Post midterms: Israel and America

A telling policy statement came in the waning days of the midterm campaign and another a day after.

The first was Trump’s throwing Zionism overboard in an attempt to keep the sinking MAGA ship afloat one more election cycle. When he declared, “They don’t need it.” referencing America’s military aid, he hoped both the Tucker Carlson wing of the GOP and the Bernie Sanders/Abdul El-Sayed Democrats might be placated and vote his chosen incompetents in.

The second tell was Vance’s analysis of the right’s monumental defeat. Claiming to look at “hard truths” no matter where they may lead, he called out America’s “relationship with Israel” and stated that a withdrawal reset might appease voters when his candidacy comes in 2028.

Let’s look at the first. The US military aid to Israel has been pegged at around $4 billion. Over 90% of that goes to large US arms manufacturers, but to the defund crowd that is irrelevant. It enables a war machine engaged in….. I won’t use the word. By caving into this belief Trump legitimized the falsehood that has haunted Israel’s Gaza War. That he did this a week after endorsing Netanyahu is par for the chaos of all his policies.

For Israel, however, it clearly demonstrates the political pincer movement the country finds itself in. Both the American right and left are walking away as fast as they can. The support for the Jews, in their sea of terrorist enemies, that powered the last seven plus decades is receding into memory.

On to the Vance analysis. If you search the web for the key reasons for the GOP election wipeout, you can find any number of legitimate news sites with that information. Randomly I picked Fast Company, a respected business portal. Their list: inflation, corruption, cost of living, tariffs, and weak Republican candidates. Most other sites have the Iran war in their list, but as a subset of inflation and cost of living. The price of a gallon of gas is painful for Americans with their fuel-guzzling pickup trucks. It’s no wonder Texas went blue. Vance putting Israel at the very top of his post-election analysis is evidence of the cost-of-living denial he and Trump refused to acknowledge, calling it a “hoax.”

The American President is probably both senile and insane, and since regaining the office has presided over a series of unmitigated disasters. That his stump “weave” speeches are Exhibit A for psychiatric intervention clearly went unnoticed in Vance’s election post-mortem. No, Israel is to blame. His boss, who chose a saboteur for the Defense, er, War Department, gets a free pass. No mention of the Congressional bipartisan support to impeach Hegseth.

The above has very real implications for Israel. Unlike Vance, the country does not have the luxury of pretending causes that are simply not true. Delusional thinking could be fatal. Unlike America, Israel’s sworn enemies are on its doorstep.

So, the question begs an answer why would Trump and Vance call out Israel.

The answer may lie in who their backers are. The MAGA right has for years stated that Biden and his advisers were being manipulated by unseen forces, that they were puppets of globalists like George Soros. There are internet sites with tens of millions of views promoting this theory.

Is it possible that the reverse is now true? That Eylon Musk, Peter Thiel, and their crypto bros have replaced Michael Bloomberg and Miriam Adelson as policy influencers through their Ayn Rand-inspired crypto wallets?

These near trillionaires have their own ideology centered around power and the belief that superior humans (like them) should rule the planet. None have a soft spot for Jews or Zionism. They are not antisemitic, just indifferent to a cause that to them is both antiquated and irrelevant. Jaffa is so yesterday. Mars is tomorrow.

The MAGA GOP has shown, via DOGE, its willingness to turn over the entire government to its mega funders. What is now evident is it will also turn over foreign policy to them. From Ukraine to NATO the opinions of big backers dictates what policy is followed.

The reported $55 million AIPAC spent on this elections’ congressional candidates is
chicken feed compared to Musk’s $500 million. Follow the money to the change in Vance’s Israeli policy.

Hopefully billionaire backers of Israel like Larry Ellison, Bill Ackman, and John Paulson can make up the $4 billion withdrawal of American military aid.

This is the new reality in America. MAGA has not only cut its ties to Israel but is actively promoting the idea that it lost the midterm elections because of those ties.

Anyone surprised at this delusional thinking has not been paying attention the last ten years.