Commentary
Beauty queen stripped of crown for racist tweets takes over state GOP’s digital media
Raw Story · 4/30/26
“It’s very feasible that she might not feel pressure to disavow the views that she had. It might help her brand to be able to say to the Michigan GOP that she’s able to tap into edgy, young, right-wing culture.”
The Many Equivocations of Curt Mills
Jewish Currents · 4/16/26
“Yet their desire to stop foreign wars stems from the same “central concern” that motivates Christian nationalism at home, Ben Lorber, a senior researcher at the progressive think tank Political Research Associates who studies the far right, told me. “They’re trying to restore their vision of American honor and glory. Domestically, that looks like mass deportation; in foreign policy, it means pulling the US out of the Middle East to restore an American greatness subverted by Israel.””
College Republicans director made racist and sexist remarks on live streams
The Guardian · 3/30/26
“Schwemmer knows better than everyone that a lot of young men in conservative politics sympathize with Fuentes and agree with a lot of what he says, or find it very distasteful to disavow Fuentes.”
College Republicans tap MAGA influencer tied to Nick Fuentes for leadership role
MS Now · 3/10/26
“He has strategically downplayed his support for Fuentes’ movement to avoid controversy.”
A New PAC Wants to Counter Israel’s Influence. It Also Welcomes Hitler Apologists
The Intercept · 2/19/26
“If we give any quarter to antisemitism anywhere near our movements, we are opening ourselves up to the charges from Israel’s defenders,” said Ben Lorber, an author and researcher of antisemitism and white Christian nationalism. “It stands to really harm the movement.”
Florida Republicans, it’s past time to call out white nationalism
Tampa Bay Times · 1/23/26
James Fishback pushes white nationalism into Florida GOP’s race for governor
The Miami Herald · 1/20/26
“Ben Lorber, who studies the far right and antisemitism for Political Research Associates, said Fishback is sending a clear message to white nationalist groups: “I’m your guy.””
The Evangelicals Who Think Iran’s Protests Mean Jesus Is Returning
Mother Jones · 1/14/26
“Iran is an embodiment of the satanic force of fundamentalist Islam, arrayed in a ‘clash of civilizations’ against the Judeo-Christian West, represented by America and Israel. An apocalyptic war between these players is often seen as a precondition and sure sign of the End Times.”
Aux Etats-Unis, le mouvement trumpiste se perd en querelles internes
Le Temps · 12/25/25
The ADL Tried to Appease MAGA. The FBI Cut Ties with Them Anyway
Jewish Currents · 12/10/25
“Despite its sharp rightward bent, the ADL does come from a legacy of liberal advocacy, and they had been a major voice in combating radical right-wing movements. The MAGA movement sees this kind of work as an attack on white Christian America.”
Nick Fuentes’s mastery of the online far-right has fractured the MAGA movement
Fast Company · 11/24/25
“You can’t tell the story of Fuentes’s rise without telling the story of alternative tech platforms and transformations of large tech platforms…Great Replacement ideology is now mainstream. Christian Nationalism is now mainstream, and antisemitism is rapidly becoming mainstream too.”
The Firewall Against Nick Fuentes Is Crumbling
The Atlantic · 10/31/25
“The latest sit-down with Tucker Carlson represents “the crumbling of the last kind of firewall on the right against Nick Fuentes…he’s a barometer and a whisperer of real segments of the MAGA base that people like Tucker can’t ignore.””
Palestinian Christians Have a Warning for the American Church
Sojourners · 9/16/25
“I do think in a place like Israel/Palestine, there has to be systemic change of the fundamental structures of injustice that can come before everyone just gets along.”
The Baffler · 8/26/25
“Groups like Canary Mission muddy the waters…The political demands that are motivating the push for freedom for Palestine—these aren’t antisemitic…[Trump] sees no problem with dining with Nick Fuentes who regularly employs antisemitic rhetoric.”
Inside the New Group Giving Antisemitism Trainings at Harvard
Jewish Currents · 7/2/25
“At this moment, [universities] are facing an energized faculty and student protest movement in solidarity with Palestinians while they’re facing massive authoritarian pressure from the Trump administration and the pro-Israel movement…“Ultimately, the authoritarian regime won’t be satisfied by mere antisemitism trainings. They’re going to increasingly demand the liquidation of student groups, the dismantling of entire departments, the firing of professors. That’s where we’re headed.”
GOP leaders slammed Tarrant chair over post, but some embraced this hater
Fort Worth Star-Telegram · 6/30/25
“It’s almost like Israel exists as a magical totem [for Christian Zionists],” said Lorber, the co-author of “Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. “You’re really not actually allying with Jews as human beings,” but instead, treating claims that Israel represents Jewish interests as a “magical fetish object.”
Antisemitism is on the rise, but there’s no consensus on how to define it in Pa. — or in D.C.
Philadelphia Enquirer · 4/30/25
“I went through 9,000 points of [the ADL’s antisemitism] data,” said Ben Lorber, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates. Many incidents they call antisemitism are mischaracterized. “The methodology is flawed.”
