Front Burner - Nick Fuentes and the mainstreaming of neo-Nazism

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Nick Fuentes and his followers - Groypers - are working to push American conservatism and the MAGA movement into even more dangerous and reactionary territory. He started to gain a following in 2017 after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On his show, America First, Fuentes openly praises Adolf Hitler and pushes white supremacist, Christian nationalist and antisemitic ideas. Fuentes, and his ideas moved one step closer to the mainstream last week when he sat down with Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent right wing talk show hosts in the U.S.So we’re talking about this mainstreaming of his beliefs with Ali Breland, staff writer at The Atlantic, and Ben Lorber, senior research analyst at the social justice think tank Political Research Associates. Lorber is also the author of Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, everybody. I'm Jamie Prosson. If you listen to our episode about the rise of the meme shooter, hyper-online people driven to political violence, then you might remember a name that came up a lot in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Nick Fuentes. Fuentes and his followers, Groypers, are working to push American conservatism and the mega movement into even more dangerous and reactionary things. territory. He started to gain a following in 2017 after being one of the most vocal marchers at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On his show, America First, Fuentes openly praises Adolf Hitler and pushes white supremacist, Christian nationalist, and anti-Semitic

ideas. Just as an example, Kier's Fuentes two years ago. This is God's country. This is Jesus' country. This is not the domain of atheists or devil worshippers or perfidious Jews. This is Christ's country. Here's another. And asked Carlson about his recent platforming of white nationalist and vehement anti-Semite. I'm starting to like it when they call me that. Careful. Careful what you wish for.

Fuentes and his ideas moved one step closer to the mainstream when he sat down with Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent right-wing talk show hosts in the U.S. Nick Fuentes, thank you for doing this. Yeah, thank you for having me. I wanted to meet you. I've heard about you. Hmm, I've heard about you. But his creep towards the barricades of the American conservative power center

is not going unchallenged. Its loudest voices, people like Ted Cruz, have called Fuentes a Nazi. I have seen more anti-Semitism on the right than at any time in my lifetime. It is rising on the right, and it is dangerous. And if we look away... So today, we're going to talk about this main... streaming of white supremacist, anti-Semitic, and neo-Nazi ideals. Ali Breland, staff writer at The Atlantic is here.

He writes about the internet, tech, and politics. So is Ben Lorber. Senior research analyst at the Social Justice Think Tank Political Research Associates, Ben wrote Safety Through Solidarity, a radical guide to fighting anti-Semitism. How are you? Very good to have you both on the show. Hi. Good to be here. Yeah, same. Doing great. Thank you. So, Allie, I'll start with you, if you don't mind.

How did this political streamer that is openly racist? It would be irresponsible if I had a wife and kids to live near black people. It just would be. Misogynistic. I think a lot of men are looking at women and they're very liberal. They're overweight. They have a very high. estimation of themselves. I think people call it hoflation.

Homophobic. Gay people and pedophilia is like this. It always has been. Everybody knows that. For thousands of years. Someone who has praised Adolf Hitler many times. I was like, mom, dad. Hitler was awesome. Hitler was right. He's like, because you said Hitler had aura.

It's like, okay, but he did. But he did. But he did. Amassed the kind of following and influence. that he has. The short version is that Nick did this over the course of streaming for years and sort of developing this intense parasocial relationship with his fans. He's, Tucker Carlson has talked about this a lot. They talked about this in an interview, but Nick is, like, very talented.

He's, like, quite an enthralling speaker, and he's also very good at connecting his message of being, like, sort of far-right authoritarian and racist to the sort of material conditions of, like, what it's like to be a young person and deal with, like, tremendous precarity. And so, like, there's much more than that, but, like, these two rough things helped him create this super durable fan base that made him really popular and made people like Tucker Carlson feel like they eventually had to deal with them because he was accruing so many fans who were just so passionate about his message. And Ben, I know that I gave some examples there in the intro, but just to kind of ground this conversation, could you tell

me a little bit more about the kinds of things that Fuentes has said, how would you kind of sum up his beliefs and why he is so abhorred by many on the left and the right. Yeah. Well, Nick Fuentes, you know, really comes from kind of a classic white nationalist, you know, worldview. You know, he believes that, you know, white people in America, you know, are rapidly becoming extinct due to non-white immigration. And so he wants to end all immigration in order to preserve a white majority in the U.S. We need re-migration.

