The Dictatorship
The Nazism taboo in America is broken
In a year defined by President Donald Trump’s attempt to turn our nation into an authoritarian kleptocracy, one of the most disturbing events of the year was not a reactionary policy or a speech, but in fact the results of a focus group which were published Friday.
City Journal, which is published by the influential right-leaning think tank the Manhattan Institute, conducted a focus group of 20 “mostly Trump voters, overwhelmingly Christian, a mix of college and non-college, ranging from late teens to twentysomethings edging into thirty,” based in and around Nashville, Tennessee. The discussion, designed to examine the attitudes of Gen Z conservatives, covered lots of questions, ranging from the economy to feminism to foreign policy. But the most striking answers were related to questions about white supremacist figures — and demonstrated how many young people on the right are marinating in a media atmosphere of the most noxious, racist extremism imaginable, with no obvious pathway back to making such bigotry taboo again.
In today’s right-wing political culture, Trumpism is growing contiguous with Fuentes-ism.
When the moderator asked how many of them knew Nick Fuentes — a white supremacist livestreamer who has, among other things, called Adolf Hitler “really f**king cool,” described Chicago as “n—r hell,” argued in favor of a return to racial segregation, doubted the Nazi Holocaust, opposed interracial marriage and said women shouldn’t have the right to vote — more than half of the respondents raised their hands based on Fuentes’ name recognition alone. Several participants, identified only by their first names, described him in approving or ambivalent terms.
George said, “I agree with a lot of his points. He definitely doesn’t care about how it’s gonna be reacted to, which I respect, but I also think it can be kind of dangerous.” Another, Ally, said, “At its core I believe a lot of what he says, but I think the delivery is kind of poor.” Atticus said, “I dig him… He’s definitely going after more of the shock value with some of his stuff. But as far as general beliefs or values, I sort of agree.”
Andrew, who elsewhere in the focus group said he “really liked” Fuentes, attempted to defend Fuentes as “joking” much of the time, but also expressed earnest support: “I feel like his viewpoints would have been mainstream not that long ago. If he’s saying something like most women want to be raped, well, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ sells like hotcakes to women, so I feel like that’s just a fact.” Ethan described Fuentes as overly polarizing, but said “He has some interesting opinions, I think specifically about race.” Colin said, “I think he reminds me of the Andrew Tate Republican Party, where he’s really good at addressing a common problem, but the solutions aren’t the solutions to go by.”
There were a few notes of disapproval. Brice said Fuentes “is very dangerous for our side of things,” and Ashley said “I think being too radical pushes people away and makes them look for truth elsewhere.” Notably, neither of these comments contained substantive condemnation, appearing more strategic instead. (Note: City Journal said the transcript it provided was partial, which means other comments might have been excluded.)
The focus group became even more alarming when the moderator asked, “What do you think of Adolf Hitler?”
Ashley said, “I think he was a great leader, to be honest. I think what he was going for was terrible, but I think he showed very strong leadership values.” Andrew said, “I think we should have a stronger executive branch. I don’t think we should be killing people or doing mass genocide, obviously, but I do think we should have a strong executive….. I support national sovereignty, and Hitler was a nationalist. He was like, we have to take Germany back for Germans. And I feel like we should do that in America. We should take America back for our native population.”
Brice, who described himself as Jewish ancestrally and Christian by faith, said, “I’ve actually read ‘Mein Kampf.’ The end conclusions that he came to: absolutely abominable. But I strangely understood where he was coming from as far as wanting to improve the national state of Germany.” Only Lauren offered full-throated condemnation: “He made all of those people suffer, and I want to do ungodly things to people who do things like that.”
The moderator followed up by asking how the group felt about Jewish people.
Atticus said, “They’ve got Hollywood on lock.” George queried, “Don’t they own, like, a ton of the media, and, like, just kind of everything?” Andrew said, “I would say a force for evil.” Only Brice diverged, saying he believed Jewish people were “No different than black people, Asian people, or any other people here today.”
After the moderator asked Andrew to clarify his comments on Jews being “evil,” he doubled down, and then the moderator asked others to respond, prompting a bit of pushback: Ashley said Jews and Christians were similar, biblically speaking; Ally rejected “any classification of a whole people group,” adding, “I just don’t think you can say this entire people group is bad.” But Lauren raised what appeared to be an antisemitic trope about sexually corrupting Jewish cabals: “Israel has a lot of connections to sex and human trafficking, and that doesn’t sit well with me.”
Some of us may have been underestimating how much fascistic energy has bubbled up from more grassroots quarters of American political life.
