Daniel Tutt offers a jarring reframing of the current geopolitical landscape: the most significant shift in American public opinion against Israel's war in Gaza is not coming from the progressive left, but from the nationalist right. This is a counter-intuitive claim that challenges the standard narrative of political alignment, suggesting that the collapse of the post-1967 pro-Israel consensus is driven by an internal contradiction within the 'America First' agenda rather than a sudden surge in humanitarian empathy. For a reader trying to navigate the chaos of the last year, understanding this fracture is essential to predicting where the next political pressure points will emerge.
The Scaffolding of Failure
Tutt begins by using a construction metaphor to diagnose why the American left has struggled to halt the violence. He argues that the political structures supporting activism are fundamentally unstable. "When we think about anti-imperialism and specifically the Palestine liberation struggle we need to think about the scaffolding that we work from," Tutt writes. He posits that the left's reliance on the Democratic Party and its associated non-governmental organizations has created a fragile support system that cannot bear the weight of a genuine liberation movement.
The author contends that this alliance has effectively neutered the movement's potential. "The left has failed to effectuate any viable change in regard to the genocide Israel has waged on Gaza because the left operates on the scaffolding of the Democratic Party and its alliances with AIPAC and the Israel lobby prevent any true action to be taken beyond the bounds of the agendas set by these institutions," he asserts. This is a sharp critique of the strategy of working within established liberal institutions. By tethering themselves to a party that prioritizes its relationship with the Israel lobby, activists have inadvertently turned a global humanitarian crisis into a niche identity politics debate. "Palestine becomes a victim of the culture war and this has the effect of pacifying Palestine as a moral outrage discourse," Tutt notes.
The consequence, as Tutt describes it, is a movement that feels exclusive and performative rather than mass-based. Advocates are reduced to "absurd identity-politics caricatures such as 'white leftists who wear the khafiyeh' — Palestine is made into a cosplaying game of aesthetic anti-politics." This framing is effective because it explains the disconnect between the intensity of campus protests and the lack of tangible legislative results. However, critics might argue that dismissing the role of liberal institutions ignores the practical reality that these are the only levers of power currently available to the mainstream electorate. While the critique of the "left-liberal trap" is compelling, it risks underestimating the difficulty of building an alternative infrastructure from scratch.
The left has failed to effectuate any viable change in regard to the genocide Israel has waged on Gaza because the left operates on the scaffolding of the Democratic Party and its alliances with AIPAC and the Israel lobby prevent any true action to be taken beyond the bounds of the agendas set by these institutions.
The Nationalist Shift
Perhaps the most provocative section of the piece is Tutt's analysis of where the actual political shift is occurring. He observes that the hegemony of the pro-Israel consensus has crumbled, but the driver of this change is unexpected. "At this point in time, the hegemony of the Israel consensus has broken down and a clear break from support for Israel has taken place within the wider American public," he writes. Yet, he immediately pivots to the source of this change: "But this shift has been driven by the petit-bourgeois nationalism base of MAGA more than any traditional leftist forces."
Tutt argues that this is not a moral awakening but a strategic realignment. The opposition from figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson stems from the belief that Israel's actions are diverting resources and attention from domestic stagnation. "The central reason Israel has lost favor has to do with the way that the Gaza genocide caused an internal contradiction within the 'America First' nationalist agenda," he explains. This is a crucial distinction. It suggests that the erosion of support for the war is not necessarily a victory for human rights, but a symptom of a fracturing nationalist coalition. The brutality of the conflict has become a liability for the "America First" brand, creating an opening that the left has failed to occupy.
The Philosophical Vacuum
Moving from politics to theory, Tutt critiques the intellectual response to the war, arguing that leading thinkers have failed to provide a framework for understanding the violence. He points out that the demand to condemn the October 7 attacks without context is a form of "willful historical ignorance." To assess the event in a vacuum, he argues, "only serves to decontextualize it and thus risk feeding into Israeli war propaganda, which has used the brutality of October 7 as justification for a genocidal war."
He contrasts two prominent intellectual responses to the crisis. First, he examines Norman Finkelstein's comparison of October 7 to Nat Turner's 1831 slave uprising. While Tutt acknowledges the merit in highlighting the desperation of the besieged, he finds the analogy flawed. "The analogy between October 7 and Nat Turner's uprising is anachronistic and therefore imprecise," he writes. He argues that the colonial mode of production in Gaza differs fundamentally from the chattel slavery of the American South, making the comparison a distraction from a more accurate materialist analysis.
In contrast, Tutt takes issue with Slavoj Žižek's response, which he views as a retreat into abstract moralism. Žižek condemned the attacks as "barbarism" and called for a return to democratic mechanisms, a stance Tutt rejects as inadequate. "Žižek reduces his analysis to the pure immediacy of the violence opened by October 7, and this prevents him from considering how the violence of October 7 can be learned from—not passively celebrated in some nihilist fashion, but seriously understood as an act of total desperation," Tutt argues. The author calls for a philosophy that can grapple with the reality of the occupation without falling into the trap of either justifying violence or demanding impossible standards of purity from the oppressed.
This section is dense but necessary. It challenges the reader to think beyond the binary of "violence is bad" and consider the structural conditions that make violence inevitable. However, the heavy reliance on Marxist terminology and specific philosophical references may alienate readers who are looking for a more direct policy analysis. The argument is intellectually rigorous but requires a high level of engagement to follow.
To assess October 7 from an ahistorical point of view only serves to decontextualize it and thus risk feeding into Israeli war propaganda, which has used the brutality of October 7 as justification for a genocidal war.
Bottom Line
Daniel Tutt's strongest contribution is his diagnosis of the political paradox: the most significant challenge to the pro-war consensus is coming from the right, driven by nationalist self-interest rather than moral solidarity. This reframing forces a re-evaluation of where the future of the movement lies. The piece's greatest vulnerability, however, is its somewhat dismissive tone toward the liberal left, which may overlook the complex, if limited, victories achieved through those channels. As the political landscape continues to shift, the reader should watch to see if the nationalist critique of the war can be translated into a broader, more sustainable coalition for peace, or if it remains a fleeting fracture in the conservative base.