Journal of Right-Wing Studies

For a self-proclaimed absolutist of free speech, Candace Owens was quick to ensure silence on her Instagram page. Following her update on her meeting with Erika Kirk on December 15, 2025, Owens quietly restricted comments on her posts—a stunning move for a brand built on “uncensored” truth. But she wasn’t hiding from the left; she was hiding from her own supporters. The backlash flooding her feed wasn’t demanding more civility. It was furious that she hadn’t declared total war on the “Zionist” enemy. This act of self-censorship reveals the dangerous volatility of the movement Owens helped cultivate: a base so hungry for a spiritual villain that it will turn on its own leaders the moment the age-old “Gnostic” longing for redemptive esoteric knowledge gives way to boring reality.

This thirst for secret insight—Gnosticism—is hardly new. Influencers like Owens and Tucker Carlson regularly present their political fight as a spiritual crusade and claim access to supernatural guidance. For example, Carlson has publicly recounted a terrifying sleep-paralysis episode in which he awoke unable to breathe, with unexplained claw-like scratches; he later called it “a spiritual attack by a demon.” Similarly, Candace Owens describes vivid recurring dreams in which the late activist Charlie Kirk says “I don’t have much time” and warns her that “they betrayed me.” These testimonies cast Carlson and Owens as prophets delivering hidden truths, convincing followers that they alone see the cosmic battle unfolding.

I’m not surprised by the rapid rise of this worldview, nor the rage when it fails to deliver. Owens, Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and other right-wing influencers advocate for a retreat from an allegedly progressive, “godless” society in a provocatively humorous way that resonates with young people, especially on social media. As a small fitness content creator, I’ve witnessed my social media feed become infiltrated by something far deeper than what I thought was a “trad Christian” aesthetic. Church testimonies, baptisms, and even “church fits,” or Sunday outfits, have come to dominate conservative social media, opening a door not just to faith but to a curated spiritual identity. It’s one that is easily weaponized by influencers more interested in building movements than saving souls. Exploring this youth-oriented, conspiracy-drenched, and spiritually bellicose content environment allows us to see the cultural forces that are challenging a longstanding Jewish-Christian alliance—and opening the door to new expressions of antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

Genuine Faith or Social Media Marketing?

Some of social media’s most infamous influencers—figures like Jeffree Star, Chrisean Rock, and Leo Skeppi—built their careers immersed in a dissolute lifestyle, openly indulging in drinking, smoking, sex, drugs, and provocative culture. Yet somewhere between the chaos and the content, the existential questions caught up with them. And what began as a lifestyle brand gradually drifted toward conversations about faith, meaning, and mortality. Their platforms now show them reading the Bible, attending church, and speaking with Christians about faith. This striking contrast has drawn Christians and conservatives to their content, interpreting it as evidence of God’s power working through influential people. It’s the same algorithmic wave that produced the “Jesus Glow” trend, packaging Christian testimonials into aesthetic short-form reels. This trendy embrace of religion online is especially visible in the overlap between Christian messaging and health-and-fitness culture, much of it incubated on TikTok and Instagram, where faith-based clothing brands and even energy drinks now market spiritual discipline alongside physical transformation.

Here, social media marketability makes the line between genuine faith and performative belief difficult to discern. Some influencers are clearly sincere in their spiritual journey, while others appear more invested in growth metrics and audience expansion than in formation of the soul. A generation of young people now find themselves scrolling through this confusion, caught between authentic religious content and algorithm-driven identity formation. It is in this tension that an anti-Judeo-Christian paradigm has begun to resonate.

Take the Hodge twins, for example. I began watching them in high school in 2014 before they transitioned from fitness content creators to MAGA supporters and now to America First culture warriors. Recently they moved into overtly theopolitical territory, hosting Christian guests who denounce Christian support for Israel. Their podcast interview with Eric Orwoll, who attempted to frame the Judeo-Christian alliance as heresy, was clipped into a short-form reel and became one of the most popular posts on their page. The reel portrayed Pastor Greg Locke and evangelicals like him as unwitting victims of manipulation, pointing specifically to the conspiratorial claim that the Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909 and allegedly funded by the Rothschild family, was engineered to manufacture Christian Zionism and instill blind loyalty to Jewish interests among American Christians. In the comments, Pastor Locke responded to critiques of his church during the episode: “We should have a REAL conversation. You put me in the video. Now it’s time to sit down and speak facts.”