I was blown away reading this transcript. The venomous Fuentes appears to be just another right-wing pundit who maybe rage-baits a bit too much. Jews are described as sly puppeteers. Hitler is not seen as the apex of genocidal barbarism, but rather a nationalist leader who can be at least partially empathized with.
We’ve known for a long time that the right has been growing more extremebut this focus group really made it sink in: in today’s right-wing political culture, Trumpism is growing contiguous with Fuentes-ism, and the long-standing taboo against Nazism in America is broken.
Here’s another way of thinking about it: For a long time American scholars and journalists have been debating whether or not Trump matches the definition of a fascist; but some of us may have been underestimating how much fascistic energy has bubbled up from more grassroots quarters of American political life. And with the overwhelming majority of participants describing themselves as getting their political news from social media, independent podcasts and YouTubers — and hardly any professional institutional media — it’s difficult to see how to guard against it getting worse. Trolls, demagogues and grifters are whispering into the ears of our youth (and not just on the right), and sabotaging our capacity to adhere to democracy.
Let’s be clear that a focus group is not a poll — we cannot quantify how widespread these attitudes and behaviors are. The point of putting them together is to get a snapshot of a specific subset of the population to gauge the more complex elements of their belief systems that surveys cannot capture. But what these young red state conservatives said doesn’t defy what we know about what’s happening on the right, it confirms it.
Data points supporting the idea that the Nazi taboo is broken are everywhere. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson — whom multiple focus group participants said was a media figure who best represented their views — recently conducted a softball interview with Fuentes which allowed Fuentes to present himself as a more innocuous pundit than he is. That interview has in turn roiled the American rightrocking right-wing institutions like the Heritage Foundation as they have struggled to figure out how close of a relationship they should hold with Carlson. The Trump administration employs a man who described himself as having a “Nazi streak” in a text message. In October Politico obtained leaked Telegram messages showing young Republican leaders describing Black people as monkeys and sharing messages that include “I love Hiter.”
A number of prominent right-wingers are openly acknowledging that something has gone rotten. Rod Dreher, a conservative writer, recently described a trip to Washington, D.C., in which he said a “D.C. insider” told him that he estimated that between 30% and 40% of Gen Z Republicans in Washington are Fuentes fans and reported that other young Republicans agreed with that estimate. The point isn’t whether that number is accurate — there’s no way to confirm it on the record — but rather that it reflects a perception within the right that Fuentes is ascendant. Vivek Ramswamy, who ran for president in 2024 and is running for governor of Ohio in 2026, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times recently decrying Fuentes’ growing influence on the right.
The presentation of this focus group by The Manhattan Institute — the group that employs the right-wing disinformation agent Christopher Rufo — should also leave us feeling concerned.
In the introductory synopsis to the focus group findings, the author, Jesse Arm, writes “moral stigmas — racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny — no longer reliably do the work they used to.” But he appears to put the blame for those things on the left, saying that, “After a decade of hearing the same accusations leveled at everyone from John McCain to Mitt Romney to Donald Trump, some see allegations of bigotry as table stakes.” Arm also downplays the extent of extremism surfaced in the focus group by saying there was “one true believer who agreed with Fuentes’ worldview and espoused explicit authoritarian and anti-pluralist views” who was “an outlier.”
The Manhattan Institute is not endorsing the participants’ worldview, but it was also clearly not trying to sound the alarms. It did, however, seem confident that the group was an authentic representation of the state of today’s right-wing youth — a group of Americans who increasingly are intrigued by the most vicious and destructive among us.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer for MS NOW. Sign up for his newsletter.
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, a spokesperson said late Wednesday, as two retiring Republicans on the panel dug in over President Donald Trump’s personal “anti-weaponization” deal with the government he runs.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s decision to delay the committee vote that had been set for Thursday marks a setback for one of Trump’s highest-profile Cabinet nominees, at the hands of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a pair of Republicans set to leave the chamber next year.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” the committee spokesperson said.
Blanche’s nomination to permanently head the Department of Justice needs the support of either Cornyn or Tillis to make it out of the committee to a vote by the full Senate, assuming all Democrats remain opposed.
“Why don’t you call over the Department of Justice and tell them they have one hour and 50 minutes to get me what I asked for,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday afternoon amid the hardening standoff over his demand that Blanche and the DOJ put in writing a commitment never to pursue the president’s prized “anti-weaponization” fund, and to clarify the terms of Trump’s personal deal with the Internal Revenue Service.
Tillis told MS NOW that the conversations were complicated by the need for the Justice Department to get “several parties” to agree on the language of the statement Cornyn and Tillis are seeking.
“What I’ve advised the chair, and I would assume Senator Cornyn said something similar, is that we’re not prepared to vote yes yet,” he added.
