Richard Porter
Richard Porter is the former National Committeeman to the RNC from Illinois.
“The Jews” became a topic of conversation over the last week after Tucker Carlson interviewed someone named Nick Fuentes, a young man I had heard of but never actually heard. So I did what a critical thinker should do: I went to the source – to read, listen, watch, think, describe, and evaluate. From this exercise, I wish to add a few thoughts to the conversation about “the Jews,” about Christian loyalty, and what it means to be an American.
Nick Fuentes is an ambitious, voluble social media influencer who readily admits he craves relevance and love. He builds his audience, and his income, in cyberspace by “taking on the establishment” and playing the victim: being denounced and ostracized for “just being honest” about “the Jews.”
He speaks in the self-assured, grating Chicago accent George Wendt and company popularized a generation ago in Saturday Night Live’s superfan skits immortalizing “da Bears!” Except that Nick Fuentes is a superfan of da Whites and da Christians, and thinks da Jews are a globalist cabal worse than da Packers.
And Joseph Stalin? The Soviet dictator who killed off da Jews within his own Bolshevik ranks and slaughtered another 20 million Russians and Ukrainians in his “great purges”? To Nick Fuentes, Stalin is “Ditka!”
Pause and reflect on that for a moment: His hero is a communist dictator. Oh, and previously he said Adolf Hitler was “cool.” He does this while espousing racial identitarian politics. Fuentes is more Mamdani than MAGA. Of course, Fuentes added in his conversation with Tucker Carlson, he’s not antisemitic. My best friend is a Jew, he actually said.
Nonetheless, Fuentes insists that da Jews have divided loyalties and will never put America’s interests first because da Jews among the diaspora always maintained a distinct ethnic-religious identity while living in other countries.
He believes da Jews use their wealth and power to purchase support from, and pervert, weak politicians like Texas Sen Ted Cruz, who then put da Jews first by supporting foreign military aid for Israel.
The Jews: This phrase is a tell. Everyone who knows anything knows that Jews are not a “the” – and I say this as a philosemite. Jews are as diverse as stars in the sky. Have dinner with four Jews, and you’ll hear four different opinions. Jews don’t even agree on what it means to be a Jew – that’s part of what it means to be Jewish. It’s a religion for considering and debating nuances – and for mystics and pragmatists too.
While successful individuals may gain prominence around the country or in other countries, Jews could never form and maintain a global cabal because Jews are observably not a monolith. The very idea is, was and always will be, ridiculous. Ask Moses. Read Exodus!
Nonetheless, Fuentes believes AIPAC, an organization dedicated to promoting the alliance between the United States and Israel, has a malign influence on US politics, suggesting it’s a vehicle for da Jews to control American foreign policy.
I have been a donor to AIPAC for many years, not because I am Jewish (I am Episcopalian), but because I believe an alliance with Israel is vital to American interests. If AIPAC were the hegemon that Fuentes and Carlson imagine, how then do they explain the cacophony of campus hate for Israel funded by the rivers of cash coming into the US from Arab nations such as Qatar, not to mention the Democratic Party’s growing problem with antisemitism?
Tucker Carlson says people like me who believe our alliance with Israel is vital suffer from a “mind virus,” while Fuentes asserts that I am not a true American. This is not only offensive, but risible nonsense. While both men express their patriotism, they miss the essential point about this country, what makes America great, and why our relationship with Israel is special too.
Our nation is exceptional because of the enlightenment ideals around which our republic is structured – personal liberty and empowerment, representative government, freedom of conscience, and so forth – and that shape our culture and economy as well. ‘Americanism’ is a mash-up of religious, philosophical and pragmatic perspectives on the nature of man (created equal); the proper role of government (limited); in light of God-given individual and economic rights; infused with optimism and animated by the pursuit of individual happiness.
Americanism is not a white male ethnic thing, as both Fuentes and left-wing critics of America assert. To the contrary, our founding principles are a promissory note that American activists like Susan B Anthony and Martin Luther King call upon over generations, past and future.
And, while we pledge allegiance to our great nation, those of us who are Christians know that men and women of other religions – or no religion – make the same pledge and mean it as sincerely as we do. Our loyalty to our nation and our faith are independent concepts: America is home to every faith.
Americans are ‘created equal,’ which is a call to treat others as we wish to be treated – out of many we seek national unity with this creed. Congruently, Christians are called to follow Christ, to love God, and also to love thy neighbors, and not just thy Christian neighbors. There’s certainly nothing in Christ’s gospel about hating Jews. That’s as stupid as branches hating roots of a tree.
Israel is also a multi-cultural nation premised on the same ideals as America in a region that was the ancient homeland for Jews, the land promised to Jews by the God of Christians and Jews. Despite its small size, Israel’s free market economy generates innovations and products that make life better for Americans. Israel’s culture is concordant with Americanism – Israel is essentially an outpost for our ideals in region of the world that otherwise hates Americanism generally and in most of its particulars.
Note that Israel and the US are described by Iran and other fanatics as being like brothers. Which is why most Americans like Israel, not just da Jews, even though Benjamin Netanyahu’s increasing unpopularity opens the door to demogogues like Fuentes and Mamdani.
In It’s a Wonderful Life, a frustrated George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) is given the gift of seeing what the world would be like without him in it. Let’s put Israel to the George Bailey test – would the world be better or worse if Israel ceased to exist? Indeed, let’s go further and ask: better or worse for America?
Obviously, it would be worse. The people who would replace Israelis would be hostile to our continued existence as well. Consider the analogy: Would America be better or worse off if North Korea took over South Korea and turned off the lights of freedom? The world would be a darker, more dangerous place.
America and Israel both make the world better and are each stronger with the other than without. And let’s be honest – Israel needs arms in order to continue to exist. But think about this: if Israel laid down its weapons, millions of Israelis would be slaughtered within weeks. If, on the other hand, Israel’s Islamic neighbors were to lay down their weapons, as President Trump is advocating, then all can live in peace and harmony forever.
That’s why I support helping Israel buy American-made armaments through the foreign aid bill that these two gentlemen find so noxious.
Nick Fuentes is provocative, but in a way that is not insightful. As he continues in his chosen profession, I hope he gives himself the George Bailey test from time to time, asking himself: does my existence make the world a better place? He’s only 27, so perhaps there’s hope that his views will develop in a way that allows him to look in the mirror someday and comfortably say, “Yes!” – even if that means he’s just one of the millions of true American patriots who are not famous on social media.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
