This is the first in a series on the dissident right in America. I make no claims about being a professional or objective journalist. The dissident right has some measurable effect on American discourse. There are likely topics that will offend readers, if you believe you will be offended by reading about Nick Fuentes, America First, or the Groyper Army - I strongly encourage you to exit this article. There is certainly a surplus of things to be worried or upset about - use your discretion and agency appropriately. I do offer this quote from the Roman Slave turned Stoic Philosopher - Epictetus.
This article is not a screed against Nick Fuentes rather an exploration of social influence and dynamics. Fuentes is widely alleged to be antisemitic, white-supremacist, and a holocaust denier both by by traditional journalists. Republican Pundits and Politicians - widely disavow Fuentes. Some Groypers have been charged with criminal activity or allegations of such. If you would like to read material critical of Fuentes and his movement, the ADL has exhaustively documented their observations on their website.https://extremismterms.adl.org/glossary/nick-fuentes
What is unique about Fuentes is his remarkable durability in the dissident right space, and that Fuentes is only 25. Virtually every personality in the Richard Spencer era of the Alt-Right imploded into irrelevancy, incarceration, or stepped away. Nick's arc runs from somewhat before the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, a string of trolling operations with the Groypers targeting Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk, running America First meetups, January 6 at the US Capitol, to the notorious dinner with Kanye and Donald Trump.
Fuentes has somehow avoided the seemingly inevitable collapse of his peers in the Alt-Right. The youth of Fuentes and his followers may have something to do with this. Fuentes and his peers were born into a United States that has been perpetually at war, they have not known a time without social media, and it has been period of immense social change.
When you listen to young men (under 30) speak there is often a common theme of being robbed or cheated out of the experiences of previous generations. For the past 20-years liberal and progressive orthodoxy has become the prevailing narrative in public schools, universities, and even corporate HR-departments. The liberal profession of faith has moved from the filter of politically correct speech, white privilege, to white guilt, the extremities of social justice, to the fervor of critical race theory. Religiosity has declined broadly across American society along with civic institutions.
White Christian Nationalism almost seems like an inevitable reaction. Youth typically rebel against the constraints of the existing culture. Drug use, casual sexuality, and irrreligiosity are no longer taboo in American so rebellion looks substantially different than previous generations. Survey indicate that only about 36% of Generation Z, Fuentes' Generation, are Protestant or Catholic, in Generation X the total is approximately 50%. Public profession of Christianity, or a call for the creation of a new Christendom in America - is a rebellious proclamation.
Groypers vs Conservative Inc.
America First and the Groypers are more likely to performatively assail professional conservative pundits, at events or with performative mockery online. Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, even CPAC itself have been the target of AF. I will not document this extensively here but it is informative to understand that AF is more likely to disrupt the right than the left.
Groypers, Theater of the Absurd, and Clownworld
The traditional response to white nationalism or white supremacy has been a combination of a ridicule and condemnation, with emotional pleas and imagery of hooded klansmen and lynch mobs. While I lack definitive demographic data - from observation, Groypers most of them are young, born long after the last KKK trailer park fail into disrepair. Groypers are more likely to gather on Cozy.TV and watch a performer stream a video game while making ethnic jokes. Groypers revel in performative ridicule, certainly offensive, but to some degree the transgressive mockery is directed at the prevailing cultural norms and prohibitions broadly.
Decentralization Changes Dissidence.
In the recent past offensive dissidence could be substantially suppressed by banning the offender from the social media platform or forum. Pre-internet white nationalists seemed to subsist on mailing newsletters, or dystopian books to a smattering of supporters. In the recent era when YouTube or Twitter began banning right wing offenders - they would migrate to other platforms or build their own. Andrew Torba's Gab.com platform is widely tolerant of right wing speech - Fuentes has close to 140,000 followers there. On Rumble, a YouTube competitor, Fuente's has 40,000 followers. Beyond these platforms - Groyper seem to coalesce around cozy.tv, a video streaming platform they appear to control. While debanking or removal from services like Paypal are certainly impactful - new payment platforms have emerged and crypto currency can completely bypass most traditional constraints. Forcing offensive dissidents from major platforms doesn't silence them but it certainly precludes their ideas or communications from being directly debated.
Keep Doing More of the Same
If traditional approaches to countering offensive right wing groups is effective, then why are the groups growing? The tactic of name and shame, and social or economic exclusion only is effective when the target of the shame belives they have a viable chance to succeed and thrive in the prevailing culture. Groypers view modern America as clownworld. Generations Z and young Millenials have experienced a signifcantly different America than my Generation X did. Our socialization was in person, in the pre or proto-internet era we gathered together and did things in the physical world, the Zoomer is more connected but perhaps more isolated than ever outside the confines of their internet connection. In the past two decades we have seen youth treated like social science experiments, subjected to every conceivable form of left wing ideology - social justice, critical race theory, environmental justice, the degradation of gender roles, and a laundry list of theories that compete to tell them why they and America itself is horrible. Maddening.
Rather than just label Groypers with the traditional epithets of antisemites, supremacists, or racist - examine the conditions that produced them. Are Groypers and America First an insidious movement, or a symptom or side effect of the American culture we have created. Nothing emerges from a vacuum.
Parting Thoughts
Again I'm neither journalist or sociologist. I'm not arguing on behalf of Nick and the Groypers. I do see them as a fascinating phenomena and perhaps as somewhat of a cultural canary in the coal mine. I find it moderately ironic that as white nationalists have been proclaimed as the primary existential threat to America, pro-Hamas protestors waving Palestinian flags are battering at the White House fence, and harassing Jewish students on University campuses. Organizations like the ADL and the SPLC require a steady stream of villains to raise funds, and pasty zoomer video gamers with edgy jokes seem a safer target than 10,000-strong mobs marching through the streets chanting "Death to Zionism".