Transcript: MAGA Rages over Tucker Carlson’s “Sick” Moment with “Nazi”

So the Groypers are basically the followers of Fuentes. They’re more or less neo-Nazis. They subscribe to an extremely racist, extremely antisemitic, extremely misogynistic sort of set of views. I’m sure that many listeners have been following with interest that story that appeared in Politico a few weeks ago about a group chat leak featuring all sorts of conservative activists who were just saying incredibly racist and antisemitic and sexist things and making rape jokes and all the rest of it. Pretty bog standard in right-wing circles these days.

And that’s really what groyperism is at its heart. It’s a kind of internet culture that hinges on provocation and a kind of sense of mutual radicalization. But I will say this—that Fuentes, and he talks about this in the interview with Tucker, really came kind of out of nowhere. He was involved in a couple of conservative activist circles in 2016. He was a Trump guy, but then, because he very quickly went into, you know, explicitly racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic grounds, he was kind of on the fringe of the conservative movement.

He was present at Unite the Right here in Charlottesville, Virginia, where I currently live. But nevertheless, he has been able to build essentially a media empire. He’s got one of the biggest podcasts on the right. He exercises a tremendous amount of cultural influence there, and especially among these young conservative activists who are sort of constantly pushing the boundaries when it comes to, you know, racism, misogyny, and antisemitism.