Bulwark Takes - Holy Cow, Young Conservatives Are NOT Okay

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Tim Miller and JVL take on a Manhattan Institute focus group that exposed open praise for grotesque “strongman” politics, overt antisemitism, and casual acceptance of extremist figures like Nick Fuentes. Read JVL's Triad newsletter on the focus group: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/behold-the-focus-group-from-hell-city-journal-young-republicans Read the original article on the focus group: https://www.city-journal.org/article/manhattan-institute-focus-group-gen-z-republicans Get 30% off your entire order with Soul at https://GetSoul.com, promo code BULWARKTAKES.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller with the Bullwark here with my buddy, Jonathan V. Last. He writes a great newsletter every day. It's called The Triad. You can sign up for it at the Bullwark.com. And I would highly recommend you do so if you haven't already. And today's triad was a banger. Every once in while, I feel like we need to do a video version for you, you know, non-readers out there for the video people, because this is too good to miss. That headline is, Behold, the focus group from hell. JVL looks at this focus group put out by the Manhattan Institute, which used to be

kind of an normie Republican thing, but now has gone full MAGA, where they talk to Gen Z Republicans and who boy, the Gen Z Republicans are not all right. JVL, tell us a little bit about it. It is wild because one, I mean, we'll get to the meta version of this in a second, but one of the things I want you to think about is, so if we had put out this focus group, everyone would have said, of course, the anti-Trump bulwark tries to put out a focus group with these insane Republicans trying to make them look bad. The Manhattan Institute thinks this is all okay. Let me just, let me, I mean, let's just start with the Hitler stuff.

Oh, great. Why not? The moderator at one point asks the group, what do you guys think about Hitler? Here's Ashley. I think he was a great leader, to be honest. I think what he was going for was terrible, but I think he showed very strong leadership values. One person, right?

You can get one weirdo in every group. Here's Andrew. I'm in favor of a strong executive. I think we should have a stronger executive branch. I don't think we should be killing people or doing mass genocide, obviously. Notice the qualifier mass genocide. But I do think we should have a strong executive. I feel like one of the biggest problems Trump is running into right now is all these little courts.

They're going to throw up little blockages against everything he's trying to do, whether it be his tariffs or deporting people. Some very pro, strong executive, strong leader, strong men. I support national sovereignty. And Hitler was a nationalist. He was like, we have to take Germany back. For Germans, and I feel like we should do that in America. I feel like we should take America back for our native population.

So I'm not an expert on Hitler, by any means. But as far as nationalism concerned, I'm all that. I feel like it should be noted that Hitler did do some work outside of his borders as well. Czechoslovakia for the Germans, Poland for the Germans, right? It was a lot of, it needs some living room, some living space. That line is noteworthy. And I think back to Trump's Madison Square Garden speech, where Miller said, America is for Americans and Americans only.

And it is just as very reminiscent of his line about how Hitlerists were taking Germany back for the Germans. He's seeing a lot he likes there, I guess. So here's Bryce. I myself am actually Jewish ancestrally. I'm Christian by faith, but Jewish by blood. I've actually read Mankv. The end conclusions that he came to absolutely abominable. But I strangely understood where he was coming from as far as wanting to improve the national state of Germany.

Hmm So there's some good stuff in there I mean abominable and terrible In two of the answers A lot of qualifications Somebody who has read MindConf Have you read MindConf? I've not read MindConf

I haven't It's sort of like there's that Succession Scene Or Tom is Yeah Tom's interviewing A wann-be host for succession And he's like

He's like yeah I've read MindConf a few times Tom's like a few times You're like like what did you get from the from the second reading that you didn't get from the first so there's a little bit of that there uh well what maybe these this was just an outlier a couple of these guys are just outliers no after that question the the moderator seems to be slightly shook and he says uh so what do you you all think about shoes and this is again is a group of gen z republicans atticus says they've got hollywood on lock george

says, don't they own like a ton of the media and like just kind of everything? Then we have Andrew who says, I would say a force for evil. I don't see why we support Israel. I think Israel is a very evil state, the genocide in Gaza, killing all these poor people. And the only reason we really support them is because they are the biggest donors. We have A-PAC and they're all these Jewish-run organizations. Monter says, let me clarify that. Andrew, do you think the Jewish people are a force for evil?

