In my previous essay, “Trump’s Broken Promise: From ‘America First’ to ‘America Only’ – and Antisemitism,” I argued that the recent resurgence of antisemitic language on parts of the political right is not random. It is not primarily about Jews themselves. It is about the failure of a nationalist vision that promised clarity, cohesion, and self-sufficiency but could not deliver them. When “America First” failed to produce a workable national philosophy—when it offered anger without structure and belonging without definition—it faced an internal crisis. Rather than revise the ideology, some within the movement began looking for a saboteur. Throughout history, Jews have filled that role because they are the boundary case for nationalism: a people whose history reveals the weaknesses of narrow, closed identities.

I argued that antisemitism works as an ideology’s fail-safe. When a populist movement is unable to deliver on its promises, it explains failure by pointing to unseen Jewish interference. Jews serve as a symbol of globalization, diffusion, and complexity, the things that threaten the closed, bordered, simplistic worldview of nationalist ideology. The “dual loyalty” charges and conspiracy theories resurface not because anything has changed about Jewish power, but because the ideology cannot face up to reality in a complex, interdependent world.

The present analysis of the Carlson–Huckabee interview reinforces that argument in real time. What we see in that exchange is not simply harsh criticism of Israel. We see the same displacement of responsibility that I described earlier. American political complexity—war policy, diplomatic entanglements, institutional opacity—is not treated as the product of American decisions within a global system. Instead, it is framed as the result of external pressure and foreign control. Sovereignty is said to be compromised. Institutions are described as captured. The ideological failure of nationalist self-sufficiency is repaired by attributing authorship elsewhere.

In other words, the interview illustrates the mechanism I previously outlined. When “America First” becomes “America Only,” it cannot tolerate evidence that modern power is interconnected and shared. Rather than admit that no nation operates in isolation, the narrative shifts toward the claim that America is not acting freely at all. That move preserves nationalist innocence. It also reopens........

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