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Kathleen McCook's avatar

I see his name all over but have never been interested enough to read or watch. Thanks for the timeline. You do the work for us. NF is in the news so it helps to be able to place him.

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Alan's avatar
2hEdited

This article just shows what people dislike about Fuentes. The critics never talk about the meat of his argument--that the "Greatest" generation through the Boomers (of which I am one) lacked the courage to defend Western civilization and in the process lost their souls and, in Fuentes' words, "the country is now shit and everybody knows it and feels it in their bones."

This is a generational feud, not a racist feud. It's why Fuentes proudly wears the label as a racist or misogynist or anti-semite. Those words have lost the ability to stop debates so simps can keep their heads buried in the sand. He refuses to play the part of the "self-loathing white" of the typical leftist or the virtue-signalling cancellation perpetrated by the Con Inc. right. Piers Morgan was the perfect piñata for Fuentes--a clueless boomer thinking he was scoring points spouting liberal shibboleths as Fuentes was bashing him senseless with a "white guilt" tire iron.

Fuentes is criticizing the white "elite" for their white guilt and making America a doormat for third world cultures. In prior generations of massive immigration (1880s until 1923 when immigration was virtually halted for 42 years), our grandfathers and great grandfathers insisted that immigrants assimilate. Since 1965, the white "elites" in politics, academia, Hollywood and public schools were too wracked with self-loathing to even try to assimilate the third worlders. Worse, they wrote laws disfavoring their own white children and indoctrinated them in a culture of self-hatred and guilt.

Fuentes is a modern day Raspail unmasking the fecklessness of an elite that has ushered in the collapse of their own civilization. And like Raspail before him, he blames the white elite, not the third worlders. THAT's what they hate about Fuentes. He is correct, and they know it.

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John J’onzz's avatar

I've never listened to enough (any really) Fuentes to confirm or deny anything you've said, though I don't doubt much of it. There are plenty of great writers, thinkers and "poasters" who have a similar working theory of how the Boomers hollowed out society, and are living large — and long — off of housing equity, social security and Medicare that succeeding generations will not get to enjoy. But they do it without the overt racism and antisemitism.

I would agree that the modern west has turned Hitler into The Great Satan, a mystical and more powerful version of the historical person than any biblical evil (while forgetting, and sometimes forgiving, the evils of any other murderous world leaders). A lot of the flirtations with these ideas is meant to upset the squares. Kanye West's "Heil Hitler" was one of the only truly transgressive pieces of art in ages; one of the most successful hip-hop artists in history making a song that was banned from every tech platform was quite a feat.

The Gamergate/incel/4chan panics — coupled with Trump's unlikely ascendance — led to open message boards, and unmoderated troublemakers at large, to be mostly erased from online existence. And that was a mistake. When the Ramones and others flirted with fascist language and iconography, an actually liberal creative community saw it as the subversive provocation that it was, and the bible beaters were the ones who tried to destroy punk, metal, Dungeons & Dragons, zine culture, horror movies and the rest.

In our post-post-everything world, a lot of those provocations do seem to be becoming especially real, though I'd argue that some of the more honest antisemitism (and racism!) is coming from the new pseudo-left. Fuentes may be closer to a Jim Goad figure for Zoomers, but I can understand why people are so upset about it, though a lot of it is their own fault for not even trying to understand transgressive online subcultures, and why they exist.

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Safir Ahmed's avatar

We ought to be able to listen to people like Fuentes, even if we find their views obnoxious and odious -- Tucker's interview wasn't "softball," it was simply drawing Fuestes out on many topics so we could *understand* who he is. It's the old adage of "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

At the same time, if somebody calls for violence against others, that speech is not protected by the First Amendment and the government can prosecute people for that.

This isn't really a complicated issue.