Andrew says, yes, sir. It doesn't bother me if it's true. I should say that when you go to the Manhattan Institute's web page, you note that they are having a big benefit honoring Ben Shapiro. Hmm. Hmm. Maybe they put this out as like a warning flare to the conservative movement. That's the crazy part of this, right? So you read this thing, and again, if this was published by the bulwark,

people would be outraged, be like, the bulwark trying to make all these young Republicans seem like extremists. one of the funny thing is towards the end of the focus group they ask the group how do you think society views people like you and they're like they think we're all extremists and groipers and dangerous whackadoos and you know one guy's like i don't even know what a griper i don't even know any groipers but like throughout this thing they ask people about nick puentes and uh the nick foentes answers are really notable actually we should just run through those because I think this is important context to your point about, like, are we nutpicking?

Are you trying? Like, there's a big discourse out there in the narrative that, like, Nick Flintes, like, this is fake. Like, Nick Flindez doesn't have real followers. It's all astroturf. It's all bots. It's astroturf and it's bots to make conservatives look bad. Like, you hear this a lot from credible people, pundits. That is their claim.

Like, this isn't a real thing that we need to address or take seriously. Worry about it's really the left of those anti-Semites. We don't have to take this seriously because it's all fake and it's being pushed by. you know, whatever, outside interests. And then you have this focus group and you start asking people about Nick Flente. So why don't you go through a couple of their answers? Here's George. I think it's hilarious.

I agree with a lot of his points. He definitely doesn't care about how it's going to be reacted to, which I respect. But I also think it can be kind of dangerous. He goes on yada, yada, yada. I just think he's funny, honestly. And that humor, he's saying a lot of things that I kind of align with. He said that all blacks should be in jail and Pierce Morgan. I was like, oh, my God, this guy's kind of a psycho.

It's kind of like a positive psycho. It's like, oh, it's like, you're so crazy. He's so based. Yeah, based, yeah. Allie says at its core, I believe a lot of what he says, but I think the delivery is kind of poor, like I feel that way about Trump. But he's America first. He's not anti-helping other countries, but he's like, we can't be putting our country

at risk because of it. So I just think that general mindset is what I agree with. Atticus says, I dig him. He knows the market. He's not going to please everybody. He's definitely going after more of the shock value with one of his stuff. But as far as general beliefs or values, I sort of agree. Just really quick on that one, they'll call this out.

He knows his market. Again, that is a Gen Z kid that is a Gen Z conservative who is familiar with him, knows what his material is, and he caveats that it's like, well, there's some things, I don't agree, there's some shock value stuff that goes over the top, but like he knows his market. That is the Gen Z conservative basically saying, I know people like me, we are the market for Nick Flentes. He knows his marketing, knows how to appeal to us. Like that, you know, I mean, that's like a firsthand testimony from a young,

MAGA. Like, yeah, like, Nick Fentis is giving other young MAGAs what they're looking for as far as content is concerned. And then Ethan says of Nick Fuentes, he has some interesting opinions, I think, specifically on race. They're just interesting opinions, Tim. You don't hear them elsewhere. You know, the things that, like, all black should be in jail. Like, that's not the kind of thing that, like, women shouldn't vote, you know, Jews are untrustworthy. Like, you don't, you don't hear those in other places. And it's interesting to hear them from Nick. And then there's Andrew. I don't even think we should say what Andrew said about Nick Flintes because we'll get demonetized.

But it's disgusting. It's wild. You can sign up for the tryout to read what Andrew says about Nick Flentes, but it's supportive and disgusting. We'll just leave it there. But this same guy. So they then ask about dating. And this group is very down on dating. And the women are all like, guys are terrible and unsurious.

And the guys are like, yeah, women are, you know, they're so mouthy. and they got all these tattoos and stuff. And this is one guy, Andrew, he says, I don't see a lot of good Christian women. I see a lot of tattoos and I don't like that. I see a lot of promiscuity with women. I don't like that either. I see a lot of feminism too, a lot of bossy women.

I look at my mother. I see a very traditional conservative women, and I don't see that in other women around. God bless him, this poor guy, kid just trying to find his own version of mother to marry. Where is my good God-fearing woman who wants to stay in the kitchen? And when the moderator asks, do any of you think that women shouldn't be allowed to vote? This dude is like, I just feel like women are very emotional and that politics is a man's discipline. I seriously believe it.

My mother actually believes this, too. I know some other women who believe that. I just feel like I've never really seen a woman who truly understands politics. And this guy is just like mystified is why he can't get laid. Household voting, head of household voting maybe for him. Bullwork takes is sponsored by Seoul. When the holiday season rolls around, it feels like there's a party every weekend. God knows, I've been to a few.

