It is easy to laugh at the deportation of Milo Yiannopoulos, and we should not let that stop us. But we, his former colleagues on Telegraph Blogs
, should be doing something to help a brother in need. After all, at least two have since been raised to the peerage, while Tim Stanley is a Radio Four darling from Thought for the Day
, to The Moral Maze
, to this morning’s programme about Pat Buchanan. Buchanan was a cofounder of The American Conservative
, which unlike the Telegraph
has even paid for my copy, and in which Jason Jones writes:
I recently wrote about a new elite strategy of peppering us with anti-Arab, anti-Muslim propaganda ahead of the 2026 elections. Since then, we’ve also started to hear quite a lot about a sinister “red-green” coalition—red for communists, green for Islamists—threatening the very existence of our republic. The propagandists making this pitch employ astonishingly broad definitions: By “communists,” they mostly mean young people outraged that their economic future has been mortgaged away for endless wars; and by “Islamists,” they mean Muslims (or even just Middle Easterners, irrespective of religion).
It should be clear to all of us, of course, that this new “red-green” canard is not a native-grown, conservative defense of our constitutional order from outside enemies. On the contrary, it’s nothing less than an attempt by our ruling class to force our own coalition to dismantle itself—less than two years after we handily won the 2024 election. And rather than let them make us fear the neighbors who helped us defeat the War Party, conservatives and Christians should lock arms with those neighbors once again—yes, including Muslims and so-called “communists” (again, by that they really just mean justifiably angry young Americans)—and hold the line against the Deep State saboteurs whom the MAGA movement was established to defeat.
A centerpiece of the Trump campaign was opposition to war and the political manipulations that lead to it. The brinkmanship in Ukraine threatened to bring about a global thermonuclear exchange. Our establishment in DC had used our taxpayer dollars to fund some of the worst excesses of that war—while our diplomats worked to scuttle peace efforts and provoke Russia. The Biden administration had also made us all a party to the Gaza genocide, providing some of the resources and weapons used by Israel to kill tens of thousands of civilians. President Joe Biden himself even referred to Netanyahu's “legitimate argument” for war crimes after a 2023 chat with the Israeli leader.
As I wrote shortly before President Trump won his reelection bid, it was no surprise “that Arab Americans and Lebanese Americans are announcing they won’t vote for Harris, and the War Party that’s destroying so many Middle Eastern lives.” On the eve of the election, I warned that the whole character and credibility of Trump’s role in global events “hinged on his courageous opposition to senseless violence and war.”
The returns proved the point. Trump carried Dearborn, Michigan, where more than half the population is Middle Eastern or North African, with 42 percent of the vote to Kamala Harris’s 36 percent. CBS News summarized the result plainly: “Arab American voters helped Trump win Michigan.” An analysis by the Guardian found that Trump gained about 9,000 votes across Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck, while Harris received 22,000 fewer votes there than Biden had four years before. The War Party lost its old claim on these Americans, Trump welcomed many of them into his coalition, and their revolt made a meaningful difference in the swing state that gave him 15 electoral votes.
The 2024 election was thus a clear win for the growing majority of Americans who are morally outraged by our political elites’ love of war and total unconcern for human dignity. A victory, in fact, too good to be true. But who could foresee the degree of betrayal the second Trump administration would represent: abetment of the Gaza genocide, continued support for Israel’s explicit policy of ethnic cleansing (including of indigenous Christians) in Lebanon, and a whole new war in the Middle East that continues after six months and regularly threatens to snowball into a global conflict.
And now comes the distraction. We are told that the great danger before us is a “red-green” alliance between the radical Left and Islamism—and then, almost in the same breath, Islamism becomes Islam, Muslims become Arabs, and finally horror at the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians becomes opposition to Western civilization itself.
But many of the Lebanese and Arab Americans being smeared in this campaign are Christians whose families have endured the very Islamist movements that the propaganda hamfistedly suggests they represent simply because they have “foreign-sounding” last names or speak with accents. And many Muslim Americans are socially conservative parents who joined us precisely because they reject the ruling class’s assaults on the family. Whatever their religion, these are our American neighbors. In 2024, they stood beside Catholics, evangelicals, working-class Democrats, independents, and countless others to reject the War Party.
What we are watching is an inverse color revolution. Instead of depicting a foreign uprising as the spontaneous will of the people, the old elites paint our new democratic coalition in sinister colors until that coalition destroys itself. They paint anti-war voters red, their Muslim neighbors green, and tell Christians that civilization depends upon fearing them both—upon shattering the unity of a coalition that would otherwise threaten the ancien régime. Worst of all, thanks to the treachery of many in the Trump administration, all of this is presented as a seamless continuation of the MAGA movement. It is not. It is a jarring departure from that movement’s purpose. Such a grave departure that “Trump” has now become synonymous with senseless bloodshed and Epstein-style corruption, and “MAGA” has become synonymous with the neoconservative foreign policy of talking heads like Mark Levin.
