Today, Explained - The rage bait candidate

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

James Fishback is racist, antisemitic, economically populist, and the longshot candidate for Florida governor. He might be where the Republicans are heading next. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Kelli Wessinger, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Andrea López-Cruzado, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Image courtesy of Fishback for Florida/fishback2026.com. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Will Summer, senior reporter at the bulwark, who is James Fishback? Sure, so James Fishback is a candidate, a Republican candidate for governor in Florida. I'm running for Florida governor so I can make life more affordable for you and your family. He has very little chance of actually winning, but he's getting a lot of attention because he seems to have energized Gen Z Republicans in particular. We just interviewed James Fishback, the America First candidate running for governor of Florida, who has been taking the internet by storm. Despite or perhaps because of being really,

racist. You've been repeatedly calling and referring to Byron Donald's as DEI Donald on social media. Referring to Congressman Byron Donald's as a, quote, slave to his donors. You know, he has a really thin resume. He's, you know, is someone who I think typically couldn't be elected for dog catcher, but he's kind of catching on. He's gaining in the polls. And while he still probably won't win, I think he's offering us a face of sort of one potential future for the Republican Party. The rage bait candidate on today, Explain from Box. week on Net Worth and Chill, we're live from South by Southwest with California Governor Gavin Newsom, the politician behind viral TikToks and one of the most talked about figures in American politics.

After years of leading the country's most populous state, Governor Newsom is getting candid about why rent is too high, why groceries cost too much, and how the government is and isn't showing up for everyday Americans. Get ready for an unfiltered conversation about the wealth gap, housing, AI's impact on the economy, and what it'll actually take to build a better financial future. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Last week, Apple announced its cheapest laptop ever. And the wildest thing about it is it's really kind of very good. This week on the Vergecast, we're talking all about how Apple managed to make the MacBook Neo as good and cheap as it is.

And whether the rest of the PC market needs to be in just a full-blown panic about it. All that. Plus, the latest on what's going on with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, what's going on with the Unthor, what's going on with the Anthropic and the Department of War and the future of Xbox. On the verge cast, wherever you get podcasts. This is Today Explained. When we sat down with Will Summer, we asked him where this Florida man, James Fishback, came from. Just about nowhere.

I mean, he was in finance. He was apparently, according to court documents, a pretty low-level employee at a hedge fund. And then he sort of afterwards styled himself as sort of this like real hedge fund expert. They claim he made up his. title. When did you first consider yourself to be the head of macro? This isn't some beef about head of macro. I know everybody wants to talk about head of macro this. And that kind of became sort of a meme in the finance community because it was just so ridiculous. But through that, he managed to get on Fox business a lot and sort of leverage that into appearing like he's this sort of expert

financier type guy. So I'm going to bring in Azoria CEO, James Fishback. And Azoria's CEO is James fishback, and he joins me now, James. And to further complicate the shape-shifting identity of this white supremacist candidate, he's not super white? Right. I mean, this is kind of the, you know, one of the fascinating things about him. I mean, he's extremely racist to Byron Donald's, the congressman who's been endorsed by Trump, who's sort of the frontrunner in the Florida governor's race.

Congressman Donald's, license and registration, please. Easy there. easy there, Congressman Donald's. Hands where I can see them. Enough. Get out of the car. Hands behind your back. You are under arrest for betraying America to Israel. At the same time, his mother is Colombian, and so he's half Colombian. But, you know, this is also kind of something we're seeing more of, I think, is this kind of racial extremism in Florida among Hispanic people. There was recently a leak of young Republicans who were Hispanic in Miami being extremely racist. And he's really kind of become the face of the, or one of the faces of the sort of the white nationalist, the so-called Groyper movement that surrounds the podcaster Nick Fuentes. And yeah, remind people who don't pay attention to Nick Fuentes and the Groyper's what they're all about. Sure. So Nick Fuentes is a young man in his late 20s who marched in Charlottesville, real kind of avowed racist. That's part of what's wrong with black people in America's that chip on their shoulder. No humility. And anti-Semite. Jews be Jewing.

Who has styled himself, particularly after the murder of Charlie Kirk, that created sort of a vacuum. And Nick Puentes has stepped into it. sort of the racist face of young republicanism. And what does like, you know, the Venn diagram overlap look like between Nick Fuentes and the racist Groopers and this long-shot candidate for Florida governor, James Fishback? I would say that Venn diagram is just about a circle. I mean, James Fishback has really welcomed the Groyper's support. I probably shouldn't say this, but I think Nick's following is actually really impressive.

There's a lot of young men who are patriotic who are well-informed. Nick Fuentes has been very complimentary towards him. We have our Groyper Intelligence Agency hat as seen on James Fishback's head. And he's excellent. Fishback will post for pictures with people in Nick Fuente's merchandise, with, you know, guys wearing Nick Fuentes' sweaters, with a, he's very close with this right-wing media figure who said, she's going to have some more kids and make some more young Groyper's. So, you know, they're very closely aligned.

