Conservatives Shocked, Shocked To Find Nazis In This Establishment
Not Tucker Carlson? Surely not?
The modern Right in America has been playing footsie with Nazis for years. Decades, even. You know it. We know it. Journalists and political scientists and historians and everyone else to the left of, say, Lindsay Graham has been screaming about it and documenting it for so long that we can’t remember a time when they weren’t. There probably has never been a time when they weren’t.
So imagine our huge fucking surprise to see, just this week, certain conservatives realize that Holy shit, our movement is playing footsie with Nazis! Yeah, congrats on waking up from your coma, Rip Van Winkle. We all have indoor toilets now, too.
The inciting incident occurred on Monday, when Tucker Carlson hosted Nazi eunuch Nick Fuentes on his podcast. The two men proceeded to have a lovely chat about all sorts of topics, such as all the ways Fuentes’s feelings have been hurt by people thinking he’s antisemitic just because he’s engaged in a little Holocaust denial and said repeatedly that Jews control American media. In his mind, the conservatives accusing him of such calumnies are just being mean and unfair. Especially since they agree on so much else, such as the incontrovertible fact that the Left sucks. Whatever happened to solidarity, you guys?
Tucker nodded along in sympathy and questioned Fuentes on some of his rhetoric. He also suggested Fuentes ignore some of the people accusing him of white supremacy. Hey, Tucker’s been accused of all that stuff too, and he just lets it roll off his back because people are afraid of the truth, or something.
Basically, the entire conversation comes off as Tucker counseling Fuentes on how to be more subtle with the white supremacy, so that your fellow travelers can pretend not to notice, branding you as a passionate conservative until you’re already ensconced in your cozy primetime slot on Fox News. Then you can let the old freak flag fly.
It’s always heartwarming when youngsters find someone they can look up to as a mentor.
Quite a few people on the Right were mad that Tucker would give Fuentes such a huge platform to espouse his beliefs, because apparently none of these people had ever heard of Tucker Carlson before. The conservative movement writ large has been working hard to keep Fuentes and his gazillion young groyper followers out, and here is Tucker throwing open the gate and welcoming the young Nazi with a firm handshake and some manly advice about living your truth.
Some of these same conservatives started loudly demanding that the Heritage Foundation, the intellectual chop-shop-cum-center of what passes for intellectualism on the Right, denounce the interview and distance itself from Carlson, with whom it has a generally friendly relationship.
On Thursday, Heritage head fanatic Kevin Roberts posted a video in which he said that Heritage would do no such thing. Furthermore, the group would not be denouncing Fuentes, because it does not believe in “canceling” people for their views. Instead, Roberts said, Heritage has always invited “robust debate,” and is not going to stop now:
“Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic.”
We’re sure Roberts will extend that same grace to Jews and Muslims who critique Israel. Especially college students: The Right is famous for cutting them some slack when they have protested Israel’s actions in Gaza the last couple of years.
“The venomous coalition attacking [Tucker] are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail. Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the Left, not attacking our friends on the Right.”
And there it is. The antisemitic camel hasn’t just gotten its nose into the tent, it has gotten in its whole hump. “Antisemitism,” the writer John Ganz wrote in response to Fuentes and Carlson, “is no longer treated as an obscenity, the equivalent of announcing you’re pro-child molester, but as an opinion like any other, subject to polite disagreement.”
So it’s funny, in a grimly “is this what it felt like for our ancestors before they fled the Pale of Settlement for America” sort of way, to watch conservative “thinkers” absolutely flip the fuck out, pronouncing themselves shocked, SHOCKED WE TELL YOU, to discover that the conservative movement for which they have humiliated themselves all their lives actually might hate them.
This is particularly funny coming from Bethany Mandel, who a few years ago wrote a piece for The Forward titled “We Need to Start Befriending Neo Nazis,” the thrust of which was exactly what it sounds like.
Man, Trump once hosted Fuentes for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, along with known antisemite Ye. (Imagine the caliber of conversation that must have been.) His only concern is with people sucking up to him. If Fuentes tells Trump he’s the greatest president in history, Trump will let him say all the vile antisemitic shit he wants.
By the time Friday night rolled around, Roberts was posting nonapology apologies, and the staff of the Heritage Foundation was reportedly rebelling.
The American Right has never fully purged its antisemitic element. Why would they? It has always been a question of aesthetics anyway. Keeping us far away from the country clubs? Genteel antisemitism. Screaming at the top of their lungs on podcasts and at rallies about how the Jews are a “perfidious” people who should be banned from America? Gauche antisemitism. Surely that’s not anything we’re aligned with.
We suppose these conservatives will whine whatabout antisemitism on the Left, HENGGGH? To which we can only say, yeah, the Left has been having that fight for a long time. But the antisemitism coming from fascists has been marching steadily into the Republican mainstream for decades, as many people keep pointing out. So tend your own fucking knitting.
Maybe some of these jackasses will start re-examining where all their anti-George Soros tropes come from, though we doubt it.
[BlueSky / John Ganz / The Bulwark]
There has never been a better time to support independent media. Though the 1930s might have come close, if we had had blogs back then.
I write about movies then I watch them and get high with my friends. Pretty sweet gig.
Saturday night in Cleveland Heights. I was just filming an encounter between an intoxicated Black man who had lain down in the middle of the road after fighting with others and bottles where thrown. But this resolved peacefully. I felt i had to record all of it. I will tell more later.