The real war—the long war in which the original MAGA movement seemed to score a decisive victory in 2024—is far from over. The same enemy who turned MAGA into a tool of the old War Party now wants to make the betrayal permanent and consign the coalition that threatened it to the ash heap of history. If these propagandists can persuade Christians to fear Muslims as a class, peace voters that their former allies are authoritarian Marxists, and Middle Eastern Americans that MAGA never valued them, it can dismember our coalition without ever even having to honestly debate it.
But two years ago, we broke the artificial rules of engagement that the ruling classes have always used to keep the military-industrial complex untouched and running smoothly—and we won. We’d learned that they play hardball while telling us hardball isn’t allowed. That they’d fight dirty while insisting we keep our noses clean. But there’s one rule they particularly rely on whenever the American people meaningfully challenge them: we must remain preoccupied with trivial debates and petty divisions. In this way, we are unable to take a stand on the things that matter most—war and peace, future-destroying debt, and the slow erosion of our civil liberties and traditional values.
The 2024 MAGA movement was a historic coalition, and one that I was honored to be a part of. What made it great was its heart, its humaneness, and its humble neighborliness—all of which was manifested in a collective willingness, on the part of its members, to subordinate their own particular interests to those of the country, and to concern themselves with humanity as such. And nowhere was humanity threatened more unmistakably than in our foreign policy’s attacks on human dignity, especially in Palestine. By knitting ourselves together against that evil, we achieved a victory that baffled political strategists and prognosticators on both sides of the political aisle. Our candidate even won the popular vote—the first Republican to do so in two decades—and with it a historic mandate in favor of peace and against corruption.
As I write this, I have just returned from a journey through Southern Lebanon, where I drove with my team over roads torn apart by Israeli tanks and airstrikes, and where locals—Christian and Muslim alike—live in real danger and constant fear from both sides in the renewed Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, explicitly said that their new Lebanon offensive—sparked by the disastrous Iran war—is explicitly modeled on their Gaza campaign. I can tell you firsthand that the consequences our foreign policy elites produce are real. Yes, we have been betrayed. But not by any of the members of our coalition. At least, not by any of those who engaged sincerely and diligently in this war for our future from the start. So rather than take our strategic advice from those who betrayed and disfigured our movement, I say we stick together. I say we stick together and win again.
As Jones wrote early last month:
Have you seen the ruling classes’ latest ploy for holding onto power rather than allow the public to hold them accountable through straightforward and honest elections? It’s clear as day to anyone with eyes to see. And the fact that the powerful now operate as much within the “MAGA” brand as in the Democratic establishment shouldn’t blind us. If we let it, then even some of the best of us will soon be taken in – becoming useful idiots for the same ruling classes that the MAGA movement was founded to oppose.
I’m referring to the new game of stirring up hatred against our neighbors of Middle-Eastern and Eastern heritage and labeling all dissenters against U.S.- and Israeli-led wars and war crimes as “radicals” and “communists.” We see this new establishment ploy playing out in the latest anti-establishment electoral victory in Michigan, especially when it comes to the rhetoric surrounding Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed – an outspoken critic of Israeli-U.S. foreign policy and of the military-industrial-complex Trumpism originally presented itself as being against.
GOP Senator Ted Cruz and maniacal pro-war Trump advisor Laura Loomer say El-Sayed’s primary victory represents the beginning of a “communist takeover of the Democratic Party” and (at the same time!) an “Islamic takeover of America” at large. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace flatly says El-Sayed is a “terrorist.” Conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings: “This man wants Israelis, Arabs, Americans & anyone else who steps foot in Israel to die.” Mike Pompeo: El-Sayed is a “Hamas supporter” (in fact the candidate has condemned Hamas). Neocon John Podhoretz came up with a particularly telling conflation of Democratic Socialists of America and Muslims, calling El-Sayed a “DSA jihadist.” Meanwhile, President Donald Trump says El-Sayed is both a communist and a candidate who “hates Jews” and “hates Israel.” Trump also continually draws attention to the candidate’s name – clearly making the point that a person with such an un-American name (as if there were such a thing) has no business in office.
Trump is perhaps one of the more inadvertently honest of the public figures now serving as slavish lackeys of the ruling classes. At least he names Israel as the thing on behalf of which he opposes El-Sayed – though he also engages in the old false conflation of all Jews with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s corrupt and unpopular government. Because yes, all of this fomenting of hatred is about one thing: U.S.-Israeli violence and crimes – especially against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
But here’s where those of us with eyes to see can find the whole point and the whole nature of this new ploy: Since that violence has proved to be morally indefensible (every poll shows the public’s moral outrage against Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing operation in the West Bank), the ruling classes have directed their servants – in the media, among advocacy groups, in Congress, and even in the White House – to instead simply stir up public hate and fear against Muslims as Jihadists and against political resistance as communist and inherently un-American.
