Republican Footsie With White Nationalists Has to Stop

[Nevilledog]

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thedailybeast.com

Republican Footsie With White Nationalists Has to Stop
The America First Political Action Conference on Friday will be a showcase of once-taboo ideologies that are dangerously being given a voice in the GOP.
8:43 AM · Feb 23, 2022

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-america-first-political-action-conference-is-courting-republicans-towards-extremism

No paywall
https://archive.fo/OFKFP

White nationalist activists and their sympathizers in today’s far-right U.S. political scene are set to gather this week for a conference meant to showcase their movement’s numbers and its successes courting Republican Party influence in the post-Capitol riot landscape.

The America First Political Action Conference is headlined and organized by white nationalist activist Nicholas Fuentes and derives its name from a merger of Fuentes’ America First podcast and the event it is designed to siphon crowds from: the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Arizona’s Rep. Paul Gosar opened for Fuentes at last year’s AFPAC conference and has continued to root for the young white nationalist. Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, popular with Trump and other 2020 election deniers nationwide, has also sung Fuentes’ praises online. Both Arizona politicians are slated to appear at AFPAC this weekend, in addition to former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio and Iowa Rep. Steve King, both of whom hold notoriety for harboring unusually cruel anti-immigrant attitudes. Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was advertised as a speaker on one iteration of the event’s flier, though she has since denied that she plans to attend. (Fuentes chalked up the confusion to a scheduling conflict rather than an ideological one, writing to his Telegram followers, “Just a misunderstanding. Take it easy on her we support her.”)

There was a period in time where associating with Fuentes and his posse’s naked extremism and hate was a mark of death on conservative political figures’ mainstream careers, and rightfully so. Though Fuentes often denies considering himself a white nationalist, he espouses the ideology verbatim in public settings often and specifically. Fuentes also regularly proclaims anti-semitic beliefs; he has engaged in Holocaust denialism and once denounced far-right commentator Matt Walsh as a “shabbos goy race traitor” because Walsh, who is white, works for an outlet run by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish. Fuentes was a leading figure in 2020’s “Stop the Steal” election-denial movement and has been resultantly subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. At last year’s AFPAC, Fuentes praised the deadly attack and told the crowd at his conference that “we need a little bit more of that energy in the future.”

*snip*

[lastlib]

1. They dance with who brung 'em, as the saying goes....

If they divorce from the white nationalists, who would get custody of tRump? And would the other have to pay child support for him? These questions will have to be answered before anything can happen.

[aocommunalpunch]

3. Just call them anti-American fascists and pound that into the ground.

Punch them in the mouth.

You're not supposed to be friends with fascists.

Punch them in the nose.

You're not supposed to have a strong fascist party.

Trip them.

Fascists don't have honor.

Fuck them up.

[Solly Mack]

4. Footsie? Please. That love connection went far beyond mere flirtation a long time ago.

[CrispyQ]

7. I think that is a twitter account headline.

But yes, WTF? Footsie? The GOP has been courting the racists, zealots, & loons for decades!

The Daily Beast headline is:

The America First Political Action Conference Is Courting Republicans Towards Extremism

The America First Political Action Conference on Friday will be a showcase of once-taboo ideologies that are dangerously being given a voice in the GOP.

Jared Holt
Updated Feb. 23, 2022 9:38AM ET / Published Feb. 22, 2022 9:22PM ET

[Solly Mack]

9. I know it's the headline.

But I get tired of people pretending as if this behavior on the part of the GOP is something new and only came into being with Trump. It rewrites the history of the GOP, and it also makes equally bad republicans seem somehow better.

Yes, equally as bad. A racist using coded language and a racist expressing their racism in no uncertain terms still makes for two racists.

They both still attack black and brown people, women, and LGBTQ people. They both go after the poor by constantly cutting programs that help the poor. They both put profits over people. They both want to make healthcare unattainable and be based on some arbitrary merit system rooted in their bigotry and contempt of the poor and working class. And the list goes on.

Someone who supports torture but works to create the narrative that it somehow wasn't torture isn't any better than the person who supports torture regardless of how it looks.

They both support torture.

A palatable narrative doesn't change intent or outcome. There's no polite way or better way or more socially acceptable to deny people food, housing, or healthcare.

Sorry. I'm done now.

[Thomas Hurt]

5. Daily Beast has no sense of the history of the far right.

We have been headed down the path to a christofascist theocracy since Reagan took office.

[Buckeyeblue]

6. It's the only way they can win, so I don't see it stopping any time soon

[lagomorph777]

8. There's no line; there's no footsie.

They ARE the white nationalists.

[Marcuse]

10. Creation of the modern GOP.

[hippywife]

11. Why is Nicholas Fuentes

not in jail? Anybody?