Israel First?

Why MAGA Republicans sound like neocons after Hamas’ attack.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green speaks at a press conference on May 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Last week the noisiest populist in the House Republican caucus posed for a photo with some new friends.

The spectacle of a grassroots right-wing firebrand saying “cheese” with Code Pink is destined to hit conservatives of a certain age hard, but at this point it shouldn’t. How many more illustrations do we need in year eight of the Trump era that “horseshoe theory” is real?

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Biden’s weakness is a fair point. He pulled out of Afghanistan and stabbed our allies in the back. Trump’s fecklessness on that subject is not justification. The buck stops with the guy actually in charge. Biden also is still seeking a nuclear deal with Iran and released $6bn which “will absolutely not be used for terrorism because money isn’t fungible…!”

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  2. Chris

    Nick, I don't know where you live, so this isn't meant as a comment towards you, but I think coastal media types really don't understand the degree to which middle America Christians genuinely believe that wars in Israel will usher or are presently ushering in the end times. That's why it's different. I am an orthodox Christian (in the sense that I believe orthodox Christian doctrine, not in a denominational sense), and I think this view is generally wrong. But it is pervasive. That's why Israel is viewed so differently than Ukraine or other conflicts.

    Kevin Williamson probably understands this and has an opinion on it. Or David French. I'd like to see a piece from one of them (or someone like them) on that question. Perhaps it already exists.

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    1. DavidWG

      A David French editorial on this matter, if you have a NYT subscription :

      https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/01/opinion/christian-nationalism-trump-renew-america.html

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    2. Bobby D

      I agree. The MAGA right is mostly made up of white evangelicals, who believe that we have a Christian duty to see to the removal of the Muslims from the Holy Land and rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem.

      That said, I don’t understand the white evangelical fealty towards Putin and Russia, except that many of them wrongly see Russia as some kind of Christian utopia. In reality it’s a kleptocratic thug state in which Christianity is largely non-existent. Of course, if your version of Christianity mainly concerns being cruel to gays, then I suppose that one could call Russia a Christian country. Notably, few of these pro-Russian evangelicals seem ready to escape the hellhole of life in Colleyville or Sandy Springs for the bliss of life in Omsk.

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      1. Chris

        I agree. The only explanations for the far right's Russian support I can really consider is (1) Donald Trump's dog whistle support of Russia over the years and (2) negative partisanship and viewing this war as Biden's war. Maybe a combo of the two.

        Both of those things are profoundly stupid, however. But they are the only reasonable answers I can come up with in my mind.

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  3. Chris.Schwieg

    I think its mostly negative partisanship. As long as the socialist left is attracting attention for their support of rape, civilian targets, other general acts of depravity then the populist right (who i think is only guided by who they want to oppose) will support Israel. I've seen some right wing opposition to Israel couched in terms of opposition to Biden.

    I dont think they have a program much deeper than negative partisanship

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    1. Avatar photo
      Bill B

      I don't know if you meant to but... I know it's simpler to just pick a direction and point but let's not tar the entire "socialist left" with that one and perhaps the Left won't tar the entire conservative Right with Charlottesville and neo-Nazis?

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      1. Avatar photo
        Ben Connelly

        “the Left won't tar the entire conservative Right with Charlottesville and neo-Nazis?”

        The far left at least has always done this. Growing up conservative surrounded by liberals means getting insulted as racist, having the Holocaust pinned on you etc. If you voted for George Bush you’re a Nazi, blah blah. Sticks and stones will break my bones and all of that, but I confess I’m unconvinced by claims that if the Right toned down its rhetoric the Left would play nice. Last I checked, Theodore Adorno devoted a book to the fabrication that Nazism literally comes out of bourgeois values, and to the extent that some people believe that, anyone to the right of John Lennon will get called a Nazi.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Bill B

          I could say the same thing about the Republican Right calling liberals "Commies" and referring to every liberal politician as having a "radical socialist agenda" and "hating America". That's been going on since the 90's and even further. Remember Joe McCarthy? It's all been going on for some time. Those are the extremes and the numbskulls and normally we try not to pay too much attention to them... at least we used not to.

          I don't know that Adorno "fabricated" anything. Like any intellectual of the era he was trying to make sense of Nazism and the striking example of one of the most civilized and economically vital societies in Europe sinking into barbarism and afterwards challenging post-war Germany not to forget. Hayek and von Mises did fundamentally the same thing only in a different direction.

