So, I kind of discussed what sparked this last night. It was Tucker Carlson platforming Nick Fuentes, who is basically a fascist, if not a Nazi. I decided to immerse myself in more conservative content, this time Mark Levin, and I kind of came away disappointed. While Levin was right to point at Fuentes' radicalism and simping for strong man dictators and authoritarian policies (things not properly discussed in the interview), he never REALLY addressed the Israel lobby thing and while I only listened to the first hour of his podcast, he spent more time just going on unhinged rants about Feuntes "hating America" and "hating Israel" than actually addressing the legitimate concerns.
I want to approach this somewhat as a former conservative myself. I used to be a conservative, before 2012. Hell, I listened to levin's show back in the day regularly. And I know enough about conservatism where I feel like I have the right to an informed "insider" opinion here.
Foreign policy is a contentious issue on the right, as it is for the left. It's not really a partisan issue in a way. It's an establishment/anti establishment issue, with the right having a lot of the same forces going on on the left. On the left, we've had our own debates about Israel in recent years. We have the establishment faction that is relatively pro israel, and the anti establishment faction who is anti Israel. Given my own politics, while I normally support the anti establishment factions of the democratic party, as they support the economic progressivism I believe we need, I'm less interested in the radicalism of the left's foreign policy, and initially supported the establishment side in backing Israel. However, as the war in Gaza continued, israel really showed themselves to be the real villain here, and while October 7th was horrible, Israel has a right to exist, blah blah blah, I REALLY don't like Israel's behavior in their war against Hamas. It IS a genocide, and they're not even hiding it any more. And honestly, I dont think that America should support such behavior. Even if Israel is an important security partner in the Middle East, blah blah blah, I feel like they've massively betrayed our trust, and that we should cut them off and stop supporting them.
I also have become acutely aware of how much influence Israel has over the US government and how aggressively they lobby for continued support for Israel. And I dont think it's right. I'm sorry, I don't. Israel has way too much sway over our foreign policy, and I dont like that. And I do support the anti establishment faction in calling this out. Despite criticisms from the Israel lobby claiming anyone who doesn't agree with them is "anti semitic", I'd push back on this by saying that they're playing the victim card way too much, and that there's a difference between hating all jews, and being against an explicitly jewish nationalist movement that is committing crimes against humanity in the middle east. Either way, I just wanna be less involved in the matter for the most part and am only wading into it again because of its relevance to the right's civil war.
Again, the right has similar debates. The right has always had neocon factions that were hawkish on foreign policy, and paleocon factions that were more "America first", if we wanna call it that. In the 1990s, after the cold war ended and Clinton was doing humanitarian missions all over the world and getting US troops killed (see; Somalia), a lot of conservatives believed that either we should go full neocon, ie, the bibi netanyahu route, or we should just back off and be less involved. In reality, they used both attacks to hit clinton from both sides of the debate, although the end goal seemed to be to make us more isolationist and less involved in the world.
Then came 9/11. This incited the conservative movement to be psychotically neocon, with the "America first" elements forming an aggressive unilateral "go it alone" mentality in which we snubbed our nose at the UN and gave them the finger and we just did what WE wanted to do, and anyone who wasn't for us was with the enemy, to paraphrase Bush himself. Of course, the war in Iraq was a mistake, and by the end of Bush's term, the wars were becoming quite unpopular. They were actually one of the earliest reasons I myself broke with the conservative movement. I actually supported Ron Paul in 2008 in part because I believed Iraq was a mistake. And a lot of conservatives did too. I even considered voting for Hillary in 2008, but the Obama won and I was convinced he was more radical so I ended up just holding my nose for mccain. But yeah, you can see how these two sides have always had tension.
Anyway, I left since 2012, as the tea party took over and I realized I helped create a monster, and I became a liberal in response. And Obama's foreign policy was always...just right for me. It stood up for america when it counted, but it wasnt overbearing. Im neither an isolationist, nor a neocon, and the liberalism of the democratic party was the middle ground I was looking for.
But the debate continued to rage on since I left. And in 2016, we had the "America first" movement. Fuentes himself came from the same Ron Paul libertarian camp I flirted with years before, and he shifted hard toward being in the more paleocon isolationist faction where we're...America first. Those guys dont wanna be involved in the rest of the world, they also see Iraq as a mistake, and dont wanna be involved in the rest of the world. And they dont wanna give israel money. They'll say "why should we give israel money when we have poor people here?", but then they dont wanna give to poor people here, so it's really "why should I be taxed to help israel?" Ya know? That's the root of the america first movement. It's basically self interest and "what are we getting out of it?"
But...the republican party ALSO has an issue with the israel lobby, and they go harder with it than the dems go. Because a lot of the right are evangelical christians, and they have this idea based on the bible that we have to support israel no matter what, and if we dont support israel, we're going against God (yeah, some literally think that). And because the evangelical nuts control the republican party, it's a common rallying cry among the more neocon right.
Fuentes was an early challenger of this, only to find himself having his fledgling talk radio career sabotaged by this same lobby. Which....basically was the worst thing they could've done. it just turned fuentes into the monster he is today, where he DOES come off as anti semitic and nazi like.
