A video of Michelle Malkin proudly explaining the mutual affinity between her and the Nick Fuentes–led, white-nationalist Groypers is circulating online. In it, Malkin remains fixated on the American government’s support for Israel and “zio-shills” who drive it.
Malkin uses Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) as this group’s avatar, hitting him for his “undying loyalty and defense of unlimited amounts of foreign aid to Israel and funding defenses of the Israeli borders when our borders are sieves.” She cast Crenshaw and the Groypers’ divergent positions on aiding America’s chief Middle Eastern — and arguably world — ally as emblematic of the “Grand Canyon–size gap between the grassroots of the conservative movement and the elite that joins hands with all these open-borders, socially licentious leftists.”
"Mommy Malkin" recounts how she earned her nickname thanks to her service in "the Groyper Wars of 2019" when she stood up for "the stars of the burgeoning America First movement" like Nick Fuentes. (Stick around to see her clever impersonation of the conservative establishment.) pic.twitter.com/GXIWNRU9UK
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 8, 2022
Set aside Crenshaw’s work on border security and Malkin’s desperate pandering to antisemites for a moment. Does anyone believe in their heart of hearts that the average Republican voter has a clue what “zio-shill” means? Does anyone believe that the average Republican voter, or conservative Republican, would agree that one of the chief problems confronting the United States right now is its support for the state of Israel?
If so, they would have to be entirely ignorant of American political dynamics vis-à-vis the Jewish state. Indeed, a 2021 Gallup survey found that Malkin’s position would place her among the Democratic, not the conservative, grassroots. By a 72-point margin — the largest of any ideological group — conservative Republicans are the most likely to sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians. Liberal Democrats view Israel most unfavorably, sympathizing with the Palestinians by a 15-point margin.
A Fox News poll conducted the same year showed that 67 percent of Republicans supporting selling weapons to Israel, compared with just 42 percent of Democrats.
Most genuine grassroots conservatives, the ones who knock on doors, volunteer at crisis-pregnancy centers, or show up at school-board meetings — as opposed to those who direct their energy toward heckling Crenshaw or commenting on Fuentes’s videos — couldn’t put enough distance between themselves and Malkin’s terminally online rhetoric, were they to understand it.
Malkin’s welcome to her views, but they’d be more well received among Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s fanbase than Donald Trump’s.