Since October 7 some of America’s most popular podcasters have congratulated themselves on their ability to “just ask questions” about Israel’s war aims that the legacy media will not; in the process of doing so, they have given platforms to revisionist historians, Holocaust distorters, and Christian antisemites to, they say, provide counter-narratives to the Israeli lobby that has so desperately tried to engage the U.S. in “forever war.”
Israel attacked Iran last night. As expected, the same people who were “just asking questions” revolted against Israel in support of America’s enemies.
Darryl Cooper, whom Tucker Carlson lauded on his show as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States,” said on Thursday that America should “commence airstrikes on Tel Aviv immediately.” Dave Smith, Joe Rogan’s favorite comedian-turned-foreign-policy expert, accused Israel of launching “a dangerous, preemptive war of aggression” that “should be condemned by the US government and US citizens alike.” Smith also denied claims that Cooper was an antisemite; Cooper just had “nuanced” views, Smith said.
It may be easy to disregard such online-right opinions as fringe, but their millions of followers and the billions of views they receive suggest otherwise. Nick Fuentes said “this is the final battle in Israel’s 50 year reign of terror to destabilize & destroy every country that resists their rule.” Candace Owens called Israel’s “bloodlust” demonic. Matt Stoller doesn’t think Israel’s “bloodthirsty insanity” should be “our problem.” Crisis magazine’s Eric Sammons doesn’t think Catholics can support Israel’s attack on Iran. UFC fighter and podcaster Jake Shields is “sick and tired of paying for and fighting Jewish wars” and demanded the destruction of Israel. Dan Bilzerian said, “These jews just can’t help themselves, they attack Iran unprovoked, and they’ll be crying about how they don’t feel safe by morning,” adding, “If I was the president, I would round up every politician supporting Israel and have them all tried for treason.” These are just a few.
On Wednesday night, Matt Continetti and Ruth Wisse joined National Review on a Tikvah panel in celebration of Bill Buckley’s 100th birthday. The event was about antisemitism, and, specifically, Buckley’s efforts to purge it from the right. A question that came up was: Does the conservative movement have an antisemitism problem? Maybe (we hope) not among policymakers or in the Trump administration. But there’s no doubt that antisemites — whom popular pundits have shamelessly platformed as good-faith, question-asking, honest intellectuals — have become online heroes for some alarmingly populated factions on the new right.