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Fuentes and power

The New Neo Posted on by

People you may not have heard much about until a few days ago, like Nick Fuentes (and perhaps Candace Owens, although I’ve certainly written about her before) are now the focus of tremendous attention. It doesn’t really do them justice to call them bigots, conspiracy theorists, anti-Semites, or crazy people. They’re all that and more, and suddenly an especially bright spotlight is shining on Fuentes, mostly because of his interview with Tucker Carlson and then the own goal committed by Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation.

The problem is that there are a lot of young people who follow Fuentes and subscribe to his viewpoints, which makes him and them a sort of mirror image of the Jew-hating, America-hating, race-is-everything left.

It’s hard to convey how awful Fuentes is, like a caricature of a neo-Nazi crossed with a vicious provocateur who will say anything for attention. How many of his followers are real people? I don’t know, and although I bet that a goodly portion are either bots, paid operatives, or even leftists wanting to swell the ranks of his followers in order to make the right look bad, I also believe that a great many are real.

If you want a compendium of some of Fuentes’ “greatest hits” just to get a flavor of what’s meant when he’s described as a vile bigot, you’d do well to watch the portion of this Ben Shapiro video that I’ve cued up. It’s about nine minutes long, and it’s very very disturbing. If you look at Fuente’s affect, you might think he’s joking, because his demeanor is often so light. But his followers take him very seriously, and there seem to be lots of them in the comments to that video:

Fuentes – and Tucker Carlson’s softball interview with him – are the greatest gifts the left could possible receive. They validate every stereotype the left has about the racist, evil, Nazi-esque right. Plenty of people on the right have condemned him most vociferously, but he nevertheless taints the right at this point.

What’s his motive? The best explanation I’ve seen so far is in this comment at Legal Insurrection:

There is something seriously “off” about Fuentes. Before watching the interview I assumed he was a neo-Nazi, as so many people do. But neo-Nazis walk a far steadier path than this guy.

My best guess is this: Fuentes wants complete control over MAGA, the Trump movement, post-2015 conservativism, whatever you want to call it. *Total control.*

That means he wants to control Donald Trump, too. …

If Fuentes can’t get total control, he’ll settle for total destruction, of everybody and everything that he wants to control and can’t. He’ll try to destroy Trump, too.

We’re looking at a man who will say anything and adopt any disguise in his quest for power. He never raised his voice or uttered a real threat during the interview, And he scared the hell out of me.

I have no idea whether Nick Fuentes hates Jews as such. What he hates is people who stand in his way. Some of them are Jews (to hear him tell it, his first pissing contest was with Ben Shapiro). To push other people out of his way, he will cloak himself as anti-these or anti-those.

You can’t expect a man like this to be consistent in his hates. *Everyone* ought to be very afraid of Nick Fuentes.

Fuentes was at war with Turning Point and Charlie Kirk, too. You may recall that, before Tyler Robinson was identified as Kirk’s probable killer, the left was saying that the killer was a groyper – a term for a follower of Fuentes – who hated Kirk. At the time that seemed an absurd notion to me, but after watching a lot of Fuentes I can see why it would be very plausible, although it turns out to have been untrue.

Comments

Fuentes and power — 59 Comments

  1. I have a suspicion you’ve overstated the significance of Fuentes and Owens and Carlson. Time will tell.

  2. I HOPE neo is overstating their significance. I’d never heard a word from Fuentes until yesterday, when I made myself listen to part of the Shapiro critique of the Carlson interview. Even though I’m sure Shapiro choose those particular clips for their inflammatory power, there were a lot of them and they were FAR worse than any of the usual out-of-context gotchas we’re used to seeing.

    I don’t know that I’d go as far as LI did – that we should all be very afraid of him – but I will certainly say that if I saw him at the end of a darkened street I would turn around and hurry the other way.

  3. A simpler explanation – in an environment where disillusionment is high and transgression is rewarded, you will experience escalating transgression.

    And, if LI is correct, MAGA is cooked.

  4. CC™, but what about TGOW? TGOW is far bigger than MAGA.

    I thought this post was about Nick Fuentes.

