THE ISSUE OF WHITE NATIONALISM on the right and its infiltration of the Republican party burst out into the open in mainstream conservative discourse this week.
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ISSUE → burst → discourse
First, on Sunday, Bo French, the GOP nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, expressed his dismay at a photo of mostly South Asian and black young people having fun at a University of Texas football game.
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French → express → game
His post went viral on X.
Texas Republicans scrambled to do damage control, with some, such as Sen. John Cornyn, openly disavowing French’s racism.
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some → go → racism
Former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove even declared he would vote for a Democrat—French’s opponent Jon Rosenthal—for only the second time in his life and the first since 1994.
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he → declare → 1994
(Gov. Greg Abbott distanced himself more cautiously, saying that “that is not my message” and extolling football as a force for unity before pivoting to anti-immigration rhetoric.)
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that → distance → rhetoric
Many conservative commentators were also appalled.
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commentators → appal → ?
But French also found prominent supporters on the right, including Federalist CEO Sean Davis, Blaze Media’s John Doyle, and Turning Point USA show host Jack Posobiec.
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French → find → Davis
Others, like TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet, did not back French openly but unmistakably weighed in on the nativist side:
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Others → back → side
And, of course, reactions on X quickly devolved into predictable racist garbage.
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reactions → devolve → garbage
THREE DAYS LATER, the conversation about nativist bigotry in right-wing ranks got another big jolt from a long Substack article by radio host Erick Erickson examining—let’s not mince words here—fascist infiltration on the right.
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’s → get → right
(It’s all the more significant because Erickson himself is a former “Never Trumper” I’d now describe as soft MAGA.)
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I → ’ → MAGA
The focus of Erickson’s piece is a radical far-right network connected to shampoo tycoon-turned-blogger Charles Haywood, an unabashed proponent of authoritarianism and plain, uncut fascism.
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focus → connect → authoritarianism
Haywood is a fan of Nazi-adjacent German jurist Carl Schmitt and has kind words for dictators like Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet; he has also outlined his views in a febrile manifesto.
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he → have → manifesto
While he calls his ideology “Foundationalism,” it is blatantly hostile to the actual American Founding: Its core idea is a rejection of “autonomic liberalism,” i.e., the Enlightenment vision of human emancipation.1
Haywood’s utopia features an authoritarian state that would, among other things, promote virtue and Christianity as well as traditional sex roles enforced through a combination of social and legal pressures.
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that → call → pressures
(Never mind women’s suffrage: Haywood makes it clear that democratic franchise will not exist at all in his ideal state, which will be ruled either by a “limited dictatorship” or by an “aristocratic” elite.
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which → mind → elite
This manifesto also calls for the deportation not only of all illegal immigrants but also of “legal immigrants of the past several decades not culturally compatible”—which is rather amusing, seeing as Haywood’s ideas are not very culturally compatible with America as it has existed at any point since 1775.
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it → call → 1775
The X xenophobes, his true people, are particularly offended by the notion that newly minted Americans “on day one” should consider themselves entitled to express opinions on American political conflicts; but I would venture a guess that the majority of the people being targeted with these sentiments have more American values than Haywood does.
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Haywood → offend → values
Political rants published on the blogs of cranks: They’re less than a dime a dozen.
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They → publish → dime
But Haywood, it turns out, is a big donor to the Claremont Institute, where he has a seat on a publication committee—and where several people in influential positions are members of his “fraternal order,” a networking group that limits its membership to heterosexual Christian men.
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that → turn → men
(Scott Yenor, whose appointment to a high-level post at the Heritage Foundation caused some controversy late last year because of his extreme comments about women, marriage, and gay rights, reportedly also played “a central role in founding” this network.
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appointment → cause → network
And there’s more: Haywood’s personal foundation, writes Erickson, “is a recurring funder of American Moment, the staffing pipeline founded in 2021 with [Vice President JD] Vance’s support, which exists to place young conservatives in administration jobs.”
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which → ’ → jobs
Much of the information in Erickson’s post had been reported before, but he put it all together in a compelling way.
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he → report → way
He also rightly connects the rise of Claremont-style fascism with the parallel rise of the “groypers,” the more brashly racist, antisemitic and misogynistic movement associated with the repugnant Nick Fuentes.
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He → connect → Fuentes
As Erickson puts it:
I do not think Haywood, his compatriots, and Fuentes are coordinating.
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Haywood → put → it
I think something worse is true.
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something → think → ?
These are two separate projects, with separate donors and separate audiences, converging on the same destination, and the institutions of the right are absorbing both without resistance.
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institutions → converge → resistance
One works by throwing money around to shape boards, publication committees, and institutions.
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One → work → boards
The other works by radicalizing 19-year-olds on livestreams and then placing them in field offices.
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other → work → offices
They arrive at the same place, which is a country where your ancestry determines your standing, and the state decides what your family is for.
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family → arrive → what
Meanwhile, National Review has chimed in on the French situation with an editorial slamming the candidate’s “repulsive online attack on Indian Americans” (though the piece paused to dutifully concede that “too much immigration” can be disruptive even when the immigrants are successful and law-abiding).
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immigrants → chime → Americans
This is a welcome intervention, but the obvious problem is that Bo French-ism—so to speak—runs, as Erickson shows, far wider and deeper than one candidate for state office.
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Erickson → speak → office
For that matter, French’s racism and xenophobia were on display long before last Sunday: Just in July, he issued calls to “round up” and deport all Muslims and Chinese Americans.
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he → issue → Muslims
Texas GOP officials met these unabashedly racist provocations with resounding silence.
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officials → meet → silence
French has called for the deportation of 100 million people who “don’t share our values” and “shouldn’t be here”; a meme depicting the idyllic tranquility of “America after 100 million deportations” was shared by the official account of the Department of Homeland Security on New Year’s Eve, with the comment, “The peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world.”
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meme → call → world
We now know that 100 million deportations was a target seriously envisioned by Greg Bovino, Border Patrol “commander at large” until January; he recently upped his estimate of deportable illegals to 107 million.
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he → know → million
And Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, has long been fixated on the supposed evils of “Third World” immigration.
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Miller → fixate → immigration
In a Fox News rant last December, Miller declared that the 1965 decision to abolish stringent quotas limiting non-European immigration amounted to “the single largest experiment on a society, on a civilization that had ever been conducted in human history—not just the 76 million immigrants that were brought in, largely from the Third World, but their descendants too.
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that → declare → World
And there is, of course, JD Vance—who, as Erickson pointed out in his post, has consistently refused to disavow the “groypers.”
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Erickson → be → groypers
(True, last year he finally condemned racist slurs against Second Lady Usha Vance, who has an Indian background, but with far less vitriol than he employs when denouncing Democrats.)
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he → condemn → Democrats
And one may recall that Vance’s speech at the 2024 Republican convention contained a controversial passage in which a tribute to his family’s legacy, symbolized by a family cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky, turned into a vehicle for a soft blood-and-soil nationalism—that is, the notion that true Americanness is measured by generations of American ancestors while immigrants are here as perpetual guests.
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immigrants → recall → guests
…and 26 more, not listed.
The Aporia