We don't need an immigration moratorium. We need to take people out of the country. He also is a hardline Christian nationalist. So he wants, you know, fundamentalist, really exclusionary visions of Christianity to be encoded into the law of the land. You know, he doesn't want non-Christians, especially Jews, to be able to hold office. You know, he's really, you know, a rabid misogynist. He believes that women should be disenfranchised. You know, he really runs the gamut of extreme, you know, views that have become increasingly normalized, you know, in the MAGA movement.

And even while, you know, Republican leaders and MAGA leaders, you know, really hold many of his views now. I mean, it's commonplace, you know, in the GOP or for people like Tucker Carlson, you know, to now say that, you know, that immigration is, you know, quote-unquote, you know, replacing, you know, Americans, you know, they still, they reject, you know, his most radical views, even though, you know, mainstream conservatives, you know, really sound a lot more like him every day. I mean, we took another step towards mainstreaming this guy recently, right, when Carlson actually brought him on. his show. And they had a pretty friendly interview, right? It was largely uncritical,

even though he has been critical of Fuentes in the past. And Ben, just tell me more about this conversation that they had and why it set off what some people are calling another mega civil war. Yeah, well, Tucker Carlson, you know, is one of the most, you know, hardline nationalist, mainstream figures in the MAGA movement. You know, he's real to against, you know, immigration. What is this? It's, I think it's the biggest and darkest thing that has happened in the last thousand years, for sure.

And I think it's leading somewhere really, really bad. It's not happening by accident. That's obvious, because it's only happening in white countries. He espouses Christian nationalist, you know, views and increasingly anti-Semitic views. You know, since he's left Fox News in 2023, I believe, he's increasingly radicalized, you know, and he's had more and more extreme voices on his show, you know, people who've questioned narratives around World War II.

Well, it turns out I think the story we got about World War II is all wrong. I think that's right. One can make the argument we should have sided with Hitler and fought Stalin. You know, and now he's had Nick Fuentes on his show. And really that is, you know, kind of like rolling out the red carpet, you know, for Nick Fuentes and his followers to really, you know, have a seat at the table of the GOP. Where is all of this going in this country? Like, where are we in five years?

Not anywhere good. I'm really concerned. And it's caused other institutions, like the Heritage Foundation, you know, that are really mainstream MAGA institutions, really the bedrock institutions of the conservative movement, you know, to have to wrestle with it. And now mainstream conservatives are saying, is there a place for Nick Fuentes, you know, in the mainstream, you know, in the big tent of our movement, you know, before they held him at a distance and they disavowed his views. But now that Tucker Carlson has had him on his show, they really can't avoid that any longer.

You mentioned the Heritage Foundation. It was the head of the foundation, right? He came out and he kind of defended Carlson having Fuentes on the show. He said even though he abhors a lot of what Fuentes says. Cancelling him is not the answer either. When we disagree, with the person's thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas and debate. And we have seen success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left. Yes, that's what happened. On Thursday, yeah, Kevin Roberts had the head of the Heritage Foundation released a video. They really surprised everyone by defending Tucker Carlson. He's since gotten a lot of flack for that. And he's tried to walk it back, but the damage is done. And so let me say loud and clear, the Heritage Foundation, which is a lot of the Heritage Foundation,

has always not only stood against anti-Semitism, and I, if you know anything about my career have done the same, we will never, ever, ever stop fighting against anti-Semitism in all its forms. Allie, do you want to say anything more here about that Civil War that's brewing and the different sides of it? I do. I wanted to jump on to a point that Ben said, like, in the damage being done and what Kevin Roberts said, even though he tried to walk it back, I think it's a really.