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Art's avatar

Less like softball and more like fellatio. The problem isn’t Fuentes so much as it’s Carlson and his apologists. The populist movement won’t be able to withstand the fallout of these people, because with less than 2% margin of victory, it’s likely enough Trump voters will be disgusted and defect next election. I might be one of them. One could also wonder how much foreign states like Qatar are financing this stuff.

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Jeremy's avatar

Do you get $7k for comments too?

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Steve's avatar

"Less like softball and more like fellatio"

Well Put!

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Giuseppe Corvo's avatar

“My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even...malicious.”

― H. L. Mencken

WRT Nick Fuentes, I think his popularity stems from the overt discrimination in western culture against straight white males and the natural reaction to said discrimination. The more people like Fuentes are repressed, the more popular their rhetoric becomes.....the point Mencken makes about free speech is that if no speech is banned, the foolish speech tends to self-immolate.

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Kate Cahill's avatar

Thanks Giuseppe. We can never be reminded enough of the words of H.L.Menken!

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John J’onzz's avatar

There's a new designation — "woke right" — that people, mostly of the libertarian/moderate/centrist variety like to throw around. They mean that people like Fuentes, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Darryl Cooper, et al, are aping the illiberalism of the new pseudo-left, often coupled with some of the more uncomfortable opinions and consipiracies about Israel both groups seem to have.

I'd argue that it's actually these "enlightened" centrists who angrily demand that Megyn Kelly denounce Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson on a daily basis, and call for people like Fuentes to be censored (again) that share more of the "woke" traits than the kooky, and popular, outer reaches of the right wing podosphere: they want to control who is and is not allowed to have a platform, and force conformity. I recall Damon Linker on a podcast (Persuasion? Andrew Sullivan?) discussing controversial figures being let back on Twitter after Musk's purchase of the platform. He said that it's mostly fine, except Bronze Age Pervert, who should remained banned because "he's a Nietzschean." People like Linker want to personally choose who gets a platform, and who should be removed from polite society.

I'd love to retire the term "woke," because it took on so many disparate, conflicted meanings, but what we call woke never died. In the fallout of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the real story of cancellations was lefty influencers and social media stars that had the gall to post about being upset about Kirk's death and spent the next week apologizing to their fans. Ezra Klein being dragged for having a human response to a political assassination being the biggest example.

If you don't like what Nick Fuentes, or Alex Jones, or Candace Owens have to say, just ignore them. Trying to get them, or people adjacent to them removed from platforms, only makes them more popular. Or do what everyone does with idiots like Hasan, Destiny or Jennifer Welch: post their stupidest comments for the world to see and make fun of. Destiny finally imploded, and most of these other people probably will over time.

The cohort trying to cancel Megyn Kelly, not for anything she said, but because she won't denounce Tucker Carlson for interviewing ("platforming") Nick Fuentes is the real problem here.

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Savi_heretic33's avatar

When Candace opens her mouth, I change the channel.

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John J’onzz's avatar

That's the correct response! I've still never seen more of her than a handful of short clips on X/podcasts, same with Fuentes. I just have no interest. If you don't like it, ignore it.

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Savi_heretic33's avatar

It's not that I don't like it,I just don't want to lose anymore brain cells listening to her garbage.

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BeadleBlog's avatar

My response to Owens, Fuentes, Welch, etc.

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Matt L.'s avatar

Nick Fuentes popularity is likely being artificially boosted by foreign & domestic accounts. Wonder if they are paid to do so, and if so, who’s funding them?

And if this is occurring for Nick, is it also for Candace?

https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1998050582850834501?s=20

“… the real issue isn't Fuentes: it's the fact that our media and tech ecosystem can no longer reliably distinguish organic influence from manufactured momentum. And if one fringe figure can break through this easily, others will follow.”

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John J’onzz's avatar

I read that tweet when Wright published it, and it's certainly possible, or even likely, that Fuentes's popularity is not boosted organically, or domestically. The New York Times published a pretty boy picture of him, that looked nothing like him, with a headline claiming that he's taking Charlie Kirk's throne as the new youth MAGA whisperer, which seems to be more wishcasting/mudslinging than reality.

