The MAGA Right’s Antisemitism Problem

They are a problem for anyone who wants to sustain the 2024 voter coalition in the 2026 midterms and in 2028. They will be a problem for Vice President   JD Vance , because they want him to be the 2028 Republican nominee. If they succeed in making racism respectable again, they will be the ruin of America.

The woke right has a toehold in Congress, notably in Rep.   Marjorie Taylor-Greene   of Georgia, who has rescinded her speculation about Rothschild conspiracies and Jewish space lasers but now claims that Israel exerts “unique influence and control” over her congressional colleagues. But most of its leaders are online entrepreneurs. They include the wicked uncles   Tucker Carlson   and   Steve Bannon, who have adapted to online incentives, and the digital natives of the “alt-right” class of 2016, such as   Candace Owens   and   Nicholas Fuentes.

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, this faction has tried to break support for the America-Israel alliance among Republicans, and Christians especially. A new domestic front opened after the murder of   Charlie Kirk, with influencers trying to hijack Kirk’s Turning Point USA movement to advance racist conspiracy theories into the mainstream via Kirk’s youthful followers and lucrative email list.

Mr. Carlson’s hosting of Mr. Fuentes on his podcast, which aired Oct. 27, was a watershed in the campaign to make racism cool again. Mr. Carlson has come a long way since the bow-tied folly of his neoconservative youth. After leaving Fox News in 2023, he went over the edge. He donned the plaid shirt of the people, rediscovered Christianity, cashed in on his legacy status as a ringmaster of the right, and reinvented himself as the second coming of   Alex Jones. Mr. Carlson has interviewed a podcaster who thinks   Winston Churchill   was the villain of World War II, raised discredited claims that Ashkenazi Jews are immune to Covid, and   claimed   that   Benjamin Netanyahu   openly tells Israelis, “I control the United States. I control Donald Trump.”

There is always a market for the circus, but Mr. Carlson has become one of the freaks. Though the sunshine of free speech remains the best antiseptic against poison, Mr. Carlson is more interested in the spotlight than serious debate. He “normalized” his guest with the gentlest of questioning, nodding along as Mr. Fuentes said the country can’t be held together unless “organized Jewry in America” is defeated. But there is nothing normal about Mr. Fuentes. He denies the facts of the Holocaust, opposes interracial marriage, seeks “total Aryan victory,” and urges the rule of a “Catholic Taliban.” He calls for “the death penalty” for an “occult element at the high levels of society, specifically among the Jews,” that is “suppressing” Christianity.

Anti-Jewish racism is an infallible symptom of civilizational decline. It substitutes fantasies for moral foundations. Mr. Bannon, otherwise opposed to foreign adventures, muses about “regime change in Jerusalem.” His acolyte   Curt Mills   boasts of being a “ hater ” of Israel and says Israel is “wagging the dog” of American politics. Ms. Owens wonders if Israel was involved in Charlie Kirk’s murder. Mr. Carlson calls Christian support for Israel a “brain virus” and a “heresy” and says   Vladimir Putin   is “the most popular leader in the world.”

Conspiracist and racist fantasies of the old right have been beyond the pale for Republicans since the 1960s. The racist right claims to be the heirs of   Pat Buchanan, but Mr. Trump owns Mr. Buchanan’s popular patriotism. They inherit the old right’s underbelly: ignorant isolationism, knee-jerk racism, paranoia about Jews, resentment of Washington. They begrudge Mr. Trump, too, for not going full Buchanan—and are so resentful of America’s broken promise that they will defend Russia, China, Iran and Qatar over the U.S. and its allies. In this too they resemble the old right, which in the 1930s preferred Hitler to   Franklin D. Roosevelt. This embittered minority is driving a wedge into the Trump coalition and the Republican base. They are trying to split evangelical Christians from Israel, which explains Mr. Carlson’s sudden interest in theology and enthusiasm for Qatar. They believe they will succeed.

Morality aside, it is in the self-interest of Republicans, conservatives and libertarians to make sure they fail. Call me an optimist, but I don’t believe that Americans will vote for white supremacy in 2026 and 2028. Independents, moderates, first-time Trump toe-dippers and plenty of regular Republicans won’t pull the lever for a party remade in the image of racial hatred.

So far, the haters are winning. On Oct. 30,   Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, backed Mr. Carlson as Heritage’s “close friend.” Mr. Roberts condemned Mr. Fuentes’s opinions and antisemitism, but he also attacked the “globalist class” and “venomous coalition” serving “someone else’s agenda” for “sowing division” and “attacking our friends on the right.” Yet it is Mr. Carlson and Mr. Fuentes who are sowing division. Mr. Roberts called Heritage the “intellectual backbone of the conservative movement,” but there will be no conservative movement if the right’s key institutions surrender to dog-whistling and resentment.

Mr. Vance’s initial response was little better. On Thursday, he debated students a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi. A student asked why the U.S. should support Israel when it has committed “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza and the Jewish religion “openly supports the persecution” of Christianity. Mr. Vance failed to correct either of these calumnies, but his improvised reply seemed to   suggest that it was possible for Israel to “control the President of the United States.”

As Mr. Trump’s heir apparent, Mr. Vance will have to draw a line. As a Christian, he knows that Romans 12:21 says, “Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” His principled defense of free speech shouldn’t preclude him from excluding the cranks and carnies. Playing for time will make them more of a problem—for him, his party and, above all, the American people.