{"id":349386,"date":"2025-11-02T02:43:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T02:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/349386\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T02:43:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T02:43:42","slug":"its-the-groypers-america-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/349386\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the Groypers\u2019 America now"},"content":{"rendered":"

The total Groyperification of the GOP is nearing its completion. This has been an ongoing process. A key milestone came in 2019, when the late Charlie Kirk\u00a0changed his position<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0legal\u00a0immigration to align it with the preferences of hard-line nativists.\u00a0<\/b>But I imagined the mainstreaming of Nicholas Fuentes and his supporters would take a good while, unfolding into the 2028 presidential election and decisively shaping MAGA heir apparent JD Vance\u2019s reception among the young Right.<\/p>\n

Now, the most storied think tank in the history of modern conservatism has fallen.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage, took the side of Tucker Carlson in a dispute over the former Fox News host conducting an interview with Fuentes. Roberts declared, \u201cWe will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else\u2019s agenda\u201d and vowed that Carlson would always be a friend of Heritage. Those criticizing Carlson\u2019s interview with Fuentes were part of a \u201cvenomous coalition,\u201d Roberts said, that is \u201csowing division.\u201d While denouncing anti-Semitism and disavowing some of the things Fuentes has said, Roberts argued that he shouldn\u2019t be cancelled, but debated.<\/p>\n

This was widely seen as a capitulation to the Groypers, coming down on their side over and against those who criticized Tucker\u2019s interview and his more general descent into conspiratorial anti-Semitism. For his part, Fuentes\u00a0applauded<\/a>\u00a0Roberts\u2019s \u201ccourage in standing up for open discourse and defending Tucker against the Israel First Woke Right.\u201d<\/p>\n

For readers unfamiliar with the term, \u201cGroyper\u201d refers to the loose network of mostly young, male, hard-Right types who orbit around Fuentes, a live-streamer and social-media personality from suburban Chicago. Fuentes built his following through hours-long webcasts mixing irony and an ideology that is a combination of racial nationalism, Christian theocracy, and hostility toward feminism and immigration.<\/p>\n

His supporters call themselves \u201cAmerica First\u201d and have traditionally been Donald Trump supporters. Yet the movement takes cues, above all, from Fuentes himself, who has\u00a0regularly expressed<\/a>\u00a0contempt for JD Vance based on the fact that the vice president and MAGA heir apparent is married to a non-Christian brown woman. At one point, Fuentes asked, \u201cDo we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?\u201d He\u2019s also taken a liking, ironically, to Gavin Newsom, seeing the \u201cbeautiful genetics<\/a>\u201d of the Democratic California governor and his family of four white children as more worthy of praise than Vance\u2019s mixed-race progeny. Fuentes is also\u00a0known<\/a>\u00a0for insights such as the idea that sleeping with women is gay.<\/p>\n

This may all seem too absurd to take seriously. Some young people, it will be tempting to tell ourselves, cycle through nutty politics before burning out or settling into grownup conservative or liberal worldviews; there will always be a fringe. But Fuentes has a substantial following, 1 million and growing on X (formerly Twitter), and he increasingly sets the tone for the entire conservative media ecosystem.<\/p>\n

One way to see the radicalization of the likes of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Megyn Kelly is that they are adopting Fuentes-Lite positions on issues like immigration and vaccines. Fuentes has spin-offs and haters throughout the Right-wing influencer ecosystem, including\u00a0British and Portuguese imitators<\/a>. There are X personalities whose entire claim to fame revolves around hating him. Watch any event with a prominent conservative speaker these days, and you\u2019ll find Groyper or Groyper-adjacent young men asking the questions that end up going viral on social media. It was indeed this kind of in-person pressure that, as Fuentes has bragged, got Kirk to\u00a0turn against<\/a>\u00a0even legal immigration.<\/p>\n

The fact that Heritage, too, has now fallen in line suggests that what we\u2019re seeing is something much more ferocious and remarkable than even the most pessimistic critics of the online Right appreciated. It has led me to conclude that I\u2019ve underestimated not only the pace and extent of the Groyperization of the Right, but also its potential to have a large and lasting effect on our political culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can Carlson call someone a gay federal infiltrator one minute and schmooze with him the next?\u201d<\/p>\n

The comparison has been made to wokeness taking over the Left beginning in the mid-2010s, through many of the same mechanisms, primarily social-media mobbing of mainstream figures and institutions. But we must consider the possibility that we\u2019re observing something much more capable than wokeness of remaking one side of the political spectrum and thus enduring as a long-term force in American society.<\/p>\n

The Roberts statement was prompted by Fuentes sitting down for a friendly chat with Tucker Carlson. Previously, Carlson had expressed contempt for Fuentes, calling him a \u201cweird little gay kid living in his basement in Chicago.\u201d But then Fuentes appeared on a few other podcasts, and it became safe for Carlson to have him on. Carlson predictably forgot all other principles and objections as he did what comes naturally to him: chasing an audience. That\u2019s how you become the top news podcaster in the country, which Carlson is, at least according to\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0rankings.<\/p>\n

