SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
nick fuentes
New Leader of College GOP Group is ‘Avowed and Overt Supporter’ of White Nationalist Nick Fuentes
A recent poll of young right-wingers also showed that 54% of Republican men under 50 deny the Holocaust, while around a third of young Republicans self-identify as racist.
Mar 11, 2026
The new political leader of the College Republicans of America is an "avowed and overt supporter" of one of the nation's most infamous white nationalists, Nick Fuentes, according to a disturbing report compiled by the group Right Wing Watch.
The College Republicans of America (CRA) was created in 2023 amid an ugly split with the more mainstream College Republican National Committee (CRNC), which it has accused of becoming overly bureaucratic and poorly managed. It describes its mission to "replace the CRNC and to aid the GOP in cultivating the next generation of Republican activists, staffers, and leaders."
While CRA is newer and less directly embedded within the national Republican Party structure, it claims to be "America’s largest national College Republican organization,” with more than 300 active chapters at schools around the country—roughly four times that of competing campus GOP groups, according to the organization.
Last week, the group announced that it had chosen a new political director, Kai Schwemmer. As Kyle Mantyla, a senior fellow at Right Wing Watch parent group People For the American Way, explained:
Schwemmer is an overt 'groyper,' which is the term used by followers of Hitler-loving racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic, Christian nationalist, fascist, white nationalist, Nick Fuentes.
Schwemmer, who goes by the nickname "Kai Clips," has his own show on Fuentes' invitation-only streaming platform Cozy.TV, and was featured as a special guest at Fuentes' 2022 "America First Political Action Conference" in Orlando, which was held as a more explicitly white nationalist counter to the Turning Point USA conference.
That same year, Schwemmer described himself as someone "affiliated with America First," Fuentes's political movement. He also appeared in a 2022 pro-Fuentes documentary titled "The Most Canceled Man in America."
In a clip of that documentary, which Right Wing Watch posted to social media, Schwemmer explained that an episode of Fuentes' nightly program, titled "Demographics or Destiny," introduced him to the conservative movement and "woke me up on immigration."
Fuentes, who once described himself as "just like Hitler," has called for the mass deportation of nonwhite immigrants and has said he favors a "whites-only immigration policy" to sustain "white demographics."
Schwemmer said Fuentes' shows are "a little bit controversial" and "hyperbolic," but "obviously humorous." He added that Fuentes is "deeply politically engaging," as "behind every joke is some commentary."
Ben Lorber, an extremism researcher for Political Research Associates, explained in a social media post on Tuesday that "Schwemmer was in Fuentes' inner circle in 2021, and since then has strategically downplayed his support to avoid controversy."
He pointed out that Schwemmer still has a long history of questionable online activity, including posts and messages glorifying the Unabomber and boasting about his meeting with the antisemitic author E. Michael Jones. He has also shared jokes insulting Jewish people and mocking the Holocaust.
During the second presidency of Donald Trump, especially, the radicalization of young right-wingers has been brought to the forefront, as leaked group chats from college Republicans in several states—including New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont have revealed members trafficking in overt racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and other forms of vile bigotry that often veered into calls for violence and genocide against minority groups.
Just last week, The Floridian reported that the secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party was involved in a WhatsApp group chat nicknamed after what one member described as “Nazi heaven.”
Participants in the group, which included members of the head of the Florida International University Turning Point USA chapter and the then-recruitment chair of FIU's college Republicans, "used variations of the n-word more than 400 times, regularly described women as 'whores,' used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people, and mused about Hitler’s politics," according to later reporting by The Miami Herald.
Recent polling of young right-wingers conducted by the conservative Manhattan Institute has suggested that these sorts of views are increasingly becoming common.
About 31% of Republicans under the age of 50 said they themselves express racist views, while 25% said they express antisemitic views. Just 4% of those over 50 said they expressed each of these views in the December 2025 survey.
More than a third of all Republicans who answered the survey, 37%, said they share Fuentes' view that the Holocaust was "greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe," with a majority of men under 50, 54%, expressing this view.
Schwemmer, who appeared as a guest of Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) at last month's State of the Union address has said he does not use the same sorts of extremist, often overtly genocidal, rhetoric that Fuentes does because he has "more authentic political aspirations" and does not want to create "angles of attack" for his opponents.
