Thread by @BenLorber8

When they come down from their post-AFPAC high in the next few weeks, I think a lot of groypers are going to realize how unstrategic it was for Fuentes to essentially praise Hitler on stage. By going full mask off Fuentes really shot himself & his movement in the foot

Fuentes built the America First/groyper movement because he & others realized that media stunts like Richard Spencer’s ‘Heil Trump!‘ Hitler salute, & the presence of neo-Nazis at Unite the Right, doomed the alt-right to the fringe beyond 2016-2017, making it way less influential

for conservatives who might otherwise be receptive to partnership. Same thing will happen now. Very few conservative candidates or figures in 2022 will want to stand on stage, or risk working behind the scenes, with a figure & movement now indisputably associated with neo-Nazism.

Fuentes’ ‘cookie monster’ Holocaust joke, his use of the n-word, & many other horrific clips which have circulated- all were from his nightly show. Disturbingly enough, some conservatives have overlooked them. But praising Hitler right in the AFPAC spotlight is harder to ignore

We’ve seen it before with other radical Right leaders— Fuentes’ cult of personality & persecution complex is getting to his head. His metapolitical strategy relies on edging closer to the America First wing of the GOP & his gaffe only reinforces the firewall he needs to overcome

He knew on the spot he messed up. Though he’s surrounded by jubilant praise from all the sycophants surrounding him, I wonder if privately he’s worried- & embarrassed that heavyweight ‘mainstreamers’ like Jared Taylor & Peter Brimelow were in the room to see his strategic blunder

Of course this is the GOP in 2022 so all bets are off, but I’d bet that a number of conservative insiders were watching AFPAC- from home & in the room- & left convinced that working w/Fuentes is essentially a non-starter. It doesn’t mean they won’t steal his ideas though.

Which of course is its own kind of real influence, but Fuentes is aiming for more than that. 2022 may be the year he spins out into personal irrelevance while the ideas of White demographics & White identity politics he champions, move further mainstream on the Right.

Over the last year Fuentes is increasingly saying edgier stuff, testing the line on ‘optics’ & respectability he for a time largely held. As the broader conservative movement itself is radicalizing Rightwards, he’s trying to stay one step ahead, like a tugboat

But for now at least, open admiration of Hitler is still a red line in our post-WW2 consensus, & he may have overplayed his hand. Or I could be over-estimating even the barest bit of moral principle in the conservative movement & its base- we shall see

To clarify- Spencer didn’t himself do a Hitler salute; he exclaimed ‘Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory’ & people in the audience stood up and did the salute. Most white nationalists today view it as a foolish mistake for the movement esp groypers theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

On the other hand 2022 is not 2017. Today the ascendant mood on the Right frowns upon policing boundaries of permissible discourse, with those who attempt to do so commonly criticized as no better than liberals. The charge of ‘extremist’ doesn’t stick & conservatives know this

Fuentes never wanted to become a mainstream figure per se; the goal rather has been to remain relevant enough to influence growing nationalist & populist currents on the cutting edge of the MAGA Right, which in turn are pulling the establishment Right in their direction.

AFPAC III was calibrated as an overture to this national-conservative wing of the Right- ‘we’re dissidents too; let’s work together’. It did telegraph energy- 1000 largely young conservatives is not nothing. Like everything in the news cycle the Hitler gaffe could get buried