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that's how I do my best parenting and podcasting the next day. Bring on the holiday cheer and treat yourself for someone you love to Soul this season. Right now, Soul is offering the audience here 30% off of your entire order. Go to getsole.com and use the code bullwork takes. That's getsole.com promo code, bullwork takes, and you'll get 30% off. To me, this isn't one of those things where, you know, people can disagree. you know, whatever. We can do data.

Like, how big is this group? What is the percentage of people that have these kind of disgusting views that are Nick Flintes and Rick Flindis interested? Is it 10%? Is it 60%? I, like, you know, of the young. But it's not 2%. It's not 2%.

That's the thing. The fact that these guys, guys like Andrew, feel comfortable saying it in front of people. Like, this is, you know, this is not, this is not the leaked text chain. The leaked text chain was bad and revealing in a way. and you know it's different though in this situation where it's like you know you're in a focus group they're going to publish some of this you know the other people around are going to hear you in fact I guess you didn't mention one of the members participants stormed out yeah because yeah she's

Hispanic there's so much anti-Hispanic talk we didn't even get into the immigration and she identified herself as very right wing and a baptist and she she was like peace out this is bad I experience this is a Jubilee, right? Where there was a handful of people that were Christians, you know, evangelicals or whatever church kids that like, you know, had pretty far right views. They'd come along with Trump. But, like, thought that everybody would agree with them on like the,

well, yeah, Trump is a little extreme in his rhetoric sometimes. And he can be a little bit cruel to people. And we still respect everybody's dignity. And like, there are people in there and there's like, no, actually. I've heard the one girl, there's one moment from age ofibly where she was like, And I think we all, like, agree that there's some way that people could become citizens or some paths. She said something like that. And I was like, you think so? And I talked around and I was like, is anybody here for a path to citizenship? And it was like, no hands.

So I do think there is a little bit of that where some people who are in certain bubbles of concertism don't realize how widespread this is. But that guy, Andrew, he basically the takeaway was he's not going to suffer any consequences from this. He's not embarrassed about sharing it. and that comes from a place of like if you once you if you get that comfortable saying that kind of stuff because you know other people around you are okay with it like there was time like when we were growing up like you know particularly I have a lot of friends from the south and stuff where there's like a period of time where in certain places where I'd be certain demographics like you'd hear people say the N-word like you know what I mean like you wouldn't hear it like in Denver you know what I mean like you wouldn't hear it otherwise and why was that it was because like they felt in their social circles like that there weren't there's no going to be no social consequence for it so they could right and that's where we're at now like we've come back around to that with these with like nationalists like hitler adjacent goy per views right where people kid the genzy conservative kids feel comfortable saying it because they're like a bunch of my friends agree with this bunch of them quietly agree with it there's some other ones that are going to be nambi pambies that try to silence me but we don't care about them anymore because the vice president of the united states says we don't do cancellations and uh and so what Why not just let it rip? No enemies to the right. This is, I mean, there was a thing where they ask people about, like, you know, who, what political figure best represents them.

There's this one guy, George, who says, Tucker Carlson, especially after his departure from Fox. Just seeing how now he's kind of more middle ground, not so brainwashed by the bosses who tell him what to say. This guy likes the Tucker who is independent who does like the, the, the, the Tucker who is independent, who does like the, the martyr-made Nazi historian guy and the Nick Fuentes, and he views that as being the more moderate version. And I came away from this, like really, again, as I have for the last couple weeks, I don't understand how conservative, because there have been a lot of very, very loud conservative Jewish voices for Trump. And here's what I'm interested in. Here's my thesis, Tim. Let me try it on you. Trump has held his coalition together because he has made space for the

Grypers and the anti-Semites at the table, but then he's delivered on the pro-Israel policies for his conservative Jewish supporters. So he'll have dinner with Nick Fuentes, but then he'll be Bibi Netanyahu's bitch. And so they both, both sides get what they want. And I don't know how J.D. Vance replicates that. Vance is seen, seems like he's trying to do the opposite, which he's signaling that he wants no part of Israel in order to make the

anti-Semites happy. But then to make the conservative Jewish supporters happy, he also says he doesn't like Nick Fuentes. Right? It's like the inverse of what Trump is doing.

And I just have to, I mean, maybe it can work. I don't know. It's going to be interesting. I think it could work if there's inevitability. Me and Bill talked about this a little bit on the pod today, right? If there's a sense that J.D. is inevitable and that to be against J.D. is to be with the loke left, then all these people will make peace with it and figure it out, right? Is what I think. I know be certain exceptions. The Groyper's, sure. So I think the Groyper's will say, yeah, he has to say he doesn't want us, but he's cutting off Israel.

