, nor was it a project of a few weeks. Making Nazi into a swear word and Hitler into secular-Satan was a project of decades.
This was what gave the Jews a special exception from the liberal world order in Israel for decades, what allowed them freedom of action. And now it seems to me that they've pissed a lot of it away on a few years of mowing the Gazan grass.
Just so I understand your argument, you're saying that Israel/American Jews built goodwill by pushing Holocaust education in school and anti-Nazi/antisemitism propaganda? What have they now done differently to burn the goodwill? Is it this:
Because the American right writ large does not give a shit that Israel has turned Palestine into rubble. After October 7th, plenty of people here were gung-ho for a little genocide/purge. Precious little of the conversation in this thread is focused on Palestine, whereas most of the standout comments focus on Jewish control of Media/Finance/Hollywood and other institutions.
So it begs the question - why is the American right turning against Jews now, and what changed in the last 20-30 years that enabled it? Decentralization of the media and sources of information has disproportionately benefited fringe people like Fuentes at the expense of traditional media. Cynically, and depending which movie screen you're watching, this either makes it harder for Israel to spread their propaganda or lets Fuentes spread hateful antisemitic tropes.
Neither has much to do with American or Israeli Jews 'burning the goodwill of the American people,' nor is there anything they could really do differently to mitigate it.
American Jews used to be much more ideologically diverse and spread across both parties. Now they are like 98 percent Democrat and very very far left. More than Asians or African Americans, and much more influential than either of those groups. Part of the reason no one takes Ben Shapiro seriously the way they did Dennis Praeger or Mark Levin is that he’s clearly some kind of weird outlier, the right equivalent of the Democrats castrated whipped token white males. He’s like the Republican Tim Walz.
Interesting, although I'd push back and say that (without actually looking for any data) I doubt those numbers don't apply to Israelis, Jews further down the orthodox spectrum and the boomer-Jews who have real money/power outside of Hollywood/conventional media. Even the doctors/professors I meet are not at all like the anti-Israel protestors. But I take your point more broadly.
Jewish Boomers of any income level you will find a lot more conservatives, and the liberal ones are usually not crazy. Gen X is where the shift starts, and it becomes almost total ideological lockstep in the Millennial and Zoomer ones.
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