MAGA slugfest: How wacky anti-Jewish conspiracies ruptured the Right
Until recently, the world of pedigreed Washington think tanks wasn’t a place you’d associate with intense controversy and taint-by-association. That was true until the self-combustion of the Heritage Foundation, once a pillar of Reaganism. When Kevin Roberts, the president of the formerly staid conservative institution, came out in support of Tucker Carlson, after the latter’s shocking interview with brazen anti-Semite Nick Fuentes, it touched off an internal firestorm that resulted in a staff walkout.
This wasn’t just a tempest in the think-tank teapot. The battle highlights the dramatic new fault line in the conservative world, largely defined by rising Israel-skepticism plus anti-Semitism. It underscores the uncomfortable and outsized role that Jewish-linked issues now play in the nation’s political controversies.
Attempts by Roberts to walk back his defense of Carlson failed spectacularly, as seen over the last several weeks when a slew of high-profile experts left Heritage, gutting its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Aftershocks reached well beyond Heritage. Debate over whether or how to draw lines over anti-Semitism and outlandish conspiracy theories — or, alternatively, how those disloyal to the MAGA brand are angling to control the movement — has come to dominate commentary on and about the right.
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