This piece takes a hard look at Michelle Goldberg’s New York Times op-ed that claims Nick Fuentes is rising to replace Charlie Kirk, explains who Fuentes and the groypers are, examines how prominent conservatives and platforms reacted to the Tucker Carlson interview, and pushes back on the left’s effort to lump fringe extremists in with mainstream conservatism.
The conversation kicked off again after Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes went viral, and conservatives have been fighting over whether anyone should ever give Fuentes a platform. Fuentes is a known white nationalist who has praised Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin and has made demeaning comments about Jewish and Black people. That background matters a lot when anyone on the right considers whether he’s fair game for interviews or association.
Michelle Goldberg weighed in with an op-ed that went beyond critique and into caricature, arguing Fuentes is poised to replace Charlie Kirk. That claim ignores the open conflict between Kirk and Fuentes and misses how most mainstream conservatives reacted to the groyper movement. Calling a marginal, toxic figure a successor to a major conservative organizer is political theater, not sober analysis.
Goldberg recounts how Fuentes and his followers, known as groypers, showed up at Turning Point USA events to try to label organizers as “anti-White.” That episode illustrates the groypers’ tactics: bait, confront, and then broadcast the clash as evidence of a wider conservative problem. The reality is more mundane and less explosive than Goldberg claims, because mainstream organizers have repeatedly rejected those tactics and repudiated the movement.
The op-ed leaned on an alarming-sounding line from Rod Dreher: “I am told by someone in a position to know that something like 30 to 40 percent of D.C. G.O.P. staffers under the age of 30 are Groypers.” That exact quote raises eyebrows and deserves verification before it is amplified as fact. Even if some young staffers flirt with fringe ideas online, that is not the same as a wholesale takeover of conservative institutions.
Goldberg pointed to the Carlson interview as proof of growing visibility for Fuentes, and she criticized conservatives who she says didn’t push back hard enough. Carlson’s sit-down did prompt backlash, and many on the right lambasted him for a “softball” approach that let abhorrent ideas slide. Still, criticism of Carlson came from within conservative circles, not just from the left, which undermines the notion that the right as a whole is enabling Fuentes.
The op-ed also mentions figures like Kevin Roberts and Matt Walsh, noting their comments about not canceling people or uniting for strategic reasons. Those positions are controversial and worthy of debate, but they do not equal endorsement of extremism. Plenty of conservatives argue for broad coalitions while still drawing firm lines against racism and violence; nuance gets lost when the left packages every disagreement as moral equivalence.
Groypers have indeed attacked minority conservatives, including Vivek Ramaswamy, Brandon Tatum, and Usha Vance, and Fuentes has used racial slurs on broadcasts. Those facts are ugly and real, and they explain why most mainstream conservatives reject him. For people who value a healthy conservative movement, the answer has been consistent: ostracize racists, not normalize them.
Goldberg’s tactic feels familiar: spotlight a fringe actor, then claim the whole movement is rotten. It’s a cheap play that fuels outrage but not understanding. Conservatives who want to be taken seriously should point to the clear, repeated repudiations of Fuentes across the right and to the broader popular backlash his visibility generated.
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