Nick Fuentes, one of the most controversial figures in media today, declared “I am America” in an episode of his podcast. In some ways, he is right. He is a symbolic figure for young, disaffected members of Gen Z who believed President Donald Trump when he said he was going to “Make America Great Again.” However, an increasing number of young conservatives have become disillusioned with President Trump. His support for Israel and his covering up of the Epstein Files have turned some of the president’s most loyal supporters into his harshest critics. Nick Fuentes did not only refuse to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, but also declared a “Groyper War” on his campaign. Fuentes himself holds views far more controversial than the average populist conservative: he has embraced racial politics and defended the Third Reich, which led, until recently, to his being blackballed by other conservative media.
Similarly, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who both have strong disagreements with Nick Fuentes, have also criticized the Trump administration for similar reasons. Due to their refusal to prostrate themselves to the Israel lobby, both have been labeled as “Woke Right,” a meaningless label used by Israel-obsessed neoconservatives to slander those who ask questions about foreign influence. Ironically, it is these same neoconservatives who are calling for safe spaces for Jewish students on campus, a very “woke” proposal indeed.
Truly, it seems that the more the GOP establishment tries to silence conservative criticism of Israel, the more popular such viewpoints become. This is evident in the fact that negative views of Israel have increased among young people who lean conservative. Now, half of young conservatives have an unfavorable view of Israel, as a recent poll indicated. Because of this, Nick Fuentes is in the process of being mainstreamed. Tucker even had him on his show, a move which has incited a MAGA civil war. Numerous prominent right-wing politicians and commentators have denounced and tried to cancel Tucker Carlson in response. Nevertheless, the more that the “Make Israel Great Again” (MIGA) faction of the conservative movement tries to suppress genuinely America First voices, the more pronounced and strong anti-Israel sentiment will become.
In psychoanalysis, repression is defined as a defense mechanism in which unacceptable thoughts are banished from conscious awareness. For decades, Americans were told that to be conservative meant to support free-markets at home and military interventionism abroad. This concept, known as fusionism, was successful in the Republican Party for decades because it merged the power of capital with the familiarity of social conservatism. Those who opposed fusionism, like Pat Buchanan, who ran on a platform similar to Trump’s in the 1990s, were smeared as “crazy” even by right-wing media. When Donald Trump ran in 2015, he broke the political consensus by challenging neoconservative conceptions about what it meant to be conservative. When Trump said President George W. Bush lied about the Iraq War, he made it acceptable for conservatives to question their leaders. But the tables have turned as Trump himself is now the one in question.
When Trump was elected in 2024, he had a clear mandate from his voters: put America first. An America First foreign policy was the true desire of the American people. However, this desire has been denied time and time again. Under the second Trump administration, the United States got involved in the Twelve-Day War on the side of Israel and provided Tel Aviv with billions of dollars worth of military support. Trump, who has received over $230 million from the Israel lobby, has cemented himself as the most pro-Israel president in history. As Sigmund Freud put it, “[the repressed idea] continues to exercise influence and, when conditions allow, the repressed content returns, often in distorted or disguised form.” In the case of Trump’s repression of MAGA’s distrust of Israel, Nick Fuentes is the manifestation.
In the end, the case of Nick Fuentes proves that silencing ideas is never a permanent solution. The repressed conservative disillusionment with Israel has been brewing behind the scenes for years and has manifested itself in the current MAGA civil war. The MIGA right has lost the youth, meaning that it is only a matter of time before U.S. foreign policy shifts in a more authentically America First direction. Fuentes is not “America” in the sense that his full ideological project is endorsed by the American people—far from it—but he does embody the frustrations, distrust, and political disillusionment shaping a significant portion of Gen Z conservatives. His rise is less a testament to his ideology than to the unresolved contradictions within the conservative movement itself.
