If one have been lifeless set on dividing President Trump’s MAGA coalition on the seams, how would he proceed? Attempting to drive a wedge via the immigration situation doesn’t essentially make sense: Tightening and securing America’s borders is so core to the nationalist-populist MAGA challenge that there will be little room within the coalition for a lot dissent. Attempting to divide MAGA alongside financial laissez-faire or populism strains can also be doomed to fail: As vital as pocketbook points are to on a regular basis Individuals, the wonky particulars of fiscal coverage usually don’t stoke fiery ardour.
One might do lots worse, nonetheless, than specializing in Jews — and particularly, on the respective relationships between American Jews and American Christians and between america and Israel. I skilled this firsthand, but once more, this week.
As an observant Jew, I used to be offline not too long ago for the vacation of Sukkot — also called the Feast of Cubicles or the Feast of Tabernacles. Of all of the Jewish holidays, it’s the one most intimately affiliated with pure pleasure and happiness. Because it says in Leviticus, “you shall rejoice earlier than the Lord your God for a seven day interval.” And so I did.
After I got here again on-line Wednesday night, I discovered that whereas I used to be off, the unhinged conspiracy theorist Candace Owens had ludicrously accused me of foreknowledge — or maybe complicity — within the homicide of my own friend Charlie Kirk. A declare like that’s appalling habits, at finest. Something goes, it appears, to push the (totally baseless) narrative that the Jews had one thing to do with Kirk’s dying.
Owens is hardly the one distinguished right-of-center voice who has embarked down this darkish street. Tucker Carlson, the onetime cable information king now moonlighting as a dissident podcaster, has evinced an unhealthy obsession with the Jewish folks and the state of Israel. From accusing Israel of “genocide” to entertaining Hitler/Nazi apologia to “simply asking questions” about whether or not Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad asset to dismissing the Hebrew Bible itself, Carlson’s agenda has turn into entirely clear.
The checklist goes on. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and her former colleague Matt Gaetz spend an inordinate period of time lately railing towards alleged — and allegedly nefarious — Jewish and Israeli affect on American tradition and politics. Decrease-name conspiratorial Jew-haters typically discover their approach onto the nation’s most popular podcasts.
All of this, in the meantime, whereas Trump, the chief of the MAGA motion, stays avowedly supportive of tight-knit U.S.-Israel relations. The Trump Justice Division and broader administration, furthermore, stay stalwart supporters of the protection and safety of the Jewish folks. From his first to his second time period, Trump has been the most pro-Jewish president in American historical past.
So, what provides?
The instant purpose of this concerted disinformation operation is the debasement of American Jews, however the extra politically salient purpose is the gaslighting of American evangelical Christians — the core of the MAGA base, and an overwhelmingly pro-Jewish, pro-Israel constituency. By focusing a lot on the Jewish folks and the Jewish state, these provocateurs have a wider purpose in thoughts than merely ostracizing America’s small Jewish minority. They need to alienate evangelicals too.
The purpose, then, appears to be nothing lower than the whole supplanting of MAGA with a new political movement — an indignant, ultra-conspiratorial, unbiblical, neo-pagan movement of misfits and their hangers-on.
Given the terribly formidable (and dastardly) nature of that purpose, the stakes are enormously excessive. Traditionally, political actions die after they turn into subsumed by paranoid Jew-hatred. So too do societies crumble and nations perish after they activate their Jewish populations and fall prey to the world’s oldest bigotry.
And for evangelical Christian supporters of the Jewish folks and the Jewish state, the whole operation is nothing lower than a collective slap within the face. Jews are harmed, and Christians are insulted.
The distinction of what I skilled throughout Sukkot and what I found afterward is each stark and illuminating. Whereas I used to be “rejoicing” with my household earlier than God, as I’m commanded to do, brokers of destruction have been fabricating essentially the most outlandish lies conceivable to sow division and resentment. It’s the everlasting battle of humanity going again millennia: justice versus tyranny, order versus chaos, mild versus darkness.
I do know which aspect of that everlasting divide I’m on. My hope is that the American proper and the MAGA coalition know which aspect they’re on too.
Josh Hammer’s newest ebook is “Israel and Civilization: The Destiny of the Jewish Nation and the Future of the West.” This text was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer
