Long-simmering antisemitism on the American Right has erupted into plain view. Nick Fuentes says that Jews control the media and cannot be part of Western civilization because they are not Christian. Candace Owens believes that Israel killed President John F. Kennedy and Charlie Kirk. Tucker Carlson charges that the Jews want to replace the white race in America and that Christian Zionism is a “heresy.” These are influential figures in the MAGA movement, with scores of millions of social media followers. And there are other influencers who are even more unhinged.
This development is not surprising. President Trump’s movement, which is called MAGA (Make America Great Again) for want of a better term, has captured the Republican Party and the American Right generally. But MAGA is not a conservative movement, as that term was understood in pre-Trump times. It is a national-populist movement. Its turn towards Jew-hatred was entirely predictable, because both components, nationalism and populism, are always antisemitism-adjacent.
Nationalism
The nationalism of MAGA is not a wholesome, patriotic love of country available to every American. It is akin to the “blood and soil” nationalism of pre-war Europe: If you don’t belong to the supposedly native group that supposedly is rooted in that particular land, you are an outsider and an invader. This helps explain the growing allure of the “Heritage Americans” idea touted by Vice President JD Vance and others, which imagines that the longer your ancestors have been here, the more legitimate your claim of “Americanness.” And the dark converse is that the more recently your family arrived, the less truly American you are.
This perspective plainly has an racist angle, making Jews an obvious target. Despite the fact that Jewish settlement on this continent goes back to 1654, to the MAGA nationalists, Jews are never “us,” always “them.” Blend this with the isolationism implicit in “America First” nationalism, and the Jewish bond with Israel inevitably brands Jews as disloyal and untrustworthy.
Populism
MAGA populism, like all forms of populism, is at heart a passionate attitude of grievance. It holds that “we,” the common people, are being held back and held down. Whether it’s housing, health care, a living wage or upward social mobility, it’s being kept from us. And why? Because of “them”—the politicians, the globalists, the elites.
Such a belief in powerful, malignant forces quickly degenerates into an unfalsifiable conspiracy theory. And who is always close to hand when conspiracy theorists need a villain? The Jews. Once the Jews are set apart as “them,” populists easily conclude that the Jews wield shadowy and corrupt power over “us.”
Thus, the old antisemitic attitudes that smoldered under the surface in post-war America have burst into flames in the nationalist-populist MAGA movement. Donald Trump, as the creator and leader of MAGA, bears responsibility for this. While not personally an antisemite, Trump has done nothing to banish the antisemites from his coalition. Trump doesn’t care how vile and odious a person’s values are, as long as that person praises and supports Trump.
(None of this lets left-wing antisemitism off the hook. Even before the Hamas-led orgy of rape, torture and murder on October 7, 2023, the illiberal Left embraced Jew-hatred in the form of hating the Jewish state. As the progressive Left and their Islamist allies increasingly target American Jews and their institutions for protests and violent attacks, the spurious distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism disappears. But that is not the focus of this article.)
There are efforts within the MAGA movement to combat the mounting antisemitism, both by Jews such as Ben Shapiro, and non-Jews such as Senator Ted Cruz. But they are unlikely to hold back the flood. As the Holocaust and any feelings of guilt and responsibility it inspired fade from memory, right-wing antisemitism is reverting to historically-normal levels in the West.
Jewish Republicans who became Trump acolytes were mostly genuine conservatives before Trump’s election. Will they realize that the nationalist-populist MAGA movement is increasingly not their friend? After all, many Left-leaning Jews were disillusioned with their progressive “allies” after October 7. One may hope for a similar enlightenment on the Right.
Jews are not well served by the illiberalism and radicalism of either the Right or the Left, which always agree on one thing—Jew-hatred. Only if Jews come together with other like-minded patriots to resuscitate liberal democracy is there a chance of keeping American Jewry safe.
Paul Kujawsky is a Democratic Party activist and Los Angeles appellate attorney.
