Copyright MSNBC
Nick Fuentes has said that “Hitler is awesome.” He has said that Jews “have no future in America.” He’s a fascist and his worldview isn’t particularly difficult to understand. For years, the language Fuentes has used about Jews was enough to inspire the leaders of the traditionally philosemitic, pro-Israel conservative movement to keep the 27-year-old livestreamer somewhat walled off from even the mainstream MAGA movement. For example, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) banned Fuentes in recent years, forcing him to create a parallel event called the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) as an alternative. The MAGA movement that once sought to distance itself from those white supremacists at the deadly Unite the Right event who chanted ‘Jews will not replace us!’ has started to age out. But a recent slate of friendly media appearances and articles, culminating in a sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson, posted to the former Fox News host’s website on Oct. 27, has shown that the younger, pro-Hitler wing of the MAGA movement that grew up alongside the political ascendancy of Donald Trump will neither grow out of their rhetoric nor fade away. They are, in fact, rapidly defining what MAGA will mean in the years after the nearly octogenarian Trump leaves the stage. “For us, he was like the savior of Western civilization,” Fuentes told Carlson of Trump’s rise in 2016 during that interview, referring to how his generation of reactionaries grew up. Carlson did more than platform Fuentes, he also allowed him to say in that interview that he “loves all people” and that his “best friend is Jewish” without citing his history of genocidal statements about Jews — much less his comments about other groups, like when he said that he wanted to see women burned at the stake. Despite being fired by Fox News in 2023, Carlson remains a dominant figure in conservative media and a tastemaker for the GOP base, which is why many people have expressed horror about the interview. He has hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers to his website and almost 17 million followers on Elon Musk’s X, where he also posted the conversation with Fuentes. Beyond one or two of the most popular MAGA-friendly bro podcasts, few platforms would signal Fuentes’ ascendancy — and mainstream MAGA acceptance — in a more obvious way than being welcomed by Carlson. Some prominent conservatives have excoriated Carlson in the aftermath of him platforming Fuentes, who participated in the once-taboo Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017 — but they are fighting a battle they have already lost. Nothing underscores this more clearly than the commentary of Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, which is the preeminent conservative think tank in the U.S. and the creator of the notorious Project 2025, which has served in great effect as the blueprint for the second Trump administration. “The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the backbone of the conservative movement by canceling its own people, or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won’t start doing that now,” Roberts said in a video statement posted to X on Oct. 30, before clarifying that he “abhors” Fuentes’ views. Eighty-three-year old Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., responded to Roberts on X a day later by writing that conservatives should not feel an obligation to carry water for antisemites and apologists for “America-hating autocrats.” “But maybe I just don’t know what time it is … ,” the former Senate majority leader concluded. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called Carlson “complicit” in Fuentes’ “evil” to a receptive audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition summit on the same day. Entire books could be written about McConnell’s or Cruz’s role in forging the radical climate of the contemporary conservative movement, but it seems clear that they are currently overwhelmed by it. The younger, pro-Hitler wing of the MAGA movement that grew up alongside the political ascendancy of Donald Trump will neither grow out of their rhetoric nor fade away. Their worried tone was matched earlier in October by the Jewish conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, who told the Jerusalem Post that people on the right “get more clicks” if they adopt an “anti-Jewish agenda.” But utterly without the incentive of clicks, leaked group chats of young, Fuentes-pilled Republicans show them confessing to an admiration of Hitler and an openness to fascist ideology. The MAGA movement that once sought to distance itself from those white supremacists at the deadly Unite the Right event who chanted “Jews will not replace us!” has started to age out. It is both losing ground and becoming inured to a younger group of activists. Some of these activists view Trump not as a savior but as a stepping stone toward Hitlerism. A shift in American opinions about Israel and antisemitism in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, has opened the door for fascist activists like Fuentes to flourish. The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, has also shifted some of its focus to left-wing demonstrators who support Palestinian freedom and away from would-be fascists, offering Fuentes a more comfortable environment to grow than he had during Trump’s first term. Meanwhile, ostensibly nonconservative media has shown a willingness to play footsie with the young Fuentes, sometimes downplaying his bigotry to a confounding degree. One heavily criticized example of that came from an October blog post published on GQ’s website, in which the pseudonymous writer referred to Fuentes’ views as simply being “anti-Zionist”and made no mention of his involvement in Unite the Right. Given what is evolving in MAGA world right now, it’s urgent that opponents of that movement delineate a clear separation between American Jews — a vast, complicated group that includes many antiwar activists — and the actions of an Israeli government that sits thousands of miles away. It’s equally important for people to recognize “what time it is,” as McConnell put it, and stop navel-gazing about a fascist future that has already arrived.
