Tucker Carlson is to J. D. Vance as Hasan Piker is to Abdul El-Sayed
The analogy isn’t perfect. But I think it’s a good one:
Vance’s strength is his wit, intellect, and gift for political framing. He’s a verbal sharpshooter who decimated Tim Walz in their vice-presidential debate, and Jewish Republicans surely applauded his withering takedown of El-Sayed. …
Vance came across as reasonable, sincere, fair-minded, and respectful. He acknowledged Israel’s importance to American foreign policy, praised it as an ally, and connected the rise of antisemitism to unchecked Third World immigration — traditionally, one of the GOP’s most unifying issues.
Best of all, he did it without pandering.
But on the other hand, Vance failed to separate himself from Tucker Carlson, whom many Jewish Republicans feel is just as much of a dangerous antisemite as El-Sayed. The event’s emcee, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), gave him a golden opportunity to denounce Carlson’s rhetoric.
Vance declined, opting to pivot to Nick Fuentes and Joe Rogan …
By failing to cleanly separate himself from Hasan Piker, El-Sayed has shot himself in the foot. He’s now dogged by Piker everywhere he goes — and every time Piker says something offensive, El-Sayed is back on his heels. …
But what’s true about Piker is also true about Carlson: He monetizes outrage and controversy to stay in the headlines, too. That’s his business model as well.
Which means, JD Vance and Abdul El-Sayed share the same political vulnerability.
It’s puzzling why Vance refuses to bandage his wound. It wouldn’t take much. Just two or three sentences.
All he’d have to say is that Carlson has changed — and as a Christian, Vance prays for Carlson’s redemption — but OF COURSE he vehemently disagrees with Carlson about Trump being the antichrist, a slave, and/or Israel “destroying” the United States.
Carlson isn’t some quiet personal friend of Vance’s, he’s a major figure who is (or used to be) on the right, and he is a disgusting blood-libeling Jew-hater who is vocal about it nearly on a daily basis. Vance’s refusal to even criticize him in that regard is very telling, in my opinion.
Vance sometimes utters words that indicate he’s an Israel-supporter, but he has also said many things having nothing to do with Tucker Carlson that show a compromised support of Israel which is sometimes more like the position of a politician on the left than one on the right. I’ve written about it before; please see this from about a month and a half ago. In that post, I quote Lee Smith, who had written:
During his grievance-fueled performance on Rogan’s podcast, Vance lashed out once again at the Jews, alleging, among other things, that there’s an Israeli-funded plot to undermine his negotiations with Iran; some Israelis want war indefinitely for the sake of endless war; and the U.S. government has probably destroyed evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad operative. …
Now that the Iran deal that Vance favored has blown up and he’s taking heat for it, he’s showing that no one puts baby in a corner. So, he resurrects Epsteingate, predictably inspiring the dumbest people in America, and around the world, to flood social media with details from an information operation targeting Trump.
I also think Vance has shown some naivete about Iran.
I am assuming that Vance’s motive for all of this is to not alienate the Tucker wing of the GOP. That’s the kindest interpretation.
I used to like TC. Anyway, I asked Grok AI: “how big is the Tucker wing of the GOP?” It was to long for here (especially since I was unsure of the info) — so, Grok: “How can I retain all that info in a condensed blog comment?”
Midterms soon—two years until 2028…
I likes JD at the start, but his refusal to condemn Tucker is a Big No for me. I like Rubio a lot. If these two start battling it out in 2028, the Dems will win.
Just saw a video of DeSantis, so I will ad his name to what I said about infighting in 2028
@neo: I am assuming that Vance’s motive for all of this is to not alienate the Tucker wing of the GOP.
I was pretty solid on Vance until this Tucker business.
Signed,
Confused
As someone who was very impressed with Vance early on, I have to say that this has gone on long enough that even if Vance tries to distance himself from Tucker, or even completely denounces him, I’ll have to wonder if he did it because he really disagrees with Tucker’s insane rantings, or because it was politically demanded of him.
Not sure I’d trust any kind of conversion or “come to Jesus” moment at this point.
Of course, if he’s the Republican nominee in 2028, those concerns certainly aren’t enough to convince me to stay home or [shudder] vote Democrat, but unless something significant occurs to change my mind, I’m thinking my vote in the Primary is going to go to someone else. At this stage, most likely Rubio.
I cannot support this position. Vance has not declared much of anything about Carlson. And the demand that he – or anyone – denounce someone else is too much like the Left’s tactics for my sake.
My view is go by what people actually say, and do not read in what one wants to read in. The latter course is almost always wrong, as it’s just reinforcing one’s prejudices. Too much is made over this.
One common denominator of the MAGA coalition is, uhhh, *disaffection* with the coastal, Left-wing, DEI-pushing, woke elites in academia and media.
Which is exactly the camp most American Jews built, live in, and identify with. Generations of American Jews were willing poster-children for progressivism, and sneered at the white Christian mainstream and its values.
People like Ben Shapiro are a literal drop in the bucket against decades of this branding.
The young men drawn to Vance are especially aggrieved by this elite, their narratives, and their policies.
It’s not necessarily anti-Semitic to be weary of liberal Jews playing the victim card generations after they (freely!) climbed America’s economic and social ladder…. especially if your political context is general pushback against the many groups flashing their victim cards to push ahead of you, and the unfair rigging they’ve constructed to stymie *your* way up the ladder.
It’s not anti-Semitic to feel that the Holocaust is your (great-) grandparents’ story… or to judge Israel based on current realities, and not its scrappy beginnings as remembered by your parents. Time has indeed marched on.
It’s not anti-Semitic to notice the dissonance when (ignorant, assimilated) Jews who vigorously undermine the Judeo-Christian tradition suddenly cry “antiSemitism” to silence criticism of their completely secular revolution…
In both actual fact and PR framing, Donald Trump is extremely Jewish-adjacent. A not-very-pious Christian New Yawker with Orthodox Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren who has embraced Israel and visited it many times.
In contrast, JD Vance is a founding-father Anglo Protestant prole raised away from the coasts, without much personal connection to Jews.
**Vance balances the ticket and adds credibility for many not-so-philosemitic MAGA patriots.**
As an American Jew living in Israel, I have no doubts about Vance’s support for Israel – and I understand why it is framed in actual strategic benefit rather than emotion. His rejection of a litmus/purity test on Israel may shock people of my generation, but it plays well with the target market whose political activity is motivated by the loathing of the woke ideological arm-twisting that it suffered.
And we must face the historical fact that people who are under 40 in 2026 have a different perspective on Israel and a more distant recollection of the Holocaust. The visceral horror that shut up many anti-semites for past 70 years was bound to fade with time.
MAGA means what it says – America first. That is not anti-Semitic. Neither is JD Vance.
A further way to look at Vance is that he is strategizing for the Post-Trump world and trying to avoid a hard split with the anti-interventionist, America First wing.
Might be a good plan, but the devil is in the execution. That’s a hard needle to thread. Vance might end up not pleasing anyone.
Thanks for your helpful comment, Ben David.
I admit I prefer Rubio at this point.
One point of difference between Piker on the left and Carlson is that Carlson isn’t campaigning with any Republican candidates that I know of. He’s not even a Republican any more.