Blood Labels: A Political Right That Avoids The Oldest Of Infamies

MEMRI Daily Brief No. 863

That liberal democracy seems to be looking increasingly threadbare is obvious. The elements of the old dispensation — individualism, free markets, limited government — all seem to be under assault, often for very good reasons. What Francis Fukuyama popularized in 1989 as the endpoint of political evolution and “the final form of human government” does not look that way right now.[1] Globalization, the offspring of the free markets/free trade portion of liberal democracy, seems as much of a threat to as a product of the “liberal-democratic West.”[2]

The world, including the West, is transitioning. What is not quite clear is exactly what it is transitioning into. In a recent piece I wrote about Europe, I described the potential future of that continent as a struggle between Fanonists and Maurrassians.[3] Fanon is, of course, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), the highly influential “anti-colonial” political radical.[4] Maurras was Charles Maurras (1868-1952) the highly influential reactionary nationalist.[5]

Both were Francophone, both gifted writers, one died too young, the other lived too long. Both godfathers of types of virulent antisemitism, of the left and of the right, that flourish to this day. Fanon is a symbol of a type of revolutionary Third Worldism that seems to be burgeoning within the West. Maurras is kind of shorthand for a type of full-throated populist nationalism also gaining force in the West.[6]

Recently the United States has seen controversy on the political right, much talked about online, involving journalist Tucker Carlson, his platforming of the flagrant antisemite and Nazi Nick Fuentes, and the reaction of the Heritage Foundation, a leading American conservative institution. Both Carlson, who has also platformed leftists and even a lobbyist for the Venezuelan regime, and Fuentes, a fringe figure who supported Kamala Harris in 2024, seem to be as much or more agents provocateurs than men of the right. There is a flood now of “edgelords who take pride in transgression for its own sake.”[7]

Both, especially Fuentes, benefit from and channel the completely understandable anger of younger American generations at what seems a deeply unfair, rotten world created by their elders.[8] These younger generations, especially young men and particularly young white men, see all the established gatekeepers as hopelessly discredited, economies hollowed out, societies overwhelmed from within and without, institutions arrayed against them, and a grim future looming.[9] They are not wrong and there are clearly both right-wing and left-wing versions of this existential bitterness, as the recent election of a cosmopolitan leftist political messiah supported by pro-China, Qatar and Iran propagandists as mayor of New York City demonstrated.[10]

There seems little doubt that in the United States the political advantage will lie in whichever party or faction within one of the two parties will be able to better address the deep disquiet of rising generations at what seems like an unfair, broken economic and political reality. To talk about unfettered capitalism in a jobless, hopeless future will be a real challenge. In November 2024, the candidate that was best able to tap into this deep vein of dissatisfaction was Donald Trump. In 2026 and 2028, it might be the Democrats, particularly the Democratic Socialist part of the Democratic Party. In the long-run, who knows? But the crisis of downwardly mobile would-be elites is real.[11]

Supporters of Israel face the challenge of better making the case that U.S. support for Israel is not a heavy burden, that it makes good strategic sense on its own terms, that it can be and is consistent with an American First worldview and divorcing this support from the bitter legacy of what is now broadly seen as decades of imperial, near suicidal, American overreach. But much of the “new” antisemitism in the U.S. is also about a struggle for power within contending elites, both on the left and right, and actually has very little to do with what Israel or American Jews actually do or say. It is a merely an ugly means to a political end.

But one thing that struck me in the mainstreaming of this antisemitism on the American right is the contrast with the rise of right-wing movements in Europe that are actually philosemitic. All across Europe, the center and the left — the long-time custodians of power on the old continent — are horrified by what they call the “far-right” or the populist right.[12] They seek to demonize figures such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban as they did with “fascist” Giorgia Meloni in 2022. And yet from Orban to Spain’s Vox to Germany’s AfD to the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, it is the so-called “far-right” parties that are consistently pro-Israel.[13] There certainly are antisemitic right-wingers in Europe but they are not electorally significant. In contrast to Maurras and even Jean-Marie LePen, the French right today is also philosemitic.[14] Most of the politically powerful parties in Europe that “dabble” in antisemitism are on the political left — Spain’s PSOE and its communist allies, France’s LFI, Germany’s Die Linke, the UK’s Jeremy Corbyn. Several of these parties rely heavily on the Muslim migrant vote, a vote which overwhelmingly favors the European left.

There are obvious reasons why the populist European right is usually philosemitic. Of course, they want to differentiate themselves from pro-Islamic leftist parties who kowtow to an often deeply antisemitic migrant population. They also see Israel as a sovereigntist, right-leaning nationalist state that is often targeted by the globalists. The same crowd that wants to overcome Israel wants to submerge and dominate Europe.[15] There is also an obvious, laudable attempt to differentiate the European “new” right from the rightwing European parties of the past which often tended to be antisemitic.

Regardless of the complex motivations, Europe shows that political parties of the nationalist right can exist and flourish without being trapped in one of the oldest and worst of all blood-libels, Jew hatred.

AUTHOR

Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez

Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.

SOURCES:

[1] Thenation.com/article/society/francis-fukuyama-liberalism-discontents, April 17, 2023.

[2] Theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/new-american-populism-needed-save-west/582202, February 7, 2019.

[3] Tomklingenstein.com/a-prophecy-confirmed-but-unfinished, April 7, 2025.

[4] Tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/jewish-foreskins-black-masks, March 24, 2024.

[5] Youtube.com/watch?v=xJ1wMFRUako&t=1s, December 5, 2021.

[6] Firstthings.com/the-revenge-of-maurras, November 1, 2019.

[7] Commonplace.org/p/oren-cass-fringe-facing-figures-will, November 9, 2025.

[8] Americanmind.org/salvo/carlson-and-fuentes-betray-young-men, November 5, 2025.

[9] Nbcnews.com/business/economy/young-men-struggling-slowing-job-market-college-degree-rcna224482, August 13, 2025.

[10] Commentary.org/seth-mandel/the-ccp-must-be-loving-every-minute-of-this, November 6, 2025.

[11] See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 833, The Coming Revolt Of Downwardly Mobile Would-Be Elites, August 12, 2025.

[12] Politico.eu/article/mapped-europe-far-right-government-power-politics-eu-italy-finalnd-hungary-parties-elections-polling, May 24, 2024.

[13] Theobjective.com/actualidad/2025-03-26/vox-partido-israel-parlamento-europeo/, March 26, 2025.

[14] Lapresse.ca/international/europe/2025-03-27/bardella-a-jerusalem/l-extreme-droite-francaise-affiche-son-soutien-a-israel.php, March 27, 2025.

[15] Jiss.org.il/en/dallal-winds-of-hate-from-the-west, July 15, 2025.

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