Nick Fuentes and the Antisemitism that Believes in Nothing

America, meet Nick Fuentes. 

Who is Nick Fuentes?

He’s a podcaster and provocateur with millions of followers — mostly young, single men who call themselves “Groypers.” He has expressed pedophilic preferences, declared his love for mass murderers like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, told women that their bodies were “his choice,” and proudly proclaimed that he’s raising an army of cultish followers loyal only to him. Most recently, Fuentes has been the subject of numerous media profiles, including from The New York Times, The Atlantic, and a sympathetic interview with Tucker Carlson.

What Fuentes is perhaps best known for, however, is his oldest and most virulent hatred: antisemitism. He has compared Judaism to a “transnational gang,” tied it to the blatantly racist Great Replacement theory, and repeatedly called for another Holocaust against the Jewish people. In the aftermath of his interview with Carlson, numerous conservative commentators have argued that Fuentes’ antisemitism should be debated in the public square — or that the Groypers might somehow be redeemed or rehabilitated.

But what critics and even the Groyper-curious miss is that Fuentes’ antisemitism is not ideological. It has no principles, no view of politics, and no concrete end-goal other than spreading shock and misery. Groypers wear hatred like a cloak, abandoning it for another the moment it’s convenient. They hate Jews not out of conviction, but due to a love for perversion and subversion. And that makes them far more dangerous. Fuentes and his ilk cannot be reasoned with — only locked in the proverbial basement before they burn America down. 

What ideological roots did antisemitism ever have?

Historical antisemitism stemmed from a variety of sources, including, but not limited to, Jews’ perceived culpability for the Crucifixion, blood libels accusing Jews of using the blood of Christian children in exotic rituals, and Jewish involvement in the banking and lending industries. Despite this variability, these sources all had something in common — an explanation. While these explanations were and are bigoted, malicious, and wrong, they at least attempted to explain something about the world. They could be responded to with facts and evidence. 

Fuentes, in contrast, simply thrives in the chaos. His identity as a single, jobless White man dependent on his parents has always defined his content creation, and he and his followers project their own insecurities on everyone else. Jews, to Groypers, are synonymous with civilization — their prominence in media, entrepreneurship, finance, law, politics, and myriad other industries is not a symbol of American industriousness, but a personal slight against White, nominally Christian men like Fuentes. 

Therefore, what Groypers ultimately despise is modern civilization itself. On one occasion, Fuentes even remarked that he would much prefer to live in 1099, as it at least maintained the “proper order” (with himself at the top, of course). And if everything about Jews is utterly irredeemable, there is no line the Groypers won’t cross, and no bottom they will refuse to sink to. It’s a nihilistic viewpoint, devoid of any meaning other than petty personal grievances. Horror and violence against Jews are just another Tuesday for Fuentes and company. 

A performative hatred

Performative antisemitism is precisely what makes Fuentes so dangerous. He encourages cruelty for entertainment purposes, which his followers escalate in order to prove their loyalty. They wear the trappings of Christianity, opposing censorship, and defending America, but Groypers don’t believe in any of it. They just want to torture what mainstream society considers sacred, and the safety and success of American Jewry is a particularly tantalizing prize. 

This is why efforts to “debate” or “redeem” Fuentes are doomed from the start. There is nothing resembling an argument in good faith here. Even when Fuentes is sincere, he retreats back to irony, memes, or jokes if he feels like it would benefit him. Every podcast, every media mention, every op-ed (including mine) is just another sacrifice to his vanity. His politics are not conservative, populist, or even genuinely antisemitic — they’re parasitic, fueled by outrage and negative attention. 

The solution isn’t censorship, but quarantine. Fuentes and his followers feed on attention, not genuine conviction; every rebuttal is a reward, every mention a morsel. His antisemitism spreads through spectacle, not persuasion. The only cure is containment: starve it of oxygen, deny it the stage, and move on.

When antisemitism stops believing in anything, it forfeits even the pretense of debate. It becomes nothing more than a tantrum in search of an audience. Fuentes and his ilk don’t need to be argued with or understood. They need to be forgotten.

This article was originally published by RealClearReligion and made available via RealClearWire.