One of the many strange things to come out of the short war between Israel and Iran is the fact that many of our politicians seem to worship Jewish people. It could also be that they worship Israel or perhaps some combination of both. They talk about Israel and the Jewish people as if they are gods sent to earth as a test. Those who commit themselves to protecting these magical beings are the people of the light, while everyone else is in the forever darkness.

This is not a new thing. It has always been assumed that Washington loves Israel because Israel pays cash for its politicians and there is nothing a politician loves more than cash, except maybe the person handing him the cash. The Israel lobby has been one of the most fearsome advocacy groups in America for a long time. Men like Joe Sobran and Pat Buchanan questioned their influence and were then run out of town for the crime of mentioning the Israel lobby.

The most recent example of this is Ted Cruz, who went on the Tucker Carlson show and bragged that his sole purpose for being in the Senate is to serve Israel. “I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the largest defender of Israel in the United States.” The cavalier way in which he says these things tells us that it is the default position for Washington pols. His subsequent attempts to justify this on religious grounds say there is more to it.

This is where most people shift the focus from old fashion graft to the political marketplace, which in this case means Christian Zionism. This is the heresy that claims the establishment of Israel and the return of the Jewish diaspora to the Holy Land signals the Second Coming. Not content to let events take their course, believers assume they have a duty to help this process along. Their fanatical support for pro-Israel politicians is part of the scheme.

It is a weird cult, for sure, but how many people follow it is unknown. The numbers cannot be large enough to explain the behavior of Washington. Another culprit is Dispensationalism, which is a madhouse collection of crackpot ideas loosely based in the uneducated reading of Scripture. Despite its fringe status, it has had a strong influence on Evangelicals, who do make up a sizable voting bloc. These voters have had a big influence on Republican political theatrics.

Still another cause is dominion theology, which is a low church Protestant version of Catholic integralism that has existed in Europe for centuries. This is the political argument that says America should be governed by Christians and organized around their understanding of Scripture. Since there is a lot of overlap between these people and the Christian Zionist, the result is an assertion that it is the Christian duty of Americans to support Israel.

The trouble with these explanations is that politicians ignore the voters all the time because most are not subject to a genuine political marketplace. Only ten percent of elected officials face competitive races. The rest are in seats held by one party of the other in perpetuity, so they have no reason to fear the voters. Ted Cruz, for example, just has to make the transplants in Dallas and Houston happy and these are not people spending their nights reading Scripture.

While it is risky to oppose the Israel lobby, no politician risks anything by ignoring the Christian Zionist voters or any voting bloc. Republicans worry more about the black vote, which goes 90% Democrat, than their white Christian voters. The reason for that is they worry about being called racist by their pals in Washington. They could, if they chose, take the same approach to the Israel lobby, if official Washington decided they have had enough of the Israel business.

Not even Democrats, who have always made antiwar noises, bothered to speak up in the last round of warmongering. Many joined their Republican colleagues in pledging undying support for Israel. They went well beyond what is typically expected from the Israel lobby to the point where it looked as if most of our elected officials had joined a cult that worships Jewish people. Many of them sounded deranged as they screamed for blood in another pointless war of choice.

That may be the missing piece to this. Washington is deep into the racket stage of imperial decline, which means everyone inside Washington looks at the political system in the same way the locals look at the Walmart in a ghetto riot. There is no higher purpose to the life of the politician, as he is just a vehicle for pillaging what remains of the white middle-class and the old America they represent. Israel worship may fill the void that exist where republican virtue once existed.

It is not a simple, linear explanation for the behavior, which is what most people prefer, but it does tie these other causes together. The calls and emails these politicians get from nutty Christian Zionist are validation for their sincere professions of faith in the great people of Israel. The max donation handshakes they get from men in little hats after each speech on behalf of Israel is proof that they are on the side of angels, rather than paid spokesman for a parasitic economic elite.

No man, not even the most debased and corrupt, views himself as the villain in the great story of his life. For Washington politicians, whose lives are defined by the corruption that is Washington, Hebrewism offers a way to see themselves, even for a little while, as selfless heroes. Ted Cruz got to feel like the white hat for a day after that Tucker Carlson sit-down, even though his voters savaged him. He can live without the love of his voters, as long as he has his little gods in little hats.

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