Christopher Rufo may have come up with the best analysis of the Fuentes phenomenon. He is, says Rufo,
. . . an essentially fraudulent phenomenon. He is a manipulator who pretends to believe in every evil in order to drive clicks, cause chaos, and achieve celebrity, even as a villain.
He has incited division on the Right. Some conservatives think that the kid should be ignored lest his views be legitimized. Others think his views should be debated and refuted. This conservative contretemps can be side-stepped once it is realized that what I called “his views” are not authentically his and put forth in good faith. So his false and contradictory statements, interspersed with some reasonable ones to add to the confusion, ought not be taken at face value. The guy is operating in
. . . what postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard called “hyperreality”: a system in which the simulation of reality comes to replace reality itself. Under conditions of hyperreality, symbols of past phenomena lose their original meaning. Emptied out, they then circulate through digital media, where they drive the discourse and, while purely derivative, still spark real emotional involvement. In this way, the hyperreal becomes “more real than real,” masking the true nature of reality. [. . .]
The tone of his discourse is not authentic, serious, or reflective. It is ironic, cynical, and provocative. When Fuentes lauds Hitler and, in another interview, praises Stalin—irreconcilable ideological enemies—he is not expressing a comprehensible ideology that can be scrutinized in debate. He is engaging in a performance, which only becomes coherent when read as a demand for attention.
I would call it performative bullshit of the sort engaged in by Gavin Newsom with his “hand jive,” Kamala Harris, with her hyena-like risibility, “Tampon Tim” Walz, Swalwell, Cory Booker with his baseball bat, and other Democrat clowns. Nancy “The Shredder” Pelosi recently got into the act by tearing apart a fake crown in line with the mindless Faux-King meme. Trump has them completely under his control so much so that all they can do is flail about reactively with silly memes, endlessly repeated dealings of the race and Hitler cards, all the while saying nothing of substance and proposing nothing positive.
So the best response to Fuentes the political performance artist may well be no response at all. This too shall pass.
I’ll add one nuance to Rufo’s take: Fuentes is probably not fully self-transparent in his fraudulence. He knows not fully what he does. He is a confused kid who craves and receives attention, attention that has gone to his head; a kid mesmerized by the high tech that permits him to propagate his performances and baseless asseverations, but is also — let’s be fair — truly troubled by what troubles a lot of the Zoomers. They’ve been cheated by the abdication of authority on the part of parents, teachers, and clergy.
Which brings me to my last point: the Zoomers do have legitimate grievances, some of which have been mentioned in the previous comment thread.
Bill, it seemed to me that the recent discussions (online) about Nick Fuentes stemmed largely from his contact with Tucker Carlson. Perhaps Carlson was supposed to be the grownup in the room i.e. presumed to be a more responsible party?
Yes, it was Tucker’s interview that brought this thing front-and-center. I suspect that part of Carlson’s motivation in giving Fuentes a platform was his resentment at being deep-sixed by Fox.
Bill, I think your comment here may be underestimating Fuentes’ influence among the right, even prior to the Tucker interview. Nick has an extremely large platform and cultlike following, despite attempts made by the mainstream to avoid mentioning him. Tucker was, like many others, publicly pressured to speak with Fuentes in order to save his own credibility. It’s not so much that the tides have shifted here with this interview, but rather I think that the older generations who grew up on corporate media (and who wisely avoid social media spaces) are just now coming to terms with how much the tides have already shifted now that the dissident figureheads are forcefully intersecting with the traditional establishment figures, such as Tucker.