illustrative moment because even though he's walking back the comment now after having dealt with backlash from it, he made the calculation and thought that it was okay to do this like defensive Tucker Carlson and say that he didn't want to cancel him because he was conceivable to him from his seat within conservative movement that this would be a thing that other people would defend to. He was like slightly incorrect in this. But I think what he identified that came out and leaked emails that other outlets reported on from heritage staffers was that there is a growing base of interns within the movement that thought that the interview was fine and that there also is just this like wave of like sort of younger staffers within conservatism that think these kinds of things are fine. And depending on who you're talking to, uh, even though there's like tremendous backlash now, there's a lot of people that do think that this kind of thing is okay. And so like there has been this rhetoric of a quote unquote civil war going on. There's like headlines from CNN and wired in other publications that make the case that it is a civil war. But to what Ben was saying earlier, um, in a way, like, these kinds of things already exist in the mainstream. And I don't really think

a civil war is like the correct designation. I think that this is sort of a moment where we are seeing the sort of visible changing of a guard as to what is permissible and what is okay. And people are mad. The old guard is mad that the new guard, like younger group of kids is like are passing them up and changing things in a way that they don't like. But it's like the equivalent of an old man shaking his fist at kids. Like they're moving forward and like at least for the time being, I think that this is going to have a lot of, this sort of racist style of far-right politics is going to have a lot of purchase for years to come. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that.

If I can just add, I mean, it's a clash between, like, as Ali said, you know, an old guard of the conservative movement, you know, and a younger, more energetic, you know, more radical base. And this clash is also playing out, a lot of it's playing out around foreign policy and especially, you know, Israel, you know, the old guard, you know, hues to a more neoconservative way of thinking that the U.S. should strongly support Israel, you know, after October 7th, you know, we saw this on full display with Biden and then Trump, you know, offering full backing to Israel's annihilatory war in Gaza, you know, but the new guard, you know, of the MAGA movement,

especially, you know, younger, you know, conservatives, they're less and less supportive, you know, of Israel. They don't want the U.S. to have that act of a role in the Middle East or anywhere. And Nick Fuentes and people like Tucker Carlson are using this to spread anti-Semitism. They're saying that Israel controls the U.S. because of a Jewish conspiracy, which is really the anti-Semitism at the heart of white nationalism. So, you know, this isn't, you know, only about more and more extreme and hateful ideas. It's also a policy debate that people like Nick Fuentes are latching on to. I totally understand what you're saying there, but it's still so shocking to see this guy get platforms kind of over and over again and legitimized.

I remember when the Nelke boys, these hugely popular podcasters and contact creators had Benjamin Njahu on their show, and they were criticized for, I mean, this is an understatement. It was a completely uncritical interview. What's your go-to at McDonald's? No, I'll tell you, Burger King. We did the, you know, the double, you know. Wopper? Yeah, I haven't ripped Burger King in a long time. It's not.

Burger King kind of sucks. Yeah. No, you're wrong. The BK. Lounge can hit. I disagree completely. You like Burger King over McDonald? Absolutely. That's your worst take, I think.

Absolutely. So then they brought on people to give other, other sides, other views, and they have people like like Adam Friedland. He's going on podcast now because it's a stock price. It's an advantage for them. They're using you guys. They're using you guys to look good. Go on to get the other side, the more progressive view.

That was critical of Israel. But then they brought on Nick Fuentes. They see this as like a push by Netanyahu for public relations. He's going to come on your show to try to get all the young, conservative, frat guys, you know, all the masculine men, the Manosphere types, streaming types to get back in the pocket of Israel. And it is, it's shocking to see how. often this guy is getting kind of sanitized, like rinsed and repeated, just in the ecosystem. If either of you guys want to pick up on that.

You know, I would say people like Nick Fuentes have been able to build a larger and larger base, really through independent streaming. I mean, he's had his show for years. He's built up a loyal fan base. You know, for many years, he was deplatformed from, you know, Twitter, now X, and YouTube. But, you know, as social media companies, you can have relax those. regulations, especially with, you know, Elon Musk at the helm of Twitter, now X. You know, he's been let back on. You know, he, he's able to do his show for three hours a night. You know, I think it speaks

to the power of streamers like Nick Frentes to build that, you know, fan base, you know, to be able to offer political commentary and market themselves as edgy, as the most canceled man in America, as he likes to say, and really, you know, to beat out competitors, you know, and get more eyes on his show. And then, you know, slowly, but surely he's being let back on to these larger platforms, especially as he's, you know, really piggybacked on rising Gen Z dissatisfaction with U.S. support for Israel, you know, to spread these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in a climate where the MAGA movement and young conservatives are primed, you know, for conspiracy theory thinking.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle in all. always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at Lovescarborough.ca.a. At Desjardin Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business, to be exact. Our agents take the time to understand your company so you get the right coverage at the right price. Whether you rent out your building, represent a condo corporation, or own a cleaning company, we make insurance easy to understand so you can focus on the big stuff. Like your small business. Get insurance that's really big on care.

Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. Ali, I think it was you who mentioned earlier. I think you guys have both touched on how this is generational. And it reminds me of that political piece put out last month where group texts were leaked. And there was a number of leaders of young Republican groups. And they were using slurs like the N-word. They joked about Hitler and gas chambers and slavery and rape.

But really, the list goes on. It was disgusting. And some of these people are working in government or in the party right now. One is a state senator. And how widespread or ingrained do you think this kind of stuff is right now? I think that I want to be very clear on the front and say, like, we don't, I don't think that there are great answers as to like what with like certainty as to what the full extent of it is. But like, we can look to a couple things. Paul and Gracia has connections to Fuentes.

His text messages were also leaked. He said that he, quote, unquote, had a Nazi streak amongst other, like, very similar far-right, racist, anti-Semitic perspectives. He's the White House liaison to the DHS. He was appointed for a position in the White House. He was going to be up for confirmation for a higher profile position. But when those texts came out, that fell back. But, like, there's those kinds of things that we clearly know. And then there is this sort of, they're not just rumors.

There's, like, people that have talked about the degree to which this runs through, like, youth staffers. I think it was Rod Dreher, the prominent Christian conservative, said that someone who, quote, unquote, is in a position to know, estimates that 30 to 40 percent of young staffers in Washington, D.C., engage with, like, Fuentes, Groyper slash, like, really racist content and, like, are for it. Obviously, that's just, like, one guy. but then another prominent young Republican, Nathan Hockman, had this line. He is fairly connected within the D.C. youth conservative circles about how his line was that Bronze Age Pervert, who is not an ally of Fuentes, but is racist and really, like, misogynistic and anti-Semitic in a different way, also was a book that was read by every young staffer in the Trump White House. And so, like, there's all of these things that come out that don't seem

like they're off base, that this is sort of just in the water that young. staffers and young members of the right are engaging with all the time. How would these young people define themselves? Like, I listen to Fuentes, not a lot, but I look at some of the stuff that he says, and I think this is clearly Nazi stuff. This is neo-Nazi stuff. But would they and would Fuentes define themselves as Nazis? I think that they would call themselves paleo-conservatives.

So, like, Nick is a really big. I'm actually very curious to hear what Ben's take is on this, but what I'll say briefly is that Nick is a very big fan of this tradition of conservatism from like that goes back the 80s and further with Patrick Buchanan, who is this candidate. And like, Patrick Buchanan ran on this version of conservatism that rejects foreign intervention is laced with anti-Semitism, is laced with this sort of nativist brand of racism and is a rejection of like this Bush era conservatism that was like pro multicultural and wanted to use the American military. to defend democracy around the world. We must not trade in our sovereignty for a cushioned seat at the head table of anybody's new world order. Today we call for a new patriotism where Americans begin to put the needs of Americans first. For a new nationalism. You can argue out the sort of intentions of that, but it sees itself as a distinct break

from that. And he tries to say that that's why he's not a white supremacist. he's operating within this traditional conservatism that has existed for a long time. The counter to that is that a lot of people, when Buchanan was prominent, were comparing him to David Duke and saying that he is just David Duke in a suit

and he's much more polite and savvy, but that he shares the politics of like the KKK. No, I think that's right on. I mean, I would say that, you know, Nick Fuentes has flirted with neo-Nazis, and, you know, he said things like Hitler was cool. In 2022, you know, he did a big tour with, you know, yay, the artist filming on as Kanye West,

where they were both praising Hitler. The Holocaust-denying podcaster Fuentes arriving at Mar-a-Lago as a guest of rapper Yeh. West describing their dinner with Mr. Trump in this since-deleted Twitter video. So Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes.

In a series of social media posts, Mr. Trump denied knowing Fuentes and said he used the dinner to advise West to stay out of politics. And I think, you know, people like Fuentes, you know, do this as much, you could have for shock value, you know, as,

you know, you know, a genuine kind of admiration for Hitler and his policies, which I think he does have, but I think, you know, we don't even have to look to Europe, you know, to understand the kind of, you know, fascism that Nick espouses. You know, as Ali was saying, you know, these, you know, traditions of hardline white supremacy and Christian nationalism, they have, you know, deep roots, not only in the American founding, but, you know, during the Nazi era, you know, people like Ford or Father Coglin, the most popular, one of the most popular radio commentators of the 1930s, you know, they were basically pro-Nazi, and that's where the very slogan America first comes from.

