Part 3 - Trump Era 2024: The Dissident Right, the New Right, the Zionist Right, and the Anti-Zionist Right -
Part 3 - The Anti-Zionist Right
The Anti-Zionist Right
In the last two parts of this article, we laid out a theory that, at the beginning of 2024, nearly all of the Dissident Right’s positions had gained some degree of mainstream success, and that the gap between them and the mainstream Right appeared to be closing.
There was one major exception to this rule, however—support for Israel. A position that is for the most part still not accepted by most of the establishment Right, and increasingly not by a large portion of the “dissident” Right.
Support for Israel remains a large fault line on the Right, one that became exacerbated by attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Just as the Dissident Right was once a small minority on the Right, diametrically opposed to the mainstream Right (represented by the GOP), the anti-Zionist Right began to fill a similar role after October 7.
The Anti-Zionist Right was only a tiny minority on the Right. It principally consisted of Nick Fuentes and the Groypers, and a few other scattered personalities such as Keith Woods, Jake Shields, Dan Bilzerian, Elijah Schafer, and Candace Owens.
Groyper War 2
After the October 7 attacks, Nick Fuentes immediately began suspecting an “inside job” by Netanyahu. By this time, he had begun streaming regularly on Rumble, amassing 35,000 followers by September 2023 (https://www.mediamatters.org/rumble/white-nationalist-and-holocaust-denier-nick-fuentes-celebrates-his-popularity-and-viewership).
He was still banned from Twitter, so his main outlet aside from his show was Telegram. On October 7, he posted:
The same day, he also predicted that the war would escalate to include Lebanon and Iran.
On October 8, he had began noticing the narrative equating Leftist radicals such as BLM with Palestine supporters.
On October 10, he accused Israel of disseminating “atrocity propaganda.”
By October 12, he had begun speaking of the pro-Palestine protestors on college campuses, and the subsequent retaliation against them. He would later urge his followers to support the protests, seeing them as a possible way to de-escalate the conflict and limit the Biden administration’s ability to support the Israelis.
By October 13, he had begun to call the war in Gaza a “genocide.”
By October 17, he was warning that the war could potentially escalate into a world war, that might expand to theaters such as Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America and possibly draw in Russia and China.
On October 29, Fuentes began to pivot from a non-interventionist stance that remained neutral to both Israel and Palestine, similar to Bronze Age Pervert’s, to one that explicitly supported Palestine.
Fuentes began to forge alliances with Muslims and Leftist Palestine supporters during this time, collaborating with his Muslim streamer friend Sneako, and British Muslim journalists Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman). He even began to gain Leftist followers on Rumble.
Fuentes also reconciled with longtime rival Richard Spencer, who shared in his criticisms of Israel. Spencer, a supporter of Ukraine in contrast to Fuentes who supported Vladimir Putin, said that he liked the “neo-Cold War” paradigm of America and Europe versus Russia, but was less enthusiastic about a return to “the War on Terror America” of George W Bush.
Along with Richard Spencer and Richard Hanania, Fuentes would move towards a more contrarian stance that was critical of Trump and the Republicans, and more open to collaboration with the Left.
His support for Palestine made him the target of the “New Right.” They began to accuse Fuentes, along with fellow Dissident Right and pro-Palestine streamer Keith Woods, of being “third worldists” who sided with non-Western countries (such as Palestine and Russia) that are enemies of America and NATO, and cozying up to figures such as Sulaiman Ahmed who were seen as anti-White, since they promoted Muslim immigration into historically white countries such as the UK.
Instead, the New Right preferred a strategy of creating a wedge between the different groups on the Left, such as Muslim pro-Palestinian supporters and the LGBT community, or between pro-Palestine supporters and liberal Jews.
On May 4, 2024, Elon Musk unbanned Nick Fuentes on X.com.
Very well, he will be reinstated, provided he does not violate the law, and let him be crushed by the comments and Community Notes.
It is better to have anti whatever out in the open to be rebutted than grow simmering in the darkness.
— Elon Musk, X.com (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1786087574655611386)
There, he continued to characterize Israeli actions in Gaza as a “genocide.”
I find it slightly ironic that the people who call me evil are the ones enthusiastically supporting the bombing, mass starvation, and ethnic cleansing of a defenseless population in Gaza.
They call everyone in Gaza a terrorist and anyone who criticizes their agenda a Nazi.
— Nick Fuentes, May 8 2024, X.com (https://x.com/NickJFuentes/status/1788212004718575641)
Rather than simply withdrawing from the Middle East entirely, the traditional position of non-interventionists such as BAP and many other Trump supporters, Fuentes did not advocate for disengagement in the Middle East. Instead, he tweeted “Israel must submit to the United States of America and never disobey our leaders.” (https://x.com/NickJFuentes/status/1787588243866694034) and criticized its continued defiance of the Biden administration’s attempts to restrain it.
Israel is preparing to invade Rafah using foreign aid given to them by the United States despite repeated warnings from our government not to proceed.
Republicans capitulated on Ukraine and the border to expedite $26 billion to Israel which they will now use to defy our country.
