Leading neo-conservative writer Max Boot recently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s television show to defend his belligerent attitude toward Russia. Boot, a Russian Jewish immigrant who advocates US military intervention around the globe to advance liberal democracy, has been a fierce critic of President Donald Trump and his pivot toward an America First foreign policy – which he has likened to American Nazism. In examing US policy through the lense of what is good for “foreign-born Jews” (his words, not mine), Boot has attacked putting America’s interests first as “xenophobic” and a “mean, crabbed, selfish vision of America’s role in the world.” The neo-con intellectual also has been fairly open in writing about the fact that the roots of his hostility toward Putin and his Right-wing, pro-Christian regime lie in the Jews’ historical ethnic conflict with Russians.

In his debate with Tucker Carlson Boot attacked Russia as America’s number one threat and compared those such as Carlson who advocate a pragmatic approach to international disputes as morally degenerate. Carlson repeatedly blasted Boot for moralizing foreign policy, though never explicitedly condemned him for putting Israeli and Jewish ethnic interests over American interests. The exchange has received a great deal of media interest though and is another indication of a strong shift away from Israel First/neo-con foreign policy on the US Right – a development which those of us on the Alt-South can cheer with enthusiasm.