  5. There is a very interesting discussion at LI, besides the comment which Neo quoted. Some wondered it Fuentes is a plant or false flag, to soil or split the Trump GOP. One commenter said GOP should align with Fuentes et al to fight the Democrats, in other words “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

    I reject that. GOP should continue to reject all racism and bigotry.
    https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/11/ben-shapiro-tucker-carlson-is-the-main-agent-in-normalizing-nazism-within-the-republican-party/

  6. And, if LI is correct, MAGA is cooked.
    ==
    Thanks for the wishcast. The oracle’s wisdom overwhelms.

  7. I had never heard of this Fuentes guy before yesterday. As for him wanting to “control” Donald Trump… yeah, that’s a laugh. For years now there’s been no end of people wanting to control Donald Trump, but that hasn’t really worked out for them.

    I certainly don’t doubt that there’s lots of young male idiots online who follow him, and obviously his recent interview with Tucker Carslon only elevated his profile (since apparently even I’m aware of him now), but I can’t imagine he’ll make much of a significant impact beyond what he already has. He’s clearly another opportunistic grifter, likely seeking and recieving money from the usual gang of vile plutocrats and Quatari backchannels.

  10. I got partway through those Shapiro clips of Fuentes before I couldn’t take it any more. Shapiro is right; Carlson’s interview presents this guy as perhaps approaching normal. He’s not.

    I certainly hope Neo is right in thinking that a fair number of his followers are bots, but some are real.

    The “no enemies to the right” idea should be rejected. We must reject outright hatred and bigotry (to say nothing of twisted history theories),

  11. Remember Milo Yiannopoulos? What’s he doing these days? These guys come and go. Outrageousness has diminishing returns.

  12. There’s no comparison between the two.

    I might have thought that Fuentes is more a kind of uber-malignant George Santos…but that’s not really fair to the latter, though he, too, is a pretty creepy, sick little puppy, if in other ways.

    Might one venture that Fuentes is a buffoonish, effete, cosplaying Ernst Rohm…?

  13. I guess people are more comfortable with the boogeymen they know. In this case it’s the Far Rightwing Nuts, and the Nazi’s, and all their evil followers.

    Except October 7 wasn’t initiated by the Far Rightwing, or Nazis, or any of the usual boogeymen. And college campuses aren’t being taken over by people shouting Nazi slogans and Nick Fuentes quotes.

    “From the River to the Sea” is perfectly ok. Freedom of Speech and all that, right? Plus no one wants a get slapped with an Islamophobia tag – that’s stings worse than an antisemitic tag.

    I’m glad Nonapod mentioned Quatari funding as a possibility for Fuentes’ financial support. Why wouldn’t the Hamas supporters try to defect outrage off themselves and onto the old boogeymen that the Left has been trying to puff into relevancy for decades now? The end goal is the same, whether Islamic antisemitism or Far Rightwing nuttery antisemitism; doesn’t matter how they get there. The Oct 7 type antisemitism has worldwide, very public, support. The far right wing nuttery antisemitism, not so much.

    In fact, after Oct 7 and all the international “How Dare You”s to Israel when it tried to defend itself, and the non-stop “genocide” coverage from the fellating news media, I’d have to forgive some schlub out there for thinking that antisemitism is ok now – Cool even. And I can also see some nutter taking advantage of the situation to gain $$$ and popularity. All the Cool Kids on the Left are doing it – why not get a bit for myself?

  14. The point of the post at LI is that it is Carlson who is presenting these weirdos as if they ought to be taken seriously. Recently he platformed Darryl Cooper as an “eminent historian.” There are always going to be weirdos on the fringes. Taking them seriously and giving them an uncritical airing to a large audience is reprehensible.

  17. Recently he platformed Darryl Cooper as an “eminent historian.”
    ==
    I think he said something about Cooper being the mostest of ‘popular historians’.
    ==
    So, Cooper’s reading proficiency in various foreign languages are just what? His time in archives abroad just what? His training in cliometrics just what? His time in the military just what? Journal referees make just what of his papers?
    ==

  18. The “no enemies to the right” idea should be rejected. We must reject outright hatred and bigotry (to say nothing of twisted history theories),

    I wouldn’t consider him “to the right”.

