Ted Cruz (Left) and Tucker Carlson (Right). Photo: Middle East Eye.
By Justin Podur – Aug 19, 2025
On the so-called (online) “civil war”
Liberals have discredited themselves supporting genocide, loosening their control over the public discussion. Right-wingers have rushed in to fill the vacuum, but the America First (& Israel A Close Second), antiwar right will not lead the US out of support for genocide. Facing massive public disgust, the antiwar right have been put forward by a Zionist media establishment as a shield for conservatives. They are here to save the right-wing from deserved contempt, not lead their people to an anti-genocide struggle. Serving as a rhetorical curtain to hide authentic anti-imperialist voices from the public, ultimately, they too, serve the racist, Zionist agenda.
The controversy is fake. It isn’t the enemy of my enemy – they aren’t enemies at all.
Over the past few weeks, something called a “civil war” on the “antiwar right” unfolded online, in which far-right and farther-right influencers went on one another’s talk shows and then streamed, saying mean things about one another.
Much of it was ad hominem; a lot of it involved globally irrelevant insider US political discussion. But a portion of it was about US foreign policy. That latter portion involved these right-wingers discussing the source of their criticism of US support for Israel’s genocide and trying (and failing) to find enough common ground to work together, before crashing and burning calling one another federal agents (unusual since all are supporters of police and of federal agencies).
Let’s put some time into understanding
- how this “antiwar”, right-wing position is manufactured;
- how the things these figures have said might be satisfying to listen to for those fed up with Israel’s genocide and liberal support for it; and
- why there will be nothing of any anti-genocide value coming from any of these figures – indeed, there is good reason to think that the whole thing is contrived – and to the benefit of the genociders.
1. Manufacturing the “antiwar right”: Genocide debate culture and the antigenocide bloc’s abusive relationship with Piers Morgan
Before he went on Piers Morgan’s show, George Galloway told his viewers that Piers Morgan was irrelevant and no one should go on there and give Morgan relevance. But Morgan, a right-wing TV broadcaster who, pre-2023-genocide, was known outside of the UK for his commentary on various celebrities, reinvented himself as the host of debates about Gaza.
Initially, he was famous for belligerent hounding of pro-Palestine guests with “DO YOU CONDEMN HAMAS?” (a practice he still follows like praying the rosary).
But when Egyptian-American comedian Bassam Youssef went on the show and achieved some viral moments, mainly through the use of his comedic talent of mockery, anti-genocide viewers started to join the game, watching and looking for “gotcha” moments in the debates to share. Many, including Galloway, eventually went on the show, producing more viral clips to send around.
In the process, Morgan managed to position himself, through the selection of guests and his treatment of them, as the arbiter of legitimate voices on both sides, pro- and anti-genocide. When the anti-genocide audience neared exhaustion of Morgan’s incitement and abuse of pro-Palestine guests, Morgan would throw in an adversarial interview with an Israeli official or paid agent. This is part of the abusive relationship between leftists and Morgan: these dramatic moments of confrontation with Israeli genociders keep leftists hoping Morgan will find humanity. He won’t, but his keeping up the act keeps the viewers from giving up.
The Oxford Union, and now Jubilee’s show Surrounded, have also used the debate format as engines for the production of viral video clips, with explosive success during this genocide. The debate form is itself a type of propaganda, because of what it assumes: two or more people, acknowledging one another’s humanity and a good-faith framework of rules, using argument and counter-argument to try to help the audience determine the truth, sharpening and discovering their own positions in the process.
Morgan (and Oxford and Jubilee) exploits those assumptions to hide what is actually happening: a production stage-managed by the genociders, who win regardless of whether their side wins or loses.
Morgan chooses who debates whom, and irrespective of who “wins” on that day, the person setting up the debate (Morgan in this case) who holds the power to promote or de-emphasize specific voices. In this way the debate host (or the host of a big podcast) holds the power to control the opposition*.
[*Anti-imperialists will still go to these debates because the calculation of whether to boycott or attend is a tactical one, which is probably why Galloway first boycotted and then attended. We need visibility to make our points too and have to trade that against all the benefits the genociders get from these debates. It’s a powerful propaganda system indeed if you’re willing to participate in it even knowing what it is.]
With one exception (Fuentes, whose brand is based on being excluded and supposedly leading a movement of the excluded) every one of the antiwar right voices discussed in this article has been on Morgan’s show.
A right-wing figure can be created as an antiwar voice by the simple expedient of Morgan hosting a debate and putting them in that position.
2. The temptations of the antiwar right and the creation of the mirage
Given that the right-wing is (in the US) big, richly resourced, and actually controls state power, it may give (false) hope that the rise to hegemony of an antiwar right could stop the genocide. Given that part of the right-wing presents itself as anti-establishment and wanting to overthrow the system, it might give the (false) hope of an anti-system alliance of right and left to overthrow the genocidal system.
Here’s how the antiwar right created and nurtured these false hopes, creating an antiwar mirage that leads to nowhere in the weeks leading up to this “civil war”.