— Nick Fuentes, May 6 2024, X.com (https://x.com/NickJFuentes/status/1787621463844855860)
I hope that Biden follows through with his threat to cut off military aid to Israel. There must be consequences for their defiance.
Israel is not entitled to ONE DOLLAR from the United States— especially to support a war that our president has repeatedly asked them to finish.
— Nick Fuentes, May 9 2024, X.com (https://x.com/NickJFuentes/status/1788720809072365829)
Fuentes’s one-man war against the Zionist Right would culminate in “Groyper War 2” during the summer of 2024, in which Fuentes withdrew his support for Trump. This was shortly after JD Vance was chosen as his Vice President and it became clear that Trump would align himself with the Thiel-influenced, Natcon-aligned New Right rather than the Groypers or their allies.
On August 9, 2024, Nick Fuentes declared “Groyper War 2” on the Trump campaign. The Groyper War criticized Trump for his support of many of the same policies that Charlie Kirk had once promoted during the first Groyper War: support for mass legal immigration, and unconditional support for Israel. It came at a time when Israel and Iran were launching increasingly escalating attacks on each other. Many feared this could lead to a war with Iran in which the US would be involved, which according to Fuentes was Israel’s goal all along—using the US military to take out their main enemy in the Middle East.
Yesterday, America First influencer, organiser, and commentator Nicholas J. Fuentes, a rising star in America’s political landscape, made a public declaration of a new ‘Groyper War’ against the current Trump campaign.
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The Trump campaign of 2024, much like his 2020 campaign, is markedly different from its 2016 iteration — unfortunately, this change has been entirely to its detriment. The campaign lacks the energy and rebellious spirit that originally propelled Trump to victory. Instead of rallying the core demographic that secured his 2016 win, the campaign is now more mainstream, pandering to every conceivable group in society except for those who are actually voting for Trump.
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The hope now lies in the success of this new ‘Groyper War’, which could potentially push Trump to make significant changes to his campaign organisation. This would involve replacing much of the current leadership with more competent and loyal individuals who view the America First agenda as more than just a marketing gimmick.
Additionally, Trump needs to break free from the influence of the special interest donor class, who primarily see him as a means to secure favours for Israel — at the expense of American taxpayers and American strategic interests. In the worst-case scenario, which unfortunately seems more and more plausible, these special interest groups could even drag the United States into a war with Iran, costing American lives.
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If Trump fails to take this criticism to heart and does not reorient his campaign and policy proposals, the biggest losers in the upcoming presidential election will be the American people, especially the White voters, regardless of which candidate wins. In the end, the true measure of success will be whether this push results in a campaign that genuinely serves the interests of the American people.
— Arktos, Aug 10 2024, “Saving Trump: Fuentes Declares War on Campaign Leadership” (www.arktosjournal.com/p/saving-trump-fuentes-declares-war)
Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and podcaster who dined with Trump at his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago in 2022, said on X that Trump’s campaign was “blowing it” by not positioning itself more to the right and was “headed for a catastrophic loss,” in a post that by Wednesday had been viewed 2.6 million times.
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Colin Henry, a researcher at George Washington University who has studied political extremism online, said influencers on the far right have grown visibly frustrated in recent weeks by Trump’s fading performance in the polls and the campaign’s disavowal of hard-line policy proposals, such as Project 2025. “They saw that as a shot across the bow from the mainstream folks, who wanted to do all this stuff with policy and institutions,” he said.
— The Washington Post, Aug 18 2024, “Far-right influencers turn against Trump campaign” (https://archive.is/hYyvG#selection-529.0-532.0)
At first, the new Groyper War was meant to attack Trump’s campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and lay the blame on them, rather than attacking Trump himself. They made good scapegoats for a few reasons. First, they were not Trump loyalists. Chris LaCivita had once supported Trump being removed from office after January 6 and did not believe the 2020 election was stolen.
LaCivita shared several reposts condemning Trump for January 6, including former President George W. Bush’s statement expressing “disbelief and dismay” and calling the unrest at the Capitol “a sickening and heartbreaking sight.” LaCivita later deleted this post, along with several others, but CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski was able to find them on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
CNN also saw a video of a screen recording showing that LaCivita liked a post from former Republican Representative Barbara Comstock, who called for Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and remove him from office.
“Twitter locked @realDonaldTrump for 12 hours. Now the Cabinet needs to lock him down for the next 14 days. #25thAmendmentNow,” Comstock’s post on the evening of January 6 read.
— The New Republic, Oct 23 2024 “Trump Campaign Manager’s Brutal Past Criticism of Trump Exposed” (https://newrepublic.com/post/187439/trump-campaign-manager-lacivita-criticism-january-6)
Secondly, they were not loyal to Trump’s white working class base. Instead, Susie Wiles said in The Atlantic that the GOP should replace “Karen” with “Jamal and Enrique.”