  19. Actually, Abe Greenwand of Commentary Magazine has indeed said recently that the loathsome threesome are, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than extreme Leftists…not that I take everything he says to heart and in this case, I’d say he’s stretching things more than a bit. (It’s more along the lines of what he would like to believe.)
    What about considering them earnest nihilists with a mission?
    – – – – – –
    But why should Fuentes have all the fun?

    Graham Platner certainly deserves a sympathetic TC interview, the sooner the better:

    “Not Going Down With the Ship: Graham Platner’s Treasurer Resigns, Becoming Fourth Senior Official To Flee Scandal-Plagued Campaign in a Matter of Weeks”—
    https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/not-going-down-with-the-ship-graham-platners-treasurer-resigns-becoming-fourth-senior-official-to-flee-scandal-plagued-campaign-in-a-matter-of-weeks/

  20. The point of the post at LI is that it is Carlson who is presenting these weirdos as if they ought to be taken seriously. Recently he platformed Darryl Cooper as an “eminent historian.” There are always going to be weirdos on the fringes. Taking them seriously and giving them an uncritical airing to a large audience is reprehensible.

    Yeah. Carlson maintains a “just asking questions” approach to maintain some distance, but then he is promoting these people who don’t deserve attention.

  21. AD: “I have a suspicion you’ve overstated the significance of Fuentes and Owens and Carlson”

    Fuentes and Owens yes but not Carlson. Kate has the right of it here. Fuentes is a fringe whackjob, the problem is that he was given a platform by Carlson. Carlson is highly regarded by a lot of people who should know better and his influence is the fundamental issue here.

  22. I’ve been to categorical about this, but there haven’t been many durable starboard voices without an institutional architecture around them. Rush Limbaugh was an exception. Michelle Malkin another. Glenn Reynolds another. Each of these has had a distinct personality. None were purveyors of unfamiliar (much less grotesque) strands of thought, though Malkin could be quite provocative. Unlike TC and his guests, MM did original research and put footnotes on it. Your default assumption should be that they’ll go away ‘ere long, because that’s what happens.

  23. ‘If Tucker only knew’ how vile Fuentes is. ….

    Not a bug, it appears to be a feature, of Tucker.

    Looks like Megyn will have to make some hard choices soon. It ain’t about free speech, honey.

  25. Yeah. Carlson maintains a “just asking questions” approach to maintain some distance,
    ==
    Such was a preferred pose of the 9/11 truther brigade.

  26. I only became aware of Fuentes a week ago by way of Rod Dreher. He shared this from an unidentified higher up in the Administration:

    “He tells me that what normie outsiders like me don’t know is that something like 30 to 40 percent of the Republican staff in Washington under the age of 30 are Groypers — that is, followers of Nick Fuentes.”

    Prior to the Carlson/Owens nonsense, the focus was on the trans community furries and since their poisonous spouting, it is off that and on Jews & Israel. People who take this seriously liken it to the effect the fringe Left had on the Democrats–truly destructive. The best assessment of Carlson/Owens that I’ve listened to was D’Souza’s interview on Triggernometry. He lays it out. Great interview–very worthwhile listening.

    https://youtu.be/qQS4FKH3hDA?si=Z0B_cp8ox5XGmprE

  27. Curiously, Carlson maintained a distinct “just attacking” approach vis-a-vis Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee…

    Guess it’s always one pose or another…

  28. Sharon W:

    My gut tells me that the Carlson, Fuentes, and Owens combination is potentially very destructive. They appeal to a certain segment of voters and they harness their rage and frustration and change it from free-floating anger to very pointed anger. I don’t think anyone should underestimate them. That doesn’t mean this movement can’t fizzle out – I hope it does – but it needs to be taken very seriously.

    D’Souza and Ted Cruz and many others are taking it very seriously indeed. I hope J. D. Vance is listening.

  29. Thank you for the Triggernometry episode recommendation – I haven’t had a chance to listen to a lot of podcasts lately, but that’s been a favorite for a while. I would like to learn more about this without having to subject myself to first-person contact!

