A Heritage of Racism

Can MAGA exist without racists in the coalition?

On October 28th, Tucker Carlson hosted white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes for an episode of The Tucker Carlson Show. Fuentes, as we’ve covered before, is a Holocaust denier, a self-described fan of Hitler, and the founder/leader of the wildly racist and anti-semitic groyper movement. Fuentes used the opportunity to rant about Israel and peddle white nationalist talking points, and Carlson, while providing a few light objections, mostly just let him talk uninterrupted and without serious pushback.

Most of the conservative movement reacted to this appropriately, with sharp rebukes and criticism. Ted Cruz, Dan Crenshaw and many other Republican members of Congress spoke against Fuentes’s appearance. The Wall Street Journal called Carlson and Fuentes “The New Right’s New Antisemites”. Ben Shapiro was particularly incensed: “Tucker Carlson decided that it was important not only to host Fuentes but to smooth over his views, water them down and make them far more palatable to a normal audience,” Shapiro said on a recent podcast. “This is what Tucker Carlson does for a living.”

And yet not everyone inside conservative world denounced the appearance. Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, put out a video on X in which he defended Tucker Carlson for having Fuentes on his show. Roberts said Tucker’s critics were a “venomous coalition” that was “sowing division” in the conservative movement. He also proclaimed that conservatives shouldn’t “cancel our own people” or “police their consciences”, and said that Heritage wouldn’t distance itself from Tucker Carlson, who “would always be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation”. He even went so far as to say that Fuentes shouldn’t be cancelled, but debated.

This caused an absolutely enormous uproar on the political right, and to understand why, you have to understand some things about the Heritage Foundation. Heritage is the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement in America, and has been for generations, stretching back to the 1980s when Ronald Reagan took many of his signature policies directly from Heritage white papers. That’s continued up until the current day - Heritage wrote most of Project 2025, which is being faithfully implemented by the Trump administration. In most situations, where the Heritage foundation stands is where the conservative movement stands.

Additionally, Heritage has long had a ‘one voice’ policy. At some think tanks, staffers are allowed to publicly debate and discuss ideas, and disagreeing with your colleagues is a normal thing to do. Heritage’s policy has always been that the entire organization speaks with ‘one voice’ - those working inside Heritage should not ever criticize the work Heritage puts out, or publicly disagree with their colleagues or the institution. That makes it even more remarkable that several Heritage employees have publicly rebuked their President’s remarks. Research fellow Preston Brashers posted “If losing my job at Heritage is the consequence of posting “NAZIS ARE BAD”, it’s a consequence I’m prepared to face.” Several Heritage staffers retweeted Brasher’s post with additional commentary, and several different board members posted lengthy condemnations of those who would make peace with antisemites. Mark Goldfelder, who is the CEO for the National Jewish Advocacy Center, resigned from the Heritage Foundation’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

A small-scale civil war has erupted at Heritage and in the conservative movement, and while most of them are on the “Nazis bad” side, not all of them are. There are plenty of leaks where Heritage staffer chats show people being “disgusted” and “embarrassed” by Roberts’ statement, but those same articles note that employees are worried that “…talking with some of the interns I think that there are a growing number of them who actually agree with the views Fuentes espoused.”

Plenty of conservative media personalities are denouncing Roberts’ statement on social media, but some are defending Roberts and others like Matt Walsh are simply mad that there’s conservative-on-conservative criticism at all - they want a ‘one voice’ policy that covers the entire movement. And while Roberts’ chief of staff (who many blame for the statement) was forced out of the organization a few days ago, other conservative organizations are mass-emailing congressional offices warning them not to hire or work with any Heritage staffers who criticized the statement.

The reason there’s so much sound and fury over the Tucker/Fuentes interview and over Kevin Roberts’ defense of said interview is simple. The conservative movement, in its modern form, is trying to figure out if it has a future without racism. And the racists are slowly winning.

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In a piece last year called Leopards Eating Conservative Faces, I categorized modern conservatives into four categories:

• The Outcasts: These are the Never Trumpers, those who’ve left the Republican party because of principled opposition to where it was headed. This is the smallest group, consisting of publications like The Bulwark, The Dispatch, etc. I admire them, I hope their ranks grow, and I wish them well.

• The Proud Freaks: This is Alex Jones, Nick Fuentes, and others who aren’t ashamed of their racism or insanity. If you call them racist, if you call them Nazis, they say “Hell yeah!”. This group is also small but growing at a disturbing clip.

• The Grifters: These people don’t have an ideology, they’ve just realized that it’s very easy to get famous by being a provocative conservative personality. It’s a profitable play and business is booming.

• The Cowards: This is the largest group of conservatives, the ‘mainstream’ of the Republican party. They’re not outright racist, and they’re not grifting. They believe in conservative ideals. But despite being aware of how their movement is being infiltrated, they say little and do nothing.

