The MAGA coalition is dead. Before progressives celebrate, they should recognize that some of its worst elements have found common ground with them, and helped build the coalition that returned Democrats to power in Congress.
Vice President J.D. Vance made that convergence clear in his Nov. 4 post-election assessment. Of course, he framed his argument in language he can defend. But the message I heard beneath it was familiar: Costs are too damn high, and the Jews are to blame. That is how a dog whistle works.
He might as well have rebroadcast the grocery-store commercial supporting Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed that blamed American hardship on spending for Israel. Never mind that spending on Israel is in reality a subsidy for the American arms industry, on which Israel is required to spend most of the "aid." And never mind that it is an infinitesimal percentage of the national budget. Facts are an inconvenient thing to Jew-haters.
El-Sayed’s own campaign separately featured Vance's best friend, Tucker Carlson, attacking Republican Mike Rogers over his support for Israel. The political overlap is unmistakable. Hostility toward Israel has become a point of agreement between the groyper wing of the MAGA coalition and the Islamist wing of the progressive coalition.
And the underlying message is familiar: Your life would be better if not for the Jews, or the Jewish state supposedly controlling your leaders.
This did not begin with Vance’s election analysis. At an October 2025 Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi, a student questioned America’s support for Israel while accusing Judaism of hostility toward Christianity. Rather than debate the premise, Vance responded, “When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they are not controlling THIS president.”
Let's be clear. Our affordability crisis did not begin with the war in Iran. Pandemic shutdowns disrupted production, supply chains, employment and ordinary commerce. The federal government responded with enormous spending and bailouts under both President Trump and Biden. With the economy practically shutting down for months, Halston Media and many other small local businesses were kept afloat with these bailouts.
Those payments helped keep households afloat, but they also sustained demand while supply was constrained. All of this contributed to massive inflation.
Americans are still paying those higher prices. When inflation slows, prices generally continue rising, just more slowly. If a family’s grocery bill rises from $100 to $110 and then to $113, inflation has declined. The family still needs another $13.
But Vance and his ideological pal El-Sayed and their groyper/progressive alliance explain away the accumulated consequences of American policy by pointing toward Israel.
Yes, the Iran war raised energy costs. But American presidents make American foreign policy.
Trump, to his credit, defended his decision to confront Iran even after acknowledging its political cost. He maintained that preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon justified the decision.
Vance owes Americans an accounting of his own.
He played a leading role in negotiations that produced concessions without durable peace. The June agreement lifted the American naval blockade and offered Iran oil-sanctions relief. Iranian attacks on commercial shipping resumed barely a week later. Months of negotiations, intermittent fighting and declarations of progress followed. By October, Vance acknowledged that Washington remained uncertain how decisions were even being made in Tehran.
That is a damning admission from someone central to the negotiating effort.
The administration moved between military pressure and diplomatic assurances without delivering a clear conclusion. Americans absorbed the costs, gasoline remained a political liability, and public frustration accumulated. Vance helped shape that approach. He cannot discuss its consequences as though he were an observer.
Before suggesting that our relationship with Israel needs to change, he should explain why his diplomacy failed to deliver what Americans were promised.
And Americans should remember that Iran’s regime did not become our enemy because of Israel.
In November 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The revolutionary regime endorsed the takeover, and 52 Americans endured 444 days in captivity. Eight American service members died during the failed rescue mission. The hostages were finally released in January 1981.
In October 1983, Iran’s proxy Hezbollah bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American service members.
The same applies to Oct. 7. In its first-anniversary account, the State Department identified 46 Americans among those Hamas murdered. Americans. Jewish identity does not diminish American citizenship. These were our fellow citizens murdered by an Iranian proxy organization.
Jews constitute roughly 0.2 percent of humanity, about one person in 500. There are more than 2 billion Muslims and more than 2 billion Christians. Yet a people numbering only about 15 million is assigned almost supernatural responsibility for everyone else’s problems.
