What’s the deal with Nick Fuentes?
The young neo-nazi political commentator built a platform on bigotry - but seems surprised as others lash out against him.
The US presidential election in November not only kept American people on the edge of their seats: The entire western world was feverishly awaiting the decision between democrat nominee Kamala Harris and former republican president Donald Trump. When the latter won the election, America's conservatives celebrated lavishly - and mocked the other side. Shortly after election day, a video by American political commentator and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes went viral: In it, he mocks young women concerned about their reproductive rights under republican administration.
‘’Your Body my choice! There will never be a woman president!’’ - Fuentes joked: He is the 26-year-old host of the show America First. Almost all of his social media accounts are restricted due to hate speech - except for his X and KICK accounts, where he streams his show. After the clip went viral, his address was leaked by an X user.
Fuentes: ‘’Kingpin of the ultranationalist youth movement’’
Nicholas - Nick - Fuentes was, at least in the United States already a well-known figure in conservative spaces - though not particularly popular.
His interest in politics started in high school, hosting a show that was broadcasted on his school’s radio: Back then, he was part of the student council and represented moderate conservative opinions.
In 2016, as a student at Boston University, he spoke out in favor of Donald Trump's presidency in a series of videos going viral on campus.
Many students complained about his views, mocking or threatening him online: Then president of the libertarian student association Young Americans for Liberty, Alec Dakin, remembered how mainly ‘’4-Channers’’', defended him - students who held extreme political opinions.
Shortly after, Fuentes got a show on the Republican news platform ''Right Side Broadcasting Network'', where his show, America First with Nick Fuentes debuted. In 2017, he went viral after criticizing the interpretation of the U.S Constitution in one of his broadcasts.
‘’The First Amendment, by the way, was not written for Muslims. It wasn't written for a barbaric ideology that wants to come and kill us. It was written for Calvinists. It was written for Lutherans and Catholics, not for Salafists, not for Wahabists, not for the Saudi royal family (.....). If the First Amendment protected everyone's right to have their religion and express it in any country, we would have our police in the Congo or Uganda fighting the Lord's Resistance Army. And you never hear this side of the story in the mainstream media, and why not? Why don't we hear about it?''
He claims that journalists of the media group CNN, which leans liberal in its reporting, are at fault for this ''misinterpretation'' of the constitution.
‘’Who controls the media? The globalists. It's time to kill the globalists. I don't want to watch CNN anymore. I don't want CNN to go out of business. I don't want CNN to become more honest. I want the people who run CNN to be arrested and deported or hanged because this is willful. It's not by accident. It's not about journalists having a liberal mindset because they're educated and educated people tend to be none of that. It's malicious intent. There is a plan, there is an agenda. And the people who are behind CNN are spreading lies, you see the people who are trying to expose the truth being cut off so obviously. Their microphones are cut off, “Oops, we lost the signal. Technical difficulties.” - Nick Fuentes, 2017
The broadcast was later removed by RSBN, and the network issued an apology:
Even in his early days, Fuentes showed himself to be a reactionary. He is amused by the shocked reactions to his tirades. Like many extremists, he uses ''Plausible Deniability'' to protect himself from serious consequences, as he admits in a stream from 2022.
“But beyond that, irony is so important to cover our views and make them plausible. (...) Using irony when it comes to something like revising the Holocaust (...) That's an issue where you can't deviate from the general consensus. With a lotof these issues, you need a bit of maneuverability, which irony gives you, “Oh, well” - and what does that mean? “Well, I was being ironic, well, I was making a joke, well, whatever, well, you don't get the tone, well, you don't get the humor.” Irony is a very important linguistic and rhetorical weapon’’ - Fuentes in a stream, 2022
Dinner with Trump in Mar-A-Lago
Fuentes became known to major media outlets outside the states in 2020 when he worked as a manager for Kanye West’s presidential campaign. West paid him $30,000 between January and February 2020, receiving around 60,000 votes on election day.
But West and Fuentes' friendship did not end after his first presidential candidacy: In 2022, West took Nick Fuentes to a dinner at Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate, where they dined with the then-ex-president.
According to a source from the news channel Axios, Trump was impressed with Fuentes, already a known White supremacist and Holocaust denier. When the media reported on this, Trump released a statement on his social media outlet ''Truth Social''. He claims he did not know Fuentes before the dinner.
Trump's meeting with Fuentes and West was criticized from all sides: Members of the republican party and former members of the administration expressed themselves ‘’disappointed’’ in tweets.
How much of the Fuentes persona is real?
Nick Fuentes was dubbed a 'grifter' by critics; an opportunist who uses the American right-wing movement as a catapult to success. He contradicted himself in his political opinions in an abstruse way when he spoke out in favor of Kamala Harris' presidency and called her a ''good candidate''. At the same time, he mocked Trump’s running mate, JD Vance. Vance is married to Indian lawyer Usha Vance - which, in Fuentes' opinion, does not fit the MAGA image: “Who is this guy, really? Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?”. When Vance was asked for his opinion on Fuentes, he called him a ''total loser'' and defended his wife.
Nick Fuentes' persona is articulate and narcissistic: the '''white privilege''' he believes in should only apply to him and like-minded men. Women do not exist in his ideal world - he describes himself as an ''incel'', which his fans, ''groypers'', see as a lie, as Fuentes has had a girlfriend during his high school years. His opinions on relationships are skewed, whether ironic or serious: ''If we're being honest, never having sex with a woman, never having a girlfriend, makes you more straight (than someone with a girlfriend) because dating women is gay''.
In addition, there are numerous rumors about Fuentes' alleged homosexuality. However, these cannot be substantiated.
After Fuentes's address was leaked, he started being visited and stalked by several activists and onlookers. In December, Fuentes was held at gunpoint by a convicted murderer, who was then shot dead by authorities. When an activist knocked at his door and filmed him in November, Fuentes mazed her and pushed her down the stairs. He then proceeded to call authorities.
Bodycam footage of the incident reveals that, as Fuentes was asked if he is a white supremacist, he answered no: ‘’I’m
Mexican, my name is Fuentes’’. He revealed that ever since the ‘’My Body, Your Choice’’ Video went viral, he was being threatened by many X-Users.
Fuentes is a paradox of the republican scene. It is unclear how many of his arguments are part of his real worldview and which ones he perpetuates for views. His success begs the question: How extreme is America's young right wing really?