This Current Political Schism: The Paranoid Temptation of The Right.

Watching certain “Hamas Bros” on the Right pivot overnight to Candace Owens’ newest theory reminds me how skillfully she keeps her followers on a string — moving them from one conspiracy to the next without pause. The pattern is familiar: the details change, but the central premise never does — that “the Jews are up to something.” As long as that idea stays at the core, the movement follows wherever she leads.

What’s striking isn’t just the content — it’s the appetite. Many seem to want to be deceived, so long as the deception flatters their worldview. Challenge that narrative, and you’re instantly cast out, treated like a traitor by a mob that mirrors the worst instincts of the progressive Left. You can agree with them on 97 percent of issues, but if you touch the sacred 3 percent — the conspiracy at the core — you’re done.

Students of the conservative movement have seen this before. William F. Buckley Jr. faced the same dilemma when he drew the line against the John Birch Society in the early 1960s. He agreed with the Birchers on most policy goals — anti-Communism, limited government, the defense of Western values — yet he recognized that their conspiratorial mindset would destroy conservatism’s intellectual credibility if left unchecked.

Buckley wrote:

“We are obliged to say that Mr. Welch’s views on current affairs are, in our judgment, not only inaccurate but, in some cases, paranoid.”

“How can the John Birch Society be an instrument of anticommunism when its leader accuses men like President Eisenhower of being conscious agents of the Communist conspiracy?”

“Mr. Welch, in attributing to the leadership of the United States government a treasonous conspiracy, has joined the ranks of those who give aid and comfort to the enemy by confusing and dividing the anti-Communist cause.”

That act of boundary-setting — Buckley’s “intellectual housekeeping” — allowed conservatism to evolve from the fever swamps to a disciplined, reality-based movement that produced Goldwater and, eventually, Reagan and Limbaugh before consolidating in an anti- Marxist, anti- Woke populist movement that blended all these defenses of American traditions , principles, ideals and Institutions in a broader electorally- coalition under Donald J. Trump.

We’re now watching a similar reckoning unfold. Both sides are in WIDE agreement and are not natural enemies. But once again, the choice is between disciplined skepticism and paranoid suspicion. And once again, the health of the entire conservative project and whether we are cast into the wilds and dominated by Progressives and Progressivism may hinge on which side wins and whether the two can agree to coexist within these disagreements.