If all you see of Carlson these days is a few clips of him saying outlandish things \u2014 like that he was attacked by a literal demon \u2014 you might think that he, too, has turned into some kind of fringe figure. On the contrary,\u00a0there are few who are more mainstream within the MAGA movement. Days after Kirk was assassinated, Carlson was speaking with\u00a0JD Vance<\/a>\u00a0about his legacy. He then went on to\u00a0insinuate, at Kirk\u2019s memorial, that the Jews<\/a>\u00a0may have killed him \u2014 just as people \u201ceating hummus\u201d in Jerusalem did to another hero 2,000 years ago \u2014 while attempting to maintain plausible deniability.\u00a0Fuentes hilariously mocked<\/a>\u00a0the attempted spin, cutting through any supposedly non-invidious interpretation of Tucker\u2019s words (Yes, Fuentes is\u00a0very\u00a0funny \u2014 unlike Tucker, who switches between brooding and manic laughter directed at things no one else finds funny.)<\/p>\n

Tucker matters, perhaps more so than any other media personality on the right, with the possible exception of Fuentes himself. And after attacking Fuentes repeatedly, he deigned to invite him to his show. But how? How can Carlson call someone a gay federal infiltrator one minute and schmooze with him the next? The thing to understand with these people is that it\u2019s all a show. They hit each other over the head with chairs one week, and then the next week team up together. The ultimate thing the audience wants, of course, is for their influencers to encourage people to vote for their kind of Republican \u2014 anti-immigration and aligned with MAGA views and aesthetics\u00a0<\/b>\u2014 even as they enjoy feuds and eccentricities outside of election season.<\/p>\n

The same goes for the Vance-Fuentes relationship. I had also assumed that it would be going too far to expect that Fuentes would endorse Vance after attacking his wife on account of her race and religion. Now that seems silly. Of course, he will likely endorse Vance, or at least not go full Newsom. It\u2019s fun for Groypers in 2025 to gush about Newsom\u2019s beautiful white family and hint that they\u2019re going to jump ship at the prospect of an Indian First Lady. But that\u2019s just an angle to create a new storyline and keep the show exciting. Raise tensions, rant about how much Vance sucks, and then perhaps make a big show of allying when he denounces Indian immigration strongly enough in time for the 2028 primaries.<\/p>\n

To wit, Vance was recently grilled at the University of Mississippi by a Groyper type about having a non-Christian wife. Already, the vice president feels the need to reassure his supporters that his wife wasn\u2019t raised in a religious household, contrary to what\u00a0she herself<\/a>\u00a0has previously said. While once talking positively about being in an interfaith marriage, he now knows that there is a not insubstantial portion of his base that finds Hinduism strange, if not downright demonic, and his wife has become a political liability.<\/p>\n

The only thing that might stand in the way of Vance and Fuentes being on the same side in 2028 is Fuentes\u2019s own cantankerousness. He has an independent streak \u2014 in October 2024\u00a0he said<\/a>\u00a0he wouldn\u2019t vote for Trump \u2014 while Vance would abandon almost any previously cherished principle if it raised his chances of being president by a few percentage points on Polymarket.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re at the start of something, not the end of it. This is more like wokeness in 2014 than wokeness in 2022. And to make a comparison to wokeness might be underselling it. I would point to three factors that potentially make Groyperism stronger.<\/p>\n

First, the appeal of wokeness was always largely astroturfed. The woke relied on censorship and nonstop propaganda from elite institutions. Relatively few Americans bought into the craziest ideas about race and gender. Robin DiAngelo\u2019s\u00a0White Fragility\u00a0may have sold\u00a0more than a million<\/a>\u00a0copies, but Carlson has nearly\u00a0five million<\/a>\u00a0subscribers on YouTube. I\u00a0asked ChatGPT<\/a>\u00a0how many podcast downloads he gets per episode, and it came up with a figure somewhere in the range of 4 million to 8 million (8 million to 15 million, if you include video). Candace Owens is in the same ballpark. And these are actual fans, not people encouraged to buy a book for a class or h.r. seminar.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve never seen numbers like this for anything affiliated with wokeness, which was a hysteria driven by individuals in the rarefied fields of journalism, academia, and activism. They were always outnumbered in the rest of the country, and relied on being able to control powerful institutions and the informational ecosystem.<\/p>\n