Jewish Organizations Are Fighting Back Against Khalil Deportation
Truthout · 4/13/25
“It’s ironic, as many people pointed out, that it’s supposedly about protecting Jews from antisemitism. But very few Jewish groups were involved in creating the document.”
MAGA, Mahmoud Khalil, and the War for Free Speech on Campus
Podcast appearance · Inkstick Media · 3/31/25
Christian Zionism is on the March
Jacobin · 3/27/25
“Most presentations of Christian Zionism tend to caricature their theological beliefs as outlandish and fantastical, making it easier for some to dismiss the movement as fringe and not worth taking seriously. More broadly, the movement left is still figuring out how to understand and oppose Christian nationalism, of which Christian Zionism is the foreign policy expression.”
Religion Dispatches · 3/24/25
“The weaponization of “antisemitism,” according to Ben Lorber, allows “Christian nationalists [to] cynically position themselves as defenders of Jews while pursuing policies inimical to the safety and thriving of Jewish communities, along with our friends and neighbors.””
The Forward · 2/20/25
“The MAGA agenda is a complicated mixture of antisemitism and philosemitism. They view themselves as wanting to defend some Jews who they see as victims, especially if it helps them attack BLM and DEI.”
Jewish people must retain agency over their story, identities and narratives
Southern Poverty Law Center · 2/20/25
“Repressing progressive movements under the guise of protecting Jews.”
Interviewed · 8/24/24
Interviewed · 8/21/24
Interviewed · Institute for Public Accuracy · 8/19/24
“A lot has changed since October 7, but Christian Zionists have only supercharged their agenda.”
Far-right influencers turn against Trump campaign
Washington Post · 8/18/24
“This movement has the ability to move conservative discourse and to open up space far to the right of acceptable conservative opinion for people like Trump to move further rightward.”
HuffPost · 6/30/24
“They want to turn Jews into Christians, and ever since the Crusades and earlier, that kind of Christian opposition to Judaism, that Christian desire to annihilate Judaism, has been a large part of the antisemitism Jews have faced.”
Far Right Uses Antisemitism George Soros Trope to Attack Campus Protests
Southern Poverty Law Center · 5/16/24
“It’s counterintuitive that the Right is using these antisemitic conspiracies that Soros must be behind these protests. And they are doing that in the name of fighting antisemitism.”
Anti-Defamation League staff decry ‘dishonest’ campaign against Israel critics
The Guardian · 5/5/24
“It contributes to a distorted view. Parts of the ADL continue to do valuable work in monitoring and warning against the danger of the rising far right, but increasingly, that work is compromised by their reactionary approach on Israel.”
Trump, Netanyahu & the Weaponizing of Fear After October 7
Interviewed on Laura Flanders & Friends, PBS · 4/5/24
Right-Wing Influencers Are Fighting Over What It Means to Be White
The New Republic · 4/3/24
“It’s a sign of changing times that Nick was given space on a mainstream pundit’s platform to directly challenge a prominent conservative media CEO, that a groyper slogan took center stage in right-wing discourse.”
Controversial Pastor John Hagee Speaks at March for Israel in Washington
The Daily Beast · 11/14/23
“The most powerful antisemite in America, Christian Zionist leader Pastor John Hagee, channels his triumphalist, war-hungry imperial theology before a massive crowd of Jews whom he views as cannon fodder for the End Times. Truly chilling moment.”
Mike Johnson Is Not Your Run-of-the-Mill Christian Zionist
The New Republic · 11/8/23
For Many Christian Zionists, Israeli Protesters are a Threat to God’s Plan
Religion Dispatches · 4/4/23
Turning Point USA Has a Groyper Problem
Right Wing Watch · 3/22/23
“America First has long viewed TPUSA as symbolic of the out-of-touch, ineffectual, and politically compromised conservative establishment.”
Kanye is Now a White Nationalist Meme to Recruit College Kids
Vice · 1/31/23
“Groypers are constantly struggling to find ways to go harder than Turning Point USA, and antisemitism is kind of the last frontier for that.”
Overt U.S. antisemitism returns with Trump, Kanye West
Washington Post · 10/27/22
“The right is trying to regain power it felt it lost in 2020, so it makes sense, in addition to virulent anti-LGBTQ bigotry, that antisemitism is in the mix again.”
Christian Nationalists Training Political Soldiers for the Long Haul
Daily Kos · 8/7/22
“American Virtue appears to be a venue for young White nationalists to curry favor with a new crop of MAGA-aligned political figures.”
A Crumbling Wall of Separation
The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance podcast · 5/14/22
Ben Lorber on GOP-Led Crossover with White Nationalists
It’s Going Down podcast · 3/25/22
The Terrifying Alliance Between End Times Christian Zionists and Donald Trump
In These Times · 10/5/20
“Christian Zionists essentially think all Jewish people are caricatures of the ancient Israelites — a caricature they associate, in turn, with the modern state of Israel — and that the loyalty of all Jews is, or should be, to Israel.”
Ben Lorber 