In today’s era, all ruling class psyops are largely about taking attention away from Gaza. But the recent “Trump has turned on Israel” narrative is a diversion that’s especially threatening to the pro-Palestine cause. It’s a narrative manipulation where, at the same moment when the genocide has reached its most catastrophic phase yet, our government is trying to kill the momentum that could give back the pro-Palestine movement its former strength.
With this psyop, the strategy is to target the MAGA base, as well as the broader element of people who’ve become conscious about Palestine. And the message being directed at these groups is one of false reassurance; of hope that comes from the wrong places, and that causes complacency among those who could otherwise gain the will to act. It’s being pushed by sources from the “America First” circles, or from the “alt” media, that act like Trump’s showmanship around Palestine actually means something. They pretend as if when Trump shows irritation with Netanyahu, or reaches out to Iran, or expands relations with the Gulf states, this means he and the other MAGA leaders are truly trying to end the extermination campaign.
It’s a framework of understanding which ignores the reality that Gaza’s “war” is actually a genocide, or at least ignores what this reality means. To make the argument that Trump and his circle care about the Palestinians, you need to disregard the fundamentally pro-Zionist nature of their agenda, and how this means their goals fully align with the vision for total Palestinian erasure and displacement.
When this part of the story is omitted, it seems appropriate to talk about Gaza as if it were a normal conflict, and like Trump is genuinely trying to end this conflict as part of his deal-maker persona. The controlled opposition actors behind Silicon Valley MAGA do not want a discourse in which the word “genocide” is normalized; they want it so that when conservative or “alt” media discuss this issue, they don’t fully recognize the extent of the crimes our government has been willfully and consciously committing against Palestinians. Then it can look like Netanyahu is an obstacle towards Trump, trying to hold back the White House’s earnest efforts at bringing “peace.”
That superficially posturing against Netanyahu was also something Biden’s White House did, and that Netanyahu has always been expendable to the empire, are overlooked within this discourse. Even if Netanyahu is forced out, this will be part of the same ploy the Democrats were using; the ploy where those who aided and abetted the genocide could evade culpability by portraying Netanyahu as the core source of the problem, rather than the Zionist system itself.
The other parts of Trump’s posturing involve his strengthening ties with the Arab countries, and his making overtures towards Iran for a “peace” deal in supposed defiance of the Zionist entity. This is the framing that’s being promoted by the white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who’s said that whereas Netanyahu and Trump’s most pro-Zionist cabinet members want war with Iran, Trump and Saudi Arabia want an “Iran deal.” This narrative is partly an attempt to depict Trump as secretly being in conflict with the neocons in his administration; it’s also about hiding exactly what kind of “Iran deal” is desired by the “good guys” in this story Fuentes is telling.
The goal, which in all likelihood the “bad guys” share with Trump, is to subjugate Iran towards a colonial agreement where Washington turns the country into a client state. This is the true purpose behind the bluster about war with Iran: to set up the conditions for a triumphant “peace” deal where Iran becomes subservient to imperialism, in exchange for Washington unfreezing the assets of Iran’s capitalists.
This is the agenda that Trump shares with all of the actors who he’s allying with: to strong-arm Iran, as well as Russia and the other potential cold war “swing states,” into turning away from the Chinese bloc. Should this scheme succeed, it wouldn’t even truly be a strong-arming, because Russia and Iran are fully capable of defending themselves against the hegemon. It would be a process where Washington gets the bourgeois elements inside these countries to sell out their own people, under the pretext of reaching “peace.” Should this happen, the same parts of alt media that have been uncritically praising Trump for lifting sanctions on Syria’s Salafist U.S. coup regime will be celebrating Iran’s assimilation into the imperial blob.
The only thing that can prevent this outcome is a renewed strength for the workers movement, both inside countries like Iran and around the globe. Likewise, a worldwide united workers front is essential for the victory of Palestine itself; the stronger we make our collective proletarian organization, the easier it will be for the Palestinians to overcome the efforts at destroying them. It’s such a project, where we orient ourselves around the class struggle and mobilize the masses against imperialism, that these false-hope psyops seek to discourage.
Within the algorithmic fight against these psyops, anti-imperialists are inherently at a disadvantage, because big tech is always going to boost the views the imperial state wants promoted. What we can do is redouble our efforts at calling out the Trump White House’s betrayals of MAGA; not just so that we can influence the discourse today, but so that we can change the direction it will take in the long term.
Ultimately, MAGA as we know it will not be able to survive. After Trump leaves, MAGA will splinter into different factions, vying for control over the brand Trump created. Which means that from the right, the new biggest threat will come to be the white nationalist movement, which is now trying to pick up the Trump voters who are getting disillusioned.
Should communists and anti-imperialists fail to position ourselves as the alternatives towards Trump, we’ll cede the narrative battle to the far right. As the Trump psyop falls apart, and more conservatives keep turning against Zionism, the ones who rise within the discourse will be those promoting Hitlerism and the “Jewish question.” That’s the outcome the narrative managers want.
This is why Kanye West is being boosted; this is why we’re seeing Nazi influencers like Sneako getting the same prominence as Andrew Tate. The psyop machine’s strategy is to make Hitlerites into the main face of the pro-Palestine position, thereby rendering the anti-Zionist movement ineffectual. It’s no coincidence that Sneako is also acting as a link between the Hitlerite community, and the types of pro-imperialist Islamic figures who’ve propagandized for Syrian regime change; one of Sneako’s biggest defenders is Mohammed Hijab, who’s worked to help turn Muslims towards supporting Syria’s Salafist “revolution.” All of these different psyops targeting Palestine supporters are connected, with the “Trump is fighting Israel” narrative representing only one stage in a larger plan to demobilize the movement.
The solution is not to build an “anti-Trump” movement; that’s another one of these psyops, designed to de-center Palestine by promoting Trump Derangement Syndrome. The real solution is much more complex and challenging. If we’re going to win this fight, we will need to act in the most strategic ways we can in every moment, constantly watching for new developments so that we can keep our practice up-to-date. We must expose Trump’s hypocrisies from an anti-imperialist perspective, seizing upon each new instance where Trump has betrayed MAGA. We must commit ourselves to building up the workers movement, while expanding the pro-Palestine struggle out from the campuses and into organized labor.
This will require vigilance and patience, where we always watch out for narratives that may lead us to embrace false answers and trust the wrong people. Our enemies are mobilizing to try to turn millions of people towards such mistaken paths, hoping that this will be the moment when the pro-Palestine movement gets thrown into further disarray. But the pro-Palestine movement is part of a larger struggle, the class struggle. And if we give it the strength that a robust workers movement provides, we will outmaneuver our ruling class.
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