In the early morning hours of January 10, 2026, a nineteen-year-old tried to burn down Mississippi’s largest synagogue. According to a complaint unsealed in federal court, Spencer Pittman drove to a gas station to purchase containers of gasoline, removed the license plate from his car, and then, upon arriving at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, broke one of the synagogue’s windows with an axe, spread gasoline around the building, and used a torch to light a fire. After his arrest, Pittman told police that he targeted the congregation because of its “Jewish ties,” describing it as the “synagogue of Satan.”
A graduate of a local Catholic school, Pittman was an academically high-achieving student and a talented baseball player. He was, by all accounts, a normal American teenager. But his social media presence tells the story of someone who had recently navigated obscure parts of the internet; in the weeks before his crime, Pittman posted about adopting a “Christian diet” for “testosterone optimization” and published a cartoon video of a woman “baptizing” a stereotypically-dressed Jewish figure, complete with a large nose and money bags, by pushing him into a pool.
Pittman’s hate-fueled arson attack was a despicable crime for which he will receive the justice that he is due. Still, important questions remain. How did a teenager who had until recently lived an apparently normal life end up trying to burn down a synagogue? Amid increasing worry about the spread of anti-Jewish attitudes in some dark corners of the online right, what can right-wing figures of stature and authority do to prevent such trends from spiraling out of control? How can the right stop more Spencer Pittmans from being created?
We don’t yet know the full story of Pittman’s radicalization. But it seems likely that his descent into an anti-Jewish worldview was in large part fueled by online content. While it would be wrong at this point to blame any one influencer for his radicalization, as a broad matter, there are a number of online anti-Jewish provocateurs who have drawn significant followings among young people, and young men in particular.
In their efforts to address the explosion of anti-Jewish content on the online right, the movement’s authority figures should do two things: First, they ought not overstate or mischaracterize what is happening. They should exercise prudence and pursue calculated interventions rather than engaging in sweeping generalizations and imprecise accusations. Second, they must offer Gen Zers—and particularly young men—who might be tempted toward dark ideas an affirmative, positive alternative vision that gives them responsibility, agency, and hope for the future.
Getting beyond vibes and viral clips, what precisely is happening with young right-wingers and anti-Jewish attitudes? The demographer Eric Kaufmann argues that while data show that support for anti-Jewish conspiracies—for example, that the Holocaust did not happen or was grossly exaggerated—is noticeably increasing among young people, such trends likely “reflect a broader Zoomer tendency” that he characterizes as “a nihilistic content-neutral conspiracism which encompasses, but is not focused on, Jewish and racist tropes.” The most common correlate of adherence to anti-Jewish attitudes and conspiracies, Kaufmann found, was “general conspiracism”—for example, those who thought the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy or the moon landings were faked were far more likely to deny the Holocaust.
Kaufmann’s report, together with a December 2025 Manhattan Institute survey, are worth reading in full; they demonstrate that while anti-Jewish attitudes have risen among young right-wingers, such wrongheaded views are part of a broader Gen Z tendency toward “nihilism, provocation and conspiracy”—and they still represent a significant minority among the Gen Z right. Kaufmann notes that while the average Republican voter under thirty-five views Jews slightly worse than in 2020, opinions are still “within the historic range going back to 1964.” And while skepticism of Israel is unsurprisingly high among youthful followers of influencers for whom opposition to Israel and Judaism constitutes their raison d’être, far fewer of the followers admit to harboring anti-Jewish attitudes themselves.
There are other statistics likely to challenge caricatures of a mass of young, white, right-wing men on track to revive 1930s Germany in the United States. Among Trump voters under fifty, minorities are twice as likely as whites to describe themselves as racist. And, while 26 percent of Trump voters under fifty self-identify as anti-Semites (compared to only 3 percent of Trump voters over fifty), more of the former group say that whites receive more favorable treatment from society than Jews do. Additionally, half of Trump voters under fifty who identify as racist endorse affirmative action and DEI.
This is not data that supports the rise of an ideologically coherent anti-Jewish movement on the youthful hard-right; it rather suggests the growth of a conspiracy-minded, deeply distrustful cynicism—one that is far more likely to laugh at degrading jokes over beers and discuss the feminizing effects of touching receipt paper than plot how to remove Jews from public life. It is not helpful when leaders on the right make statements that overstate or misrepresent the problem in ways that the data do not support; claiming that the Republican Party is experiencing an “existential crisis” of anti-Semitism, while I’m sure well-intentioned, is easily ridiculed by online-right influencers, hardens hearts among young people tired of being preached to, and ultimately does not effectively serve the cause of combatting anti-Jewish attitudes.
Instead, right-wing authority figures should make the case that descending into internet conspiracies is, as Christopher Rufo recently put it, “enervating and self-destructive.” Spending significant time on YouTube, X, Rumble, or Twitch absorbing negative content about Jews pulls right-wing guys away from the real-life responsibilities on which they should be focused: study, work, caring for friends, raising a family, serving their country, growing in virtue. Authority figures should make clear that the movement needs young men who are spiritually, mentally, and physically healthy and whose rational capabilities are intact—and that rotting your brain by living in online anti-Jewish echo chambers is directly deleterious to that end.
The message should be that Gen Z comprises the next generation of the American right, and everything good that is being done now will eventually depend on the next generation to be sustained. Someone who has destroyed their ability to function productively through internet conspiracies cannot lead a company, be a professor, writer, or serious thought leader, run for office, or staff a presidential administration.
The left has many built-in advantages in their unceasing quest for cultural and political dominance. They control the elite institutions and wield immense influence on the public culture. So the right simply cannot afford to have legions of young men exiting the fight because anti-Jewish conspiracies have demolished their internal sense of direction, engendered within them a feeling of nihilistic powerlessness, tarnished their reputations, and warped their brains.
Rather than making accusations or delivering moralizing lectures, authority figures must make clear that the movement to defend the country from malign forces will be defeated if the next generation isn’t ready to take up the mantle. Anti-Jewish conspiracies are soul-corrupting distractions that ruin the trajectories of promising young men and, in the long run, only make the right less effective. The left knows this, which is why their mouthpieces spend so much time elevating the online influencers who promote this garbage.
Why do the left’s bidding and poison your life with conspiracies when you could lead a successful and honorable life in service to your friends, family, community, and country? That’s what young people need to hear.