It was also during a low point for Trump in the campaign. Biden had just been replaced by Kamala, who had received a bump in popularity and seemed at the time like the prospective victor. Trump was falling in the polls and betting markets. Thus, the situation could be framed as if his disloyal campaign managers were leading him astray and causing him to lose the election, while the Groypers were saving him by influencing him towards appealing to his base with a more “America First” campaign. With a large enough backlash from the base, Trump might even consider replacing some of his staff with more Groyper-friendly pics, such as John McEntee.
The day that the Groyper War started, Groypers took over Trump’s Twitter-clone social media app “Truth Social,” causing hashtags such as #FireLaCivita, #FireWiles and #SaveTrump to become the highest trending hashtags. An army of Groypers flooded Twitter with Groyper War 2 infographics, memes, and videos.
Fuentes planned to escalate from there, including by disrupting Trump’s campaign events in person if necessary.
During Trump’s conversation Monday with X’s billionaire owner Elon Musk, Fuentes directed his followers via live stream to repeatedly post their views on X, where several of their demands for changes in the campaign sailed to the top of the platform’s trending topics.
His followers led a parallel effort on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, and the messages, such as #NoMoreImmigration, still ranked among the top hashtags the morning after the interview. #FireLaCivita, with 20,000 recent posts, overshadowed even #Trump2024. Fuentes has also told his followers they should start collecting the phone numbers and email addresses of campaign officials so as to contact them en masse.
In an interview, Fuentes said he intends to push his followers to adopt “guerrilla” tactics and “escalate pressure in the real world,” including through mass appearances at Trump rallies in battleground states such as Michigan, until the campaign meets their demands to stop “pandering to independents.” He has urged followers to withhold their votes for Trump, saying it is the only way to awaken a campaign that has “no energy … [and] no enthusiasm.”
“If they blame me for Trump losing, so be it,” he said. “He’ll have lost because he stopped talking to the MAGA base he had in 2016.”
— The Washington Post, Aug 18 2024, “Far-right influencers turn against Trump campaign” (https://archive.is/hYyvG#selection-529.0-532.0)
However, not much became of these threats and no IRL “guerrilla tactics” ever materialized.
In the next phase of the campaign, Fuentes bought the website “ChrisLaCivita.com,” criticizing LaCivita for his disloyalty to Trump and insufficiently conservative political beliefs.
After this, The Groyper War was continually postponed as Fuentes was unable to put any of his further plans into action due to logistical problems.
Earlier that summer, Fuentes had attempted to host AFPAC IV in Detroit. However, the night before it was scheduled to start, the venue canceled on Fuentes and refused to host the event.
Fuentes posted a photo on X of what appeared to be himself inside a center on Friday with some police officers near him.
"Yesterday we finished setting up our stage and then the venue called the cops to kick us out 24 hours before the event," Fuente said on X. "It would have been our biggest yet with ~2,000 attendees."
In addition to his post on X, Fuentes posted more details on Telegram about what he said happened. Fuentes said they were trying to negotiate Friday with the property manager when police arrived and threatened them with trespassing charges if they didn't leave. Fuentes said about 100 people with their group were there and that the doors were then locked, with some of their equipment still inside.
— Detroit Free Press, Jun 15 2024, “Right-wing conference in Detroit is canceled after police respond to dispute” (https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2024/06/15/america-first-conference-in-detroit-is-canceled-amid-dispute/74113669007/)
After his association with the YE24 campaign, Fuentes had become a household name. This made it almost impossible for him to organize, as most businesses refused to serve him. Even finding hotel rooms for his staff became an enormous hurdle.
Another obstacle came from the developments of the 2024 campaign. By September, the Trump campaign had recovered after the first Presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris. Trump’s comment that Haitian migrants were “eating cats and dogs” in Springfield, Ohio went viral, and turned the subject of the campaign towards being a referendum on immigration—a subject on which Republicans strongly outperformed Democrats. To add insult to injury, this meme may have been popularized by New Right accounts such as “Captive Dreamer”—a faction which had grown to become an archnemesis of the Groypers.
By now, a Trump victory seemed inevitable. The narrative that Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles were ruining the Trump campaign fell flat, and attacking the Trump campaign during election season, as Fuentes continued to do, was met with nothing but increasing hostility towards the Groypers by the rest of the Right.
The final action of Groyper War 2 was to buy a billboard attacking Trump on immigration. By now, Fuentes had moved on from criticizing LaCivita and Wiles to criticizing Trump directly.
After this, Groyper War 2 disappeared with a whimper and was quietly retired.
Groyper War 2 is a bit ironic, since Fuentes had once distinguished himself from the “Wignats” by remaining to be pro-Trump, even after much of the Alt Right had turned on Trump (covered in: “A Normie’s Guide to the Dissident Right Part 4). This is another instance of Fuentes’s evolution from his original “Amnat” platform to one that resembled more and more the Wignats that he had once denounced.
