The Nick Fuentes debacle and an eroding line

Conservatives and Republicans have been complaining for a while about being called fascists and Nazis by the left. Sometimes, in fact, such epithets have been bandied about too freely. But at the moment, the right is actually arguing about whether a Hitler-loving, Holocaust-denying white nationalist “influencer” and his supporters belong in the conservative camp — a debate that comes on the heels of ongoing controversies about racism and antisemitism in conservative circles.

The debacle began with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewing far-right agitator Nick Fuentes. Fuentes, 27, first emerged on the political scene a half-dozen years ago when his followers started showing up at campus events held by Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, and harassing speakers with comments promoting racist and antisemitic views.

For a long time, Fuentes was an outcast. When he had dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 as a guest brought by rapper Kanye West, Trump quickly denied knowing him.

Yet Carlson’s Oct. 27 interview with Fuentes was not only over two hours long, but extremely cordial. Aside from their agreement in criticizing U.S. support for Israel — a legitimate point of view — both blamed American Jews for allowing a foreign power to “control [our] country.” Carlson offered only mild and polite disagreement when Fuentes argued that “organized Jewry” was a “big challenge” to national unity in America, naming several prominent Jews as examples. The two also had a friendly chat about the virtues of male dominance and the awfulness of women who want equality and success outside the home. And Carlson never challenged Fuentes on his past defense of segregation and promotion of Holocaust denial.

The interview was followed by a huge outcry not only from Jewish conservatives but from leading Republican politicians such as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz. But adding more fuel to the fire, Kevin Roberts — the head of The Heritage Foundation, the influential conservative think tank close to President Trump — not only defended Carlson as a “close friend” but denounced his “globalist” critics. That term is widely viewed as having antisemitic connotations.

After some pushback, Roberts backtracked and apologized. Yet the controversy isn’t over. Fuentes — who has stepped up ugly attacks on his Jewish critics — may not yet be welcome in conservative ranks, but conservative blogger Rod Dreher has reported an estimate that as many as 40% of Republican political staffers under 30 identify with Fuentes’ movement.

Meanwhile, Carlson, who has his own record of thinly veiled hateful remarks, remains respectable. He played a prominent role in Trump’s 2024 campaign; he spoke recently at a Turning Point USA conference. And he is close to Vice President JD Vance — who has repeatedly demurred from condemning or disavowing the bigoted far right.

Critics of Trump-era conservative populism point out that the Fuentes blowup reflects larger pernicious trends on the right. Right wing opposition to “political correctness” and “cancel culture,” for instance, can easily morph into a knee-jerk instinct to defend even odious views as free speech, difference of opinion or irreverent humor. Trump himself has benefited from conservative tolerance for crude and hateful remarks.

Yet the right still drew a line at accepting someone like Fuentes. Today, that line seems to be eroding so that even overt bigotry and hate may no longer be an obstacle to being accepted. Indeed, recent scandals involving racist and antisemitic chats among young Republican activists suggest that many now see such talk as a form of “coolness.” Conservatives who don’t want such behavior normalized need to start confronting it.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.