And I think Fishback is interesting because he's probably the closest we've come to a sort of Nick Fuentes-Groiper-type political candidate. And his relative success, I think, suggests that that kind of candidate has some runway among Gen Z Republicans. Nick Fuentes is interesting to talk about this moment because he's a white supremacist, like borderline Nazi, maybe Nazi, full-on Nazi. it's unclear, but he also says like he wants to vote for Democrats in the next election. My vote for the Democrats is a middle finger to the GOP. I don't care. How does that affect someone like Fishback? Where does he sit in the ideological spectrum left and right?

I mean, I think Fishback represents this kind of growing discontent among young Republicans with the Trump administration, particularly over support for Israel, the war with Iran, but more broadly, this sense of, you know, that Trump isn't doing anything about affordability to help young people own home. start families. It's sort of this kind of populist, I mean, to be frank, kind of quasi-fascist, this kind of government stepping in to control families, to control businesses. You know, one of his proposals is that in a marriage of someone cheats, they should lose all of their, all of the marital assets. If you enter the covenant of marriage and then you cheat, you're giving up everything. You don't have any rights. Which, you know, to me, I think would

just sort of incentivize like spousal murder or something, you know, if you're going to be a pauper, if you get divorced. But he has these ideas that people go, oh, yeah, that's true. Even though, I mean, it's crazy, just to underline one more. I mean, he talks about, you know, housing affordability in Florida. But a lot of his ideas are either onerous taxes on anyone who moves to Florida or somehow banning people from moving to Florida. I will pass the Mamdani tax, $50,000 property transaction tax for any out-of-state individual who wants to buy real estate, single family real estate here in Florida. These really kind of heavy-handed government vision that he's proposing.

And I saw the New York Times opinion writer Michelle Goldberg. She went and hung out at fishback events in Florida. And she met a registered Democrat, Mom Donnie fan, who said she was thinking of changing her registration to vote for fishback in the primary. Who is he speaking to? How big is his tent? Because if you look at images from his events, it looks like a lot of young white. men, but maybe not exclusively.

Yeah, I mean, I think fishback is benefiting from a couple things. I mean, one is, on one hand, I think you do have people who are legitimately sort of alienated from normal politics and because he's this unusual kind of candidate they're latching on to him. On the other hand, I think he's also benefiting from this kind of like poisoned information ecosystem. I mean, someone else in the Michelle Goldberg piece says they got into fishback because they saw Kanye West post a graphic about Jews controlling the media.

And so they entered him through that vector. So I think there's this just kind of this crazy online ecosystem that really also favors seeking attention. And Fishback certainly does that. He has these kind of mobs that go to waffle houses for events. He'll say these kind of eye-catching ideas like public executions for anyone who associated with Jeffrey Epstein or taxing only fans creators at 50% of their income. That is how you disincentivize and deter this degenerate behavior. And we're going to use the money to increase public school teacher pay. And this then creates kind of a feud with some only fan stars.

Never in my whole life did I think that I would wake up and see a Florida politician trying to start beef with me for clout. And so he's been able to get attention in a lot of different ways, despite really running sort of a shoestring campaign. And you said earlier he doesn't really have a shot, but he's getting enough attention to be worth talking about because he appears to have some influence here. What does he parlay that into, if not running Florida? Well, look, I mean, these days, in many ways, being a right-wing media figure is better than being a politician, you know, maybe not governor, but, you know, we've seen someone like Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino quit to go back to podcasting. Man, it is good to see you guys. It's been a crazy year. I really, really miss you. I mean, if you want influence, I think in a lot of ways, it's better to be someone like Candace Owens or Megan Kelly with a huge YouTube platform than just a sort of random congressman or something. So I think in some ways, James Fishback is. sort of trying to play on that. And he's young. You know, he could run for office in the future.

So I think that there is this sense that he, despite being, I mean, frankly, like just a big time Charlotte end in many ways, he's sort of harnessing this discontent among young people. And do the young people think he's genuine? Because just hearing you talk about his experience or lack thereof, it seems like he's just someone who's sort of taken advantage. of whatever zeitgeist, you know, is in front of him to, I don't know, just increase his own popularity, his own presence. Yeah, I mean, I think sort of the savvier fishback fans, I mean, some people you'll meet, they're just, you know, weeping like they're, you know, meeting a huge celebrity. They just love fishback. On the other hand, I think a lot of these kind of Groyper-type figures are very cynical about

politics in general. I mean, they would love to see a sort of fascist America. But they see fishback as a useful vehicle. I mean, he's a guy who has like a certain amount of charisma that appeals to some people. And they see him as someone who's, you know, putting out these, you know, able to capture some energy and also show this discontent within the Republican Party. Not that, you know, we aren't going to be happy just to vote for whoever Donald Trump endorses in this primary. You can read Will Somer at the bulwark.com. It's a substack.