Another irony is who supported Groyper War 2 and who did not. The First Groyper War (covered in a Normie’s Guide to the Dissident Right Part 5) pitted the Dissident Right against the establishment Right. The “Groypers” represented the Dissident Right: young, based, extremely online, anti-establishment, pro-white, immigration restrictionist, anti-LGBT, and anti-Israel. This was in stark contrast to Charlie Kirk, TPUSA, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, and Rob Smith who represented the establishment Right: old, stodgy, uncool, pro-GOP, pro-legal immigration, pro-LGBT, and rabidly Zionist.
One of the most notable positions which the Groypers attacked Charlie Kirk for was his statement that we should “staple greencards to the backs of diplomas.” During the first Groyper War, many on the Dissident Right supported what Fuentes was doing. Scott Greer, for example, supported the Groypers. When Michelle Malkin supported the Groyper War, she was seen as a sort of “class traitor” to the establishment who became “based” by supporting the new generation of the Right, represented by the Groypers.
During the Second Groyper War, the Gropyers criticized Trump for many of the same positions that Charlie Kirk had once had, including literally the same statement that we should “staple greencards to the backs of diplomas.” However, this time, most of the Dissident Right attacked Fuentes for daring to defy Trump. Some of the same exact people who had supported the first Groyper War, such as Scott Greer, continued to be cheerleaders for Trump in spite of these policies, which they once claimed to oppose, and either denounced or made no mention of Fuentes.
It was not entirely a one-man war between Fuentes and the Zionist Right, however. Among Fuentes’s first tweets after being reinstated on X concerned the second prominent figure of the anti-Zionist Right, Candace Owens.
TPUSA has been operating a secret website for at least two weeks distancing itself from Candace Owens.
It also affirms Charlie Kirk’s allegiance to Israel and the Jewish people.
This is North Korea-level stuff, totally bizarre and dystopian.
AMERICA FIRST
— Nick Fuentes, May 4 2024, X.com (https://x.com/NickJFuentes/status/1786897850112110608)
Candace vs Daily Wire
Candace Owens’ career was jumpstarted by none other than GamerGate (Covered in “A Normie’s Guide to the Dissident Right Part 2”). Ethan Ralph of the The Ralph Retort—one of the first online media outlets involved in GamerGate—is fond of bragging that he “made” Candace.
If that is true, then it is quite an impressive achievement, granted the scale of her later career.
Candace was originally an anti-Trump liberal, writing in 2015 about the “bat-shit-crazy antics of the Republican Tea Party.” In 2016, however, she became involved in GamerGate, after—according to her—SJWs began doxxing her over her Kickstarter project “Social Autopsy.”
With scant evidence, Owens blamed the progressive side of Gamergate for her doxxing and the ultimate failure of Social Autopsy’s Kickstarter project, leading her to unexpected allies: the Gamergate faction whose anti-feminist, traditionalist positions often overlapped with politically conservative ones thanks to prominent Trump supporters Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich, known for spreading conspiracy theories and far-right ideology.
“I reached out to offer some moral support, told her to keep her head up and not let the hate get her down,” Cernovich told NBC News, referring to Owens.
The support Owens received from Cernovich and others on the far-right made an immediate impact.
— NBC News, Jun 23 2018 “YouTube tested, Trump approved: How Candace Owens suddenly became the loudest voice on the far right” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166)
One year later, Candace Owens had become a leading figure in the small community of black Trump supporters, best known for “Blexit.”
In August 2017, she began posting politically themed videos to YouTube. In September 2017, she launched Red Pill Black, a website and YouTube channel that promotes black conservatism in the United States.
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In late 2018, Owens launched [the] BLEXIT foundation, which featured a social media campaign to encourage ethnic minorities, including African Americans and Latinos, to leave the Democratic Party and register as Republicans. At the time, 8% of black Americans identified as Republicans. In 2023, Blexit foundation merged with Turning Point USA, the former non-profit organization for which Owens had worked.
— Wikipedia “Candace Owens” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candace_Owens)
This small community also happened to include a certain would-be 2024 Presidential candidate.
She became the new darling of President Donald Trump at lightning speed last month when a video of her berating black protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, as “privileged Americans” obsessed with “shouting about slavery” went viral.
Shortly after, rapper Kanye West tweeted, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks.”
— NBC News, Jun 23 2018 “YouTube tested, Trump approved: How Candace Owens suddenly became the loudest voice on the far right” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166)
From here, Candace became a household name, getting a shout out from Trump himself and even meeting him face-to-face.
Trump called in to “Fox and Friends” and said Owens was “the hottest thing out there right now.” And this month, Trump followed a 20-minute face-to-face meeting with Owens at the White House with a tweet about the “big impact” she was having on politics: “so good for our Country!” he wrote.
— NBC News, Jun 23 2018 “YouTube tested, Trump approved: How Candace Owens suddenly became the loudest voice on the far right” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166)
Candace became a mainstay in conservative politics from then on, working with a number of mainstream conservative organizations, such as Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, Dennis Prager’s PragerU, and Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire.
There she espoused what had become mainstream anti-Leftist talking points typical of these platforms, targeted particularly at minority groups within conservatism such as black Americans and women.
Owens has called Black Lives Matter advocates “whiny toddlers,” advocated for the end of all welfare programs, and likened black Democrats to slaves on plantations.
