Nick Fuentes’ Plan to Mobilize the Groypers. Plus. . . The presidential guide to surviving a scandal. Sam Tanenhaus on the future of the right. Does Iryna Zarutska’s killer deserve to die? And much more.
Nick Fuentes is revamping a nonprofit to “infiltrate politics” and spread the ideology of the Groypers. (Jamie Kelter Davis/The New York Times/Redux)
It’s Wednesday, November 19. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on why Donald Trump owes Bill Clinton. Should Iryna Zarutska’s schizophrenic murderer face the death penalty? And much more. But first: Lonely young men, past and present. In recent weeks, the American right has gone to war with itself because of the mainstreaming of a once-fringe figure: Nick Fuentes. The white supremacist livestreamer built a cult following among the “Groypers,” a group of isolated young men who subscribe to some of the most noxious ideas out there. More recently, his interviews with Tucker Carlson and others have brought him in from the periphery. Now, as Gabe Kaminsky and Tanner Nau report, Fuentes plans to capitalize on his moment in the limelight. How? By using a revamped nonprofit to “infiltrate politics” and steer the direction of the Republican Party. Is Fuentes serious, or is it just a troll? And can he really sway today’s GOP? Gabe and Tanner talk to Republican insiders about the man who has their party in his crosshairs. David Samuels finds an unsettling echo of the present in the Vienna of more than a century ago. There lived a lonely young man named Adolf Hitler. David revisits a forgotten account by “the single and exclusive friend of Adolf Hitler” in Vienna and finds a portrait that is “eerily familiar, and even sympathetic, in a way that continues to give me nightmares.” David flew to Austria to find out more about the city Hitler claimed had shaped him. He discovers an Adolf that looks uncannily like certain young American men today. Back to today—and the ructions on the right. On the latest Free Press livestream, Will Rahn was joined by Sam Tanenhaus, whose biography of William F. Buckley was published earlier this year, to talk about the ongoing fight for the soul of American conservatism. Watch their conversation and read an edited transcript here: —Oliver Wiseman |