This same digital ecosystem has also popularized language like “Goyslop,” a term that originated on streaming platforms and has spread across social media to describe the low-quality products and media that Jews supposedly intentionally produce to pacify and control non-Jews. Fitness influencers noticed the resonance of the term and began referring to junk food as “Goyslop” in their diet reels. The term thus bridges concepts of cultural and bodily redemption, characterizing the same decadent society that is thought hostile to traditional masculinity. To be properly fit and Christian is to reject “Goyslop” in all its forms.

Advocacy for more traditional forms of Christianity is widely received by young people. A New York Times article recently highlighted an increase in attendance in Orthodox Christian parishes: “Echoing some of the rhetoric of the so-called manosphere, new waves of young converts say Orthodoxy offers them hard truths and affirms their masculinity.” This isn’t to say traditional or orthodox churches are inherently antisemitic or hold the views of Owens, Carlson, and Fuentes. But this phenomenon does suggest online ideologies are helping to fill the pews. And it suggests that such churches have an opportunity to theologically address what might be called the unconstrained vision of newcomers—individuals united not just by faith but by shared grievance and a shared belief in political action.

The Unconstrained Vision

The concept of unconstrained vision is drawn from Thomas Sowell’s book A Conflict of Visions (1987). This vision assumes humans can perfect the world, impose a moral order, and usher in divine justice through political means. It views government as a source of power and action. In practice, it cultivates zero-sum combativeness in politics, as any disagreement is treated as an obstacle to fulfilling a higher good. In this case, the unconstrained vision is articulated via rhetoric that paints political opponents as immoral, or even as demonic enemies. Tucker Carlson frames America’s crisis as a confrontation with evil, arguing that today’s destruction “is not a political movement—it’s evil,” and that these trends are manifestations of some “larger force . . . acting upon us.” Candace Owens similarly tells her audience “it is good versus evil,” insisting that we are “fighting real demons” and must identify the “true evil” that “rules over us.” This existential framing ensures that any political compromise is seen as collaboration with evil.

Charlie Kirk represented a complicating figure within this same movement. As an outspoken evangelical and supporter of Israel, Kirk served as a counterpoint to Owens and Carlson’s anti-Zionist drift. Yet his assassination in September 2025 immediately created a fault line. Conservatives found themselves forced to choose sides: the Candace camp, which alleged Israeli and donor pressure had targeted Kirk for breaking ranks, or the Erika camp—led by Kirk’s widow, who now runs Turning Point USA—which rejected the conspiracy theories and maintained Kirk’s pro-Israel legacy. For much of the online conservative base, Owens’s skepticism resonated more than Erika’s denials, and suspicion toward Kirk’s widow grew in the same circles that once celebrated her husband. Following Kirk’s assassination, Owens passed The Joe Rogan Experience on Apple’s podcast charts for the first time, reaching as high as number three in the country. This surge reflected just how much her willingness to name Israel as a suspect had accelerated her already extensive reach.

Considering social media’s growing political influence, Fuentes, Carlson, and Owens are arguably the new face of the young American right. After being ousted by traditional media, they’ve topped independent streaming charts, amassing vast audiences that far exceed the reach of the outlets that dismissed them.

Despite occasional disagreements, they are united by an unconstrained vision that harks back to medieval supersessionism. Updated for the twenty-first century, this doctrine blames Jews for suppressing the Christian Church and corrupting America, and it holds that politics is the engine for restoring the Church’s purpose. This reemerging worldview channels political dissatisfaction into a religious narrative, casting Jews as the source of the West’s problems and imagining that a purified Christian order can replace their perceived evil influence.