For Owens, climate change is a lie used to “extract dollars from Americans,” abortion is the “extermination” of black babies, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children should be immediately deported, and concern over rising white nationalism is “stupid,” an opinion she expressed after a white nationalist drove through a group of counterprotesters last summer in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a woman.
Owens cites George Soros and “globalists” among the country’s most looming threats and has called for the imprisonment of Hillary and Bill Clinton, former FBI director James Comey, special counsel Robert Mueller and the TV anchors Jake Tapper, Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper, among others.
— NBC News, Jun 23 2018 “YouTube tested, Trump approved: How Candace Owens suddenly became the loudest voice on the far right” (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166)
However, her friendship with Kanye would sew the seeds of controversy and disavowal by many who had once been her friends and allies in the conservative movement.
In October of 2022, Candace and Kanye appeared at a Paris fashion show wearing matching shirts featuring the slogan “White Lives Matter.” This led to backlash for both Kanye and Candace, being lambasted by the Left as “racist,” as one would expect. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kanye-west-white-lives-matter-shirt-candace-owens-fashion-show-backlash/)
However, conservative news outlets, such as Tucker Carlson, defended Kanye. Carlson invited him on for a two-part interview where he could explain and defend himself (https://www.npr.org/2022/10/09/1127732183/kanye-west-instagram-twitter).
However, they immediately cut ties with Ye after his infamous “Death Con 3” tweet (Covered in “A Normie’s Guide to the Dissident Right Part 6”).
For Kanye, this led to the months-long saga of YE24, which came to include both the Groypers and Milo (Also covered in “A Normie’s Guide to the Dissident Right Part 6”). Meanwhile, Candace continued to work for Ben Shapiro’s media outlet The Daily Wire, uninvolved in the spectacle. Or so it would seem. After October 7, like so many other things, this began to change.
In November 2023, Candace began to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza, leading to a feud with Daily Wire’s owner Ben Shapiro.
The clash between Shapiro and Owens has been brewing for weeks now. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has been a prominent supporter of Israel’s siege on Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas militants. Owens, by contrast, has recently begun to criticize Israel for what many consider a disproportionate response that has largely targeted Palestinian civilians trapped within the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this month, Owens had tweeted that “no government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever. There is no justification for a genocide. I can’t believe this even needs to be said or is even considered the least bit controversial to state.” The post angered pro-Israeli advocates who deny the country’s offensive in Gaza constitutes ethnic cleansing.
— Rolling Stone, Nov 15 2023, “‘By All Means Quit’: The Daily Wire’s Biggest Stars Are Fighting" (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ben-shapiro-candace-owens-fighting-the-daily-wire-israel-hamas-war-1234880402/)
[Candace Owens] heavily criticized Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s efforts to ban Students for Justice in Palestine chapters from his state’s universities.
Owens has grounded her critiques in the Bible and has drawn attention to Palestinian Christians in Gaza who have been killed since October 7.
“Respectfully, if you think it’s antisemitism to notice that innocent Christians were killed in an IDF bombing then you need to log off of the internet and have your brain examined,” she tweeted on October 23, after Israeli artillery hit a church in Gaza City reportedly killing more than a dozen worshippers.
— The Times of Israel, April 3 2024, “Ben Shapiro-Candace Owens split reflects how Israel, antisemitism divide the US right” (https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-shapiro-candace-owens-split-reflects-how-israel-antisemitism-divide-the-us-right/)
In March 2024, the Candace controversy began to heat up even more.
According to Candace, after the fallout of the Paris “White Lives Matter” fashion show, and subsequent YE24 saga, Rabbi Shmuley—a prominent rabbi with connections to many in Hollywood—was demanding that she publicly disavow Ye behind the scenes. After “two years” of “harassment,” Owens made the feud public.
Owens said on social media on Thursday that Shmuley “and his hag daughter have spent two years harassing me publicly with smears, complete with demands that I suffer financially for not parroting their perspectives.”
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During the Thursday episode of the Candace Owens Show, the political commentator claimed that [Shmuley] said that unless she criticized West he would take out a front-page newspaper advertisement in which he would cast her as an antisemite. Owens said that [Shmuley] and others had taken clips from her show out of context in order to present her as someone who hated Jews.
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“When that Kanye situation went down, I was being threatened by a person named Rabbi Shmuley, a person that Michael Jackson put on his enemy list, a person I had never heard of, was threatening me,” said Owens.
— The Jerusalem Post, Mar 11 2024, Candace Owens, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach squabble over antisemitism, blackmail and Kanye West (https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-791344)
In a March 7 tweet, she added:
They also routinely attack Christians. I have had enough of people that engage in this sort of obvious, manipulative monstrous behavior while simultaneously pretending that they are being victimized,” she later added. “Rabbi Schmuley’s deep hatred for blacks, Muslims and Christians is beyond evident by his public commentary. Stop telling the very people that he attacks that we need to be silent because he calls himself a rabbi.