And, this is the one thing I WILL give fuentes...what happens when the worst person possible makes a good point? Seriously, the conservative movement and its establishment is SUPER pro israel, and seems to shut out all anti israel views. But those views are increasingly popular among young people, among the anti establishment types, among the ones who call themselves "America first", which is why you got this faction of anti establishment rightoids who, much like those on the left, are pushing back against israel, but because the rest of the movement is insanely racist, xenophobic, and authoritarian, even fascist or nazi, if you wanna call it that, and those guys are the only ones actually pushing back on this issue, what happens? Well, you're basically allowing a faction of nazis to fester and gain influence in the conservative movement.
It seems like the libertarian voices of 2010ish are mostly gone. Either they've gone to their own libertarian party, and dont participate in republican party politics any more, or they've become fascist and america first, I have long known about this weird right libertarian to fascist pipeline that seems to exist for various reasons, and this is one of them. ANd yeah, now the republican party has a problem.
BUT...the establishment of the party is all super pro israel, and bought out by this israel lobby. And again, levin doesnt even approach the issue with nuance or good faith. He just goes IF YOURE AGAINST ISRAEL YOURE AGAINST AMERICA! and crap. That's bad faith argumentation. Again, this is why i led with my CURRENT views. Because I want to show how you can be critical of israel without being a nazi or hating all jews. But on the right, they don't seem to have that nuance. So you got the Nick Fuenteses, the Tucker Carlsons, the MTGs of the party, all these radical nutcases who are complete ghouls, I wanna make that clear, I don't support them, I dont endorse them, I think they're genuinely terrible people, all coming out on the anti establishment side of this debate. And then you got the mark levins, and ben shapiros, and the more old guard establishment republicans who actually are all bought out by the israel lobby btw, screaming in bad faith and trying to shut them down.
Thankfully, I dont have to take a side between these factions. I mean, I have long since disavowed the right. I have my own views, my own nuance, etc. And I feel like I can properly critique israel without hating all jews. But on the right the battle lines are such where things are polarizing between this establishment faction who is super pro israel, and the literal nazis, who are the worst possible people to make a decent point.
I guess if forced to take a side, to be pragmatic, I'd go with the establishment, simply because I hate nazis. Like, at least establishment republicans aren't completely insane. And I would say MOST of my views are closer to the establishment faction, including when I was a conservative. While I get the foreign policy thing and not wanting tax dollars to go to this foreign government that is maliciously lobbying us so they can commit a genocide in the middle east, eh...on EVERY OTHER ISSUE, the republican establishment is highly preferable. Because at least they're not COMPLETELY insane. Even though, if you look at that video link, levin is literally sponsored by the people who made project 2025. Which...is bad in itself. But let's face it, Fuentes and his ilk are worse. Those guys are literally like American Taliban in terms of their domestic views. So...idk. Kind of an enemy of my enemy is my friend moment, but to be honest, I hate them both.
Either way, I wish the republicans luck at dealing with their nazi problem, and to give them advice, MAYBE PULL BACK ON THE ISRAEL ISSUE A LITTLE. Seriously. This is my one piece of helpful advice to the GOP, as someone who has been dealing with the same debates within the left. If you guys go SO HARD for israel that the only people with the balls to stand up to you on it are the LITERAL NAZIS, that's how you get a party with more nazis, because anti establishment foreign policy views arent just going to go away. The right has ALWAYS had those undercurrents and factions in my lifetime. But it's only been the past decade where they've morphed into the current psychos you got gaining influence on your side.
And to the Israel lobby, MAYBE BACK OFF AND BE A BIT LESS AGGRESSIVE. As a more moderate leftie on foreign policy, I would have zero issue with supporting israel if they weren't 1) committing a literal genocide in the middle east and 2) aggressively lobbying our government for support and playing the victim card to suppress any criticism of them. You can read my own posts on this blog going back to october 7th 2023 to see my evolution on this matter. I initially was very supportive of israel, but now I feel like they've abused and betrayed our trust. It's a legitimate problem. And the tighter you are with the information control and not allowing dissent to rise on this issue, the more youre gonna drive people to more radical factions when it finally does.
Like seriously, i feel like everything wrong in the past 10 years has happened because the powers that be in the establishment factions of society won't let dissent and criticism of the status quo arise and manifest in healthy ways. This doesn't destroy the criticism, it just forces it underground and forces those factions to radicalize. The same thing has happened on the left. I was an OG bernie or buster in 2016. A lot of those guys ended up becoming these weird jimmy dore listening marxists who then wrap back around to having more in common with the nick fuentes maga types at times than the democrats. Heck, I would argue that the whole reason MAGA and the alt right took off was because we couldnt get a more healthy version of anti establishment politics on the left. Ya know? We have so much radicalism in our politics today because a decade ago, we didnt allow people to get these views out in more healthy ways, so now most of the only outlets with the balls to make those criticisms are the people we REALLY dont want making those criticisms.
Anyway, once again, to the right, good luck with your nazi problem, you're gonna need it. Man 2025 is a dumpster fire...
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