Antisemitic streamer, Holocaust denier, Charlottesville rally attendee, and January 6th instigator Nick Fuentes disavowed Donald Trump\u2019s presidential campaign last week, claiming the America First movement had been \u201chijacked\u201d by \u201cconsultants, lobbyists, & donors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The news that Fuentes had declared a \u201cgroyper war\u201d on his preferred presidential candidate has sparked some claims<\/a> that Trump is losing support among a core part of his constituency: white supremacists. But Fuentes has long been at odds with another subset of the far-right \u2014 one that has ascended within the mainstream Republican Party in recent years, culminating in Trump\u2019s selection of JD Vance as his running mate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a video posted on Rumble, Fuentes said Trump had made \u201can endless string of unforced errors\u201d in his campaign, beginning with Trump\u2019s suggestion<\/a> that former candidate Nikki Haley could have a place in his administration. Fuentes also took issue with Trump\u2019s appearance on the All-In <\/em>podcast<\/a>, in which he said all foreign students who graduate from US colleges should get a green card along with their diploma. Among Fuentes\u2019 other complaints was the fact that Trump has publicly distanced himself<\/a> from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation\u2019s playbook for a second Trump term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Unmentioned in Fuentes\u2019 video is his longstanding beef with far-right thinkers who have gained prominence within conservative circles, including Curtis Yarvin, a \u201cneo-reactionary\u201d philosopher who is close with Vance and megadonor Peter Thiel. Fuentes, a vocal antisemite, has accused<\/a> Yarvin of believing that \u201cnon-Jews are incapable of governing themselves and therefore must always be ruled by Jews.\u201d He has also claimed<\/a> that Yarvin and Costin Alamariu \u2014 the once-pseudonymous writer better known as Bronze Age Pervert \u2014 are \u201cat the forefront of a rising Thiel-funded faction of the Right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This subset of the far-right has been quietly gaining ground for years. In 2019, Politico Magazine <\/em>reported<\/a> that several young staffers of the Trump White House had become taken with Bronze Age Mindset<\/em>, Alamariu\u2019s self-published, anti-egalitarian manifesto about how superior men suffer under the tyranny of the \u201cLeviathan\u201d (the government, elite cultural institutions, and so forth) and the hordes of \u201cbugmen\u201d (inferior beings who do the Leviathan\u2019s bidding).<\/em> Vance, incidentally, follows Bronze Age Pervert on X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Michael Anton, a Trump-era national security official, has described<\/a> Bronze Age Pervert as speaking \u201cdirectly to a youthful dissatisfaction (especially among white males) with equality as propagandized and imposed in our day.\u201d In his review of Bronze Age Mindset, <\/em>Anton notes that Yarvin gave him the book as a gift. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Writer John Ganz has referred<\/a> to the radicalization of young conservative staffers as a sort of \u201cgroyperfication,\u201d and while there are certainly some influential Fuentes sympathizers<\/a> within the Republican Party, Fuentes\u2019 groypers are actually at war with BAP acolytes and Yarvin\u2019s so-called Dark Elves.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Thiel-funded faction of the right, as Fuentes put it, is now in power. Vance owes much of his political career<\/a> to Thiel. Elon Musk was among those who convinced Trump to select Vance<\/a> as his running mate, and Vance\u2019s addition to the ticket has brought in hundreds of millions in donations<\/a> from other members of the Silicon Valley elite.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fuentes\u2019 groyper war is really a war of optics. Trump\u2019s disavowal of Project 2025 is largely superficial; many of its policy proposals were written by former Trump staffers and current allies. Vance has not only echoed some of the proposals<\/a> laid out in Project 2025 but also wrote the foreword<\/a> for Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts\u2019 forthcoming book Dawn\u2019s Early Light<\/em>. But polling suggests that Project 2025 is becoming increasingly unpopular among voters<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s only logical that Trump has tried to tell voters he has nothing to do with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Trump has, in fact, also attempted to distance himself from Fuentes. Trump had dinner with Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and \u201cseemed very taken\u201d with the young white supremacist, Axios<\/em> reported at the time<\/a>. (Fuentes had been invited by Kanye West<\/a> shortly after the rapper legally changed his name to Ye.) But after Republican leaders criticized Trump<\/a> for dining with Fuentes, Trump claimed he had no idea who Fuentes was.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Vance, too, has recently been questioned about Trump\u2019s ties to Fuentes. Vance was asked about Fuentes\u2019 dinner with Trump during an interview with ABC News on Sunday. \u201cThe one \u2014 the one thing I like about Donald Trump, Jon, is that he actually will talk to anybody,\u201d Vance told ABC News\u2019 Jonathan Karl. \u201cBut just because you talk to somebody doesn\u2019t mean you endorse their views. And look, I mean Donald Trump spent a lot of quality time with my wife. Every time he sees her, he gives her a hug, tells her she\u2019s beautiful and jokes around with her a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fuentes, on the other hand, had said \u201cterrible stuff\u201d about Vance\u2019s wife, Usha. After Trump announced Vance as his running mate, Fuentes said Vance\u2019s interracial relationship was proof that he \u201cdoesn\u2019t value his racial identity,\u201d heritage, or religion. \u201cI mean, he\u2019s a white supremacist,\u201d Vance said. But unlike the other white supremacists in Trump\u2019s orbit, Fuentes\u00a0doesn\u2019t couch his beliefs in cryptic diatribes about bugmen and elves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n