As With All True Top-Down Ops, This Ploy is ‘Bipartisan’
One of the surest signs we’re looking at a top-down, artificial propaganda effort to defend the pro-war uniparty or the Deep State is the fact that Establishment Democrats are just as vehemently onboard with the op as the so-called “MAGA” commentators are. Corporate news anchors are suggesting El-Sayed is a threat to “the future of the state of Israel” in interviews with his defeated opponent, self-described “Zionist Democrat” Haley Stevens. The Democratic establishment strenuously opposed him in the primary. There’s even a pro-Israel astroturfed “Democrats for Mike Rogers” campaign set up to defeat him in the general.
We saw similar Democratic behavior in the recent election of anti-war Democratic New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. It may not come as a tremendous surprise that he’s been openly attacked by MAGA talking heads in ways that would be unthinkable if applied to Italians, Irishmen, or Jews. And even the open references to his “Jihadism” and baseless warnings that he harbors a genocidal hatred of Jews and poses a threat to Western civilization wouldn’t be so troubling if they weren’t so grotesquely tied to the superficial aspects of his ethnicity and religion. Photos still go viral among MAGA influencers of Mamdani wearing a traditional kurta along with comments suggesting the mere sight of something suggesting ethnic difference is inherently threatening to our nation.
But in his race against Mamdani, Democrat Andrew Cuomo showed Mamdani in an ad eating rice with his hand, Indian-fashion, with an AI-generated supporter shouting “globalize the intifada” while setting fire to an American flag – a Palestinian flag flying proudly in the background. As their behavior in both New York and Michigan show, establishment Democrats are capable of being just as openly bigoted when it comes to defending the interests of their masters.
The Good News: Inshallah, It Won’t Work
No serious person could mistake me for a socialist. I disagree with the economics of El-Sayed and Mamdani as much as any other conservative, and as a Roman Catholic I certainly don’t share their Muslim faith. But their policies, their religion, and their criticism of Israel does not make them “un-American” – let alone “terrorists.” In fact, it’s suggestions like that that come closer to an attack on the true American way of life, which is characterized by honest public engagement with fellow citizens, by forthright debate, and by love of neighbor.
When I look into the immediate political future, a phrase comes to mind that I have become familiar with in my visits to the Holy Land and surrounding regions: Inshallah – a brief prayer meaning simply “God-willing” or “if God wills it.” As my friend and Vulnerable People Project colleague Khalil Sayegh can attest as a Christian from Gaza, both Muslims and Christians – and in fact even atheists – throughout the Arab-speaking world utter this phrase regularly. It’s not only harmless, but it’s pious – and its pervasiveness is the mark of a culture in which piety is still deeply engrained, and we hope it one day will be again in American public discourse. But – you guessed it – saying this prayer is one of the many things that could get you labeled an enemy of your own nation if we allow ourselves to be manipulated into operating by the rules of the ruling classes’ ploy.
But for now, the future looks far from hopeless. El-Sayed just defeated Haley Stevens in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary this week. That’s despite the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spending a record-breaking $30,000,000 to boost his Democratic establishment opponent, Haley Stevens. (A huge majority of Jewish voters, by the way, oppose AIPAC spending money raised predominantly on the right to influence Democratic primaries – so this top-down effort to tip a free election is a scandal in itself.)
Why did El-Sayed succeed? Because his supporters backed him in large part for his unbending opposition to the violent elite that we all, whatever our political background, increasingly want to throw off. And they saw through the ploy that calls all dissenters either “Jihadists” or “communists.” And I mean all dissenters – even those whose main complaints are just the domestic outcomes of those military blunders. Do you have a problem with gas and grocery prices spiking due to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran? Then the propagandists for the ruling classes will likely label you an Islamist or a communist (they use the two, nonsensically, almost interchangeably).
So if we take seriously our moral duty to oppose the bloodshed our ruling classes have forced us into complicity with by our taxpayer dollars, then we will not be taken in. We will stand in solidarity with the vulnerable – the victims of our past failures to hold warmongers accountable at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion. And the ruling classes’ ploy won’t work on us this time. Inshallah!
Can the Trumpian GOP and its media allies save the midterms — and perhaps the 2028 presidential election — by leaning hard into post-9/11-style themes about Muslim infiltration and the menace of “Shariah law”? The answer is, likely, no. But that isn’t stopping them from trying against Abdul El-Sayed — popularly known as AES — the Democratic nominee in the crucial Michigan Senate race. The reason: Republicans don’t have much else to run on, what with persistent inflation, a new Middle East quagmire, an ill-conceived tariff regime that hits Michigan extra-hard, and a dullard of an ex-congressman as the GOP contender — Mike Rogers.
