What Happens When Jews Don’t Fit the Conspiracy
When we bother to notice Jews on the Right as well as the Left, throughout history and across the globe, then antisemitic grand theories fall apart.
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This is a guest essay written by Ben Koan, who writes the newsletter, “The Thousand-Year View.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and architect of Donald Trump’s immigration policies, is Jewish.
At Trump’s 2024 Madison Square Garden rally, Miller declared that “America is for Americans and Americans only,” promising that, “The invasion will end the instant that he [Trump] takes the oath of office.”
Consequently, Miller supervised the team drafting Trump’s executive orders on immigration, including the suspension of asylum processing, declaration of an invasion at the southern border, and attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Other notable Jews in Trump’s circle include Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, AI and crypto czar David Sacks, envoy and golf buddy Steve Witkoff, staffing consultant Laura Loomer, consigliere Boris Epshteyn, and, of course, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The influential “new Right” includes Israeli-American National Conservative philosopher Yoram Hazony, as well as Curtis Yarvin and Bronze Age Pervert, both patrilineal Jews.
Yet somehow, I don’t expect to see white nationalists marching with tiki torches and chanting “Jews are not replacing us!” If Jews get blamed for the “Great Replacement,” why not some credit for the Great Deportation?
Antisemites are proud of noticing Jews in positions of power and influence. But when prominent Jews don’t fit the narrative of an anti-white conspiracy (or “group evolutionary strategy,” to use the higher-brow parlance), they seem to turn invisible or get rationalized away.
Thus, antisemites might argue that Stephen Miller and the rest are aberrations, exceptions who prove the rule. After all, most Jews are on the Left. Certainly, according to exit polling, 66 percent of American Jews voted for the Democratic Party’s Kamala Harris, while 32 percent voted for the Republicans and Trump.
But, if around one out of every three Jews voted for Trump, then the Jewish community is hardly monolithic. Moreover, antisemites imagine that Jews support the Left purely out of ethnocentrism — because liberalism is “good for the Jews” but presumably bad for everyone else.
Yet the Modern Orthodox voted for Trump in greater numbers than less religious Jews, while ultra-Orthodox Jews were overwhelmingly pro-Trump. Thus, Jews with the strongest Jewish identities (presumably correlating with greater ethnocentrism) — who are also the most vulnerable to antisemitism (since they wear yarmulkes or Haredi attire — are typically more Right-wing. The Orthodox are also the fastest-growing segment of the American Jewish population, so the number of Republican-voting Jews will surely continue to rise.
Additionally, from an international perspective, Diaspora Jews don’t uniformly vote Left. In France, Marine Le Pen’s Right-wing National Rally party has increased its Jewish support, while the hard-Right leader Éric Zemmour is himself of Algerian Jewish descent.
The majority of British Jews voted Labour in the most recent parliamentary election, but for the Conservatives in the one prior (as did most Brits). Likewise, in Canada, Jews have swung between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
In Argentina, most Jews likely voted for populist libertarian Javier Milei, who intends to convert to Judaism once he leaves office. Internationally, as in America, Orthodox Jews vote more for the Right, while less religious Jews lean Left.
Sub-ethnic divides also play a role in Jewish politics, as non-Ashkenazi and Russian-speaking Jews tend to be more conservative. The Jewish state itself is increasingly Right-wing, which reflects demographic differences with Diaspora Jewry (less Ashkenazi, more religious) — plus, of course, existential security concerns.
Yet even setting Israel aside, Diaspora Jews are prominent on the political Right. Antisemites point to historic Jewish leftists like Karl Marx (though he was baptized a Christian), Sigmund Freud (though he was politically ambivalent), and the Frankfurt School (who largely opposed the student protests of the 1960s) as evidence of a subversive Jewish plot.
But historic Jewish rightists like Britain’s Conservative prime minister Benjamin Disraeli (like Marx, baptized a Christian), Philip Rieff (Freud’s most profound critic), and the Straussians (whose West Coast branch are intellectual supporters of MAGA) could be construed as evidence of a reactionary Jewish counter-plot.
Even Fascism (in its original, pre-antisemitic Italian form) was disproportionately Jewish. (Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini’s Jewish mistress and advisor, wrote his biography and helped plan the March on Rome.) Remarkably, the Nazis also had some early Jewish support, though they sent the founder of the pro-Hitler Association of German National Jews to a concentration camp.
