Republican Footsie With White Nationalists Has to Stop

[Celerity]

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.

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



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. The latter Arizona politician is 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.”)

Link to tweet

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.”

Link to tweet

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[Voltaire2]

1. They are 'white nationalists'.

The Republican Party has become a fascist political party. They aren’t ‘playing footsie’ with Nazis, they are Nazis.

[Celerity]

2. very valid point

[lark]

4. Exactly!

Repugs have gone full on fascist, drumpf even said he should have invaded Mexico! They love Putin because he is them and he backs them up bigly with $$ & other services. They don't give one damn about America, just themselves and their $$ and $$ for their rich pals - that is it.

[uponit7771]

5. THIS !!!! ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾

[hatrack]

3. "Footsie"? More like full-on hide-the-salami for more than ten years now . . . .

.