Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts doubled down on the influential conservative group’s support for Tucker Carlson, who has been leaning into increasingly explicit antisemitism and opposition to Israel on his podcast, and expressed unwillingness to “cancel” neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes….
He said the group would “always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains — and as I have said before — always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
Roberts rejected those criticizing Carlson as a “venomous coalition” and said that “their attempt to cancel him will fail.”
This and related rhetoric is bad enough, but I was especially struck by this:
When it serves the interest of the United States to cooperate with Israel and other allies, we should do so with partnerships on security, intelligence and technology. But when it doesn’t, conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington…
I’m not one who thinks that “globalist” is always, or even often, a code word for Jews. I once did an informal study of the use of globalist in a major Trumpy publication, and I found that the vast majority of people it deemed “globalist” were not Jews.
However… in this particular case, the sort of folks the populist right typically accuses of being “globalist” with regard to foreign policy, the mainstream US foreign policy establishment, is hardly known for arguing that the US should “reflexively” support Israel. Indeed, they will natter on and on about how the US has to pressure, get tough with, crack down on, etc. Israel, and counteract its “intransigence.”
So who are these “globalists” who supposedly want the US to reflexively support Israel? It’s pretty hard not to read the line as “no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class [Jews] or from their mouthpieces in Washington [AIPAC].”
I’d be more inclined to give Roberts the benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t also tweeted this today: “Thank you, Jon Haidt, for reminding everyone @Heritage yesterday that tech tycoons like Leonid Radvinsky and Solomon Friedman are profiting to the tune of millions by preying on America’s young men and women. We are proud to be in this fight with you. It is time to arrest, prosecute, and convict the sick perverts behind OnlyFans and PornHub.”
Radvinsky owns Only Fans. Friedman shares ownership and control of PornHub with Rocco Meliambro and Fady Mansour through Ethical Capital Partners. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that Roberts only cited the two owners with Jewish-sounding names, and he’s not appealing to the common antisemitic trope that the pornography industry is dominated by Jews. Maybe.
I hope the Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees is planning an emergency meeting about this.
If you have access to X, you can watch Roberts’ video statement at this link.