    My husband especially, but I also, used to like Tucker Carlson quite a lot – in his Fox days he was self-deprecating and interesting and seemed fair. Now – I don’t know. A commenter over on Althouse brought up the fact that he now lives and runs his podcast from Maine, suggesting that perhaps he takes a friendlier approach to his guests because otherwise he couldn’t get them to come to him. Again, I don’t know.

  30. Jamie:

    Carlson now specializes in pro-Russia, anti-Israel, anti-Churchill, anti-Jew lies. It’s not just Fuentes by any means. He’s had a series of Christian Palestinians spreading propaganda that Israel is trying to destroy Christians. That’s a BIG theme of his.

    He is pernicious at this point.

  32. Related:
    Sasha Stone, former AVID Democratic Party supporter, explains how the Democrats are using Fuentes to try to get the Republicans to destroy themselves.

    (TC seems to have signed up whole-heartedly for this particular—exciting?—brand of subversion and betrayal.)

    She believes that if the Republicans don’t see this threat for what it is, then it will fester into an existential problem for MAGA and the country.

    (It’s an important read…since she knows her former party inside out.)

    “The NYT Glorifies Nick Fuentes;
    “Then pretends to be shocked, shocked that Tucker Carlson would interview him.”—
    https://www.sashastone.com/p/the-nyt-glorifies-nick-fuentes
    H/T Powerline blog.

  33. Fuentes Popularity – I’m not too worried

    Elon Musk has 228,000,000 followers on “X”
    Taylor Swift has 90,800,000
    Kim Kardashian has 73,200,000
    Tucker Carlson has 16,700,000
    AOC has 12,700,000
    Tommy Robinson has 1,700,000
    Nick Fuentes has 1,000,000
    Zohran Mamdani has 775,300

    Well, he is doing better than Mamdani, so there is that.

  35. Tucker also had a guest who was a survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. I’m not sure what happened there but it’s telling that the anti-Israel people make a big stink about something that occurred almost sixty years ago.

  36. ’m not sure what happened there but it’s telling that the anti-Israel people make a big stink about something that occurred almost sixty years ago.
    ==
    For which Israel apologized and paid compensation. Michael Oren some years ago published an article when delineated step by step how that catastrophe occurred. Please note, Israel’s detractors attempted to manufacture reasons Israel would want to deliberately attack the ship of a friendly country and come up with fantastical scenarios which has the IDF concealing war crimes which have no reality outside the imaginations of the authors.

  37. He shared this from an unidentified higher up in the Administration:
    ==
    “A friend writes to me..” is a standard-issue Dreher opening. The friend is invariably someone with inside information who confirms everything Dreher has been speculating about of late. (Dreher is, by his own admission, loosely-wired). You can take this seriously. You can also invest in real estate on the mainland of Monroe County, Fl.

  38. Fuentes admires Hitler and Stalin. How can anyone with that worldview be considered “conservative” in any way?

    Tucker has gone from neocon to neo-isolationist. But America First does not mean America only. We tried that after WWI and got WWII. I subscribed to Tucker when he started his new chapter, I’ll get around to cancelling.

  39. I think it’s worthwhile to listen to the alt-right neo-Nazi 2.0 point of view. It’s out there and it has achieved some traction.

    I’ve read a fair amount of neo-Nazi material. Anti-Semitism seems to be a weird black hole some people can fall into and not climb out.

    For example, former commenter Zaphod, a bright guy who knew some stuff, but still couldn’t stop himself, even after neo warned him, from going off on the Jews.

    I don’t really understand it.

    It’s almost an argument for Rupert Sheldrake’s “morphic resonance” theory, that patterns from the past are more easily replicated in the present.

  40. IS Fuentes that influential? I’m old, so I cannot say. But frankly, I doubt it.

    I know this won’t be a popular statement, but it is true: Antisemitism in America has been vastly less than in the rest of the West. That comes from our being part of the Anglosphere, in which Anti-Catholicism has been much more deeply rooted. Sure, there’s some, and I don’t say it’s not a problem. But it wasn’t a factor in the founding, which Antipopery was (objecting to the Quebec Act.)

    And of course it’s been less of a problem than race, though the problem there now goes in the opposite direction than formerly.

