Nat Cons and Gen Z

Tucker Carlson, John Bolton, Josh Hawley, and Peter Thiel walk into a bar.

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David Brog, executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, joins Jamie to discuss the October 7 attacks on Israel, anti-Israeli sentiment on college campuses, and his experience organizing national conservative conferences.

The Agenda:
—Young Americans increasingly support Palestinians
—The impact of critical race theory
—Brog’s time at the Edmund Burke Foundation
—Debating America’s foreign involvement
—The future of national conservatism

Show Notes:

-Reuters/Ipsos Poll: Israel-Hamas War and 2024 Election

-ISPU Poll: Religious Groups’ Views on Ceasefire

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Comments (51)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Ericjbutcher

    Holy Cognitive dissonance in his positions between Israel and Ukraine. Another sterling example of when it comes to NatCons I just say no.

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    Emersonfry

    Brog: "Over time, though, I think a lot of us came to see that opportunities for negotiated settlement [between Russia and Ukraine] were missed".

    What the heck is he talking about??? It's really hard to take someone seriously when they make ridiculous claims like this.

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    Rdbarris

    Let me add my comments to the chorus of those pointing out the absurdity and hypocrisy of Brog's positions on Israel and Ukraine.

    Brog sets out a "natcon" foreign policy interest in finding allies who are willing to fight our mutual enemies without a commitment of American manpower or (excessive) commitment of treasure. Brog then, correctly, identifies Israel as precisely this type of ally with respect to Iran. When asked to consider whether Ukraine with respect to Russia might not also qualify, suddenly Brog goes all "...well Ukraine can't win..." and "....the US is deeply in debt and our industrial capacity is constrained..." and "...we missed opportunities to negotiate with Russia." Blah, blah, blah. Brog would never even dream of saying that Israel needs to negotiate with Iran and its proxies, because he realizes - quite rightly - that there is no negotiating with those committed to Israel's destruction and willing to commit atrocities in pursuit of that aim. Well, has Brog not been paying attention to Putin's statements about Ukraine and his willingness to commit war crimes? Likewise, how can Brog not recognize that spending a small fraction of our military budget (and a tiny fraction of our GDP, alongside our European allies) to degrade massively the military capabilities of Russia - a country that is committed to revising the world order against the interests of the US and its allies - is a great investment, particularly given that Russia is the foremost ally of China, our greatest strategic threat?

    But this is the problem with the entire "natcon" position. There are no principles to it, just a series of rationalizations to justify prior positions. Brog is no different that all the others who have attempted to make sense of fundamentally incoherent policies.

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    Patrick

    Hard not to think his positions on Ukraine and Israel would be reversed if he had happened to marry a girl from Ukraine or Poland.

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    1. Austin from Atlanta

      I hate assuming anything like bad faith but that was exactly my thought as well.

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  5. Ty.Wolaver

    By God, people like this are infuriating. He should be ashamed of himself. Support Israel (which I agree with) but abandon Ukraine? What a NatCon POS. Thank you for making me listen to him.

    As a Christian, I'll be praying for him. As someone that hopes the best for the US, Israel, Ukraine, and the world as a whole, I hope for his and people like him's irrelevancy

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    1. Austin from Atlanta

      With 100% kindness and sincerity intended, there are more constructive ways to talk about people we disagree with if we are going to do it while claiming the name of Jesus. I also disagreed with several of the guest's policy views. I wish him well.

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  6. Michaelcstreit

    The incoherence of this argument is exactly why policy decisions must be rooted in actual principles. He claims that “self-interest” is the only evaluation criteria and then arbitrarily defines what that is. “NATO is good but not the expansion of NATO”. Iran is our enemy but Russia is not. What a hack.

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    Chany Ockert

    So inconsistent in his views…

    Jamie, if you bring him on again to talk about Taiwan, I would be curious of his response to a question about the Houthis. Does America First mean we only protect American cargo ships?

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    1. Russell J

      Only protect ships of companies that have a good relationship with the President.

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    Chevesl

    Jamie did a very good job here. He pushed back a lot but didn’t turn it into a big fight.

    But Brog is a typical “NatCon” who glibly defines his movement as “we are the ones who care about AMERICA while everyone else doesn’t.” Jonah loves to note how leftos act like they’re advocating something new when they read Engles for the first time. The NatCon crowd acts like they’ve discovered something called—lemme check my notes here—“American interests.”

    Under his logic, there’s absolutely no reason to continue supporting Israel. It costs a fortune, it’s a headache, the Gaza crisis hasn’t sent a single bullet our way, yada yada. But the main reason Americans massively support Israel is MORAL. They’re an ally, we don’t like people killing Jews, so eff you end of story. Meanwhile, he’s made a living off of showing people how great this foreign country is and why all the lies about it matter to Americans thousands of miles away.

    Am I missing something?

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  9. Chris

    This is an important issue, but it feels like the tenth time Jamie has done this exact same interview. Maybe I am mistaken and he was brought in to focus on the war in Gaza, but I am a little surprised he doesn't cover a wider range of topics. It seems like every Monday I know exactly what the interview will be about.

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    1. Austin from Atlanta

      Last week he interviewed Dan Crenshaw, the week before that was about Matt Drudge, and the week before that was about identity politics. I’m only aware of two episodes that primarily focused on this conflict, if we count this one. Hard to fault him for occasionally referencing one of the biggest stories in the world.

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      1. Chris

        My point is that its not occasional- I'm not sure about the Matt Drudge episode but I am pretty sure he talked about the conflict in the other two episodes you mentioned. He definitely did with Crenshaw.

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    Ben Connelly

    You could have taken Brog’s NatCon case for supporting Israel and word for word just subbing in Ukraine and Russia it would have been a classic argument for defending Ukraine. Jamie’s “is this just an idiosyncratic group of people who saw an opportunity in the Trump era” question could have been answered with one word: “yes.” Admittedly, I think Brog is right that some of this stuff will stay around after Trump leaves, but maybe less than we think.

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    1. Bobby D

      I’ve increasingly come to wonder whether the members of this movement even know what they want. I’m not sure that there’s much to it beyond LARPing. The couple of guys I know who are into this stuff are guys who are bored with their comfortable middle-class lives and the pedestrian duties those lives entail. Of course, they imagine that, if they were alive in 16th-century France, they’d be part of the nobility. There’s a far better chance that they’d be working a plot of land for subsistence wages and living in a drafty cottage.

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        Ben Connelly

        Very true. Too many are also just misguided and historically uninformed. They believe the loudest voices.

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