— The Wrap, Mar 24 2024, “Rabbi Shmuley Dresses as ‘Candace Owens Jew’ for Purim Holiday” (https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/rabbi-shmuley-dresses-candace-owens-192448734.html)
Who is Rabbi Shmuley? Well, here is a quick summary:
Jacob Shmuel Boteach…known as Shmuley Boteach…is the author of 31 books, including the best-seller Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy (1999) and Kosher Jesus (2012).
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Newsweek named him one of the 10 most influential rabbis in the United States, and The Jerusalem Post named him one of the fifty most influential rabbis in the world.
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Boteach attended a Chabad-Lubavitch camp and fell in love with Judaism. The Lubavitcher Rebbe became his patron, and at age 13, Boteach joined the Chabad movement.
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In 1988…he founded the Oxford University L'Chaim Society…The society grew to be the second-biggest student organization ever in Oxford
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It attracted star speakers from politics, arts, and culture, including six Israeli prime ministers, the former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, the former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, the singer Boy George, the football player Diego Maradona, and the actor Jon Voight.
The society's members included Cory Booker, Maurizio Giuliano, Michael Benson, and Eric Garcetti.
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Later in 1994, after Boteach refused to cancel a speaking event featuring Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he and Chabad split over the issue.
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On television, he has also made guest appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Dr. Phil Show, Larry King Live, Dateline NBC, The Today Show, The Howard Stern Show, The View, The O'Reilly Factor, The Dr. Oz Show, and Piers Morgan Uncensored.
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Boteach has written syndicated columns for both The Huffington Post and The Jerusalem Post. He is also an op-ed contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.
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In the late 1990s, Boteach became a friend, close confidant, and spiritual advisor of the singer Michael Jackson.
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Boteach later disavowed his relationship with Jackson.
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According to an article in the British tabloid The Sun, Jackson allegedly kept an "enemy list" after their relationship ended on which Boteach appeared
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Boteach is the founder and executive director of The World Values Network
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The organization collects donations and has funded newspaper advertisements about antisemitism and anti-Zionism. It has placed ads condemning celebrities that criticize Israel or support Palestinians including Lorde, Natalie Portman, Dua Lipa, Bella Hadid and Gigi Hadid, Secretary of State John Kerry's work towards the 2015 Iran nuclear deal,Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar for her anti-Zionist remarks.
— Wikipedia, “Rabbi Shmuley” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuley_Boteach)
Things began to get ugly between Candace and Shmuley, with Candace calling Shmuley “filth,” liking a tweet “in which a user accused a rabbi of being ‘drunk on Christian blood’” (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/22/media/candace-owen-out-ben-shapiro-daily-wire-anti-semitism/index.html) and implying that he was involved in killing Michael Jackson.
Shmuley replied by calling Candace an anti-Semite, claiming that “Her biggest fan now is arch antisemite Nick Fuentes who is lauding her poisonous attacks Jews all over social media” and demanding that Shapiro fire her.
[Shmuley] indicated on Sunday that he was considering a libel lawsuit over claims that Owens “essentially said that I killed Michael Jackson last week and that Jews run pedophile sex rings in Hollywood in order to blackmail African-American entertainers.”
“There can be no question that Candace’s serious defamation against me and the Jewish community must be met with a comprehensive lawsuit that will bankrupt her as well as Ben Shapiro,’ said Boteach.
Boteach said Friday that he held pundit Ben Shapiro, whose Daily Wire outlet employs Owens, as complicit in “her spreading the worst defamation against Jews.” He called on Shapiro to take action against Owens, and on Sunday called for fans to cancel their subscriptions to Daily Wire. Political commentator Dennis Prager was also slammed by Boteach on Sunday for his relationship with Owens.
— The Jerusalem Post, Mar 11 2024, “Candace Owens, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach squabble over antisemitism, blackmail and Kanye West” (https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-791344)
One of these claims was certainly true, as Nick Fuentes, banned from Twitter at the time, created a burner account with the username “Standace” and began to commanding his Groyper Army to support her.
Eventually, Shapiro had enough of her antics, and the two parted ways.
On Friday, the Daily Wire’s CEO, Jeremy Boreing, announced on X that Owens and the right-wing news site had “ended their relationship.”
His post was shared by both Shapiro and Owens, who later added, “The rumors are true — I am finally free.”
— Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mar 26 2024, “Ben Shapiro’s split with Candace Owens reflects how Israel and antisemitism are also dividing the right” (https://www.jta.org/2024/03/26/politics/ben-shapiros-split-with-candace-owens-reflects-how-israel-and-antisemitism-are-also-dividing-the-right)
From there, it seems that the gloves were off, and Candace started going full Wignat.
In recent weeks, Owens has veered from harsh criticism of Israel into what critics across the spectrum are calling outright antisemitism.
“Imagine if the Bloods and the Crips were doing horrific things, murdering people, controlling people with blackmail, and then every time a person spoke out about it, the Bloods and the Crips would call those people racist,” Owens mused on her show March 8, referencing two infamous Black street gangs while discussing her online battles with author and right-wing commentator Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Owens continued, “What if that is what is happening right now in Hollywood, if there are a small group of people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from criticism? It’s food for thought, right?”
