“The Republican Party . . . they’re atheists, gay, feminists. We need to rally the base against the establishment,” said white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes in an October 27 YouTube video that now holds over six million views. “The base is extremely conservative, extremely anti-left. . . . If we don’t conserve the demographics, forget the rest.”
Sitting across the table was Tucker Carlson, still among the most popular conservative pundits in the country, nodding along with Fuentes’s assessment.
“Worrying about who lives in your country — is that really too extreme?” Carlson asks incredulously. “You’re clearly ascendant. They tried to silence you, and it hasn’t worked.”
Carlson, arms folded and head cocked, is in full performance mode, seated in a wood-paneled cabin and costumed in relaxed-fit flannel. Since Carlson’s termination from Fox News in 2023, his brand has gotten more extreme as he has devolved into conspiracy theories about everything from chemtrails to 9/11 to Israel. Carlson’s appeal is in his effusive bluntness: Why can’t we talk about demographics? Is it a crime to say “Jewish”? Why don’t they want us asking questions?
Carlson wasn’t simply boosting Fuentes, nor was he engaged in some neutral exercise in free expression. The act of hosting functioned more as quiet validation, a signal that Fuentes belonged within the bounds of acceptable debate.
Fuentes’s appearance had been hinted at for weeks, coming shortly after he appeared on the most popular YouTube show on Earth: Candace Owens’s. The two spent years at odds, ever since Fuentes’s first real boost came when his “groyper” audience trolled Turning Point USA events for their tacit Zionism. Today the tension between them seemed more a product of their brand-driven internet celebrity than any deeply held ideological beef — and this was on full display, as not only did they agree, but Owens often outflanked Fuentes to his right.
“You’re…
Auteur: Shane Burley
