What happens when a rising conservative faction challenges "America First"?
In the latest episode of the ILTV News Podcast, Epoch Times Associate Producer Karys Rhea explores the growing influence of the “woke right.” This controversial movement, characterized by anti-Zionist rhetoric and a fixation on revisionist history, is shaking the foundations of conservative values, Rhea said.
With figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens at the forefront, the ideological battle raises critical questions: Is Israel’s role in American politics at risk? And can Donald Trump’s movement withstand this internal divide?
“These people say they are part of the America First movement. They’re very clear that they consider themselves patriots,” Rhea explained. “These are people who are usually proud Christians, people who are anti-censorship, pro-faith, pro-family, anti-globalism, anti-Marxism, and anti-elitism. But people have observed that it seems like both their beliefs and their actions say otherwise.”
Rhea highlighted, for example, that much like the woke left—which sees racism where it isn’t and ignores it where it is—the woke right does the same when it comes to Christian persecution. She said they overlook the routine slaughter of Christians occurring in Africa and the Middle East, where churches are being defaced and desecrated.
“They focus on who they think are the ultimate oppressors of Christians: Jews, right?”
Additionally, Rhea referenced an analogy from author Bari Weiss: the woke left knocks down statues of America’s sacred history, while the woke right destroys their legacies.
“There is nothing wrong with talking about Martin Luther King or Winston Churchill and maybe discussing some of their flaws,” Rhea said. “But that is not what these people are doing. They are coming with a wrecking ball, and they are trying to turn upside down the entire notion of history that we have to paint it as something different.
“And that is why I say fundamentally that these people hate America, and they hate the West, because they are trying to destroy it in order to create this new America that they want to see,” she said.
Will this have an impact on the Trump administration, which Israel expects to be one of the most pro-Israel governments in a potential second term? So far, Trump has not appointed anyone who shares the woke right’s point of view, Rhea said. However, she added that she knows from insiders “there is intense pressure on him to do so.”