          I don't believe we can malign or dismiss thinkers without reading them carefully or simply because we don't agree with them. There is always something to be learned.

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  4. Rblik

    Trying to make logical sense of MAGA foreign policy is a major challenge, so kudos for trying. I can only come up with two theories for their demented views:

    1) Brown people bad, white people good- The MAGAs are able to see the threat from Hamas since they are brown Muslims.....but Putin is white and anti-woke, so must be a good guy.

    2) Pure politics- Biden has done such a good job on Ukraine, the MAGA's see much better opportunity politically in the Middle East.

    Thats the "logic:" that allows MTG to go from a Code Pink protest one week, to a war cheerleader the next. Lucky for her, her supporters aren't the brightest, so she can pull this off easily.

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  5. Wsampson

    master class nice work

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  6. Avatar photo
    Michael Berkowitz

    It seems to me that the idea underlying all the political conversations in America is that of choosing sides. I've never understood that, just like I don't understand why one must have a football team for which one roots.

    Therefore, I'm happy to thank anyone who supports Israel (I'm grateful, for example, for Trump's moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan, cracking down on Iran and so forth), but I don't count on anyone's support to last. (I would not, for example, count on Trump to have Israel's back.) It really isn't hard to separate these things, but it does take constant practice.

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  7. Scianti7

    Thank you for that. I noticed a lack of Donald J Trump response. Captain Chaos may yet be called to action. Also, I think with the reality of the Hamas attack the general sympathy of Dems will be with Israel. Many victims are descendants of survivors of the holocaust being shot in their homes & bus stops & babies in their beds. There is no equivalence. Assuming the Socialist party represents Democrats is a mistake. They are different parties. I think if the poll was taken now it might look different.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Normb1442

    "Democrats are wimps" has been the go-to line for Republicans since Joe McCarthy's days. Half the reason Lyndon Johnson went into Vietnam was because he was terrified of being accused of not being man enough to stand up to Communism. I remember Republicans saying "thank GOD Bush is President" after 9/11, "Gore would have been hiding under the bed." It was never even remotely true, but I'm guessing more than a few people reading these words said it at the time, because it was a mantra for so many years. So deeply is that mantra ingrained on the right that Hawley and Greene and Vance didn't even have to dust it off, knowing that their followers would fall right into line because they have since 1950. Well, at least Bush nailed Bin Laden....oh, wait.

    Even those who DO support Ukraine have taken up the same cudgel in accusing Biden of weakness in not giving Zelensky enough weapons fast enough. This is having your cake and eating it too -- you get to play the "democrats are wimps" melody while supporting the right cause. The Israelis are fortunate enough to have opponents who are not armed with an abundance of nukes, so there's no need for the U. S. to consider the possible consequence of a nuclear holocaust in supporting them.

    It is breathtaking how much our politics relies on junior-high-school-levels values.

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    1. Avatar photo
      JDW

      I fall in the pro-Ukraine Republican but not MAGA camp. Meaning, I still vote for mostly Republicans but would not vote for Trump ever.

      I am glad that GWB was president and Gore was not. I might prefer Biden to Trump but given GWB or Gore I'll take GWB every time. The peacenik wing of the Democratic party became far stronger after Vietnam. I don't think they saw the Soviets as the threat we did as Republicans. So yes thank God it was Reagan and not Mondale or Dukakis.

      I will grant criticisms are not always fair but to say foreign policywise the Democrats had it together in the 80's and early 90's is not something I would agree with at all.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Normb1442

        80s and 90s, no argument. Bush's decision to turn his focus away from Afghanistan and go into Iraq was a disaster, and Gore would not have made that mistake.

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  9. Rune485

    Just your basic butt puppets. No braining involved, just canned responses.

    I see Putin in Ukraine, Kim waddling off to Russia for attention, now Iran and their rage monkeys in Israel, and I wonder how long it will take China to strike Taiwan while these morons insist the US violate her security agreements and “disentagle” from her allies.

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  10. Indisguise

    You are over complicating it. Trump is a pro Russian hack who is going to jail for violating the espionage act. The war in Israel is a good excuse to help Putin out in Ukraine. And Americans like Israel so it's the right play . Everything Maga does fits what a campaign to destabilize a democracy looks like. No need for complex analysis. Stop looking at this as politics as usual.

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