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Opinion: A Confident Right Confronts Antisemitism
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Written by Misha Mehrfar
Edited by Piotr Mateusz Kukula, Francesca Howard, and Annika Lilja
There is a version of the American Right that wins. It wins on the economy, on border security, on broader foreign policy, and on the restoration of civic life. It wins because of its emphasis on strategy rather than performative politics, its broad coalition, and because its opponents have overplayed their political hand in ways once unimaginable.
On the other hand, there is the version that, unfortunately, currently exists. The one that can’t stop talking about globalists, the one that can’t decide whether to support conspiracy theorists or reject them, and the one that treats the question of Jewish influence as serious political thought. Nothing fractures a winning coalition faster. The conservative movement cannot be both. Instead of ignoring the problem, it’s time to choose the right path forward.
To anyone who keeps up with politics, particularly on social media, it’s not a mystery what has happened to the Right. Since the 2023 Israel-Hamas War, the Right has split into two factions. On one hand, Evangelical Christians, Jews, and traditional conservatives rally behind Israel, though for different reasons. The other side, a relatively new phenomenon, has grown into a large part of the youth movement. With Nick Fuentes, the popular podcaster, and former talk-show hosts like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, the modern conservative movement has arguably never been so divided, especially over an issue involving just 2.4% of the United States’ population. And yet, the idea seems captivating to people my age, who blame all their problems on one group and one decision.
The patterns of such ideas are familiar to anyone with a basic knowledge of history. From the Biblical era to the Bubonic Plague, Jews have been the targets of movements that insist that they disproportionately control and influence governments in hopes of enacting some secret plan to help themselves. Mark Twain once wrote, “He [the Jews] has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him.” This new age of antisemitism is different, though. Whereas historical antisemitism relied on religious accusations or racial pseudoscience, today’s version arrives as skepticism. To many, it seems like a great idea to question the world around you. And it is. But when the tone shifts from skeptical analysis of where the U.S. gives foreign aid to a series of accusations followed by “I’m just asking questions,” the line between inquiry and agitation has already been crossed.
The packaging that the prejudice comes in is different this time. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, on the outside it appears as mere distrust in the system, which, to a teenager scrolling on TikTok at midnight, makes it seem less like hatred and more like someone finally telling the truth. That is precisely what makes this age’s antisemitism far more dangerous than its predecessor.
The reason these beliefs are prevalent among young people today, in my opinion, has less to do with the Jews and more to do with anxiety. Institutions that are supposed to be trustworthy have failed the people. It often feels like the government gets caught in a lie more often than telling the truth. And while the failure is real, the scapegoat is not. People like Nick Fuentes understand this. They offer a story with a villain, which is much more satisfying than a story about a broken system. It is worth noting that the left has its own version of these impulses, from the billionaire class to corporate greed, which is why this is not purely a conservative problem. Still, as of now, it is a conservative crisis, and conservatives are the only ones who can solve it.
The path forward is not complicated, though it may be uncomfortable. Conservative leaders must reject this faction explicitly if they want to win future elections. Not with a quiet distancing, but a kind of rejection that leaves no room open for interpretation. Soft rebukes are correctly read as tolerance. When a movement signals that these ideas are welcome as legitimate topics of debate, it does much more harm than good. Moderates that the party so critically needs in the upcoming elections are pushed away. The Left is given a gift to attack with, even though it may not be representative of the majority. What starts as fringe becomes, through the absence of correction and engagement, something normal.
There is also a generational argument here that many ignore. The young people being recruited into this are not lost causes. Rather, they are confused and looking for something to believe in. The Right has generally had answers to these problems: an emphasis on community, the dignity of work, etc. But those arguments cannot reach those who have already been handed a villain. Confronting “low-IQ antisemitism,” as some call it, within the movement is about whether conservatism has a future with the generation that will decide the next phase of American politics. Ceding that generation to the Fuentes-wing is a choice, and one that the movement will spend years trying to undo.
What the confrontation looks like in practice is not mysterious. It means refusing to share a stage with figures who traffic in this material, giving the same speech you would to a MAGA rally and a Jewish federation dinner, and accepting that while you will lose some voters, in the long run, you will gain more. The GOP has made harder choices than this and survived them. The question is whether its current leaders have the will to make this one.
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