The latest anti-AES hit came via the newly Trumpified CBS News, which on Monday ran the following bit of commentary, masquerading as news: “As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny.” (Commentary-as-news because it was the sort of “news” item in which the outlet itself gins up the very controversy it claims to cover.)
El-Sayed was 16 when the 9/11 terror attacks took place, and as many pointed out on social media, it seemed his half-Egyptian background and Muslim faith were the only real peg on which to hang the insinuation that the former public-health official is a certified Bad Guy. The CBS piece did dredge up old tweets in which El-Sayed called for a response to Covid that would be “commensurate with the nation’s post-9/11 mobilization”.
That was it, really. As Eric Levitz of Vox pointed out, the notion that America could’ve done more domestically instead of prosecuting two decades’ worth of fruitless post-9/11 wars used to be axiomatic among the MAGA faithful. President Trump himself put it this way back in 2015: “We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people. If we could’ve spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges and all of the other problems — our airports and all of the other problems we’ve had— we would’ve been a lot better off.”
Trump echoed such messages in 2020 and again in 2024. And that’s what drew a growing share of young voters — including blacks, Hispanics, and Muslim Americans — to his campaigns. But this time around, Trump allowed himself to be manoeuvred by Benjamin Netanyahu and his American spokesmen into a massively unpopular war. He can no longer credibly run as a leader committed to foreign restraint and domestic reconsolidation, so he repeatedly mispronounces AES’s name to underscore the sheer foreign scariness of the high-school athletic all-star with the white grandparents.
Rogers, the Republican nominee, has joined in too, describing Egypt as El-Sayed’s home and the true source of his attachment. El-Sayed was born in the United States, and for what it’s worth, when I interviewed him for UnHerd, he identified Egypt as one of the countries to which he would cut US foreign aid. Unfortunately for Rogers, he lacks the ideological flexibility and rhetorical acuity needed to distance himself from the Iran war and other Trump II excesses the way other Republicans like, say, Susan Collins of Maine, can.
Rogers has always been a down-the-line hawkish party loyalist, leaving him without a message as El-Sayed pulls ahead in Michigan polls and on betting markets by running on Medicare for All. This is the real tragedy of the GOP’s El-Sayed desperation act: the party has been forced to trade a young, multiracial populist coalition for tired messaging fit only for an ageing audience.
Hashim Thaçi is somehow both a Wahhabi and a Maoist, so that he really is what the Tea Party imagined Barack Obama to be and what MAGA imagines Abdul El-Sayed to be. Thaçi’s Kosovo Liberation Army was also NATO’s and the EU’s instrument for the creation of the world’s highest per capita source of IS jihadis, a major entry point into Europe for trafficked women and for the heroin that bankrolled the Taliban’s Afghanistan, and the key to the backstories of numerous unlicensed firearms on the streets of the United Kingdom.
Since the two biggest domestic threats come from Islamism and the Far Right, then one trusts that Prevent would take a dim view of “The first and most important lesson from the Quran is the impossibility of any connection between Islamic and non-Islamic systems” or of “I would never allow a Serb, a Jew or a Gypsy to marry into my family”.
Although it is in Bosnia and Herzegovina that it is constitutionally impossible for a Jew or a Gypsy to become President or a Senator, it was the first that was uttered by the man responsible, Alija Izetbegović, whose work as a recruitment sergeant for the Waffen SS Handschar Division led to his 1946 imprisonment for eight years, during which he became a Wahhabi rabble-rouser for an Islamically pure Bosnia-Herzegovina, leading to his reincarceration for 14 years in 1983, although he was released under foreign pressure in 1988.
The second, meanwhile, issued from the lips of Franjo Tuđman, who denied the Holocaust in which Izetbegović had participated, who recreated in the 1990s the full panoply of 1940s Fascism on the borders of Italy and Austria, whose removal of the constitutional recognition of the Serbs as one of Croatia’s two founding peoples led to the largest ethnic cleansing in the breakup of Yugoslavia, and whose statue stands in the capital of a NATO and EU member state.
As in most wars, there was no good side in those by which Yugoslavia was carved up into morsels digestible by global capital. The death of Ratko Mladić has freed up a space for at least one of the four of Britain’s nine living former Prime Ministers whose cases to be there were unanswerable: the one who said that Israel had the right to cut off power and water to more than one million children in Gaza, and who furnished it with arms and intelligence accordingly; the one who in March 2022 scuppered a peace deal in Ukraine in return for one million pounds from the same Christopher Harborne who supplied Ukraine with drones even as he supplied the United States military with jet fuel refined from Russian and Iranian oil, and who famously also gave five million pounds to Nigel Farage; the one who brought back slave markets to Libya; and the Iraq one, enough said.