I see plenty of low-energy Dem influencers with a couple of thousand followers inexplicably get 80K likes on especially rotten, provocative posts. I don't believe for a second that those likes are organic. Any rotting corpse who jumps ship from the Washington Post to come to Substack moves into Substack's top 10 leaderboards with 500K subscribers within a week.

What can anyone do about it? Trying to ban/cancel/remove/erase people hasn't worked, and the more mainstream new right types and centrists waxing apoplectic about Fuentes and Owens 24 hours a day seem to just be giving them more energy. Partisan Democrats love it, because they want to give Fuentes and Owens as much juice as they can. Who's paying the price? People like Red Scare's Dasha Nekrasova, who lost a major movie and her Hollywood agent because Red Scare quietly interviewed Fuentes a month or so before Carlson did, but was punished for Carlson's indiscretion, because someone apparently had to be punished (and she'd already been written out of hit streamer Succession for interviewing Alex Jones previously) .

We're in a cold civil war/information war, and informed readers should be skeptical of everything in the media/information sphere. Attempts to control who gets to use the internet to say or write words just means that the internet's going to be controlled by someone. Which is bad.

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Alex K.'s avatar

That’s not what “woke right” means. It’s not about their opinions. It means they’re championing identity politics—only this side is about white (Christian) male identity. And woe be me because my identity.

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John J’onzz's avatar

I've already seen "woke right," just like "woke classic," defined in a multitude of ways — including how I defined it here written just today — which is why I think it's a meaningless, nearly useless term. My point is still that the censorious impulses, the urge to push what one deems unacceptable discourse out of the public square, the bullying of people who didn't say a thing to denounce the person who did say the thing, and most of the illiberal and unethical behaviors associated with what we generally call "woke" utilized much more — almost exclusively — by the people who love to say "woke right." Much more than the people who they accuse of being "woke right."

I think the term you're looking for is "racist," which yes, there is certainly a fair amount of that floating around, and it does share some ideological traits with "woke classic" (which, depending on how it was defined, is just racism under a different guise). But we've known that since the beginning, and it was expertly laid out by comedians Ryan Long and Danny Polishchuk back in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg

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Cb's avatar

If I wanted shitty tongue in cheek hit pieces I would’ve subscribed to the Atlantic.

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steven t koenig's avatar

You're being way too kind

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Cb's avatar

His twitter says he’s “formally of the free press” so I guess it makes sense.

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Ministryofbullshit's avatar

This is The free press. podcasters or randos on the internet (full of Pakistani troll farm clicks) have more power than congress, mayors, city councils, Governors, the courts.

Garbage

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Savi_heretic33's avatar

You can leave at anytime.

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Cb's avatar

Good one

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Savi_heretic33's avatar

We can thank the left for Nick Fuentes. When you make everyone a racist, transphobe, misogynist and a Nazi, and then the real ones rises up, you've lost all credit to call him out. I don't take Fuentes seriously, and I don't think he does either. He's a little man with a big mouth. He has no power. Nick proves that what you resist, persists. Don't cancel the babbling fools, let them speak and drown themselves in their cesspool of nonsense.

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Bagholder's avatar

Fuentes popularity stems from his speaking truth. In fact, his deplatforming is evidence much of that truth is directed at power. Calling him racist, misogynistic, or whatever is an indication his detractors are devoid of logical arguments to combat his growing popularity, so of course they name call. The Piers interview is a perfect example. While Piers focuses on getting Nick to admit he is Racist, Nick absolutely skewers the illogical positions Piers holds. The per capita discussion on Crime is particularly telling as Piers simply won’t engage, preferring to name-call. Until someone actually addresses his arguments, Nick’s popularity will continue to grow.

