For more than a generation, the American Right maintained a foreign-policy consensus that included unwavering support for Israel. From Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, support for Israel was a connective tissue binding together a sometimes-loose coalition. Now, the consensus is breaking, though for reasons having little to do with Israel itself.
The new opposition to Israel by figures like Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is not driven by theological dispute or reasoned critique. It is a byproduct of the New Right effort to redefine the conservative movement for the post-Trump era. Israel is simply a symbol of the old Republican order that the New Right hopes to displace.
For decades, the GOP rested on three pillars made up of Evangelical Christians, the Reagan-Bush foreign-policy establishment and free-market institutionalists. Support for Israel was the one position all three embraced. That consensus is the target.
The New Right — populist, isolationist, and led by personalities who know how to milk new political platforms for money and attention — has created its own incentives to challenge the pro-Israel consensus. Personal brands in the movement rely on always-escalating contrarianism toward Republican tradition. They are chasing a younger online generation of conservatives who are deeply skeptical of foreign entanglements, domestic institutions, and unmoved by the moral frameworks of the Old Right. They have even made hostility to conservative mega-donors central to their message, and Israel policy in the GOP has long been associated with donor commitment. This is resulting in a New Right definition of “America First” as “America Only” and based not on the evolution of traditional nationalist arguments, but on the demand for near-total disengagement from global commitments.
What they seek is a Republican Party less tied to Reagan’s legacy, less anchored by churches, less committed to alliances, and more defined by an online populism that elevates grievance over governance. They want to frame the Old Right as antiquated, backward-looking, traditionalists, while rebranding as relevant, post-truth and “just asking questions.” In their emerging worldview, support for Israel is a marker of the Old Right, while skepticism is a badge that shows membership in the New Right.
For the New Right, this realignment clarifies winners and losers. Politicians and influencers who thrive on attacking the GOP establishment are the winners. So are the isolationists and post-liberal nationalists who have long argued that America’s foreign interests should retract. The losers are evangelicals, traditional conservatives, national-security hawks, donor networks that shaped the party’s priorities for decades, and yes, pro-Israel leaders and organizations.
The consequences will be visible in the coming GOP primary. Candidates the New Right promotes will increasingly embrace anti-aid and anti-interventionist platforms, and they will attack “neocons,” Evangelicals, and pro-Israel groups as relics of a dying establishment. Israel’s policy will function less as a foreign-policy debate and more as a proxy for the internal struggle over the party’s identity.
President Trump complicates this picture. While he remains broadly pro-Israel and does not work to alienate Evangelical voters, the movement that formed around him is headed in a different direction. Rather than steering the ideological trajectory of the Right, he is being pulled along by it.
The shift is especially pronounced among younger conservative men. They are more secular, more anti-war, less institutionally attached and more shaped by TikTok, YouTube and algorithmic contrarianism than by the scars of 9/11 or the benefits of the Reagan era. Their skepticism of Israel is based on a broader rejection of alliances and institutions they associate with an older political generation, rather than an understanding of what the Old Right truly embraces: principles that transcend any political era and are always relevant because they are right and the keys to ordered liberty.
Unfortunately, the transformation is unlikely to reverse. Evangelical influence is waning, donor power is diminishing, and online platforms increasingly reward anti-establishment personalities. Support for Israel will remain a significant current within the GOP, but the consensus around Israel that once defined the party is gone. Going forward, Israel will be another dividing symbol in a movement that prefers to advance internal factions rather than shared values.
The new skepticism toward Israel is not primarily about the Middle East, American security, or even shared cultural heritage. It is about political power, influence, and who will lead the post-Trump GOP based on who builds the largest following. That means Israel is not the cause of the fractured GOP. It is the victim of a consensus that is no longer useful to the emerging leaders of the New Right.
The GOP conservative leaders need to intentionally call out the New Right and realign the party around God-ordained institutions — church, family, rightful civil government and American First (not America Only) foreign policy — if we want to have a movement strong enough to protect liberty and inspiring enough for a new generation.
Jenna Ellis served as the senior legal adviser and personal counsel to the 45th president of the United States. She hosts “Jenna Ellis in the Morning” weekday mornings on American Family Radio, as well as the podcast “On Demand with Jenna Ellis,” providing valuable commentary on the issues of the day from both a biblical and constitutional perspective. She is the author of “The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution.”