Enemy of the show, Tucker Carlson has said that pretty soon all-winning Republicans. Republicans will be talking like James Fishback. We're going to ask someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the right if that should have us shaking in our shorts when Today Explained returns. Support for Today Explain comes from Shopify. Starting a new business has never been easy, says Shopify, but without the right tools, it can feel almost impossible. Perhaps Shopify can set you up for success.

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Stephanie Slade covers Conservatives for Reason magazine. We invited her on today, Explain, to figure out how we should be thinking about a figure like James Fishback. Stephanie seemed to think that if you have a good enough grasp of the history here, you wouldn't be so spooked by him. So we asked her to hit us with some history. We started with what the founders of modern conservatism would make of James Fishback. It's always hard to try to bring these figures into our time and place. But I think that if you are talking about people, the leading lights of mid-20th century, mid-20th century conservatism, like William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review. See, the trouble with you is that you get very resentful whenever anybody reminds you of what you say.

If I said what you said, I'd feel the same way. Russell Kirk, you know, the conservative writer. What the public hopes for, however dimly, is restoration. If conservatives can deal with these great problems, ably and honesty, posterity will bless them. People like this, they believed very deeply in the importance of cultivating a responsible conservatism. Why are the races unreconsiled? Why does poverty persevere? Why are our governors indifferent to us? Why are the young disenchanted? Why do the birds sing so unhappily?

it is easy to be carried away, and yet always there is a strain of seriousness. Something in the system that warns us, warns us that America had better strike out on a different course rather than face another four years of asphyxiation by liberal damages. They thought that conservatism was a disposition. It was a quality of being. It had a lot to do with how we preserve a civilization. And so there's many things about figures on the right today, on the fringes of the right today, like a James Fishback, who I think are certainly not, I would say, in keeping with that tradition.

Yeah, civility does not seem to be huge on James Fishback's platform agenda. When we talk about modern conservatism, what are we talking about? When did it start? I would define the conservative movement in America, as we know it, as being a post-World War II phenomenon. In the years after World War II ended, the sort of conservative movement in America came, into being in a self-conscious way. Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it. For when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by the liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by the great many of those of the well-fed right,

whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity. National Review, November 1955. And the scholars and writers, and again, people associated with National Review Magazine being sort of the center of this, all recognized that they were sort of building a movement from scratch. Ideas have to go into exchange to become or remain operative. And the medium of such exchange is the printed word. A vigorous and incorruptible journal of conservative opinion is, dare we say it, as necessary to better living as chemistry. They didn't think the ideas were new. They thought, if anything, they thought that they were just trying to preserve the principles and institutions of the American founding.

So these were things that, you know, had been around for centuries. But they believed that the movement itself was sort of being constructed from the ground up. And so that was happening, again, in the late 1940s, through the founding of National Review in 1955, through the founding of Young Americans for Freedom in 1960, in the Goldwater Campaign. say it is time to put conscience back in government, and by good example, put it back in all walks of American life. In your heart, you know he's right. Vote for Barry Goldwater.

And up into the 70s, 80s, and 90s and the launching and founding of all kinds of the institutions that we think of as being the institutions of mainstream establishment conservatism today, like the Heritage Foundation or the Philadelphia Society, the ACU, which is the organization that puts on CPAC, the big conservative conference every year. these groups sort of came into being during this period between this late 40s into the 90s, let's say. And I think just bringing this back to the moment we're in right now where you see a fringe figure, or at least for the moment a fringe figure like James Fishback, it feels new and kind of scary. Oh, a guy seems like a Nazi sympathizer. But it's important to note here that throughout this conservative era that you're telling us about there were also fringe.

figures? Always. Oh, for sure. It's not like racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, are things that were invented by young men in the 21st century. There were figures like George Wallace, who was actually a New Deal Democrat. He was not a Republican, but he was a figure who was sort of trying to drag our American politics in that direction during the 60s and 70s. And that we're going to stand up for the people of Alabama and far away of life, and we're not going to let the NAA CP and the moderates and all that crap take over and mix the school system in this state. He was basically an Alabama segregationist. He wanted to maintain segregation.