The outcasts are largely irrelevant in this story, as they’ve made the principled decision not to work with Trump or his movement. What we’re seeing with the fight at Heritage is a confrontation that’s been a long time coming between the proud freaks and the cowards.

Leopards Eating Conservative Faces

Everyone within a hundred miles of conservative politics - whether they’re in government, at think tanks, or in right wing media - knows that there is an enormous racism and conspiracism problem in the conservative movement. This has been the case for a long time - see The Paranoid Style in American Politics or John Ganz’s book When the Clock Broke. But for most of the history of the Sixth Party System, Republicans made sure they denounced racism publicly. Sure, they welcomed racists like Strom Thurmond, who in 1964 switched from the Democratic to the Republican party, but they had the grace to be vaguely embarrassed about it. When KKK grand wizard David Duke ran for Senate in Louisiana, several Republicans crossed the aisle to endorse his Democratic opponent. The GOP engaged in institutional gatekeeping, exiling the worst racists in society from official positions of influence and power.

That gate, to the extent that it used to exist, has now blown wide open. The cowards at the Heritage Foundation know that half their interns are groypers and Fuentes fans. The people working in Congressional offices for Republicans know how many of them are in group chats where they praise Hitler. Nobody is surprised when Trump appointees say they “have a Nazi streak” in them. They know that Marko Elez at DOGE was not an outlier, he was a sign of more to come. They know how much of the young right was educated about race relations via 4chan memes. Non-white GOP hopefuls like Vivek Ramaswamy routinely have their social media replies filled with vile, racist attacks from their own side of the aisle. None of this is a secret.

The cowards used to have a firewall against the freaks, but they’re belatedly realizing that the freaks have thoroughly infiltrated the party. Kevin Roberts’ statement, viewed in this light, is simply the recognition of reality. Heritage had a choice in 2016. They could join the principled dissenters and stick to a classical form of conservativism, even if the incoming Trump administration didn’t like it. Or they could adapt their worldview to become more like MAGA’s worldview, and thus gain more unfettered access to the halls of power. They chose power over principle, and they’re doing the same thing now.

Roberts’ defense of Tucker Carlson is a choice. It’s a choice to play nice with a part of the coalition that, to be clear, isn’t the majority of Republicans, but a part that is substantial enough it’s difficult to ignore or cast aside. It’s the same devil’s bargain that JD Vance has repeatedly made when he’s defended government staffers who think his half-Indian children are freaks, or when he’s dismissed criticism of Nazi group chats. Vance wants to be president in 2028, and he’s not sure he can win unless the entire MAGA base is firmly behind him - including the white nationalist part of the base. Similarly, Roberts is steeped in the idea of ‘no internal dissent’ and ‘no enemies to my right’. The conservative movement used to have a firewall against people like Nick Fuentes, but it’s no longer functional.

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Roberts, Vance, and the group that’s defending the Tucker/Fuentes interview are making the calculation that the conservative movement has a better chance to win going forward with the racists than without them. And while I hope they’re wrong, it’s not clear whether or not they are. Check out the replies to any of the Heritage staffers who protested Roberts - there’s a substantial group defending him and criticizing the dissenters. Mark Goldfeder’s resignation letter is filled with “Why are there so many pro-Jewish task forces instead of white Christian task forces???” responses. Can the MAGA movement really afford to piss off the 10-15% of their base that is now openly white nationalist? I’m not sure. Fuentes is aware of his power - this week he issued a warning to Vance:

“If JD Vance condemns the Groypers…We will show up in Iowa, and then New Hampshire, and then Nevada and South Carolina to make sure that he never gets the nomination…I will be there in Iowa with ten thousand Groypers and we will be there at every event”

I’m glad that the majority of people at Heritage (and in conservative politics writ large) are speaking up to denounce Tucker Carlson and Fuentes. Their reaction is likely why Roberts has started backpedaling and trying to distance himself from his previous statement.

But I can’t let them slide, because anyone with eyes could see that these people existed in the conservative ecosystem. It’s been obvious this was coming for quite a while, and far too many conservatives were happy to ignore it and hope it would all work out for the best. They were too cowardly to address the white nationalism in their ranks while the embers were still smoldering, and now that the entire house is catching fire they’re all getting burned. Leopards, faces, etc.

The cowards are hoping the white nationalists will quietly go away on their own, and cynics like Vance and Roberts are hoping to use them to gain more power. Both groups are deluded. Engaging in political gamesmanship or making alliances with Nazis always ends poorly. You are not in control of the relationship. Allowing them in the tent means that they have control, and they won’t hesitate to stab you in the back whenever it’s convenient for them. I’d call this a critical moment for the conservative movement, but the truth is that the critical moment has almost certainly passed. The leopards are already inside the house, and once they’re inside you don’t have much power to decide who they eat or when they leave.