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The American Right’s Civil War Over Israel

On this episode of The Time of Monsters: David Austin Walsh on the deep roots of the Zionism debate among Republicans.

Jeet Heer

November 9, 2025

Nick Fuentes with livestreamer and January 6 insurrectionist Baked Alaska at an anti-vaccine protest with members of the far-right group America First in front of Pfizer world headquarters on November 13, 2021, in New York City. (Stephanie Keith / Getty Images)

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The American Right’s Civil War Over Israel w/ David Austin Walsh | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Much has been written about how the Israel/Palestine conflict is dividing the left, but the

same is true of the right. Tucker Carlson’s interview with the antisemitic critic of Israel Nick

Fuentes has created an intense debate on the right about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,

currently playing itself out in turmoil at the Heritage Foundation. I spoke with the historian

David Austin Walsh, whose bookTaking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far

Right provides a crucial background for this story.

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Much has been written about the how the Israel/Palestine conflict is dividing the left, but the same is true of the right. Tucker Carlson’s interview with the antisemitic critic of Israel Nick Fuentes has created an intense debate on the right about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, currently playing itself out in turmoil at the Heritage Foundation. I spoke with the historian David Austin Walsh, whose book Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right provides a crucial background for this story. We talk about Christian Zionism.

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The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Trump is Using Terrorist Charges to Wage Political War w/ Josh Kovensky | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Kovensky has written an essay on the Trump

administration’s use of anti-terrorism law to target political groups it doesn’t like.

In that piece, Kovensky notes,

"Across the country, federal prosecutors are upgrading what would have been routine

prosecutions into terrorism cases when they involve people President Trump has cast as his

political enemies.

It represents a dramatic departure from how the Justice Department has historically used the

federal material support for terrorism statute. For decades, counterterrorism prosecutors have

largely reserved the statute — 2339A — for the kinds of audacious plots that wreak real, lasting

damage or whose ambition forms the stuff of movie screenplays."

I spoke to Kovensky about his essay and the history and politics of this dangerous legal

innovation.

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Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.


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