Schwemmer has not denounced the views espoused by Fuentes and says there is "absolutely a place and a value behind making those kinds of jokes, saying those kinds of words, trying to push the envelope socially and trying to remove the lens of political correctness from our lives."
"This seems to be Schwemmer's role in the movement," Mantyla said. "Putting a moderate face on America First's racist, antisemitic, and radically authoritarian agenda."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Why Are America’s Far-Right Leaders So Young?
How social media turned a handful of young provocateurs into the far right’s national vanguard.
Sep 16, 2025
Through the late 2010s, pundits hailed Gen Z as America’s most progressive young cohort. Yet, the truth is more complicated: While many young voters voice support for climate action, racial justice, and reproductive rights, their overall partisan tilt is far less lopsided than early headlines implied. Support for Democrats among under-30 voters has softened since 2020, and young men in particular are drifting rightward on issues like gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights.
That gap between reputation and reality is, in part, due to a rising cadre of young conservatives who are more radical, more visible, and better organized than their progressive peers. From Nick Fuentes to Laura Loomer to the late Charlie Kirk, the figures shaping the far-right agenda have been startlingly young. Why, then, are some of the movement’s most prominent figures in their late 20s and early 30s? How did a political current once defined by veteran politicians and talk-radio personalities come to be led by live-streamers and college-circuit activists?
Consider Fuentes. Only 28, yet he commands a national audience of more than 700,000 followers. He has a dedicated fanbase, connections to GOP congressmen, and once had a private dinner with US President Donald Trump. And Fuentes is not an outlier. From political candidates to campus organizers, the far-right’s most prominent figures are getting younger—and more extreme.
The explanation lies in the internet’s ecosystem. Figures like Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec were among the first to show how provocation and relentless online promotion could transform fringe ideas into mass influence. In the years since, news has gone largely digital, with about 86% of Americans getting at least some of their news on phones or computers. The overwhelming bulk of political information now flows through a dense lattice of live-streams, podcasts, and Discord servers, all spaces young people navigate with native ease.
For ambitious young people, each viral provocation can bring a surge of followers and donations, turning radicalism into a fast track to high-profile visibility.
In this landscape, digital platforms have dismantled traditional barriers to political power. Two decades ago, a young ideologue needed gatekeepers—local radio, party donors, sympathetic editors—to build a following. Today, a ring light and an algorithm are enough. YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and X provide inexpensive infrastructure and frictionless amplification, allowing individuals to raise money, mobilize supporters, and establish a brand long before institutions can react.
Why is this dynamic propelling the far-right in particular? Without much formal representation in elected office, these ideas circulate almost entirely online, where scarcity makes them more alluring. And algorithms reward outrage, propelling the sharpest sound bites and most incendiary claims to the top of every feed. For ambitious young people, each viral provocation can bring a surge of followers and donations, turning radicalism into a fast track to high-profile visibility.
Conservative legacy media compounds the effect. Figures who achieve algorithmic virality are quickly booked on cable programs and high-profile podcasts, which confer legitimacy and feed the next surge of online attention. The result is a self-reinforcing loop: Digital notoriety leads to mainstream exposure, which drives further radical content.
The American left lacks a parallel generation of online, movement-building leaders. Progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have national profiles, but their influence depends on elected office and formal party structures rather than on a grassroots, youth-led network. Yes, young progressives such as Dean Withers and Matt Bernstein have built impressive reputations as digital advocates for progressive causes. But they operate largely as individual voices, not as architects of a nationwide, highly-branded youth movement comparable to Kirk's Turning Point USA or Fuentes' America First movement. Comparable grassroots movements on the left, like the emerging 50501, lack visible leaders capable of unifying and sustaining a broad, youth-driven base.
This distinction matters. Without a cohesive, youth-led movement, progressives struggle to match the visibility and narrative power of their far-right counterparts. Every far-right provocation arrives with a spokesperson and a polished national platform, while the left relies on a handful of elected officials and scattered digital voices. The absence of equally prominent, institutionally supported young progressives cedes narrative ground, and gives rising alt-right leaders disproportionate space to break out online.
Addressing this imbalance will not turn on deplatforming extremist voices alone; the internet’s architecture makes that a game of whac-a-mole. Nor will it come solely from established progressive leaders. It requires cultivating and sustaining a cohort of young progressives who can operate effectively online and build movements without succumbing to social media's darkest ideologies. It also requires a cultural shift on the left: valuing charismatic leadership as a complement—not a substitute—for collective action.