“The Department has been in regular communication with Committee members for weeks, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with Senators to address any concerns,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in response to the decision to postpone the committee vote.
Cornyn was set to meet with Blanche on Wednesday morning, but the meeting was called off after Blanche failed to meet the senator’s demand for written proposals to modify the controversial settlement agreement he brokered between Trump and the IRS. The Republican senator is set to leave Congress when his term ends in January after a bruising May primary loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump’s chosen candidate.
“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t heard that there’s a problem. I heard (Blanche) is going through quite nicely.”
Cornyn made clear to Blanche during his confirmation hearing that he will not get his support until he agrees to reopen and modify the settlement. Due to the committee’s narrow Republican majority, one GOP “no” vote is enough to sink Blanche’s nomination.
The senator has asked Blanche to provide proof that the proposed nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund established as part of the deal between Trump and the IRS is formally dead, and he has also demanded Blanche narrow the tax audit immunity provisions the settlement afforded to Trump and his family.
Blanche has publicly stated that his department has dropped the fund, but he and the DOJ have dodged requests from Cornyn and a federal judge to put that in writing.
After announcing his meeting with Blanche would not take place Wednesday morning, Cornyn told reporters that changes from Blanche “in a modified release form” would be acceptable, but that “for some reason … they simply refuse to do it,” referring to the DOJ.
Shortly after the meeting was called off, a Justice Department official told MS NOW that the department “provided a written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff yesterday following ongoing discussion with both the Committee and the Senator’s office.”
Cornyn said that proposal was “not responsive” to his demands because it did not address the tax audit immunity provisions in the settlement, one of his key demands.
In May, Blanche signed an addendum as part of the deal that granted Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from pending IRS tax audits. That agreement, which has been decried by former IRS officials and legal experts as unlawful self-dealing, is being contested in federal court.
Cornyn noted that Blanche testified under oath that he could meet the request during his confirmation hearing.
“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or you know, go along, but they’re mistaken,” Cornyn said when asked why he thinks the DOJ could be slow-walking his request.
Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived this week for his tour of Washington, he may have had a mission in mind.
Netanyahu needed to overcome his newly diminished stature and waning influence over his once close friend President Donald Trump as both leaders grapple with the unpopularity of a war they started together and is escaping their control.
His meeting at the White House with Trump on Tuesday, which was closed to the press, was the first face-to-face encounter between the two allies since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran on Feb. 28.
Trump gave him a muted welcome and afterwards simply described the meeting as “very good.” “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Rather than an intimate one-on-one setting, the Oval Office was full of top U.S. officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
But Netanyahu continued the full court press on the Trump administration.
Over the course of two days, in addition to seeing Trump and attending Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral at the Capitol, Netanyahu also met separately with Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio, White House and Israeli officials confirmed to MS NOW.
The Israeli prime minister’s slate of meetings with key U.S. national security officials comes at a pivotal moment in the Iran conflict as tensions escalate in the region and Americans increasingly sour on the war. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 60% of American voters opposing U.S. military action against Iran and 74% against sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Not only does Trump face pressure as Republicans face an uphill battle to retain congressional control in this fall’s midterms, Netanyahu’s fate as prime minister is at stake in Israel’s upcoming September elections – and he can’t afford to lose Trump’s favor.
The talks largely focused on what to do next as Iran continues to menace shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliate against American bases in the region and launch attacks on Gulf allies.
According to a senior Israeli official who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu did not come to a final decision after discussing three paths forward: get a “good deal” focused on Iran’s nuclear program and enriched material, have no deal and instead continue the blockade and economic pressure, or take escalated military action.
But Netanyahu did not tell Trump what he should do – nor did he express a preference.
The senior Israeli official noted Netanyahu has not ruled out diplomacy – as long as it is coupled with “very strong pressures,” calling the push to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program “a contest of will and a contest of force.”
“There are ways of squeezing them and squeezing them and squeezing them and negotiating at the same time,” the official said.
Netanyahu did not present President Trump with new intelligence regarding the underground Iranian nuclear facility Pickaxe Mountain, per the senior Israeli official, noting the U.S. and Israel already are constantly sharing intelligence – and know where Iran’s highly enriched material is. “We don’t think it’s moved, and I think we have a pretty good grasp on that,” the official said.
During their meeting on Tuesday, Trump and Netanyahu discussed ways Israel and the U.S. can work together to stop Iran’s nuclear program and get the Strait of Hormuz open to maritime trade, the senior Israeli official said.