Tucker Carlson. He rightly ridiculed Ted Cruz’s use of the text of the Book of Genesis (12:3) – where God told Abraham that he would bless those who blessed him – to support the 1948-created Zionist project. By interviewing Iranian President Pezeshkian, he rightly demystified the idea of an American journalist talking to a head of state designated as an enemy (Iran).
But like Bernie Sanders, AOC and others, he sees what he’s doing as ultimately looking out for Israel. “I’m not even anti-Israel,” he said. “I like Israel.” If Tucker is America First, then like the liberals he opposes, his America includes Israel (A Close Second).
Candace Owens. She rightly called Israel’s atrocities against children “demonic” and “satanic”. Full of righteous contempt for the Israel lobby’s work to silence all opposition, she has modeled the courage of not backing down in the face of name-calling and cancellation efforts. She’s been bringing details of the Epstein network of sexual violence to her large audience. And while she supported Israel for many years, she “will never support Israel again.” Unlike many online influencers she also reads. Actual books. And changes her views based on new information, which fills anti-imperialists with the (false) hope that she might be brought to that position, becoming a powerful communicator for the cause (she won’t).
But she also presents to her audience the imperialist invention of “Judeo-Bolshevism” and tells them that the Nazi holocausts were equalled or surpassed by Bolshevik atrocities. In her discussion with Nick Fuentes, she said she’s increasingly skeptical of the whole history she’s been taught (to which Fuentes’s only retort was “you sound like a leftist…”), but doesn’t recognize that anti-communist atrocity propaganda is also a huge part of the history she’s been taught (lies about Indigenous peoples genocided by the Anglo-Americans, about Haitians during their 1804 revolution against French slavers, about Indian sepoys during the failed 1857 war against Britain, about Africans resisting the Scramble for Africa…) When it comes to this genocide, this means she has no way to investigate the false atrocity propaganda about October 7. Indeed, she argues that the whole event was orchestrated by Netanyahu (on whom Candace, like liberals, hyperfocuses, and therefore, like other Zionist liberals, fails to recognize the breadth and depth of support for atrocity in Israeli society).
Dan Bilzerian. Most anti-imperialists saw Bilzerian for the first time when he took an interview with Piers Morgan and argued that mainstream Jewish religious beliefs include a belief in the innate superiority of Jewish people, mentioning references in the Talmud about Jesus burning in excrement for eternity and insults about Mary. Bilzerian challenged Morgan’s lies about October 7, pointed out that most Israeli settlers are in fact from Europe (while Palestinians are from the region and likely descendants of West Asian Jewish people), and remained unfazed in the face of Piers’s accusations of anti-semitism.
But, like Candace, Bilzerian’s opposition to Israel is connected to opposition to “Judeo-Bolshevism”, and he cites incorrect figures about Bolshevism being fundamentally a Jewish movement and a falsified history of Bolshevik massacres. He cites Winston Churchill on “Judeo-Bolshevism”, as if he does not understand that the reason Churchill (a Zionist and keen genocider himself) made this claim was to explain his support for Zionism! Like Candace, he questions imperialist and liberal talking points about Israel and is skeptical about what liberals say about Hitler, but shares liberals’ (and Hitler’s, and Churchill’s) talking points about communism and Russia. Bilzerian notes his own Armenian origin and the fact that the Young Turks (the 20th century regime, not the liberal youtube channel) committed a genocide against Armenians in 1916, but ignores the facts that a) it was Turkish and Kurdish personnel who committed that genocide b) that the current Turkish government denies that genocide, emphasizing instead that Israel joins Turkey in that denial.
Bilzerian’s main business is the sale of scammy lifestyle courses which are marketed using photo and video montages of him doing high-end tourist activities surrounded by models and expensive items. He wants nothing to do with anti-imperialists, who want nothing to do with him.
Washington DC Wakes Up Packed With Federal Agents and National Guards
Andrew Tate. Tate was one of the early people to debate Piers Morgan on the genocide and expressed righteous anger at the atrocities committed by the Israelis.
For people who had watched Piers Morgan bullying his pro-Palestine guests, watching Piers, who was obviously physically afraid of Tate, trying and failing to take up his usual bully role, was at least different.
But Tate – like Bilzerian – is ultimately on the web to create a funnel to his business, which is also selling scammy courses about how to get rich, as is apparent from even a quick glance at his twitter feed. If you like what he says about the immorality of genocide, you have the opportunity to help make Tate richer by taking one of his courses about how to get more money. In a live stream with Nick Fuentes, Tate said that he was concerned that conservative support for genocide was discrediting the conservative movement as a whole. People may lose interest in demeaning women if the messengers are genocidal: “Stop supporting genocide! It’s a bad look for conservatives!”
These political positions are nothing more than market niches for these people, internet funnels to different businesses and different age demographics (with Tucker and Candace marketing to older, Tate and Bilzerian to younger demographics). Tucker and Candace present a conservative lifestyle, while Tate and Bilzerian follow what conservatives call a “degenerate” one.