Gen Z was supposed to guarantee a progressive future. Instead, many of its most visible political entrepreneurs are on the far-right. Unless progressives move beyond supporting individual creators and intentionally develop their own social movements, the loudest young voices shaping America’s political future will continue to belong to its most far-right fringes.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Taps 'Comically Unfit' Election Denier to Head Key Legal Ethics Office
"Leading the Office of Special Counsel requires independence and experience," said one watchdog. "Paul Ingrassia seemingly has neither of these things."
May 30, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated a far-right former podcast host with white supremacist views who called for martial law to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election loss to lead a key legal ethics office.
Trump tapped 30-year-old Paul Ingrassia—who is currently serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security—to head the Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency tasked with enforcing ethics laws and protecting federal whistleblowers.
"Paul is a highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar, who has done a tremendous job serving as my White House Liaison for Homeland Security," Trump wrote Thursday on his Truth Social network. "Paul holds degrees from both Cornell Law School and Fordham University, where he majored in Mathematics and Economics, graduating near the top of his class."
Critics, however, had a different assessment of Ingrassia's qualifications.
Hampton Dellinger, the previous OSC chief, was initially fired by Trump in February but was temporarily reinstated via court order before being fired again after he began investigating the administration's mass layoffs of federal workers under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Dellinger dropped his legal challenge in March and announced that "my time as special counsel... is now over."
The OSC enforces the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activity of civilian executive branch employees. In 2021, the agency found that 13 senior Trump aides violated the law by campaigning for the president's failed 2020 reelection bid.
At that time, Ingrassia and his sister Olivia Ingrassia were hosting the "Right on Point" podcast. As Trump stoked the conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the election, Ingrassia amplified the president's "Big Lie" and called for authoritarian measures to keep him in the White House.
On December 12, 2020, the podcast's handle on its Twitter page was renamed "Stop the Steal HQ." The account reposted a tweet from prolific white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes with the added message, "Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election!"
Ingrassia has expressed his own white supremacist views, including the assertion that "exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization, but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage." He also replied to a call for slavery reparations by demanding that the descendants of slaves "pay reparations to the descendants of slave owners" and advocated replacing the "treasonous" Ukrainian flag with the Confederate battle flag under penalty of "serious fines."
During the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, Trump boosted a false birther smear by Ingrassia that Nikki Haley—the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador during the first Trump administration—was ineligible to run for president because her parents were not American citizens when she was born. Ingrassia posted several racist aspersions of Haley's Americanness, which have been archived by freelance journalist Jason Hart.
In March, Daily Dot's Amanda Moore revealed that Ingrassia misrepresented himself as an attorney for more than a year prior to his admission to the bar. During this time, he represented former professional kickboxer, self-described misogynist, and alleged rapist, sex trafficker, and money launderer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate in a civil suit. The Tates deny the charges.
As Moore reported:
As early as May 16, 2023, months before he took the bar exam, Ingrassia referred to himself as "an Associate Attorney at The McBride Law Firm, PLLC" on his personal Substack. But his bio on the site frequently changed. In a July 2023 piece on Tate, he described himself simply as an "associate" at the firm. In August, he referred to himself as a "law clerk." New York state records show that Ingrassia, a 2022 graduate of Cornell Law, took the bar on July 25-26, 2023, under his given name, Paolo Ingrassia. While Ingrassia received his results in October 2023, he was not admitted to the New York State Bar until July 30, 2024.
Responding to his nomination, Ingrassia wrote Thursday on X that "it's the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump!"
"As special counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch—with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce, and revitalize the rule of law and fairness in Hatch Act enforcement," he added.
"This is a pattern with the president's picks for watchdogs: partisan yeasayers whose willingness to stand up to the administration is questionable at best."
However, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan watchdog, said Friday: "Leading the Office of Special Counsel requires independence and experience. Paul Ingrassia seemingly has neither of these things."
"This is a pattern with the president's picks for watchdogs: partisan yeasayers whose willingness to stand up to the administration is questionable at best," POGO added.
Conservative writer Bobby Miller said on X that "the most insane thing about the Paul Ingrassia appointment is that he's been tapped to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an ethics watchdog tasked with enforcing laws that protect federal employees from abuse and safeguard the government from politicization."
"No one's even pretending that this Andrew Tate fanboy, Putin stooge, and martial law enthusiast would do anything even close to the job description," Miller added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular