NatCon Chief’s Muddled Brief: Yoram Hazony’s confused attempt to sort out the problem of right-wing antisemitism. (Gabriel Schoenfeld, Feb 18, 2026, The Bulwark)
As Hazony acknowledges, the Republican party is itself at risk for becoming infected by “relentless anti-Jewish messaging.” What he has in mind is not merely arguments about Israeli policy toward Gaza, but “the explicit and savage targeting” by rightwing podcasters “of Jews, Judaism, and Zionism.” Is this the future, he asks, of the Republican party?
The party, in Hazony’s description, is today divided into three distinct factions. A “liberal wing” led by figures such as Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, and Ted Cruz was once dominant, but in the Trump era, it has been in decline and probably represents no more than “25 percent of the party’s primary voters today.”
Then there is a nationalist wing, represented by Trump himself, as well as JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. Hazony estimates that it makes up about 65 percent of the party and is distinguished “by its support for an industrial policy to restore America’s manufacturing capabilities, its outspoken rejection of compromise on immigration issues, and its skepticism of long foreign wars.”
Finally, there’s the alt-right, “which was mostly a fringe phenomenon until 2023, when big-name media figures Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens moved into this space.” Today, Hazony says, its voters comprise perhaps 10 percent of the Republican party.
But of course, the distinction Hazony is drawing between liberal and nationalist Republicans is completely contrived and even nonsensical. In what ways, fundamental or otherwise, do such “liberal” Republicans as Graham, Pompeo, and Cruz—all of them Trump sycophants—differ from Vance, Rubio, and Hegseth—all of them also Trump sycophants?
Once you unleash the Identitarian monster, you can’t get it to hate just one “Identity”