All of these flaws and worse come together with Nick Fuentes. Fuentes leads a movement, which he calls the groypers, who self-identify as racist/racialist, white nationalists, and take the posture of being downtrodden and excluded by the establishment right (they are neither downtrodden nor excluded). He is a believer in Race/IQ, believing that the origin of inequality is the biological dysfunction of the oppressed, arguing with Candace, who believes the origin of inequality is cultural dysfunction of the oppressed*. As a racial darwinist, Fuentes isn’t motivated by solidarity, humanitarian considerations, or empathy – in the hours I watched I didn’t hear him call it a genocide or express any human lament about the atrocities. His world view is of a darwinian struggle of races, and his complaint is that a “race” other than the one he identifies with is deciding on matters of war and peace when it’s his “race” that should be making those decisions.
*Speaking of selling courses, I do have a hundreds-of-hours-long podcast which is sort of a course on all of history since 1492. Among other topics, we did an episode on scientific racism, and on social darwinism, 19th century inventions to justify the Scramble for Africa. Plenty of references there too. Cost of my course is $0.
Fuentes seeks to lead a movement of what he calls white people which he thinks need to take over all the institutions and loci of power, presenting this as if it were a novel strategy and not the history of the Anglo-American Empire from the 1750s to the 1950s. Fuentes hasn’t specified how highborn he is in this rarefied multicentury hierarchy, but self-made successes are extremely rare and most people with millions of followers are better connected than they care to admit. Regardless, Fuentes’s analysis is based on false claims about science, history, power, and ideology. He’s claimed that one reason right-wingers are flocking to his channel is because he was the first to see (in June 2025) that Trump was under Israel’s control and was going to go to war with Iran. This was a commonplace insight among anti-imperialists since the breakdown of the last ceasefire in March 2025.
3. Keeping anti-imperialism behind a thick curtain of right-wing noise
Historically Zionists have always preferred the anti-Jewish right – with whom Zionists share the same racial darwinism and the same biblical references to armageddon – to the anti-imperialist left, with its internationalist connections to the Global South.
Anti-imperialists want a stop to the plunder and genocide; when the right fight among themselves, it’s about how to divide the spoils. The left believes in equality: the right, in natural hierarchy. This is the irreconcilable difference and it makes the antiwar right a mirage.
When you search for voices that are against Israel’s genocide, you’ll see these viral debate clips and enter the right-wing marketing funnels. The internet is flooded with them for a reason: to make it much harder to find anything real. Debates where the pro-Israel side routinely gets trounced and where the anti-Israel side gets one “gotcha” moment after another – are still wins for Morgan. These successes are as valuable for the propaganda system as algorithmic suppression or banning the phrase, “I support Palestine Action.”
Right-wingers can look super-insightful saying obvious things that leftists know because unlike right wingers, actual leftists are almost entirely boycotted by the mainstream*.
*You’re thinking of exceptions. I know the exceptions. What’s important is the quantity and the pattern.
There’s a solid incentive for liberals and right-wingers alike to create and promote a very visible antiwar right: to ensure that someone that isn’t a leftist is out there saying every possible thing, so that you can hear any specific viewpoint from someone other than a leftist.
In the video where Fuentes defends himself from Tucker and Candace’s accusation that he’s working for the police, he shows a supposedly exculpatory video of himself at the January 6 protest telling the crowd to advance and disregard the police. People who have been to Palestine protests have a good idea how it would legally go for someone who did that. At least he wasn’t supporting Plasticine Action…
Another subtle note from that video, is when Fuentes is praising Trump’s 2016 term, he says “we achieved some modest reforms”. Among them? Moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “We achieved some modest reforms”, he says in his video. “He cut the corporate tax rate, moved Israel’s Embassy, did some minor stuff on the border, it was negligible.” (9:22).
Fuentes, now positioning himself as the foremost and original critic – not only of Zionism as he emphasizes, but of Jewish people racially – nonetheless calls it a modest (positive, by implication) reform for Trump to have moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a “reform” that Israel had desperately wanted for decades. Perhaps it’s a meaningless slip. Or perhaps it’s a slip that reveals that for Fuentes, like the rest of these people, anti-Israel positioning is fake, just seeking a slice of the audience to turn into revenue.
In the interview with Candace, Fuentes explains and endorses the idea that slavers didn’t believe that slavery should be abolished because Africans have low IQs. With his level of knowledge and intellectual curiosity, even if he was morally on the right side of history (he’s not), he would be a liability to whatever side he’s on. Tucker argued that he is a liability – to the anti-war right.
This is “shit-coating”: the carving off of an actual insight, mixing it with toxic and ultimately pro-establishment lies, and presenting it so that no one can recognize the unvarnished truth. The algorithm wants to distract you, and these people have, with the resources of the Anglo-American, Zionist oligarchy behind them, mastered the algorithm. The truth? They can only give you the shit-coated version.
For anti-genocide work, the supposedly anti-war right is another distraction. The same way that Bernie Sanders and AOC turned out to be pro-Israel empty suits, the so-called antiwar right is of no use to any just cause.
(Substack)
Justin Podur
Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer and a writing fellow at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. You can find him on his website at podur.org and on Twitter @justinpodur. He teaches at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.
