The conservative brain works in mysterious ways. Some support Israel because of some end-times prophecy nonsense, some think that every Jew that moves to Israel is one less Jew in their way. Others just decided they hate Muslims more than Jew.

In fact, equating Judaism and the Israeli government is arguably a kind of antisemitism itself

That's a different thing. You can oppose Israel without being an antisemite, but it's trickier to explain how you can be an antisemite without opposing Israel. Hating all Jews while somehow militarily supporting those Jews. While it can be explained (see above) you have to admit it is rather counterintuitive.

And anyway I would not expect GOP dynamics to easily translate to the AFD.

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago

It's easy to explain: it's raw, unadulterated primate tribalism.

Multiple studies have shown how tribal psychology overrides pesky things like logic or coherent, and it's terrifying how much people will excuse or rationalize in order to remain in good standing with their tribe.

Demagogues know this very well, as one of the first things they do is force their followers to hold contradictory principles as a kind of shibboleth. It softens their followers up for what's to come.