  41. “My husband especially, but I also, used to like Tucker Carlson quite a lot – in his Fox days he was self-deprecating and interesting and seemed fair.” Jamie

    Ditto. But I no longer view Carlson positively, in fact the more I learn of this the more negatively I view him. He’s no longer ‘Tucker’… just Carlson.

    “My gut tells me that the Carlson, Fuentes, and Owens combination is potentially very destructive. They appeal to a certain segment of voters and they harness their rage and frustration and change it from free-floating anger to very pointed anger.” neo

    Given the strong opposition on the right, to truly become destructive would take a ground altering paradigm shift. Such as a successful assassination of Trump AND JD Vance ala the Kennedy brothers. Or in 2028, a Pres. Newsom with democrat control of Congress followed by a successful expansion of the S.C. The left would run wild and they would implement 1984 style governance. Either case could well precipitate another civil war and in such a scenario, demonization of not just leftists but liberals too… could elevate a demagogue like Fuentes into power. The parallels to Hitler are IMO, striking. He’s a psychopathic monster.

  42. huxley:

    Yes, Zaphod was a bright and entertaining guy. Hated Jews and couldn’t stop talking about it for long.

  43. zaphod and rcocean were the Jew haters. I cannot recall if neo banned the latter or he just evaporated; you still see him at Althouse.
    ==
    Turtler asked about mbunge, vigorous palaeo. IIRC, neo banned him for some reason.

  44. I first heard of Fuentes way back in early 2020; through a link posted on a comment of some conservative site I casually followed. I believe it was in regard to his maniacal hatred of Ben Shapiro. Out of morbid curiosity, I ended up watching several of his videos back then. They were truly nothing more than low rent hate filled diatribes, primarily, but not exclusively, about the Jews and Israel. It was clear he would say anything, anything at all, to get attention. I pretty much dismissed him as fringe clickbait.

    I don’t think I came across his name again until his notorious dinner with Trump and Kanye West. The focus was all on West because he was famous, but when I saw Fuentes’ name I remembered exactly who he was.

    Since then, I’ve seen his name pop up periodically in conservative media, usually in regards to trolling Shapiro, Charlie Kirk or some other more mainstream younger conservative public figure. And every time, he went off on some vulgar, bigoted conspiratorial tirade.

    I think the LI commentary Neo posted is pretty accurate. Fuentes is a deeply disturbed megalomaniac. I’m not sure he believes much of the bile he spews; as the article noted, actual NeoNazis (like David Duke or Richard Spencer), tend to be more focused and have (publicly anyway) more restrained personalities. Fuentes is really akin to most Antifa thugs, only on the right. He primarily is motivated by a compulsive craving for power and domination. If he can’t have that, he’ll be happy to just destroy everything in his path.

    It mattered little when he was just some weird little twerp screaming in front of a green screen in his basement. But he is now moving into the mainstream culture, in a large part thanks to Kirk’s death and to Tucker’s interview.

    Very very depressing

  45. “Tucker also had a guest who was a survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. I’m not sure what happened there but it’s telling that the anti-Israel people make a big stink about something that occurred almost sixty years ago.”

    I was stationed at one time with some of those Liberty crew. I did the same spying job they did but in a different location. The ship was ordered to go into a war zone restricted area. It was plain stupid. It could have done the job without going there.

    The ships profile was similar to an Egyptian Navy vessel. As it was something that has happened only once is 77 years, it was an bad accident. It was not deliberate.

    The US Navy not helping the ship as it was being attacked and after asking for help was NOT an accident. It was purposeful. Then again the Democrats were running everything back then and had started the Vietnam War that was also going on at the same time.

  46. Re: USS Liberty — … it was an bad accident. It was not deliberate.

    John Galt III:

    That was my conclusion after I looked into it. Clearly you have a more senior opinion.

  47. Ackler:

    Agreed. Kirk was a force acting as a check against Fuentes. But now he’s gone – and Carlson, and this infighting, has elevated Fuentes. Fortunately, it may also serve to warn people about him.

  48. I agree, Neo. The one silver lining about Carlson’s interview is that it brought attention to Fuentes, the Groypers and the growing antisemitism problem in conservative circles…now, not just before the midterms or the 2028 Presidential election.

