“America First Is Inevitable”: Nick Fuentes, the Groyper Army, and the Mainstreaming of White Nationalism

My latest at Political Research Associates– an analysis of the white nationalist America First/groyper movement and its leader, Nick Fuentes.

“Fuentes’ army of self-described “Groypers”—a name borrowed from their online mascot, a cartoon toad closely related to the Alt Right icon Pepe the Frog—looked like clean-cut, Generation Z, White kids: campus Republican types in polo shirts, jeans, and MAGA hats, wielding American flags and edgy memes on their phones. The Groypers blended into the larger MAGA crowd, distinguished only by their cluster of blue “America First” flags, while Fuentes, in a speech carefully tailored to appeal to mainstream Trump supporters, championed “the American people, rising up and taking control over our government and over our country once again.”^[3] There were no audible calls to save the White race from extinction at Fuentes’ rally, though, in endless talk of preserving the “tradition” and “heritage” of “our people and our historic nation,” the undertone wasn’t hard to detect.”