— The Times of Israel, April 3 2024, “Ben Shapiro-Candace Owens split reflects how Israel, antisemitism divide the US right” (https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-shapiro-candace-owens-split-reflects-how-israel-antisemitism-divide-the-us-right/)
Candace started her own independent podcast after being fired by Shapiro. On a July 2 episode entitled "Literally Hitler, Why Can't We talk about him?" Candace Owens discussed World War 2, engaging in historical revisionism. Owens challenged the focus on Hitler as the ultimate evil, suggesting that other historical figures and events were equally or more devastating, drew parallels between Nazi actions and those of the Allies—including the use of camps and experimentation— and argued that the American education system indoctrinates students with a simplified view of Hitler and World War 2. Most of all, the episode questioned why Hitler is treated as an untouchable subject in discussions. (https://www.youtube com/watch?v=qhLXcvxdIyw).
Owens appeared to downplay the atrocities of Nazi Germany while criticizing the Allies' post-war actions. She questioned the taboo surrounding Hitler discussions, stating, "We have been indoctrinated and we actually know nothing about the person other than the fact that we must fear him."
Owens suggested that education about Nazi Germany is a form of indoctrination, comparing it to "Soviet tactics of introducing really heavy concepts to kids while their brains are developing because you want to traumatize them." She further claimed this was done to ensure compliance with a narrative portraying Hitler as "the greatest evil that's ever happened on earth, even though factually and statistically it is not. Why is he the most evil?"
She then made controversial assertions about Allied actions after World War II, claiming they "ethnically cleansed 12 million Germans... in the exact same [concentration] camps that we then transferred the Germans into so that we could mass kill them." She described the Holocaust as "an ethnic cleansing [that] almost took place," while asserting that the Allies "actually did [an ethnic cleansing]."
…
Owens also cast doubt on the well-documented medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, describing them as sounding like "bizarre propaganda." She said, "The idea that they just cut a human up and then sewed them back together. Why would you do that? Even if you're the most evil person in the world, that's a tremendous waste of time and supplies."
…
In her video, Owens drew comparisons between Nazi scientists and US institutions, mentioning the CIA and Planned Parenthood. She said, "We took all of those top Nazi scientists and we brought them to America. I wonder why we did that. Maybe for a little more experimentation. Have you ever heard of the CIA? If you think experimentation is unique to the Nazis, you need to wake up. You heard of Planned Parenthood? They literally tell you to abort your children if they have special needs.
— Israel Hayom, July 5 2024, “Candace Owens calls Mengele experiments 'bizarre propaganda’” (https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/07/05/candace-owens-calls-mengeles-experiments-bizarre-propaganda/)
Candace’s new show was successful. As of November 2024, it was the 9th most popular news podcast on apple podcasts, 2nd most popular news podcast on Spotify, and 6th most popular podcast on Spotify over all.
However, she also spiraled away from normal political topics into increasingly covering conspiracy theories of various kinds. By Summer 2024, her podcast had become full of boilerplate conspiracies about the CIA, secret societies such as the Frankists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankism) and Freemasons, the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, and even a conspiracy that alleged that French First Lady Brigitte Macron was born a man (https://www.facebook.com/piersmorganuncensored/videos/piers-morgan-challenges-candace-owen-over-brigitte-macron-conspiracy-theory/1100253807709731/).
This essentially made her show appear more and more like a tabloid.
She has…propagated anti-Christian conspiracy theories, such as claiming [Stalin and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk were secretly Jewish] that the US bombed Nagasaki to target Christians, that elite Jews follow a secret religion called Frankism (based on the teachings of Jacob Frank), and that they were responsible for the Russian and French revolutions to "bring down Christian empires."
— Times of India, Aug 19 2024, “From Israel did 9/11 to Stalin was a Jew: Candace Owens’ craziest conspiracy theories” (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/from-israel-did-9/11-to-stalin-was-a-jew-candace-owens-craziest-conspiracy-theories/articleshow/112629019.cms)
After she waded too far into generic conspiracy fodder and kookery for his taste, as well as her persistent disavowal and refusal to collaborate with Fuentes, she began to lose support of the Groypers. On September 4, Fuentes commented that “You [Candace] don't know what the fuck you're doing.. And you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.. And you're full of shit." (https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1831513275772891578)
In September, Candace’s YouTube channel was temporarily suspended and demonetized for “hate speech” over a video she posted featuring an interview with Kanye West.
Screenshots of the notices attached to Owens' Facebook post explain that YouTube removed at least one video, "Kanye West (Ye) x Candace Owens | Candace Ep 42," specifically for "claims that Jewish people control the media," an oft-used antisemitic conspiracy that violated YouTube's terms of service which specify "YouTube does now allow content containing conspiratorial claims that individuals or groups are evil, corrupt, or malicious based on their protected group status."
