From the Right Fringe to the Left Fold

By Abe Greenwald

Thursday, May 07, 2026

 

In March, I wrote the following about Operation Epic Fury and prominent woke-right influencers: “If, God willing, the war in Iran continues on its current trajectory and ends in American and Israeli victory, the anti-American Israel-haters will be cast deep into the wilderness. At which point, I have no doubt, they will overtly join the left.”

 

I was wrong. The anti-Semitic influencers aren’t waiting on the war’s outcome. They’re flocking to the left now.

 

It’s not that I underestimated the anti-Jewish podcasters’ disdain for the traditional right. It’s that I foolishly didn’t anticipate the liberal establishment’s eagerness to place anti-Semitism squarely at the heart of its movement.

 

At every level, leftist radicals, so-called moderates, and elected Democrats—including the Jews among them—are backing overt anti-Semites and incorporating their anti-Israel monomania into the party.

 

The left is throwing an amnesty fair for Jew-haters, and the bigots of the right have taken notice. 

 

The chief example here is white-supremacist wunderkind Nick Fuentes. He has recently declared himself a “non-woke, moderate Democrat” who believes that “the GOP needs to be destroyed” and Donald Trump “needs to be impeached.”

 

One can understand why a candid Nazi like Fuentes would have a hard time resisting the pull of today’s Democratic Party. The Democrats have fully embraced Graham Platner, the Senate candidate from Maine who not only has a documented history of Nazi fandom, but also literally wears his affection for the Third Reich on his chest.

 

Why would Fuentes need to bother with the right anymore? On the left, a Jew-hater doesn’t have to deal with the pushback from high-profile Republicans, conservative scholars, and pundits. In fact, you don’t have to face the biggest challenge that Fuentes has faced up until now: the condemnation of the majority of the American right. If you’re an anti-Semite, the left’s got your back.

 

A few days ago, the New York Times aired a lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson, in which he got to denounce Trump, praise Platner, and expound on his theories about magical Zionist influence. In fairness to the Times, the interview wasn’t slavering—but it wasn’t exactly prosecutorial either. The point is, where else in the world of institutional journalism would one go to say such things? He wasn’t going to get the opportunity from National Review. 

 

Carlson, for what it’s worth, plans to meet with Platner soon.

 

Finally, this week, Megyn Kelly said that both she and Carlson might be losing some pro-Trump, pro-Israel “Fox News viewers,” but they’re making up for it among Muslims. And like a good liberal, she made her pitch to them by denouncing Israel-supporters and their “anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

 

I’m happy to see the right rid itself of its leading anti-Semites. At the same time, this is all an unspeakable tragedy. When William F. Buckley Jr. first cleansed the Republican Party and the right of anti-Jewish kooks, they dispersed to the fringes of American politics. That’s where the current crop belongs, as well. But this time around, they’re being furnished with a safe haven right across the street.   

 

Many would cite this phenomenon as an example of the horseshoe theory of politics. The extremes of left and right, goes the thinking, arrive at their respective ends of the horseshoe, each the mirror image of the other. I’ve grown uncomfortable with that explanation here.

 

Anti-Semites operate under a different behavioral paradigm. They set everything else aside and ally with one another against the Jews. Communists, fascists, Islamists, leftists, and reactionaries have joined forces in various combinations for this purpose. They don’t need a horseshoe to find one another. They just follow their broken moral compass. Today, that points due left.