The Republican Party establishment is reeling after a dismal underperformance in Tuesday’s midterms, with many calling for a change in leadership.
Now, fears are growing over a populist backlash as the anti-establishment politician Judas Maccabee has vaulted up in early 2024 Presidential polling.
Maccabee, a pastor’s son, has attempted numerous unsuccessful launches into politics in previous election cycles. But election-watchers say he has recently been able to harness disenfranchised middle-class voters in the wake of repeated Republican failures, which has placed him in a good position to be the GOP frontrunner ahead of the next election.
“Mitch McConnell and Republican leadership has failed,” Maccabee campaign advisor Dina Ortman said. “Judas Maccabee understands the problems facing the everyday man, and is not afraid to stand up to the institutional powers and their assault on our values.”
Not all have gotten on board with Maccabee’s growing movement. Several mainstream media outlets have raised alarm over what they perceive is his radical populist bent and sometimes violent, unpredictable followers.
“Extremists absolutely rally around Maccabee,” New York Times columnist Ezra Klein said. “They cling to his every word like its some sort of Scripture.”
Maccabee’s radical populism has even gotten some in the Republican Party nervous, especially after a group of his supporters attacked Seleucid officials in Beth-Horon last January 6 in what many are calling an insurrection.
“This is a rebellion, and a racially motivated attack, plain and simple,” GOP leader Mitt Romney said via email. “This kind of thing will alienate the voters and cannot be tolerated.”
But many pundits note Maccabee’s resiliency to maintain voter support in the face of controversy. The bulk of Maccabee’s supporters think he can win 2 terms, which they have already dubbed “1 Maccabee” and “2 Maccabee” in anticipation. But despite the Constitutional term limits, some of Maccabee’s more radical supporters have even began talking about “3 Maccabee” and “4 Maccabee,” demonstrating the extremist tendencies among his supporters drawing the ire of the establishment.
“Such language is frankly dangerous to our political institutions,” General Nicanor of the Countering Domestic Terrorism Task Force (CDTT) at the Pentagon told us. “We have reports of some radical extremists already laying groundwork for 5 Maccabee, 6 Maccabee—one religious group even monitored talking about 7 or 8 Maccabee.”
At press time, President Biden has announced appointing Greek ambassador Antiochus Epiphanes as Secretary to the newly created Department of Counter-Insurgency in effort to “defend our nation from growing populist threats.”
Originally published Nov 11, 2022