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Beans's avatar
4hEdited

I think free speech is incredibly important and I am a Christian. Every time I hear the stuff that comes out of his mouth I think awful things like why couldn’t somebody have taken him out instead of Charlie? Please God forgive me.

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Savi_heretic33's avatar

Demons only take out the living angels spreading light.

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Daniel Cvijanovich's avatar

I've never closely followed Nick, in large part because I havent bothered to get on rumble, and on youtube I can only get segments uploaded by followers who add their own commentary. Everything I have seen and heard convinces me he is a sincere young man fighting for truth against the most vicious tactics anyone anywhere faces. The race and Jewish stuff dobt bother me at all. Its true and white men have needed to be upfront and saying it for a long long time now. What sonetimes makes me wince are his comments about specific women. I am impressed with his courage and integrity in admitting his virginity and I feel bad the dating scene is so godawful for his generation (I'm 45). But I cant help but conclude, based in part on my own early 20s feelings toward women, that he is immature about relationships and that this hinders him. Overall though, great and necessary voice, TREMENDOUS grit and courage, and it maddens me no end when people like Walter Kirn, who I otherwise love, take cheap shots rooted in total ignorance.

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Daily Growler's avatar

I am not young or male, but I am an American and I recently became aware of Nick Fuentes and promptly dismissed him based on short outtakes I'd seen of his podcasts. Then one of my adult children encouraged me to watch a few episodes of his podcast, plus Dave Smith's and Tucker Carlson's interviews with him. To encourage me to do that, this adult child expressed disbelief that I consider myself to be open-minded but hadn't actually gone to the source. So I did. Although there are still many areas in which I disagree with Fuentes and how he expresses his opinions, I was struck by what he said about the prevalence of pornography. One point he made was that exposure to pornography on demand creates obsessions and unreasonable expectations in young men, as real life male-female relationships require the participation of two people who can accept and respect their partner's desires (or lack thereof, at times). I haven't heard anyone else say that. Sadly, I expect Walter might snicker, but I would hope that Matt, who is raising boys, might see the wisdom in Fuentes's observation.

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BeadleBlog's avatar

There are plenty of women who've been saying that and more about porn, but they are usually ignored.

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Kelly C.'s avatar

I'm the mother of adult sons and this warning about the prevalence of pornography has been shouted loudly by many others, over a long period of time. I raised my boys during the 90's and later when social media and high-speed internet was new and I can tell you, there were many of us warning about this.

I would wonder why Nick Fuentes would get a pass for adding his voice to the outcry against porn, when he so clearly admires those who were very likely ruined by it. Beware of lures like that to reel in more admirers.

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Daily Growler's avatar

I don't know why you think I've been reeled in as an admirer of Nick Fuentes. or that I'm somehow giving him a pass on anything. I didn't mean to suggest that in my post. I cop to being much better informed about geopolitics than I am about the prevalence of pornography, and I'm happy to read that many people apparently were aware long before I stumbled upon Nick Fuentes's comments. You've piqued my curiosity: who does he admire that was likely ruined by pornography?

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Kelly C.'s avatar

I was referring to the comment on one of the video clips about Hitler being a pedophile. I made a guess that pornography of some sort played a part in that aspect of Hitler's development. There was an interview many years ago of a convicted rapist and murderer before his execution, who's name escapes me right now, (perhaps Ted Bundy?)that confessed that his fetishes grew more violent through the use of violent pornography. From what I have read, the pictures and videos weren't enough for him so his behavior escalated to rape and murder. His interview was conducted by James Dobson of Focus on the Family, an influential Christian profamily advocate who was later attacked as anti gay. His views were mocked in the media for being against porn and being "homophobic." Generalizations from both sides of that issue obscures the fact that human nature can take very dark twists if the conditions allow it and if it continues to be fed. For people trying to climb out of porn addiction, the struggle is very real. They need our support. Like other addictions, it has destroyed families and lives.

Taken to a national leadership level, like Hitler, we have seen the end result.

