Gosar’s televised address was about 1 minute long, formal & distanced. He’s been celebrating groypers all year on social media— if he really wanted to help them wouldn’t he give a speech with rousing energy, like he did at AFPAC last year? Is he backing away as midterms approach?
Any conservative insiders watching last night would’ve quickly seen these guys can’t run a tight conference. McGeachin’s 30-second address was accidentally spliced with 5 minutes of rehearsal footage. Stew Peters & Jesse Lee Peterson (who?) gave long, unhinged rambly speeches.
Most crucially though, Fuentes’ off-the-cuff praise of Hitler was terribly unstrategic for anyone wanting to break into the conservative mainstream, & he immediately knew it. That alone- never mind the Putin cheers- will make him toxic for anyone in 2022.
As I detail in this article, his entire movement was born from the realization that neo-Nazi aesthetics made white nationalists look bad in the Trump era. The groypers were supposed to be the ‘respectable’ racists in contrast to the ‘unoptical’ alt-right. politicalresearch.org/2021/01/15/ame…
It seems like Fuentes has lost the script. From one angle AFPAC III was a steady march into the mainstream; from another, it looks like he’s circling the drain & hoping to go out with a splash. It’s too soon to tell, & the Trump era reminds us that predictions are unwieldy.
Beyond Fuentes, however, last night reminds us that white nationalism as a movement and set of ideas has a long future in mainstream conservatism. Four GOP electeds chose to attend an openly white nationalist conference, & in our climate it’s unclear they will suffer consequences
Fox’s Tucker Carlson is now using “great replacement” rhetoric in front of millions. The America First wing of the GOP is leading the party’s momentum. Whether or not Fuentes makes it into the mainstream, the ideas he carries with him have already arrived politicalresearch.org/2022/01/05/we-…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