The two leaders also discussed a third goal: to continue to undermine the Iranian regime and “possibly create future conditions for a change in that area.” U.S. officials have backed away from pursuing paths that would overthrow the current leadership, but Netanyahu still believes that could happen.
“The chasm that has been created between the people and the regime is not about to be closed,” the senior Israeli official said of Netanyahu’s thinking.
Netanyahu advised Trump in February that Israeli intelligence indicated launching strikes against Iran would lead to the toppling of the Islamic Republic’s regime – and five months later, the slain ayatollah’s son retains power with a close circle of hardliners, calling into question the accuracy of Israel’s intelligence apparatus.
But the senior Israeli official said at the time, Netanyahu did not promise the Iranian people would take fate into their own hands following a coordinated attack. Rather, he chose his words carefully and said that an attack could create conditions to “advance the probability or the possibility that that would happen.”
The conditions needed for the Iranian regime to fall, “did not materialize,” the official told MS NOW, adding, “not for lack of insight, but for either operational failure or decisions that were made.”
Despite Netanyahu insisting Israel and the U.S. are on the same page, differences still remain: the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and the Saudi nuclear arrangement did not come up during Wednesday’s White House meeting, according to a second Israeli official granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to spread, with an Iranian drone attacking a U.S. gas storage tanker off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday.
Trump indicated he would not let Iran’s latest action slide, telling reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. would retaliate against Iran even as he leaves room for diplomatic talks to resume.
“It’s our turn, and we’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point,” Trump said. “But we’re going to hit them very hard.”
As for what it would take for Israel to join the U.S. strikes, the senior Israeli official said that if Israel is attacked by Iran, “We will respond very, very forcefully and very quickly. And I think Iran would make a great mistake.”
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
International rage over FIFA’s close ties to President Donald Trump has reached a fever pitch after soccer’s governing body announced a plan to sell a significant stake to an investor group led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law.
The president and his family have all but turned the White House into their personal piggy bank. And FIFA — which has its own sordid history of corruption — seems to have made itself a party to Trump’s self-enrichment under Gianni Infantino’s leadership, such as by paying for space inside Trump Tower in New York. (The organization has defended the office rental as a World Cup outpost.)
Soccer is seen by many as a unifying game. But Trump’s incorporation of FIFA into his political dynasty is threatening that idea.
FIFA has announced plans to sell a large minority stake in a new company that will run its main events, including the World Cup and Club World Cup, as part of a plan to triple the amount of development money it dishes out to its 211 member associations.
Under the proposals — which are subject to approval by a majority of those national associations and FIFA’s 37-member council — a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) will take over all commercial operations, while FIFA remains the game’s global governing body and retains a majority stake in FFE.
A press release from FIFA confirmed the plans and said Thrive Eternal, which was launched by Joshua Kushner, is expected to lead the investment group that would control FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA did not clarify why Thrive Eternal was selected, and Kushner was already dabbling in sports.
But Trump basically has already given son-in-law Jared Kushner carte blanche to dictate U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East while simultaneously hatching business plans in the region. (Jared Kushner has denied any conflicts of interest.)
Joshua Kushner reportedly has been a major donor to Democrats. But, predictably, the idea of another Kushner becoming financially entwined with the World Cup — the world’s most popular sporting event — and basically being dropped into a position of global significance isn’t going over well. Several other soccer governing bodies have expressed concerns, including Europe’s UEFA.
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said in a statement about The Athletic’s report, adding: “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also rebuked the plan, writing on X: “Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough — now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a multibillion-dollar deal with Jared Kushner’s brother to sell ownership stakes in the World Cup to private investors.”
FIFA, Donald Trump’s favorite corrupt racketeering enterprise in world sports, is now going directly into business with the Trump family!
Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough—now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a… https://t.co/knSZibuMea
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) July 28, 2026
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has already launched an investigation into the FIFA leader’s relationship with the Trump administration, while dozens of European lawmakers — citing concerns about “potential breaches of political neutrality” — have called for the FIFA Ethics Committee to investigate Infantino. This new proposal seems unlikely to assuage those concerns.
But what it does seem likely to do is fuel global anger toward the U.S. — the kind that has been growing since Trump retook office.
And when you consider that, it’s truly remarkable how the same MAGA movement whose members whined for years about politics mixing with sports is now in lockstep with a president who seems dead-set on casting his shadow over every sports event he can.
This post on X basically sums up the foul stench around FIFA’s latest proposal.
Sepp Blatter was Infantino’s predecessor as FIFA president and oversaw the organization amid some of its many scandals. When heof all people, is warning about how Trump and Infantino’s relationship is “deeply damaging” soccer, it’s a sign of how far FIFA has descended into the gutter.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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