January 25, 2023
Two days before Thanksgiving, former President Donald Trump hosted the disgraced and antisemitic rapper Kanye West and his friends, including another notorious antisemite - far-right leader and white supremacist Nick Fuentes - for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. In October, West, now also known as Ye, posted antisemitic tropes on his social media accounts, shared antisemitic conspiracy theories with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and later, to his social media audience of more than 31 million, threatened violence against Jews.
On January 24, Twitter under CEO Elon Musk, reinstated Fuentes account despite his antisemitic and white supremacist views. The decision is part of a string of moves by Musk's social media company to reinstate controversial figures barred by the platform. One of Fuente's first posts was a short video promoting Ye's 2024 presidential campaign, including a nod to an antisemitic tweet from the rapper. However, within a day of his reinstatement, it appears that Fuentes had been banned again.
Whether from Ye, Fuentes, or other sources - antisemitism is dangerous and must be confronted. In this article, we explore what you need to know about Nicholas “Nick” J. Fuentes, his America First movement, “the Groypers,” Milo Yiannopoulos, and more.
Who is Nick Fuentes?
Nick Fuentes, 24, is a white supremacist, Holocaust denier who hates Jews. Fuentes gained notoriety amongst the fringes of society as a freshman at Boston University, when he attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where hundreds of torch-bearing far-right demonstrators chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
Fuentes prefers to be called a “Christian conservative” rather than a “white supremacist.” Raised Roman Catholic, he hailed the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade as the advent of a “Catholic Taliban rule – in a good way” and encourages other Christian nationalists to do the same.
America will cease to exist as a Christian nation, he says, “if it loses its white demographic core and if it loses its faith in Jesus Christ.” In a debate on Alex Jones’ InfoWars in May 2021, he said that Jews have no place in Western civilization because they are not Christian.
What is America First?
America First carries a historical and antisemitic context dating to the 1940s. Then, the America First committee was an isolationist group of some 800,000 members whose chief spokesman, the iconic pilot Charles Lindbergh, blamed American Jews for dragging the U.S. into World War II.
Fuentes’ movement includes a podcast, an annual conference, and a social media following. Shortly after the Unite the Right rally in 2017, Fuentes left college to host “America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes,” a live-streamed show he launched six months earlier. On that show, he called for “killing the globalists” who run the media. Used in such a context, “globalist” promotes the antisemitic conspiracy that Jews are working toward a new worldwide order that will enhance their control over the world’s banks, governments, and media. The conspiracy is at the core of Nazi ideology.
Until his recent reinstatement by Twitter, Fuentes had been banned by almost every social media platform for violating their policies against hate speech. For example, he has questioned the validity of the Holocaust, drawing a crass analogy between the ovens of the concentration camps and six million batches of cookies. But that near universal ban is a badge of honor for the rising alt-right star who can be found these days on Trump’s new social platform Truth Social, as well as Telegram, an instant messaging site, and Gab, a social network – all known for their far-right user bases.
Fuentes also organized the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), an annual alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for far-right extremists. At this year’s conference, Fuentes called young white men the “secret sauce” for a stronger America, and called for a round of applause for Russia and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
What is a Groyper?
Fuentes’ fans call themselves “Groypers,” the name of a green cartoon amphibian – maybe Pepe the Frog, possibly a toad – that has become a popular meme and calling card. In fact, new Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted out an example first thing Monday morning as news of Trump and West’s meal with Fuentes spread.
Groypers oppose immigration, gay and transgender rights, women’s rights, and limits to hate speech. They blame mainstream conservatives for destroying white America by not doing enough to safeguard traditional values. Like Fuentes, they traffic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial and accuse Jews of dual loyalty to Israel.
A note on Milo Yiannopoulos
According to Ye, Fuentes is advising the rapper’s newly announced 2024 presidential campaign alongside another antisemite: Milo Yiannopoulos.
Yiannopoulos is a former Breitbart writer, editor, and provocateur who just wrapped up an internship for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Taylor has distorted the Holocaust, promoted QAnon conspiracies, and accused Jews of using space lasers to start wildfires.
While Fuentes has denied the Holocaust and West threatened to go “Death-Con 3” on the Jews, Yiannopoulous helped promote a new antisemitic term during the pandemic – “Holocough” – a call to spread COVID-19 to Jews.
During a podcast recording on Monday, the trio explained that Alex Jones’ producer introduced Ye and Yiannopoulos in October after the rapper’s antisemitic tirade on Twitter. Yiannopoulos then recommended that Fuentes join Ye’s campaign team.
During that same podcast, host Tim Pool pushed back when Fuentes backed up Ye’s attack on Jews for controlling the media, prompting all three guests to walk out of the studio and abandon the interview.
