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August 12, 2024 - 8:30pm
The recent spate of criticism aimed at Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign from various Right-wing influencers, coupled with the public clash between J.D. Vance and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, has exposed growing tensions within the younger, more ideologically extreme fringes of the American Right. These conflicts reveal a widening rift between the established MAGA movement and a subset of extremely online conservatives who are pushing for even more hardline positions on issues like populist nationalism, non-interventionist foreign policy, and cultural identity.
Fuentes, a far-Right commentator known for his racist and antisemitic views, recently launched what he dubbed “Groyper War II” against the Trump campaign. “We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they’re blowing it,” Fuentes wrote on X. “Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.”
This declaration of war came on the heels of Fuentes’s attack on J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, over Vance’s marriage to an Indian-American woman. “Who is this guy, really?” Fuentes asked. “Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?”
Vance, for his part, firmly disavowed Fuentes in a recent appearance on “Face the Nation” on CBS News. “Look, I think the guy’s a total loser. Certainly, I disavow him,” Vance stated. “But if you ask me what I care more about, is it a person attacking me personally, or is it government policy that discriminates based on race? That’s what I really worry about.” He also defended Trump’s past interactions with Fuentes, stating, “The one thing I like about Donald Trump is he actually will talk to anybody, but just because you talk to somebody doesn’t mean you endorse their views.”
This public spat exemplifies the tightrope Republican leaders must walk between courting younger, online-savvy supporters and distancing themselves from the most extreme elements. Vance, though relatively young and internet-fluent himself, clearly isn’t radical enough for a subset of the “based”, extremely online Right that demands more explicit nationalism and isolationist foreign policy.
The incident also spotlights Trump’s own complicated relationship with far-Right figures like Fuentes. The former President faced widespread criticism in 2022 for dining with Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago, though he claimed to know nothing about Fuentes beforehand. Now Fuentes is turning on Trump, arguing his campaign has been “hijacked” by establishment forces.
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SubscribeTrump was a mk 1 version. He was very fresh when he appeared – the first politician I have ever know to not lay prostrate to leftist ‘elite’ talking points. That’s why people loved him.
Ron De Santis is a mk 2 Trump. Machine like, no nonsense. He hopefully represents the new generation of conservative politicians.
The difference between Trump and DeSantis is that Trump (love him or hate him) has charisma. DeSantis, on the other hand, is a charisma-free zone (and don’t even get me started on the “lifts-in-boots” thing).
Can someone from the US help me. Since Harris has turned up on the scene Trump has done nothing but kick the player rather than the ball. Given that the ball (Democratic record of the past 4 years) is a world of pain which can be easily extrapolated into the future, accompanied by a recession which is being deeply felt by American even if the hopeless/political Fed models are not reflecting that reality, what are they doing? Not only is kicking the player a surefire way to lose morally and technically, it’s dumb. Are they trying to lose? Or does something in this article point to rifts elsewhere – one hears that Vance was the choice of the younger Trump family members after all.
Very confused Brit trying to understand the malaise which looks like an own goal. God, save me from attempting football metaphors (sorry). I wouldn’t mind, except that I believe this to be the most consequential election of my lifetime, accepting neither candidate is “sufficient unto the day”. The confluence of 4th industrial revolution, geopolitical plates shifting, sovereign debt crisis, and elders/birth demographic bust will need the very best we can throw at it. I can already see Harris’s strings being pulled.
I think he’s saving his campaign money until the final leg. Last time he run out of money at the wrong time.
Also, his NDE might have affected him in ways we don’t know about.
I hope he wins, otherwise dystopian nightmare in the US.
Kicking the player worked OK when the player was Hillary Clinton.
If you kick the player, you have to kick hard and accurately (as Trump did with Hillary). He has so far failed to do that with Harris.
I’m an American and I strongly recommend you take articles written by Oliver Bateman with a large grain of salt, if you bother to read him at all.
How so very true! Everybody knows that nobody gives a shite about Nick Fuentes.
Bateman is simply trying to throw shade on the Trump campaign.
He could be waiting to pounce at a better moment. Right now, even if he had been getting some good shots in, the MSM would have turned them. The debate(s) will open a whole new front.
He might be waiting for the wheel to go round again. Campaigns go back and forth like a pendulum. Right now Harris says nothing and the press labels her a genius. But after she speaks at the convention her faults will be more obvious, the chinks in her armor more visible. Between the trans types and the fans of Hamas and the old fashioned anti-Semites and the radical vegans and the climate kooks, etc. I think there’s a good chance that the Dem convention will be a freak show; not what mid-Western voters want to vote for.
Or maybe something unexpected could happen that will put her in a bad light; the fumbled response to some hurricane or earth-quake, or an international confrontation…
Or maybe he’s just keeping his powder dry. The election is still two months away.
For God’s sake, the United States is not in a recession. Nor is it some dystopian nightmare. Biden’s administration has accomplished many important policies. He has passed a bipartisan Infrastructure act. Trump just talked about infrastructure for a day. Biden has lowered the price of medication for those on Medicare, including insulin. The CHIPS and Science Act, also bipartisan, provides $52 billion to build factories and create institutions to make computer chips domestically, ensuring that the United States would have access to the most advanced semiconductors needed to power economic growth and maintain national security. Biden rebuilt alliances with NATO (I would think that Britain feels better with American support.) There’s more,but you can Google it. But Biden was a busy man.
“most swing voters are far more interested in bread-and-butter issues like consumer prices and inflation.”
Fully understand this are important issues BUT they are very short term issues and the loss of free speech, gender loons etc will destroy everyone’s liberty and wealth very soon.
Can we trust the polls? Harris goes from being the least popular VP ever to, suddenly, a popular presidential candidate. Of course, replacing Biden with someone at least partially sentient was bound to improve the Democrats’ polling somewhat but it all seems suspicious to me.