Victor Davis Hanson
It is not at all clear that Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Steve Bannon, or Marjorie Taylor Greene have much, if any, influence on the Jacksonian foreign policy of Donald Trump, which seeks to achieve and maintain deterrence by opportunistically striking at perceived threats to the U.S. without ensuring “forever wars” abroad.
Trump’s MAGA movement favors Israel, but largely on grounds that it is a militarily strong pro-American, consensually governed, Western nation—surrounded by numerous enemies of the United States who in the past have either themselves or their surrogates killed thousands of Americans.
Of course, some of Trump’s supporters may support Israel largely for its being the home of the birth of the Judeo-Christian tradition (whom the Alt-Alt-Right despise as “Christian Zionists”). But they too, like the overwhelming majority of conservatives and Republicans (75%), see Israel in religious and realist terms.
Israel has not just proverbially made the desert bloom and in the space of just eighty years created one of the freest, most successful, and innovative nations in the world—as an oasis in a sea of autocracy. But it has also become an important ally that has weakened or neutered some of America’s most despised enemies, like theocratic Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. It shares with the U.S. a constant concern over any recrudescence of al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other radical Islamist terror groups.
Nevertheless, one strange tic of the Alt-Alt-Right is this fixation on Israel. The Trump administration has done almost everything a Carlson or Marjorie Taylor Green once demanded—from closing the border and legal-only immigration to insisting on fair rather than mere free trade and protecting American jobs from hostile mercantile forces like those of communist China.
No matter—the Alt-Alt-Right still expresses fury over the single issue of Trump’s support for Israel and perhaps his welcoming of Jewish conservatives into key roles in his administration.
And while the Alt-Alt-Right name drops “Neo-conservatives” as a pejorative for Jews who supported the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars—a Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, David Frum, Bill Kristol, or Max Boot—the word seems to have had zero resonance with Trump.
To the extent Neo-conservatives are to be blamed for “forever wars” of the early 2000s, then for most in MAGA, those conflicts had nothing to do with Israel (which opposed the Iraq War). George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and other top officials were capable adults, who, following 9/11, had their own reasons for believing that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were pro-terrorist and either sided with al-Qaeda or found them useful in their anti-American efforts.
So, the Bush administration needed no secret cabal of Jews to tell them what to do in their efforts to combat the forces that caused 9/11 and radical Islamists like them.
Nor does reimaging America’s role in World War II in fighting the fascist Germans, Italians, and Japanese after Pearl Harbor have anything to do with “the Jews.” Much less should our opposition to Hitler serve as a reminder that we should not make the same mistake 84 years later by letting today’s “Jews” again embroil us in a war against our interests with Iran and its Islamist surrogates.
Or so we are to understand the current purposes and agendas of the Alt-Alt-Right’s loony revisionism about World War II.
To be continued…
Discussion (5)
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Not sure why Victor is one of the very few non-Jewish conservatives that comes forward to call out this recent drama unfolding. I look at "X" and all I see are conservative Jewish voices that are trying to change the narrative. I am beginning to believe that the attack on Israel/Jews-in-General is a diversion from something bigger happening. It almost seems as though we are witnessing a takeover of the Protestant conservative movement of our founding fathers with the modern Catholic Integralist movement. I think the founding fathers in that Constitutional period (1789) had it right in the separation of Church and State, largely secular governance, with expectation that largely Christian values would be built within our society without the heavy hand of the government. And of course, smaller government with more focus on the individual than central control out of government. Many today (Catholics) blame that secularism for the rise of far left ideologies in the past decades, blooming only recently. The Catholic Integralists see a far stronger hand of the government in pressing their moral values (less secular), more focus on a centralized government than the individual, and a larger governing force. The signs are all there for this. Vance converted to Catholicism. Charlie supposedly was about to convert to Catholicism. But it all clicked for me (raised a Catholic) when I watched the recent Turning Point event with Vance. The tent just seemed much smaller.
Anti-semitism is the second oldest profession....reminds me of a logo I saw on a coffee cup once. It said " I am a responsible person". Whenever something goes wrong, I'm responsible'. I think these people enjoy 'pushing the envelope' to gain popularity which in their minds is by breaking taboos. Anti semitism is an ancient and enduring human failing which has become tabo-like since the holocaust. Like so many prejudices by becoming a taboo frowned upon by the society, it is merely suppressed and not eliminated but remains seething beneath the surface waiting for demagogues like these to let it out of its cage. This is so much how the left works and uses the same mentality to destroy the institutions of society like the family, religion, the constitution, male-female differences, etc. There is a certain adrenaline rush they get by doing this. (see me, I used the "N"word!) These guys are no different and are in some many way, Neo progressives/marxists. It is a tool of the weak minded.
I only saw a few clips of Tucker's interview of Nick Fuentes, but what I did see made me nauseous and disgusted. According to Fuentes, the Holocaust math just doesn't add up. He then went on to compare, in rather tongue-in-cheek fashion, the six million Jews who perished in the ovens of Auschwitz and other Nazi death factories to "baking cookies." And Tucker just let him get away with it. It was if Tucker tacitly agreed with what this appalling human being's sick rantings. Why didn't he stop Fuentes and say, "Ok. I can't let you get away with saying such an offensively ignorant statement. The Nazis were meticulous record keepers. We have blueprints and inventories. But moreover, we have the defendants of the Nuremberg trials, of whom none ever denied the Holocaust. They all said the same thing: 'I was only following orders.'" I used to like Tucker Carlson and valued his input. But unless he repudiates his association with Nick Fuentes I want nothing more to do with him.
Odd to think I'm a "NeoCon" who's not always happy with other NeoCons. I supported Gulf War 2. I see value in the determination to wage "forever wars" when dealing with enemies like Russia, which Trump botched terribly coming out of his second-term gate and is still trying to recover a position of strength and deterrence. Credit where it's due, however. Trump handled Iran extremely well and I also support his decision to not put boots on the ground there. Most of the NeoCons named in this article are people who inexplicably turned against Trump ("Never Trumpers") leaving me to speculate about ties under the table to the DNC or at least sharing mutual infuential assoicates. The undelying point of MAGA is a sound one, which is why I break with the statists who ruled the Republican Party and suspect their motives. We need to pay more attention to what's happening here. We have a lot of mess to sweep up and a lot to put right. That should be our focus. But not our exclusive focus. I question how far Trump's MAGA followers might want to take their point, but that's the problem with the emotions that drive a movement. They do not know when to stop, as the Democrats remind us daily.