Groyperism Has No Future in America

Political Nihilism Is a Dead End

If Groypers could read books, this would be their training manual.

Nowadays, very few nihilists actually call themselves nihilists. But there was a real turn-of-the-century Russian nihilist movement, immortalized in Ivan Turgenev’s great 19th-century novel Fathers and Sons. Yevgeny Bazarov, nihilism’s literary avatar, defines its adherent as “a person who does not bow down to any authority, who does not accept any principle on faith, however much that principle may be revered.” He also foretells nihilism’s teleological self-destructiveness: “Once you’ve decided to make a clean sweep, include the ground you’re standing on, too!” Sergei Nechaev, the most infamous real-life example of a self-described nihilist, wrote that a revolutionary “must exploit rich and influential people, subordinating them to himself. He must aggravate the miseries of the common people, so as to exhaust their patience and incite them to rebel. And, finally, he must ally himself with the savage word of the violent criminal, the only true revolutionary in Russia.” As Leo Strauss put it, nihilism is “the desire to destroy the present world and its potentialities, a desire not accompanied by any clear conception of what one wants to put in its place.” And so the nihilist ultimately pursues destruction for destruction’s sake. After shooting and strangling a former comrade to death, Nechaev died in prison. His death toll, at least, was minimal compared with the nihilists who ravaged the 20th century.

Ex-Nazi Hermann Rauschning aptly titled his 1939 book about Nazism The Revolution of Nihilism: A Warning to the West. The warning came too late. After World War II, Albert Camus drew on Rauschning’s insights to describe the nihilistic psychology that had swept Germany: ”To those who despair of everything, not reason but only passion can provide a faith, and in this particular case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair—namely, humiliation and hatred.” Camus recounts how nihilism’s logic of destruction played itself out in the Nazi reign of terror: “The Jews, the Freemasons, the plutocrats, the Anglo-Saxons, the bestial Slavs succeeded one another in their propaganda and their history as a means of propping up, each time a little higher, the blind force that was stumbling headlong toward its end. Perpetual strife demands perpetual stimulants.” And how did the drive for perpetual strife end? “Hitler, though he could’ve stopped the war before the point of total disaster, really wanted universal suicide and the material and political destruction of the German nation. . . . Since Germany had lost the war, she was cowardly and treacherous and she deserved to die.” Suicide in a bunker and the destruction of a continent is political nihilism’s final resting point.

The Nihilists Devouring the Right

We’re far from that civilization-ending catastrophe in modern America. But political nihilism—call it blackpilled accelerationism—is alive and well here. Antonia Hitchens describes a Groyper who performs a Nazi salute and says it’s “both a joke and completely serious,” who proclaims at a Turning Point USA conference that “We have literally nothing to live for—we’re ready to die.” Here is nihilism distilled. Nick Fuentes, the Groyperführer, remarks: “My problem with Trump is not that he’s Hitler. My problem with Trump is that he is not Hitler.” Undoubtedly, Fuentes is both “joking” and completely serious. Is his ironic nihilism, a blend of jackboots and Joker makeup, the future of MAGA? Hitchens quotes a Trump administration official who says that Groypers may account for 75% of Gen-Z Republican staffers. (Rod Dreher cites a more modest 30 to 40%.) As Vish Burra—an Indian-American political aide fired for posting a video depicting Jews as cockroaches—puts it, “Trump is the trailblazer, the person who opens the door for the rest of us. He opened the door to this next generation coming to take over.” Unfortunately for Burra, his time at the top, if it ever comes, won’t last for very long. In Camus’ formulation, a nihilistic movement needs the “perpetual stimulants” that enemies provide, and “pajeets” have already proven a popular target for the online right. Hindus posting “Christ is King” won’t be exempt from the remigration flights to India. The based ritual devours its children.

But how serious are the odds of a Groyper takeover? There are two separate questions here. One is about the future of the Republican Party and the right, the other about America more broadly. Regarding the former, statistics about Groyper staffers are impressionistic and hard to verify, though they’re backed by leaked group chats in which young Republicans vie to out–Seig Heil each other. But more importantly, most conservatives aren’t Very Online Zoomers who mainline hateslop. Notably, while Fuentes and Groyper-adjacent personalities have broken with Trump over the war in Iran, 92% of MAGA Republicans and 70% of non-MAGA Republicans support him on the issue. That’s not to say that most Republicans are necessarily in the right, but they’re clearly not taking their marching orders from Fuentes. As Trump has said, he’s the one who decides what “America First” means. Then again, polls also show a generational divide among Republicans, with only 49% of those under 30 supporting Trump’s handling of the conflict. That number is 52% among Republican-leaning independents, which is reflected in criticism of Trump by podcasters like Joe Rogan. Of course, you can oppose the Iran war without being a Groyper, but these numbers indicate a rift that Fuentes can exploit. It’s also reasonable to assume that when Trump’s no longer in the picture, his supporters will be up for grabs by a charismatic successor.

