Ever since I underwent my political change, I’ve noticed that the right has a tendency to sabotage itself for little or no reason, or for reasons I think are trivial or misguided or the result of unrealistic perfectionism, or as a reaction to manipulative propaganda from the left. That’s not an inclusive list, and some of these things can co-exist.
I see elements of this shaping up again.
There’s Musk’s third party effort, which can only help the left. There’s people who think Trump is covering up important information about Epstein’s supposed clients or his death. There’s the anger of the Tucker Carlson wing, who hate the fact that Trump aided Israel and is about to aid Ukraine. I’m probably leaving out other things, too, but those are the biggest ones I see at the moment. It’s the old circular firing squad routine into which people on the right fall so very easily. It’s depressing, because things are going rather well at the moment, and turning the House (or Congress as a whole) over to the left would be disastrous. And yet many people on the right seem determined to do that, in order to punish Trump or others who have disappointed them by not doing exactly what they want or everything they want.
In that last sentence, what do I mean by “many people” on the right? Ay, there’s the rub: I don’t know. It’s possibly a large group that could make a big difference. But it’s possibly a much smaller group that merely seems larger because it’s so vocal and active online. My gut feeling is that its numbers are magnified by bots and leftist trolls, and this article seems to be in agreement:
Hostile foreign actors are increasingly using social media to drive a wedge into Donald Trump’s political coalition. Using open-source intelligence and analyses of online activity, we explore this phenomenon, which we call “fake MAGA,” in a recent report for the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).
Our report defines fake MAGA influencers as those who use “Make America Great Again” or “America First” branding to target these audiences but are in fact linked to large-scale bot farms—as evidenced by the creation of massive numbers of such accounts at opportune moments on X. That is, our analysis reveals coordinated account-creation spikes (for instance, during Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition), followed by synchronized amplification of identical narratives by those same accounts during a crisis.
Typically, fake MAGA operations occur within 48 hours of a high-profile news event and use a consistent strategy. Accounts that appear to mimic MAGA sentiment and claim to put “America First” instead advance agendas aligned with hostile foreign states. For example, these networks have amplified Iranian state propaganda, claiming nuclear inspectors operate under Israeli control, and attacked Trump with accusations of pedophilia and ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
It’s not just on X, although that may be where these investigators focused their energies. And of course, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens aren’t fake and aren’t bots. But their messages, and the dissension they spawn, are almost certainly carried around the blogosphere by bots and/or trolls, and I’ve noticed it myself. Or at least, I’ve noticed something that appears that way. After so many years of blogging, I have a gut sense about what’s real and what’s manufactured, and I believe at least some of this is manufactured.
I have noticed it for years in the Instapundit comments, for example – comments that are placed through Disqus, which seems to be a big conduit for this sort of thing. For example, see how the comments on this thread devolve quite quickly into “Epstein is indeed a Mossad agent; Carlson is right about that”.
Some of this is heavily anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, and it has been going on for years. Now with Epstein it’s a twofer – they get to air all sorts of anti-Jew, anti-Israel garbage, and they get to hurt Trump as well. They also claim that they represent his base (or former base). But who appointed this group his base?
Here’s how Tucker Carlson rolls on this, and how the Epstein controversy and antisemitism feed into each other:
Within days of Attorney General Pam Bondi admitting that no evidence in the FBI’s files would allow the Justice Department to continue the investigation, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson doubled down on the idea of a government cover-up while speaking at the Turning Point USA conference in Tampa, Fla.
Not only was he willing to hurl such an accusation at an administration made up of his presumable political allies. He went further by claiming to an audience cheering his supposed courage in making such charges that Epstein was an agent of the government of Israel, whose vile actions were somehow part of an effort to blackmail politicians and celebrities. Unsatisfied with such slander, he also invoked the notion that the entire financial industry is some sort of scam—and attacked pro-Israel billionaire Bill Ackman for good measure.
Nor was Carlson alone in trying to make this about Israel and the Jews. Podcaster and former Fox News and NBC journalist Megyn Kelly, who is generally far more responsible than Carlson when it comes to flinging around conspiracy theories, echoed the allegation, also voicing the belief that Epstein was probably a Mossad agent.
I’m shocked at Kelly, if in fact that’s a fair representation of what she said.
For podcasters and social-media “influencers” who thrive only to the extent that they can feed their audiences’ hunger not just for simple answers to complex problems but the kind of conspiratorial thinking that confirms their desire to view every bad thing as a diabolical plot, the Epstein case is a gift that never stops giving. To attach Israel to this sort of topic is a guarantee not only of millions of clicks on videos and podcasts, but also gives those saying such things an instant mass audience that is always willing to believe anything awful that can be said about the Jewish state or the Jews.
Two main points need to be acknowledged in discussing this topic.
One is that neither Carlson nor Kelly—nor anyone else talking about this publicly—has any tangible, concrete evidence of Israeli government involvement in Epstein’s sex crimes. And they freely admit as much.
All they have got are circumstantial allegations that they claim that “everyone” believes. That consists of the fact that the criminal was Jewish, involved in Jewish philanthropy and knew prominent Israelis. …
There was never a chance that even the Trump administration’s admission that the case is closed was going to satisfy those who are up to their necks in wild theories. Telling them that there is no “there” there was, no matter the truth of the matter, never going to silence the doubters or stop scoundrels from seeking to link it to hatred for Israel.
As I said, I don’t know how big this group actually is. But it certainly isn’t non-existent. Carlson has long had a large following, and although there may have been a falloff it’s still large. Same for Candace Owens. These movements are very destructive, and I am convinced the left is very happy to use them to further their own ends – which include antisemitism and GOP losses in the midterms.
