Groypers at the Gates: The Catholic Fascist Turn in the MAGA Right

Nick Fuentes’s Groyper movement — rooted in reactionary Catholicism — is fracturing conservatives and igniting an civil war over Israel, race, and religion. The GOP only has themselves to blame.

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Last week, something once unthinkable happened on the American right: Tucker Carlson aired a friendly two-hour interview with Nick Fuentes, a 27-year-old Catholic nationalist who praises Hitler.

Carlson smiled and nodded as Fuentes railed about “organized Jewry in America” and the need for a Christian nation, pushing back only gently on Fuentes’s blanket smears of “the Jews.”

This amiable podcast chat shook many conservatives (especially Jewish ones) who assumed a Holocaust denier like Fuentes was beyond the pale.

Ben Shapiro — a prominent Orthodox Jewish pundit — blasted Carlson as “the most virulent super-spreader of vile ideas in America” for giving Fuentes a platform.

Yet others on the right cheered. The president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, even defended Carlson, scolding a “venomous coalition” of critics for trying to “cancel” a fellow conservative.

In my view, this moment — the mainstreaming of Fuentes and what he represents – may be the most important political development in America today. It reveals a dangerous fracturing of the conservative movement over faith, bigotry, and loyalty to Israel, one that politicians like JD Vance will have to navigate if they hope to lead the GOP in 2028.

What is Groyperism, and why is it so tied up with Catholicism?

Fuentes is the self-styled general of the “Groyper Army,” a legion of mostly young, white male ultra-nationalists who came of age online.

The term “Groyper” comes from an offshoot of the Pepe the Frog meme — fitting for an internet-fueled subculture.

Fuentes’s ideology is unabashedly fascistic and proudly “Catholic.”