A segment of America’s new right, particularly the faction active across digital platforms, is undergoing a noticeable shift in its view of Islam.
Where Islam once featured in American conservative discourse, especially among neoconservatives, as one of the principal threats to Western civilisation, a number of influencers are now looking at it very differently.
They increasingly present Islam as a model of strength, discipline, identity and commitment to values they believe the West has lost.
In an article published by Britain’s New Statesman, writer Travis Alexander attempts to explain this shift through figures such as Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate, Sneako and Bronze Age Pervert.
Alexander argues that this is not necessarily an organised intellectual turn towards Islam. Rather, it reflects a deeper crisis within this political current, rooted in the belief that Western civilisation has become weak, hollowed out and deprived of the strength, discipline and sense of purpose that once defined it.
Tucker Carlson’s Shift
Alexander cites Tucker Carlson as one of the clearest examples of this transformation.
Carlson, who once used strongly critical rhetoric about Islam, later acknowledged that his previous views had been exaggerated.
“I said many times on television: the problem is Islam. The problem is Muslims. They all want to kill us. I believed that. I was hysterical. Now, that is not true,” Carlson said.
He had once believed that Islam and Muslims themselves were the problem before later declaring that he no longer considered that view accurate.
At the 2025 America First conference, Carlson described attacks on American Muslims as “disgusting”.
His shift went beyond retreating from Islamophobic rhetoric.
Carlson began speaking positively about aspects of Muslim societies and praised Islamic law, which he portrayed as a source of moral clarity in opposition to what he regarded as Western moral decay.
He also sharply criticised conservatives who attack American Muslims and showed growing interest in the Gulf region.
According to Alexander, for some prominent figures on the digital right, Islam is no longer viewed primarily through the lens of religious doctrine. Instead, it has become a symbol of a civilisation they imagine as still committed to strength, discipline, family, authority and identity, while they see the West as consumed by individualism, liberalism, pluralism and what they call “decadence”.
A Symbol of an Alternative Civilisation
Alexander argues that this shift reflects a broader transformation within the right.
For some of its figures, Islam is no longer treated primarily as a religion to be assessed on theological grounds.
Instead, it has become a symbol of a civilisation they believe still possesses qualities the West has lost.
This is even more visible in the case of Andrew Tate, who converted to Islam and, according to Alexander, incorporated it into his online public identity.
Tate focuses less on Islamic religious teachings or spirituality and more on what he sees as its discipline, strictness, hierarchy and traditional roles for men and women.
Alexander cites Tate as saying: “Islam is the last religion. The only faith whose core principles are still respected by its followers. If you tolerate everything, you stand for nothing.”
Confronting the Disorder of Modern Liberalism
According to Alexander, Islam therefore becomes, in Tate’s worldview, a tool for confronting what he sees as the disorder of modern liberal society.
Tate believes Western societies have become willing to accept almost anything, while Islam, in his understanding, provides clear boundaries that should not be crossed.
Alexander argues, however, that this interpretation is selective.
It draws from Islam the elements that suit Tate’s discourse on masculinity and strength while overlooking essential religious and spiritual dimensions of the faith.
The writer presents Sneako as another example of the same phenomenon.
His interest in Islam has been closely connected to the world of young online influencers, particularly through the influence of Andrew Tate.
Alexander says Islam sometimes becomes part of a lifestyle and social media image for Sneako, through clips filmed in mosques or featuring Qur’anic recitation alongside content about fitness, discipline and self-improvement.
A Civilisation That Has Not Surrendered to Weakness
Bronze Age Pervert, who is not Muslim, represents a more philosophical expression of the same trend.
He focuses on the idea that the West has become weak, complacent and deprived of meaning.
He points to some Muslim societies as examples of civilisations that, in his view, have not surrendered to weakness, individualism or what Alexander describes as “softness”.
This leads Alexander to the central argument of his article.
These figures are not necessarily embracing Islam as a religion.
Rather, they are treating it as an image or symbol of what they believe the West has lost: order, discipline, collective identity, purpose and belief in a fixed system of values.
Alexander argues that this admiration contains a major contradiction.
According to his analysis, these influencers want the image of Islamic discipline without fully committing themselves to Islam’s religious and moral dimensions.
He therefore describes the phenomenon as a form of “Islam without Islam”, meaning an attempt to benefit from the appearance of strength, discipline and strictness without genuine submission to the religious teachings and obligations behind them.
Ultimately, Alexander sees the central irony in the fact that the digital right, which once regarded Islam as one of the West’s greatest enemies, has begun using Islam itself as a model for confronting a West it believes has collapsed from within.
In his interpretation, neoconservatives saw Islam as an external threat to Western civilisation.
Some activists on the new right, by contrast, increasingly see Islam as perhaps the last remaining civilisational model capable of resisting what they regard as Western decay.
Alexander does not conclude that this movement has “become Islamic”.
Rather, he argues that it is using an imagined image of Islam for another purpose: the search for order, strength, identity and meaning that it believes the West has lost.