And remember that you're an American fuck. So these kind of fascist and fascist-adjacent traditions have deep roots in the U.S., and that's what Nick Fonte draws from. And I think, you know, it's not only the story of Nick Fuentes and his personal influence, it's an entire generation of young conservatives who for years have been, you know, in a steadily radicalizing, you know, media ecosystem. And it's all fueled, of course, you know, by Trumpism, you know, from the very top, you know, the increasing, you know, encroachment of authoritarianism, you know, into government policy, you know, the impacts of which we see, you know, in the streets of, you know, our cities, like the one that I'm in in Chicago, where ICE is, you know, rounding up my neighbors every day. So, you know, Nick Fuentes is really part of a larger movement, you know, of authoritarianism on the right that's, you know, impossible to deny. Allie, do you want to come in here and talk a bit more about how you see

this far right word lurch being reflected in in policies? I think that, yeah, so like the natural question that flows out of Fuentes' ascension and sort of like sort of thrust in the mainstream is like what this actually means on a policy and cultural level. Like what happens next? And I think that the way to understand the answer to that question is to look at what Nick's influence has been prior when he was still operating on the margins. And so what I personally think is the case from having observed him and then the wider sort of far right movement for a while is that Nick will engage and start to dabble in rhetoric that is like very far right and very nativist years before it becomes okay and I think that you can debate out as to how much influence he actually has or like how much

is emanating from him but I think that he provides a guide as to like where things are going amongst the vanguard of the right and amongst like it's sort of youth fanguards so like in 2000, around 2020, 2019, during Nick's really early days when he was doing the quote unquote Graper Wars where he was like encouraging his very dedicated loyal fan base to not just watch him on his streams, but to go to real life events and harass Charlie Kirk at Turning Point USA events and harassed Don Jr. and to try to get them in an effort to get them to adopt for the right positions. At the time, Charlie, Don Jr., Dan Crenshaw, all like really rejected this. They were like, this is not okay. these guys suck like they're they're a nuisance um and charlie held that position until he died

but charlie also was really engaging with the far right ideas that nick espoused years after the fact so like at the time charlie kirk was more like a free market multiculturalism like not pro LGBTQ but like also was open about having LGBTQ people at turning point USA in visible positions you flash forward to like years later just before his death there's not a formal policy on gay people with an turning point, but, like, there's not really any visible people there anymore. Charlie Kirk has started to engage in this pro-white rhetoric. He is engaged in this sort of economic populism that Nick was, like, talking about years prior. And so, like, I think that as Nick grows in influence, like, we'll see his kind of ideas having more and more purchase years to come if they're not sufficiently combated.

So, like, this virulent anti-Semitism that you see now that is already growing, like, just looks way, way worse in two more years if there is no check to this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ben, do you want to add anything there? Yeah, I mean, I would agree. You know, we saw people like, you know, Charlie Kirk, you know, for years, you know, in 2019, you know, he was talking about, you know, immigration, legal, and otherwise, you know, maybe being a positive in some ways, you know, but, you know, before long, he started using great replacement rhetoric. You know, he started saying there's a war on white people, you know, in the U.S. He started saying, you know, I'm a Christian nationalist, right?

And so did Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green. And every time, those people like Nick Fuentes who were saying, you know, we won. We are pushing the envelope. And, you know, so I agree. I see him as, you know, seeding, you know, ideas, right? You know, seeding discourse and using the media, right, to turn out enough conservative students to events to kind of create viral spectacles and to create the perception that, you know, America First is. inevitable to quote his movement, you know, slogan. So sometimes he exaggerates his influence. Like a month ago, he was bragging, you know, there are Groyper's in every department of the

White House. And that's probably an exaggeration, you know, but he wants the media to quote this, to project him as all-powerful and to give that kind of momentum of inevitability. And I do see him as, you know, kind of a tugboat. You know, he's helping to drag the conservative movement rightwards. And he's not the only one, right? He's also riding the wave, but, you know, he is an influential figure there. I think that's a good place for us to end today. Ben, Allie, this was really interesting. Thank you so much for this.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having us on. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.