We need to closely monitor views of J D Vance, especially on Israel and anti-Semitism

A generation ago, there was a political grouping called “Atari Democrats,” the most prominent of whom was the late Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, who favored high tech and, if not actively pro-business, were at least not anti-business. Needless to say, that wing of the party is now extinct. Today we have the “Qatari Republicans,” most notably Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Steve Bannon, who likewise deviate from the mainstream of their party insofar as they share the leftist/Islamist hatred of Israel, and more broadly anti-Semitism. Just two years ago, Carlson was a conventional pro-Israel anti-terrorism conservative. What happened to produce this change?

One theory that has been advanced is the “Qatar connection.” Gila Isaacson reported at JFeed that “Sheikh Khalid Al Hail, the exiled leader of the Qatari National Democratic Party and a vocal critic of the Qatari royal family, has publicly accused Tucker Carlson of having financial interests with the government of Qatar.” He even went so far as to say “I 100% believe he has financial ties to the Qatari government… Tucker Carlson is basically part of the propaganda machine placed by the Qatari government.” Since Sheikh Khalid is a political opponent of the Qatari regime, this leaves him open to the charge of having political motives for denigrating his opponents, hence he has a credibility problem. Moreover, no credible evidence has been shown that Carlson has financial ties to Qatar. Nevertheless, there remains the question of his December 2025 interview with Qatar’s Prime Minister at the Doha Forum, followed by his announcement that he was purchasing a home in Doha, Qatar, besides the odd change in his behavior. He has had a parade of right-wing extremists as guests, most notably historian Daryl Cooper in September 2024, who claimed that Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the real villain of World War II because, as summarized by AI, he allegedly “turned what he described as a “regional conflict” over German territorial grievances into a global war that killed tens of millions.

“The Holocaust was, in his [Cooper’s] view, ‘an accident’ caused by Germany’s lack of preparation to handle millions of prisoners of war and political detainees, leading to mass deaths in camps.”