The Republican Party was forced to view him as a competitor for their base voters. In the 90s, we had the rise of the paleo-conservatives, the people like Pat Buchanan. There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself. for this war is for the soul of America. Who, the commitments were not all necessarily what we would call far right. Both Buchanan and certainly Wallace

were further to the left on economics than the mainstream conservatives, but very, very anti-immigration, dabbling or flirting with anti-Semitism, that sort of thing. So, I mean, again, it's hard to place them sometimes on a left-right spectrum, but a lot of the ideas that we are seeing

that have sort of re-emerged, in recent years, in conjunction with the rise of the Maga, you know, Trumpism phenomenon, have been calling back to things like those paleo-conservatives of the 1990s. Now, what is a little different now, and it's kind of hard to even capture this in words, but right, there's a trollish quality to a lot of these far-right figures now. They're essentially online influencers before they are anything else. And that's how they're making their money is by having a following on their, you know, rumble or whatever. The left wing and the right wing are both attached to the same corrupt Uniparty bird.

What I'm asking voters to do is to give me a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot that freaking bird out of the sky and take our country back. Whether or not to take them seriously is this really hard question. Do they mean what they say? I get this question all the time. If Nick Fuentes or somebody goes out there and says, The only purpose of a woman is to, I don't know what language is acceptable on this podcast, but go for it. We'll fix it in post. Pointas famously not that long ago said that women only have three purposes.

It can be mothers, whores, or nuns. And, you know, when he says something like that, does he mean it? Or is he just trying to get a rise out of people to get more attention to get more clicks to make more money? It's hard to say. And so a lot of what's going on here is there's this new sort of post-ironic, intentionally transgressive trollishness that's going on. This is definitely all the rage in terms of the people who are not running for office, the Tucker Carlson's, the Nick Fuentes is.

But it's bleeding into some of these far-right candidates. And Fishback is a perfect example of this, where he's clearly come up in that culture. And so it's hard to know, whereas Buchanan was very earnest. I mean, he believed what he was saying. He may say things that were offensive, but he said it because he believed it and he was trying to convince you of it. Whereas these guys, you don't really know what they,

believe and you don't know whether they're actually trying to convince you of something or if they're just trying to make you mad because they think it's funny and they like the attention. It sounds like you're saying figures like Pat Buchanan who maybe represented a farther right segment of the party of the movement. You know, they did make a difference. Are they comparable to like a James Fishback who might be making a difference right now or even someone like a like a David Duke who was like straight up KKK but certainly has. had some following in far-right American politics? Yeah, well, it's much like Fishback is not currently leading in the polls. Somebody like a Buchanan was never somebody who was really threatening to win the Republican nomination. He ran against George H.W. Bush, for example, in 1992.

He was challenging him from the right on some issues, from the left on some issues. And he did well. I mean, he was challenging and, you know, sitting Republican president. He did pretty well. It was surprising to a lot of people. He had a ground spell of support, but it was always a minority. of support. And again, fortunately, I think the evidence right now suggests that it is a minority of support that are kind of behind these fringe figures like fishback today. But you just never

know whether what starts as a groundswell will become the kind of overpowering, you know, tidal wave of support that we saw, for example, in 2016 with Donald Trump that nobody, nobody in respectable politics thought was, you know, saw that coming and get it just like, it just wiped out the establishment players because there was this ground swall that turn into a tidal wave. And that can happen. You don't necessarily know when it's coming. So I don't see necessarily fishback as being the next Donald Trump. I think he's probably more likely to be like the next Buchanan who makes a run and makes a splash and get some attention, but doesn't actually end up winning any elections. It seems more likely to me, but you never know.

I think the big question, of course, that everyone's starting to wonder about because it's been so long is like what comes after Trump. And then we have, this James Fishback type, who feels like maybe not the answer, but unanswer. Is Fishback telling us what the future establishment could look like? It's a possible direction, I suppose. I mean, he certainly seems to be resonating, again, with very online young men. And, you know, don't discount that, because the very online young men of today are potentially the voting base of tomorrow. These are the types of people who are already in many cases. We're finding populating Republican political positions.

Like, for example, I live in Washington, D.C. You go to Capitol Hill, you talk to the 22 and 23-year-olds who work for Republican members of Congress. These are those young men in many cases. And they are imbibing those ideas. And they are responding positively to the kinds of things that Fishback is saying in the way he's saying them. However, I still think for a long time to come, you're going to find that that is not resonating with even the median Republican primary voter. I think people are, for the most part, turned off by this. You know, remember, the electorate contains a lot of women, a lot of middle-aged women in addition to very online young men.

So I would like to think that although it's possible, it is possible that this is the future of the Republican politics, that this is going to be a thing that has to sort of a fever that has to burn itself out. And they're going to have to these ideas and these characters are going to have to lose repeatedly at the polls in order for people to realize, you know, this is a fever that has to burn itself out. lose repeatedly at the polls in order for people to realize, you know, this is not a winning political recipe. You can read Stephanie Slade at Reason.com. The very reasonable Miles Bryan produced our show today with Kelly Wessinger, also reasonable. Jolie Myers edited Andrea Lopez Crusado was on the fact check. David, Tatteshoor, and Patrick Boyd were on the mix. My name's Sean Ramosferam, and the program is today explained.