There is rumbling behind the scenes in the Republican Party in the United States. One faction has openly distanced itself from supporting Israel in its military adventures in the Middle East. Voices such as Nick Fuentes argue that the policy of contributing to the small Jewish nation is unjustified, questioning the billions being poured into Tel Aviv while the situation in the US is substandard in many places, both socially and in terms of roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure.
He also argues that there is no future gain in supporting Israel; instead, it seems that the costs are constantly increasing and the geopolitical situation is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Fuentes also claims that there is often a contempt for American core values among the Jewish population in the United States, many of whom unconditionally support the Israeli project.
The criticism also highlights that many American Jews favour Israel’s ambitions to remain an ethnostate, while they think US absolutely cannot be that, and should gladly welcome migrants from all over the world, even though the country was founded by white Europeans, who presumably also want to cultivate their culture. Fuentes was recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson, whose news network is now probably the largest in America, and the discussion had a friendly tone.
Accusations of racism are, of course, hurled at those who criticise Israel, but no matter how loudly they shout ‘anti-Semite’, they cannot hide the strange, vocal and seemingly unconditional support for a distant country that is also accused of genocide, carried out with weapons from the donor country.
Why not put America first, and stop roaming the world starting wars and causing problems?
This was precisely what Donald Trump campaigned on. He wanted to stop the wars and the billions being spent. MAGA stands for Make America Great Again. And Trump’s policy was to focus on domestic politics and tone down the military adventures. But that’s not how it turned out; the American military continues to stick its nose in, both in hot war zones such as Ukraine, but also in lukewarm places such as Iran and Venezuela.
Trump has also been criticised for not publishing the files on Epstein and thoroughly investigating his pimping activities. Now it seems that the files will be published, after much discussion, but we will have to wait and see if the public will ever get to see the unfiltered version.
After all the strange twists and turns, both in terms of internal promises and military adventures, Trump’s supporters are disappointed and accuse the president of not putting America first, of no longer representing MAGA. While Trump, of course, fights back and insists that he is MAGA.
So the question is, is Donald Trump really the root of the MAGA movement? I would say that he is not. There was already a kind of agenda to put America first under Obama, to end George W. Bush’s military adventures and instead focus on domestic policy, where a universal healthcare system was one of the key points. But Obama failed; he continued to wage war, and in addition to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he started a new war in Libya. There was also the Tea Party movement, which also wanted to focus on domestic policy. And Ron Paul, who preached peace, withdrawal and internal reforms.
Trump picked up a fallen mantle, riding a wave that already existed, and now it seems that he, like all his predecessors, is unable to complete the task.