    There is time to push Fuentes and his followers back to the fringes, before there are serious political electoral repercussions.

  49. I’ve noticed that the groypers starting to show up in some comment threads use the same vocabulary as the Left. They swim in the same waters. That actually makes me think of honest to god fascists and Nazis, who were also spawned in a left wing cultural pool.

  50. I’d heard of Fuentes but thought he was just a fringe nut job. It’s very hard to believe that anyone would take him seriously but I’m 65 and not his target audience. I don’t know if he believes what he says but he says it because there is a growing segment of the population that likes to hear it. Irrational Jew hatred has become quite popular with a lot of young people — both right and left.

    I don’t hear these opinions much but my son does and he is not surprised by the seemingly sudden popularity of Jew haters like Fuentes, Candace Owens and Tucker. I think Sasha Stone is right and that this is a big problem. It’s very depressing.

  51. There is something seriously “off” about Fuentes. Before watching the interview I assumed he was a neo-Nazi, as so many people do. But neo-Nazis walk a far steadier path than this guy.

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/11/ben-shapiro-tucker-carlson-is-the-main-agent-in-normalizing-nazism-within-the-republican-party/#comment-1707215
    ___________________________

    Back when I was researching my surfer buddy turned neo-Nazi, I found a clip of him on YouTube being interviewed by an 80s Christian Identity cable channel.

    Both he and the interviewer were serious, sincere, articulate people. Their core beliefs were batshit, but the rest of it was testimony. My friend described his journey into the KKK world as a spiritual one, starting from when he was a boy.

    I know that may sound strange. Keep in mind that he had the mind, training and discipline to serve as a Green Beret.

  52. And now for something completely different. According to the anti-Israelists, no matter how the foreign policy of the United States is framed it will always return to the Jews controlling our government.

    It appears Fuentes has been building a following for some years and a power struggle had been brewing in Turning Point USA over Israel. Somehow this is all playing into that dynamic.

    Are people auditioning for the role of Charlie Kirk in the new TPUSA?

    Four months ago Dinesh D’Souza debated Fuentes with Alex Jones moderating. The subject was the Israel attacks on Iran and whether it was a gambit to drag the US into a broader conflict.

    D’Souza was criticized by some conservatives for giving Fuentes this platform, and the subject did give Fuentes an opportunity to avoid his outlandish/vile statements from his younger days. I’ve only watched the first hour. At the end of the first hour, D’Souza does make the point that Fuentes sounds much like the Democrats in that he suggests we can negotiate with regimes like the Mullahs. They’ve been forced to work toward a bomb for self-preservation because neocons and Israel want regime change.

    And this is basically the position of all the anti-Israel crowd like Carlson, etc. It’s the fundamental flaw in their argument and D’Souza wasn’t prepared, IMO, to effectively demonstrate that these regimes that espouse fundamentalist Islamic positions are bad actors.

    This is an entirely different Fuentes than the video Neo linked to with the vile juvenile Fuentes. It was the beginning of Fuentes rehabilitation and has been continued by folks at Valuetainment and most recently by Carlson.

    IRAN WAR DEBATE: Dinesh D’Souza vs Nick Fuentes | (Full Debate)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybCdiqY6Czo

  53. Related, unfortunately…

    …from the “Peace Dividend” File:

    “…Jordan’s Queen equates Israel’s actions to Holocaust crimes;
    “In a speech in Munich, Queen Rania compares Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews, praises anti-Israel protests, and accuses Israel of illegal occupation.”—
    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/417308

    Opening grafs:

    Queen Rania of Jordan sparked outrage Tuesday after comparing Israel’s actions in Gaza to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

    The remarks were made at the opening ceremony of the One Young World Summit taking place in Munich, which was attended by youth from over 190 countries.

    According to a report in the official Jordanian news agency, the queen addressed the topics of hate speech and the Israel-Hamas war, accusing Israeli officials of inciting hatred following the October 7 massacre. She claimed they operated “from a time-tested playbook” and sought to “convince the public [they were] dealing with beasts” to justify violence….