This message resonates with young people in their early twenties who are wrestling with existential questions and find themselves under the influence of podcasters and streamers in a new digital environment. In this playbook, Jews—or those who support their alleged “system of oppression” through the state of Israel—are cast as the enemy.

The events following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, revealed just how expansive this anti-Israel sentiment has become, irrespective of political or religious lines. Critics on both the left and right are driven by existential rationales and portray the state of Israel and Zionism as obstacles to achieving international—and even societal—peace. On the left, this hostility is driven by an anti-imperialist framework cultivated in academic and activist spaces across America. On the right, however, it’s taking the form of a resurgent supersessionist theology teaching that the Church has replaced Israel theologically and politically.

For decades, the cultural momentum of twentieth-century evangelicalism defined the boundaries of the American religious experience. American Christians, especially those on the right, long venerated Israel as a symbol of Christian destiny. Many of them—Boomers and the Silent Generation—followed the teachings of mainstream evangelists like Jerry Falwell Sr. and Pat Robertson. These figures were motivated by the dispensationalist teachings of Christ’s Second Coming and the belief in Israel as the future site of his earthly throne. After dominating Christian television networks for years, their message has been sustained by successors like John Hagee and Franklin Graham. Whether or not followers fully grasped the underlying theology, these generations attended church with regularity and trusted pastoral authority implicitly. The era’s emphasis on a “personal relationship with Christ” proved universally portable, sharpening the line between believer and unbeliever while blurring the boundaries of Christian denominations.

The decline of this institutional influence suggests the dawn of a post-evangelical era. Church attendance has hovered near historic lows since 2020, and older generations who once filled pews are aging out—taking with them decades of institutional memory and habitual practice. This has created a vacuum for the next generation of believers. Ironically, while physical pews are emptier, interest in religion has surged online. This shift marks a fundamental transition in religious authority, where the unifying structures of the evangelical church are replaced by fragmented influence of digital personalities.

The Fading Judeo-Christian Consensus

Before going into more detail about supersessionism, it’s important to define the dominant American evangelical framework of the last century: premillennial dispensationalism. Premillennial dispensationalist Christians, like the aforementioned Jerry Falwell Sr. and Pat Robertson, hold that Israel and the Christian Church remain distinct in God’s design and that the covenant with the Jewish people is still valid. In this view, Jews and Christians await the Messiah’s return: Jews in expectation of a first coming, Christians in anticipation of a second. There’s obvious disagreement about who the Messiah is, although both view their hope for justice as eschatological (brought by God), not political (engineered through state power). Consequently, politics becomes a means of safeguarding liberty, not building a holy society.

This outlook fosters the Judeo-Christian alliance: Both communities view the world as fallen, reject the idea of human perfection in society, and insist that no institution is above the law. In this sense, they reflect what Sowell calls the constrained vision—they are driven by the conviction that justice belongs to God, and that all human solutions involve trade-offs.

Many young Christians, particularly those new to faith, are unaware of the premillennial dispensationalist theology prevalent in their churches or why their pastors occasionally pray for Israel. They are therefore vulnerable when figures like Tucker Carlson call Christian Zionism a “brain virus,” or when Candace Owens accuses Christian Zionists of supporting the “Synagogue of Satan,” her characterization of Israel. Lacking biblical context, they are susceptible to algorithmic pandering. The recent shift to more traditional forms of Christianity reflects this abandonment of Judeo-Christian theology among young people, a shift further supported by changing attitudes toward Israel.

Carlson has frequently criticized premillennial dispensationalism as heresy and has yet to host a defender of the theology on his podcast. Instead, he features guests like Pastor Andrew Isker, a Reformed Anglican–leaning minister and outspoken proponent of theWhitleyville Christian Enclave Communityin Tennessee. The enclave will be a self-described refuge for conservative believers seeking separation from secular society. During their conversation, Isker mocked “evangelical churches that open up in outlet centers” and their “blind support” for Israel. Isker’s alternative was developing communes for like-minded Christian families.

