In the American media it is described as a “civil war in the Maga movement.” Tucker Carlson's two and a half hour interview with Nick Fuentes has caused a growing conflict among American conservatives.
Fuentes has, among other things, claimed that many women want to be raped and coined the slogan “your body, my choice.” He has also praised Adolf Hitler, embraced Jim Crow laws on racial segregation and advocated a “total Aryan victory,” questioned the Holocaust and likened the mass killing of Jews to “baking cookies in an oven,” and claimed that immigrants and “organized Jewry” conspire against the white race.
In an episode of his own podcast "America First" earlier this year, Fuentes summarized his worldview:
Jews rule society, women must shut up, most blacks should be imprisoned – then we would live in paradise, it's that simple.
“Existential crisis”
The far-right profile has long been a headache for Republicans, not least after a criticized dinner between Donald Trump, Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022.
Several prominent Republicans have reacted strongly to Tucker Carlson, one of the most influential right-wing media figures in the United States, giving Fuentes such a large platform. Texas Senator Ted Cruz believes that Republicans are facing a crossroads and must close the door to more radical voters.
"This is poison. I think we are facing an existential crisis in our party and in our country," he said during a meeting of Jewish Republicans last week.
Others, including Kevin Roberts, chairman of the leading conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, have come to Carlson's defense and instead attacked the "cancel culture."
Ku Klux Klan ribbon
Four years ago, Nick Fuentes was persona non grata pretty much everywhere, including on social media, according to The Washington Post . Now he has over a million followers on X – many of them young men – since Trump ally Elon Musk personally lifted Fuentes’ ban last year.
Fuentes participated in the protests that led to the deadly storming of the Capitol in January 2021. Before the uprising, he called on his supporters to kill members of Congress to stop the nomination of the winner of the election, Joe Biden, as president.
He also has close ties to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who last year called Fuentes a "comrade in the fight for our people."
Trump has not commented on the Carlson interview, which, according to an analyst The Atlantic spoke to, highlights "the disintegration of the right's last firewall" against Fuentes.