The second point is related: namely, that Right-wing radicalism taps into human nature in a way that wokeness never could. From a historical perspective, large numbers of young people wanting to experiment with a different gender is quite odd. Usually, males and females seek to portray and cultivate traits that are attractive to the opposite sex. Members of a majority group supporting discrimination against themselves is likewise unnatural, but this has always been core to DEI and the ideology of white guilt. One of the reasons that cancel culture was so intense was that proponents were always pushing against people\u2019s preexisting inclinations; we were bound for a correction.<\/p>\n

But racism, sexism, tribalism, homophobia, and religious fundamentalism are organic parts of our souls, and can dominate societies for centuries. While most Americans aren\u2019t inclined toward a Groyper worldview, it does seem strong enough to take over one half of the political spectrum in a country with a great deal of education polarization. And while there were ballot-box backlashes against wokeness, the Right becoming more crudely populist has been associated with relatively high levels of electoral success.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Right lacks the institutional guardrails to contain Groyperization. The culture of the Left is shaped by elite institutions, like universities and major media outlets, in addition to labor unions, professional associations, and nonprofits. During the Great Awokening, these institutions were often taken over by aggressive upstarts speaking the language of academic seminars, and their leaders would repeat the magic words demanded by identity-focused activists. At the same time, the institutional framework in which these battles took place allowed for pushback from within. The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0editorial board is capable, for example, of gently shifting away from trans extremism. Universities can adopt free-speech policies, as many have done, in response to both internal and external pressure.<\/p>\n

In contrast, it is unclear in what format moderates on the right would take on the fringes. Individuals like Owens, Fuentes, and Carlson \u2014 in addition to countless lesser influencers \u2014 get their power directly from the audience and, as a result, place real pressure on politicians. There is no Groyper faculty senate where people can get together and vote to condemn anti-Semitism in the same way that leaders of the University of Michigan\u00a0decided<\/a>\u00a0to take a step back from DEI. Robin DiAngelo is no longer cited in the media, and Ibram X. Kendi\u2019s antiracist center was\u00a0closed down<\/a>. Without institutional support, their power and influence have waned. By contrast, the podcaster who reflects and shapes the minds of the most engaged GOP voters can\u2019t in a similar way lose his place at the center of political discourse.<\/p>\n

Could the Republican voter ultimately be a check on all this? Doubtful. Right-wing media\u2019s political atmosphere should generally be taken as predictive of what the Right-wing electorate will do. The Republican base loves Trump and flocks to news sources like Owens, Carlson, and an increasingly conspiratorial and\u00a0demon-obsessed<\/a>\u00a0Megyn Kelly. Thus, there is little reason to think the party\u2019s core electorate will act as much of a moderating force.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacism, sexism, tribalism, homophobia, and religious fundamentalism are organic parts of our souls.\u201d<\/p>\n

One factor working in the opposite direction is that Groyperization has occurred among the relatively weak and disempowered. One could therefore argue that Left-wing identitarianism is naturally more influential. The truth of this consolation, however, has diminished over the last several years. Radicalized Republicans are appointing similarly radical people to top positions, and there\u2019s relatively little educated elites can do about it.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the ongoing elite status of the Left suggests that at least when Republicans don\u2019t control the federal government, Groyperization will be less powerful. We won\u2019t see something like Trump\u2019s first term, in which the president was Right-wing but the political Left was so mobilized that the culture moved in the opposite direction from the one that the government was pushing. I have been accurately foreseeing the Groyperization of the Right for a while now, and when I have been wrong, it\u2019s always been in the direction of\u00a0underestimating\u00a0how much the conservative coalition has changed, and how quickly things are shifting towards conspiratorial ethno-populism. At points, I assumed that there was still a Republican establishment that could exercise a positive influence on Trump and Trumpians \u2014 hence, my endorsement of him last year \u2014 and it turned out that\u00a0this largely wasn\u2019t the case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If there is any hope of effective resistance against the direction of travel, it needs to come from a powerfully influential individual leader. It can\u2019t be Trump, as it is as difficult to imagine him making coherent arguments as it is to imagine him taking a stand against his base for the greater good. By contrast, Vance, as the presumptive heir, is articulate and has been viciously attacked by the Groypers.<\/p>\n

While he has denounced Fuentes in passing, the vice president is capable of making a much more passionate case against those he considers political enemies when motivated to do so. What is needed is something like a speech denouncing Groyperism, rather than a quick criticism followed by a pivot towards attacking the Left or the media. Up to this point, the vice president has never found it in his political interest to go after any substantial part of the conservative coalition. While he would clearly much rather avoid the energetic wrath of the Groypers, if things continue on their current path, they might leave him with no other choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The total Groyperification of the GOP is nearing its completion. This has been an ongoing process. A key…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":349387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[59037,69,8704,171198,99,2066,50,121737,20965,160816],"class_list":{"0":"post-349386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-candace-owens","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-far-right","11":"tag-groypers","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-jd-vance","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nick-fuentes","16":"tag-tucker-carlson","17":"tag-usha-vance"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115477807510003714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}