This posture of withdrawal mirrors themes popularized by Rod Dreher in The Benedict Option, a book that gained wide traction among conservative Christians following its publication in 2017. Dreher argues that liberal modernity has hollowed out Christian moral life to such an extent that believers must intentionally retreat from dominant institutions to preserve faith, community, and moral formation. Rather than backing the seizure of political power, Dreher’s book advocates strategic separation, building a resilient Christian subculture modeled loosely on monastic communities. While Dreher himself is not a proponent of antisemitic theology and has recently warned against growing extremism on the right, the popularity of The Benedict Option has helped normalize the broader instinct to disengage from pluralistic society.

The irony is that Dreher himself could not live by his own philosophy of Christian cultural preservation. Inspired by Orbán’s Hungary, he abandoned The Benedict Option’s call for strategic retreat into local communities and instead took the nationalist route, ultimately pursuing a permanent move to Budapest to work with the Danube Institute. The New Yorker noted he had effectively “retreated from his retreatism,” advocating for Hungary as a model of what a vigorous conservative government could achieve in response to what he calls a “horrible global tide of wokeness.” In online spaces this impulse is increasingly stripped of its restraint and theological nuance, mutating from cultural preservation into dominance. What begins as a call for Christian endurance is, in more radical hands, transformed into a framework that identifies external enemies, particularly Jews and Israel, as obstacles to spiritual renewal rather than neighbors within a shared moral order.

Supersessionism Reborn

Supersessionism, often called replacement theology, is the belief that the Church has replaced the Jewish people as the “new Israel,” rendering void the original covenant between God and the Jews. This doctrine became dominant in the second century, growing out of covenant theology—the system that views God’s interaction with humanity as a series of succeeding covenants. Within the supersessionist framework, the Jewish plight is viewed as pointless, as the Jews allegedly forfeited their chance by failing to accept their Messiah, Jesus. Judaism becomes the only Abrahamic faith whose eschatological future is theologically displaced rather than preserved, its role absorbed entirely into the Church. The new “Israel” is then tasked with bringing divine order and justice into the world through human effort, rather than waiting for God’s intervention.

A contemporary expression of this worldview can be found in the teachings of Douglas Wilson, a Reformed pastor and influential postmillennial theologian. Wilson rejects premillennial dispensationalism outright and teaches that Christ’s kingdom will be progressively realized in history through the triumph of Christian culture, institutions, and governance prior to Christ’s return. Central to this vision is a supersessionist framework in which the Church fully inherits Israel’s covenantal promises, rendering modern Judaism theologically irrelevant to God’s redemptive plan.

Wilson has explicitly criticized Christian Zionism and argued that the modern state of Israel holds no special covenantal status, framing Jewish unbelief as evidence of covenantal judgment rather than ongoing divine election. His postmillennialism envisions a future “Golden Age” in which Christian law and morality increasingly shape society—a vision that shifts eschatological hope away from divine intervention and toward human action carried out through Christian social and political dominance.

In April 2024, Tucker Carlson hosted Douglas Wilson on his show, where the two discussed Christian nationalism and the role of Christianity in shaping American political life. Instead of elaborating on the triumphalist underpinnings of his theology or its antagonism toward Jews, Wilson made a watered-down case for Christian nationalism as a system designed to safeguard freedom—not only for Christians, but for non-Christians as well. Carlson asked him how exactly non-Christians would fit within a Christian nation. Wilson danced around the question and argued that Christian societies have often treated non-Christians more justly than secular regimes, invoking Stalinist-era communist purges as a warning against godless political systems. Like many Christian supersessionists, Wilson simplifies and sugarcoats this theology for mainstream audiences. The doctrine itself was never named, but its political implications remained intact for the viewer: a vision of cultural dominance, Christian supremacy, and the belief that a redeemed social order must be built through political power rather than awaited through restraint. Wilson’s message thrives in the digital ecosystem, propelled by a robust YouTube presence and a steady stream of follower-generated clips that far outpace the reach of his congregation in Idaho.