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K.G.'s avatar

If you look at Fuentes through the years....it really does seem that he was radicalized by the right mostly not listening to him and or belittling him. He has that interesting psychology of speaking a tiny bit of truth...then wrapping it with extremism & complete BS...a tactic that many podcasters seem to use these days..I find myself wishing for the good old days of no internet and no smart phones!! Just books 📚

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Peter Abbott's avatar

Unfortunately, no mention of Fuentes’s Holocaust denial here.

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Savi_heretic33's avatar

He plays his audience and interviewers. In the Piers interview he fully admits that the Holocaust is real. Always take what he says with a grain of salt. He's just a fool with a loud mouth.

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A.'s avatar

He is looking to light a fire under everyone.

It is about gathering his Narcissistic Supply.

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Cb's avatar

Because it’s not real lol. Go watch him on steve crowder

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Alan's avatar
2hEdited

Unfortunately, you and apparently 90% of the commenters on this article have had their opinions formed without listening to an uncensored complete "show" Fuentes puts on. And that's what's so funny about the pearl clutchers--it's a show. And his message isn't anti- black, -gay, -Jew, -Somalian, etc. It's anti-white boomers and parents of boomers who created this shitshow of a country with their self-loathing white guilt and the laws they wrote to disadvantage their own white children and the indoctrination in schools, academia and Hollywood for their white children to be ashamed of being white. Repeating myself, this is not a racist feud, it is a generational feud. And Fuentes is on the right side of history on this one.

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Asa Plinch's avatar

I'm a 71 year old boomer, Alan. I have listened to Fuentes and sometimes find myself nodding in agreement. The white guilt you mention is mostly female boomers but I see it also among millennial females (and some millennial males). Fuentes IS anti- Jew, anti- Somali, etc., but in the sense that he believes Jews have greater impact on society than their numbers justify; and Somali culture does not mix with ours. Both these are true. But you are right -- this seems to be a generational feud. One other point: Fuentes is a supporter of big government. That is where he is as lost as the rest of his generation.

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Michael's avatar

You revealed yourself with the unironic “white suprematist rally.” You probably also believe that Trump said Nazis were “fine people.” Your clueless sanctimony is why Nick has so much purchase—you should put this article in your own timeline. I love Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn but the way they sniff at Fuentes does not credit their usually sharp eye.

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Robert Hunter's avatar

He's a crude, rude and lewd dude in a suit. Not that I disagree with much of what he says but I don't know who his presentation appeals to, but personally, I have better ways to waste my time. I think that the fact this kind of garbage along with gangsta rap and so much more garbage finds an audience speaks volumes about the society. I don't have a problem with him but I do have a problem with the taste of his audience!

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Andrew Dolgin's avatar

I think you probably should have included that he’s been de-banked as well, not just removed from social media. He is being de-persons because of his views.

Do we want to live in the world where all the banks and credit card companies collude to freeze out Americans from accessing any financial service NOT BASED ON CRIMINALITY but based on having the wrong views?

What they do to Fuentes they will do to the rest of us as soon as they can arrange a pretext. Then again, you worked for the Free Press, Greg, so perhaps you do want that future.

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Kelly C.'s avatar

Thank you, Greg Collard. I now know what Pepe the Frog and Groypers stand for. There were frog costumes worn outside of ICE in Portland, seeking to "add fun and light heartedness to the protests" as one social media post described their "peaceful " protests.

I had not bothered to give Nick Fuentes a listen because he seemed like a content creator outlier trying to gain relevance. I don't know where he went to school prior to college, but his (very punchable) face and mocking tone about his generation being done, "clutching our pearls" speaks to the terribly poor job our public education system has done in educating in history, government and literature.

Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, in his case. Maybe he is another monster in its infancy. Certainly he is under an evil influence.

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Lawrence Landerman's avatar

Refusing to learn and understand the views and tactics of your political opponents/enemies is less like politics and more like masturbation. And not as enjoyable.

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