And that's what we're really, we're the ones getting what we want. Yeah. But if you are, If you were the type, if you were, especially in the donor class. I think of Paul Singer, remember that guy debated on MSNBC, that one last year. Was Paul Singer going to be okay with that? It was a Nikki Haley donor. Yeah, I don't. You know, I don't know. They all rationalized the last year, though.

Like, all those guys. I mean, they all rationalized to last year based on saying that the other side is worse. I don't know. I mean, he's walking a tightrope, though, J.D. fans on this. And, I mean, it's crazy. Like, he was at turning point. this weekend saying like we shouldn't cancel people or de-platform people and charlie wouldn't have wanted us to but like that's opposite actually charlie did de-platform or not deep-platform but did

ban nick phoentes from from from the event and enforced people who anybody who do who fraternize with quintus charlie kirk went after them for it right cut her mouth yeah and so like now jd has like has gone even past to that he's at the doing this speech saying like oh well he you know, you can have people out here doing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and nativeist stuff and spreading, you know, like, rumors about how Israel and France must have killed Charlie Kirk and like, that's fine. It's just, it's just all, it's all just a free debate. It's free speech. Everybody should be able to have a, yeah. And he came firmly down on that side as opposed on the side of people that were criticizing it. So, I mean, I think we know where JD is.

I want to be careful eye frame this. A lot of people, sort of when they talk about this, they frame it as a moral question about, like, we'll do. We have to root for one side over another. And my response to this is you should all be liberated because no matter what you care about or root for, you have no impact on this, right? This is a thing which will play out irrespective of how you feel about it. So just as an analytical matter, who do you think wins? I kind of think it's the Groyper's.

Like, that's where the energy is. That's where the excitement is. That's the transgressive stuff. That's the conspiracy stuff. everybody else becomes basically Mitch McConnell, right, wagging their fingers saying, don't talk about that. And just look at these Gen Z kids in the focus groups. I just think it's objectively true.

I don't like that they're winning now. Could things change? Could something happen that would reverse the trend? Sure. I don't know. But like to me, even listening to the speeches at TPA USA, it's like Ben Shapiro is right on the facts. Right? It's like these guys are conspiracy mongering.

They're spreading things that are untrue. But you could just tell the emotional connection with the room was on the side of the Tucker's and stuff. It's like, we should be able to say whatever we want. And America's for Americans and Americans only. And we should care about America first. And the fact that J.D. didn't, like, J.D. sided with Tucker. He tried to make it seem like he wasn't siding with anybody because he's like all sides matter. But like Ben Shapiro's whole point was that no, like actually there's right and wrong.

And there's truth and false. And we should be able to say what's true. And J.D. was like, no, we don't have to say. that. And so to me, I do think the, the energy is on that side. That is what the younger folks want. Could it change? Like, sure. You know what I mean? Like, if J.D. Vance is nominated in 28 and get slaughtered, you know, because he's so unappealing. Maybe is there a reverse? I don't, you know, who the hell knows what the future holds? Let's put it this way. The fact that Erica Kirk had to go and share a stage at their own event with people that are out there saying that, like,

like making up like wild fantasies about her husband's assassination shows that they've already conceded to them yeah right if she can't say no right like who is who is if she and j d vans are going to say no who's going to say now last question for you tim do you think the manhattan institute looks at this thing as a like hey just presenting interesting information or do you think this is a like trying to subtly ring an alarm Bell. I have no idea. In these situations, I almost always like fall back on incompetence is a better explanation for things than malice. I mean, sometimes there's malice, but there's just a ton of

incompetence. And so I want to see proof of malice before I believe it. They arranged this focus group as part of like the donors wanted them to, you know, and the Manhattan Institute is, is like a crypt you know and it's a you know like it's not as if at the manhattan institute you know fucking rubber chicken speech dinners there's like a lot of young people and a lot of excited chris rufo there tim so you should probably you can probably imagine donors to this being like we got engaged young conservatives and then somebody in there's like here's a project idea why don't we have a conversation with them yeah and see what they care about and then we'll reply and then they did the focus group and it's like whoa they're Nazis

And it's like, okay, what do we do now? And like, well, inertia, I don't, that's my best explanation. I'm open to other explanations because it's like baffling that they, that they would think this was something that would advance their mission. It's wild. Absolutely wild. Jonathan last, thank you very much. It's a great newsletter, the triad.

People should go sign up for it. Everybody subscribe to the bulwark at thebork. And theborek.com, subscribe to this feed. You can get our YouTube bonus content, just if you're just a YouTube person. becoming a YouTube board member on YouTube. Appreciate you all very much. Merry Christmas. Hitler is bad.

We'll see you soon.