While supersessionism shaped the Christian imagination for centuries, most modern denominations reformed or abandoned it after the Holocaust, when its destructive implications became undeniable. The Roman Catholic Church’s declaration Nostra Aetate (1965) stands as a prime example of this shift, recognizing the continuing validity of God’s covenant with the Jewish people and repudiating the notion that they are rejected or accursed by God. What Nostra Aetate sought to definitively bury was precisely the “hard supersessionism” that categorically dismisses Judaism’s theological validity and leaves no option for Jews but conversion. Yet among traditionalist Catholics and right-wing influencers on the American right, it is this harder, preconciliar vision that is being quietly rehabilitated, treating the Second Vatican Council’s moral reckoning as a betrayal rather than correction. Notably, the current supersessionist revival isn’t emerging from church pulpits but from online “Christian” influencers—trad-aesthetic accounts, orthodoxy-LARPers, and political commentators who package old anti-Jewish theology as edgy spiritual truth.

America First as the New Unconstrained Vision

The political expression of this ideological shift is continuing to reveal itself within the America First movement that grew out of the MAGA base. While America First advocates often frame themselves as a coalition focused on nationalism and prioritizing American economic interests, its true nature is more complex. On theTucker Carlson Show, Nalin Haley, a rising figure in the young movement and son of Nikki Haley, defined it primarily as economic nationalism. Ten minutes later he shared his personal story of leaving his Protestant Christian roots for a more traditionalist Catholic Church, stating that the Mass, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of confession filled a religious void that he was longing for.

I can’t help but see a reflection of online influencers who post conspiracy theory reels about Jews controlling the economy and politics alongside peacocking posts with captions like “The male urge to become a jacked Orthodox Christian Viking guy.” The online presentation of this movement mirrors the left’s old systems-of-oppression narrative, only with different villains. It embodies the same unconstrained-vision psychology described by Sowell: we could have a better society if not for them.

By contrast, the old Judeo-Christian synthesis rested on a constrained vision of human nature: No institution is divine, no state can bring about the Kingdom, no group is chosen to rule the rest, and liberty is safer than enforced virtue. It taught that justice belongs to God alone, and that neither man nor church stands above the law. The last century’s dominant Christian framework, premillennial dispensationalism, reflects this restraint; it holds that God alone will fulfill prophecy, and thus the believer is not called to political action aimed at establishing “the Kingdom” or enforcing divine justice.

Online ideology moves faster than churches and institutions, and millions of young people are forming their worldview in that gap. The influencers shaping that imagination often face little scrutiny, pushing a vision that favors combative, muscular governments and institutions over freedom and sovereignty. Instead of censoring or canceling such influencers, it’s important to understand the forces drawing young people in and respond with more honesty than outrage.

This theopolitical ideology taking shape online should not be dismissed as fringe noise ahead of coming elections. The Groyper movement—a loose designation for the fans of Nick Fuentes—already has its candidate in James Fishback for the 2026 Florida governor’s race, and many within these circles speculate the Carlsonites will throw their weight behind J. D. Vance for the presidential election. The alignment is imperfect—Vance and Carlson diverge on several issues—but political convictions in this ecosystem are rarely fixed. Even Ted Cruz has voiced skepticism about their disagreements, calling Vance Carlson’s “protégé.” Right-wing politicians have repeatedly shown a willingness to absorb the ideological currents that deliver them a base, and this movement is quickly becoming too large to ignore. This makes Vance’s calculated distance from the administration’s Iran policy a necessity—by softening his posture toward the war, he signals his alignment with the anti-interventionist energy that will define the 2028 primary.

Trump’s America First brand has already been eroded among his own supporters, many of whom, like Megan Kelley, now accuse him of operating under Benjamin Netanyahu’s influence. That disillusionment has created a vacancy. Vance may be uniquely positioned to fill it, potentially becoming the first presidential candidate to consolidate the supersessionist, anti-Zionist energy that Carlson, Owens, and Fuentes have spent years cultivating online. That current is already moving, and where it carries American conservatism may be the most consequential question of the coming political era.