Jews are represented in nearly every ideology and cause, including those that are diametrically opposed. Leon Trotsky (born Lev Bronstein), a leading Bolshevik revolutionary, was Jewish (though he told a Jewish delegation to “Go home to your Jews and tell them that I am not a Jew and I care nothing for Jews and their fate”). But so was Milton Friedman, the renowned free-market economist who advised America’s most stridently anti-communist president, Ronald Reagan.
Noam Chomsky, the Jewish critic of American realpolitik, was on President Richard Nixon’s enemies’ list. But Henry Kissinger, the Jewish advocate of American realpolitik, was Nixon’s Secretary of State.
In World War I, Jews literally fought each other out of opposing national loyalties: around 825,000 for the Allies and 375,000 for the Central Powers. (Contrary to the Nazi-propagated “stab-in-the-back” myth, Jews were enthusiastic supporters of the Imperial German war effort.) And, while most Jews now support the right of Israel to exist, Zionism has been subject to fierce debates since its inception.
The truth is that Jews are not inherently tied to any single ideology; nor is there some secret alliance between Jews of opposing political stripes. Historically, many Jews supported the Left for the understandable reason that Right-wing movements — and, certainly in Tsarist Russia, the traditional rulers — were often anti-Jewish. Socialism also appealed to Jews because (despite the rare Rothschild) many were poor and working class.
Some Jews also anachronistically conflate the prophetic tradition and tikkun olam with social justice, or view the Jewish history of exile and persecution as requiring solidarity with the oppressed. But Right-wingers can point to the Jewish values of family, tradition, and community as being fundamentally conservative in nature.
After all, insofar as there is a Jewish “group evolutionary strategy,” it is encapsulated not by the revolutionary creed of the apostate Karl Marx, but by the patriotic message of the prophet Jeremiah:
“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”1
Jews continue to pray for the government in synagogue services to this day.
In the United States, Jews only began reliably voting for the Democratic Party in the 1930s, when Franklin D. Roosevelt attracted ethnic minorities as part of his New Deal coalition. Even then, around 40 percent of Jews voted for the Republican tickets of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. American Jewish voting patterns, then, are not due to any innate Jewish liberalism.
Jews elsewhere in the world often support conservative parties, as did American Jews historically (and as a minority still do), while some contemporary Republicans have been able to attract significant Jewish backing. In part, modern American Jews may disproportionately vote for the Democratic Party due to the unique strength of the liberal Reform Judaism movement and support for the separation of church and state (i.e. fear of the Christian Right-wing).
But most secular Jews hold their political positions for the same reasons as their non-Jewish neighbors (and, increasingly, spouses and children). They are urban, well-educated, and professional, and vote like non-Jews who fit the same profile. Even when it comes to Zionism, the supposed Jewish wedge issue, more Evangelicals than Jews favor stronger American support for Israel.
Does Stephen Miller’s own Jewish background inform his immigration politics? I have no idea. Racial minorities are more likely than whites to hold antisemitic attitudes, so (contra the “Jews will not replace us!” crowd) it would be in the Jewish interest to oppose wholesale demographic change. But it would also be ad hominem conjecture to suppose that Miller’s primary motivation is Jewish ethnocentrism.
By all accounts, he truly believes in reducing immigration for the good of America. Likewise, to pick a Jew of opposing politics, George Soros sincerely supports an “open society” for the good of humanity. Their shared ethno-religious origin may or may not have influenced their ideas, but it has no bearing on whether those ideas are right or wrong.
Jews as Jews are not trying to replace white people. Nor are Jews as Jews trying to deport immigrants. When we bother to notice Jews on the Right as well as the Left, throughout history and across the globe, then antisemitic grand theories fall apart.
Jeremiah 29:7
Excellent essay presenting the broad spectrum of Jewish political and religious viewpoints. Other notable Jewish conservative voices and Trump supporters are Lee Zeldin, as well as radio personality Sid Rosenberg and tv and radio personality Mark Levin.
Interesting article. We are a varied people since Moses lead some Jews out of Egypt. Many stayed behind. And of course the Erev Rav are the bain of our existence.