The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville will prove to be a seminal moment in American history. The gathering mobilised disparate bands of white supremacists to assemble and march with torches, reminiscent of Nazi and Klan processions.
It prompted then president Trump to remark there were “very fine people on both sides”. Joe Biden’s revulsion at the spectacle stirred him to re-enter the political fray and seek the presidency in 2020. It also jumpstarted the emergence of America’s most notorious Gen Z Holocaust denier and far-right provocateur, Nick Fuentes.
The currents let loose that August weekend came full circle last week when Trump dined with Fuentes and prominent anti-Semite Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. According to reports, the dinner was convivial. The aftermath, not so much.
As news leeched out about their cosy confab, condemnation flooded forth. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told CNN that Trump is “trying to make America hate again and running arguably the most unapologetic white nationalist presidential campaign we’ve ever seen”.
Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, poured scorn on Trump’s guests. Prominent conservatives including Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and commentator Ben Shapiro also rebuked Trump for consorting with the pair.
Trump responded to the backlash in typical fashion, refusing to apologise and distancing himself from his toxic tête-à-tête. Trump declared to Fox News that “I had never heard of the man — I had no idea what his views were”. It mirrored the milquetoast denial issued by Marjorie Taylor Greene after she appeared on stage with Fuentes at his AFPAC conference in February: “I do not know Nick Fuentes. I have never heard him speak. I’ve never seen a video. I don’t know what his views are.” Just a random fluke that she delivered the keynote address to his white nationalist audience.
In 2016, Trump made similar claims about David Duke after the one-time Ku Klux Klan grand wizard endorsed him for president. In fact, Trump has a well-worn playbook of denying knowledge of friends and associates whenever convenient.
If you believe that Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene have never heard of Nick Fuentes, I have a golf course to sell you.
The dinner itself isn’t the main story. Trump’s litany of offensive behaviour has long since inoculated him against consequences for any single transgression. Outrage overload is his shield. If Republicans couldn’t maintain their rage following the January 6 insurrection, a turkey supper is hardly going to stiffen their spines.
Instead, the incident is emblematic of the larger infiltration and normalisation of virulent racists and anti-Semites throughout the Republican Party. No one is truly shocked that Fuentes turned up at Mar-a-Lago. He is merely the latest in a conga line of bigots who have wormed their way into power and influence at all levels of the GOP. Greene is another. In an abrupt reversal of fortune, the QAnon conspiracist is primed to be a major player in the House Republican caucus in the 118th Congress. She isn’t shy about her plans for constant conflict.
Republicans’ tolerance for fringe fanatics long predates Trump’s rise. However, his ascendancy opened the floodgates and the parasite has overtaken its host. Establishment Republicans made a Faustian bargain for power. Now their pact threatens their party’s future.
Leading donors and parts of the media are ginning up Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a saviour to trump Trump, and hold the line. They are kidding themselves. DeSantis leaned into race-baiting with his attacks on critical race theory and refused to denounce swastika-wielding neo-Nazis parading their support for him. He is Trump’s mini-me — an opportunistic mimic with all the bluster but none of the Teflon.
No one is coming to rescue the GOP. Not Mike Pence, not Mitt Romney, and certainly not Ted Cruz. They are hostage to forces they discounted, sometimes enabled, and too often encouraged.
Trump’s very fine people have come to dine. Guess who’s on the menu?