    Yep! Gotta indoctrinate the youth!! Gotta keep that maniacal Jew-hate flowing!! (In Germany, no less…)

    AAAND, ya just gotta love the “from a time-tested playbook” bit!
    What a way with words, words, words doth this Royal gem possess…or at least her Royal speech venom-writers…)

  54. Very disappointed in Tucker. For a while I thought he was one of the few doing journalism. I just canceled him.

  55. ALL organizations have their Fuentes and Carlson’s, it’s up to is to judge whether that organization or movement deserves to be joined.

  56. I have never heard of this guy Fuentes until Neo’s post, and apparently this idiot is influential on social media and has a lot of people believing his BS.

    Goes to show, yet again, how easily people (in this case, those that pay attention to Fuentas), can be fooled into believing absolutely anything at all.

    What is worse, these useful idiots vote.

    ” On Jan. 27, 1838, Lincoln spoke before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, about “the perpetuation of our political institutions.”

    During that address, he said: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

  57. @ Sennacherib > ” it’s up to is [us] to judge whether that organization or movement deserves to be joined.”

    Which is why we have proverbs like:
    Known by the company you keep;
    Birds of a feather flock together;
    Two (or more) Peas in a Pod; …

    And others noting the negative consequences of mistaken joining:
    Lie down with the dogs, get up with the fleas;
    Get tarred with the same brush; ..

    It’s not a new invention of the 21st century.

    In re Heritage’s problem with their leader’s defense of Carter and Fuentes (or at least his lukewarm yes-but criticism), that’s covered by the corollary to a newish proverb or maxim:

    O’Sullivan’s First Law:
    All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.
    Corollary 1: The organizations that are actually right-wing just take longer.

    The Law as quoted comes from a Wikipedia post about Robert Conquest, who is often cited as its originator. Sullivan was a “senior policy writer and speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister.” (Wikipedia again)

    Conquest was quite a Renaissance man, and the details of his career in British WWII and post-war intelligence circles indicate how he came to develop his laws.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest
    The excerpt continues: “I cite as supporting evidence the ACLU, the Ford Foundation, and the Episcopal Church. The reason is, of course, that people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don’t like private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society, and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels’s Iron Law of Oligarchy takes over—and the rest follows.”

    Michel “asserts that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an “iron law” within any democratic organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of the organization.”

    Pollical and social “iron laws” are not immutable, as with gravity and the like, but do seem to have a probability of occurring, due to human nature, that is so close to ONE as to be identical.

    https://www.donorstrust.org/stopping-drift-principles/

    I picked this post out of a list of sources and commentators because I wondered if this organization, Donors Trust, being explicitly conservative and having as its mission the preservation of a charitable foundation’s conservative principles, would itself drift leftward in time?

    Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    Additional reading: O’Sullivan’s law & Robert Conquest’s Political Laws with a few other observations.
    https://www.isegoria.net/2008/07/robert-conquests-three-laws-of-politics/

    Also: “O’Sullivan is a former editor (1988–1997) and current editor-at-large of the opinion magazine National Review[12] and a former senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.”

    I wonder if he ever noted that NR, or at least some of its writers, was apparently succumbing, in the Trump Era, to his own law?

  58. Just for fun, O’Sullivan’s published version of his Law.
    http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-jos062603.asp
    O’Sullivan’s First Law An eternal truth.
    By John O’Sullivan
    EDITOR’S NOTE: This appeared in the October 27, 1989, issue of National Review.
    “Is there any law which enables us to predict the behavior of right-wing organizations? As it happens, there is: Conquest’s Second Law (formulated by the Sovietologist Robert Conquest):
    The behavior of an organization can best be predicted by assuming it to be controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies. Examples: virtually any conservative party anywhere, the Ronald Lauder for Mayor campaign, and the British secret service. That last example is, however, flawed, since the British secret service actually was controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies in the form of Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, et al. “

  59. I wonder if he ever noted that NR, or at least some of its writers, was apparently succumbing, in the Trump Era, to his own law?
    ==
    The managing editor since 2004 has been Jason Lee Steorts. The publisher since 2016 has been Garret Bewkes IV. The cabal isn’t secret.

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