Antisemitism accommodates whatever contradiction is necessary. Jews are blamed for capitalism and communism. When we preserve our traditions, we refuse to assimilate. When we assimilate, we are infiltrating society. When we are powerless, we are treated with contempt. When we acquire the means to defend ourselves, our strength becomes evidence against us.
We are told we do not belong in other people’s countries, then condemned for insisting on a country of our own.
Progressives should also stop treating criticism of El-Sayed or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as evidence of Islamophobia. Their political judgments deserve scrutiny. Their faith does not place those judgments beyond examination.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot. Those countries have also outlawed Hezbollah. These are Muslim-majority countries. Their actions demonstrate that opposition to Islamic terrorist organizations is not anti-Muslim.
Politicians should be able to state clearly where they stand on movements that excuse terrorism or seek to impose religious rule.
Let's also not forget that millions of Iranians were cheering on America and Israel, even as the Islamic Republic slaughtered tens of thousands of their own citizens. What about the genocide there? Or is it only a genocide when Jews fight a defensive war against a terrorist organization that treats its own population as human shields?
After the March attack on Michigan’s Temple Israel, El-Sayed condemned the violence, then offered the phrase “hurt people hurt people,” discussing the attacker’s connection to Hezbollah family members who were killed by Israel.
Both El-Sayed and Mamdani pay lip service to their Jewish constituents. But both politicians are unmistakably champions of the protestors on campuses and on city streets, many of whom wear Hamas garb, celebrating the slaughter that occurred on Oct. 7.
Michigan does not explain the entire national result. Here in New York’s 17th Congressional District, Cait Conley campaigned as a supporter of Israel, albeit with qualifications. But I cannot help wondering whether Mike Lawler’s unabashed support for Israel and his leadership against antisemitism also alienated voters on the antisemitic right.
I have seen local conservative Facebook groups, particularly in Putnam County, where people have posted caricatures of Jews with exaggerated noses and skullcaps, images straight out of Nazi propaganda. These "conservative" groypers are spewing the same hateful language as El-Sayed and Mamdani. I have a feeling none of them were pulling the lever for Lawler.
I am describing a dangerous point of convergence, one of several forces at work in this election. The willingness of extremists on opposing sides to find common cause over Israel should alarm people in both parties.
The consequences reach beyond elections.
A “Boycott Ride” planned for Nov. 8 in Philadelphia targeted Jewish-owned restaurants, with promotional language demanding that establishments described as Zionist leave the city. These Jewish owners run American businesses and they have no connection to Israeli politics.
Progressives should also consider a historical warning about alliances built around a shared enemy.
In 1979, the Iranian communist Tudeh Party supported Ayatollah Khomeini and continued backing his government after the revolution. In 1983, the regime banned the party and arrested its leaders. In 1988, the Islamic Republic executed thousands of political prisoners, including members of leftist organizations and supporters of the Tudeh Party.
Progressive champions of intersectionality, where everyone is viewed through the lens of privilege vs. oppression, should understand that hostility toward Israel does not establish a commitment to women’s equality, gay rights, religious liberty or freedom of speech. Before embracing political partners, ask what would happen to those freedoms if the partners acquired power.
There is a larger warning here for America, too. The rule of law, freedom of conscience and the ability to contribute without having to surrender one’s identity are among the foundations on which Western civilization has flourished.
When a society abandons those principles for Jews, it weakens them for everyone.
Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews accompanied the destruction of democratic institutions and the rule of law. The regime that promised national renewal through exclusion and racial hatred ultimately brought catastrophe upon Germany itself. Its treatment of Jews was evidence of a profound moral and political collapse.
That is why Jews are often described as the canary in the coal mine. Rising antisemitism warns of something more dangerous than hostility toward one small minority. It reveals a growing willingness to replace individual responsibility with collective guilt.
Americans who are not Jewish should take this personally. A country in which Jews must bargain for their safety is a country retreating from the principles that protect every citizen. Confronting antisemitism is part of preserving the freedom and character of America itself.
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