— USA Today, Sep 10 2024, “Candace Owens suspended from YouTube after Kanye West interview” (https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2024/09/10/candace-owens-youtube-suspended-antisemitism/75156904007/)
However, as of November 2024, her channel appeared to be back on YouTube. Since October 9, most of her newer shows seemed to be devoted to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, perhaps not surprising given the recent election. She also continued to cover various conspiracy theories, such as in her November 8 episode entitled “Former CIA Officer Exposes The Shadow Government.” Thus, she appeared to be following more in the footsteps of Alex Jones than Nick Fuentes.
Candace’s recent transformation is an ongoing story. It remains to be seen if anything more becomes of it. As of November 22, 2024, she continued to criticize Israel, again drawing attention to their attacks on children in a tweet stating “In the future, everyone will have to account for where they stood on this issue.” (https://x.com/RealCandaceO/status/1860129272083702247). On December 12 of the same year, she interviewed a veteran of the “USS Liberty Incident” on her podcast. This was an allegedly intentional attack on the US by Israel, an event that that was frequently criticized by the Groypers during the first Groyper War (https://x.com/RealCandaceO/status/1867186386220077457).
At the time, given Candace’s high profile and mainstream appeal, it was thought that her outspoken criticism of Israel and the ensuing drama at The Daily Wire was just the first crack in the dam, and that it would lead to a split in the Right over those who were pro-Zionist and those that were anti-Zionist, mirroring the division on the Left.
However, this never came to pass. The Candace drama unfolded in Spring 2024. By Summer 2024, the story would be completely overshadowed by the 2024 election. On June 27, the first presidential debate proved to be an unexpectedly pivotal event, leading to a catastrophe for the Biden campaign. The first attempted Trump assassination occurred on July 13, followed by the Republican National Convention two days later. Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 as a result of his poor performance, being replaced by Kamala Harris. August 19 was the Democratic National Convention, unveiling their new ticket. September 10 was the first debate between Trump and the Democrat’s new candidate. Then, November was a landslide victory for Donald Trump. Rather than becoming divided, the Right became more united than ever before by Trump’s victory, and seemed to have forgotten all about anything else.
It is possible that things may change, but for now it appears that the anti-Zionist Right is marginalized, disorganized, disunified, and virtually insignificant. Nevertheless, the Dissident Right of the era of Patrick Buchanan, Sam Francis, Peter Brimelow, and Jared Taylor was once much the same until a small anime imageboard and a cartoon frog propelled it to center stage. This will not necessarily happen to the anti-Zionist Right—they may remain as fringe as what is left of the discarded scraps of the NeverTrump Republicans. Nevertheless, they are one of the few remaining factions that have completely distinguished themselves from the mainstream Right—one that is otherwise, it would seem, as united as ever.
The Right United
The main purpose of this article is not to criticize Israel’s actions in the Middle East or their influence in American politics. I am not against Jews, nor am I necessarily against the existence of a Zionist state in the Levant (although I do believe this state, and our relationship to it, is not above being criticized when that is warranted). Frankly, I do not have enough followers for anyone to care what my opinion is on these matters.
I am merely pointing out that this is where the dividing line seemed to lie in early 2024. Those who fell on one side of the line could be accepted into mainstream Right Wing politics, and those who did not, could not. In 2016, there were many such lines: race realism, even support of a protectionist economy, would put you on the wrong side of the line. However, by this time even race realists such as Steve Sailer were allowed to be promoted to a certain extent. But not those who opposed the Zionists. This is likely due to the influence that they exerted over the ruling coalition that took power through Trump and his network of political allies.
Would the closing of the gap between the dissident and mainstream Right be a positive opportunity for right wing dissidents? Would it allow some Rightist beliefs, that once were dissident but in some cases also factual, to finally work their way up into the highest reaches of the government, creating a right wing elite of “frogs”? Would it radically transform the government and culture into a Rightest one? Could the Right successfully make an alliance with the Zionists who, like them, wanted to control their borders and pursue a nationalist political policy without the intervention of Leftist interference? Or had the Trump movement simply been infiltrated and subverted by a new class of elites? This remained to be seen in the coming 2024 administration.
The Left was far more divided over Israel than the Right. The Groypers represented virtually the only faction on the anti-Zionist Right, with basically the entire rest of the Right either being explicitly pro-Zionist or simply neutral on the matter. The Groypers were a small minority, and—especially after appearing on InfoWars with Kanye praising Hitler—had no known allies in politics. Nick Fuentes had become a household name, true, but so had Richard Spencer and David Duke. Meanwhile, on the Left, there was a much louder and more vocal anti-Zionist wing, with actual representatives in Congress.
So, there was not truly a significant division in the Right any longer. Whatever disagreements there may have been over Israel was very small in scale compared to the stark contrast between the establishment and dissident wings of the party in 2016. Aside from the Groypers who no longer supported him, Trump had united the entire Right Wing, converting all but a tiny minority into Trump supporters. The GOP was now the Trump party, and it has won a landslide victory in the 2024 race, complete with every single swing state and the popular vote. Thus, there was no longer any such thing as the “Dissident Right” to speak of anymore. The Dissident Right was dead.
There was only Donald Trump.