But is Fuentes really that successor? In the direct sense of party leadership, surely not. A major part of Trump’s electoral appeal was that he conveyed the impression of a successful businessman. By contrast, Fuentes dropped out of college to pursue full-time live-streaming. He’s never held what most Americans would consider a real job. At least Hitler was a war veteran besides being a failed painter. For all his philandering, Trump also has a wife and children. Fuentes is a self-described incel who’s said that having sex with women is gay and mocked husbands for loving their wives. This stance may appeal to angry young loners, but that’s a limited, if vocal, constituency, especially since many of them will eventually grow up and perhaps even impregnate women. Significantly, two-thirds of Republican-aligned voters are 50 and older. The Republican Party still largely consists of normal conservative Americans, and Fuentes is far from the conservative American norm. That being said, the woke movement was also once far outside the liberal American norm. Yet Kamala Harris, Trump’s 2024 Democratic opponent, honest-to-God supported government-funded sex-change operations for prisoners and illegal immigrants. It’s quite possible for a radical, highly motivated fringe to push a political party into unpopular positions. You can imagine the Groypers throwing their weight behind Tucker Carlson—who has sympathetically interviewed their leader and echoes their talking points with a wink and a nod—in the next Republican primary.

I still think Tucker would lose that primary to Marco Rubio, who can credibly claim to be Trump’s successor while also bringing former “never Trumpers” reassured by his relative normalcy back to the fold. (I’m increasingly discounting the chances of JD Vance, who is despised by Groypers for seeming weak and marrying an Indian, but lacks a natural constituency of his own.) Still, Trump’s own unexpected rise means that we shouldn’t discount the possibility of a Fuentes-endorsed, no-enemies-to-the-right Tucker presidential run in 2028. But any Groyperian Candidate is likely to lose the general election, and badly. Woke activists succeeded in influencing the Democratic Party, but they did so with the acquiescence of liberal institutions, and ultimately caused a backlash that helped re-elect Trump. The pushback against Groyperism would be more immediate and broad, including the left, center, and both traditional and sane-populist right. Consider Fuentes’ main issues, in his own words: “There are basically two things that are going on. White genocide and Jewish subversion.” By white genocide, he means the reduction of whites to a minority in the US through mass immigration. By Jewish subversion, he means that “organized Jewry” is behind this “Great Replacement,” as well as feminism, pornography, unhealthy food (“goyslop”), the civil rights movement, secularism, homosexuality, and, most likely, traffic jams and pop-up ads. But what would a political platform focused on “white genocide and Jewish subversion” actually look like, and how popular would it be?

Groyperism as Practical Politics: Or, a Contradiction in Terms

First, let’s recall that Fuentes himself is a quarter-Mexican, while many of his followers are non-white. James Fishback, the Groyper con artist running for the Republican nomination in the 2026 Florida gubernatorial election, is the son of a Colombian immigrant. The demonstrated reality of non-white and mixed-race white nationalists should give advocates of the “white genocide” narrative pause. According to Census Bureau projections, 52% of America’s 2060 “nonwhite” majority will also identify as white, while 40% of Americans who say they’re white will also claim another racial or ethnic identity. Many Latinos identify as white (and, if they’re of largely European descent, are white for all practical purposes), as do children of interracial marriages between Asians and whites as well as whites and Latinos. Children of interracial marriages between blacks and whites tend to identify exclusively as black, but this is a legacy of America’s antiquated “one-drop rule.” Most significantly, according to a 2025 poll, only 23% of Americans (including 33% of Republicans) agree that being of Western European heritage is important to being truly American. By contrast, 85% or more point to ideals like “believing in individual freedoms,” “respecting American political institutions and laws,” and “accepting people of diverse racial and religious backgrounds.” Politically, a platform of preventing “white genocide,” using a narrow definition of white, would lose to one focused on integrating newcomers as Americans. In the early 20th century, when the US had a similarly high share of foreign-born residents, President Theodore Roosevelt adopted just such a winning message of Americanism.

Policy-wise, most Americans opposed the Biden administration’s de facto open borders policy, including many recent immigrants. But, in reaction to excesses by ICE, only about a third now rate Trump’s handling of immigration favorably. A smart, focused crackdown on illegal immigration—which might include employer-enforced immigration enforcement—would be popular. So would overhauling America’s flawed immigration system more broadly. But Groypers want to go far beyond deporting illegal immigrants and even limiting future immigration. The Department of Homeland Security—undoubtedly in the form of a Groyper staffer—posted a meme showing America at peace “after 100 million deportations,” which would account for about a third of its current population. Notably, there are around 14 million illegal immigrants in the US, along with 38 million with legal status, including naturalized citizens. To fill the gap and end “white genocide,” the Groypers would need to deport (actually, the proper term for this is “expel”) birthright citizens. Since non-white and foreign-born citizens can vote—and, per the survey above, the vast majority of white Americans don’t define America in racial terms, so would oppose ethnic cleansing—this is a non-starter in a democracy. Fuentes, who has expressed admiration for both Hitler and Stalin, would undoubtedly prefer if America were a totalitarian state. But that’s far from a majority view, which matters insofar as the country still holds elections.

America after the deportation of Nick Fuentes (part Mexican), Myron Gaines (Sudanese), and Sneako (Haitian and Filipino). Source: X

America’s Heritage Will Save Us From “Heritage Americans”

How about “Jewish subversion”? According to a 2025 Manhattan Institute survey, 17% of Republicans are anti-Jewish, as are 20% of Democrats. You can dispute how the survey defines the term, but since 12% of Republicans literally self-identify as holding antisemitic views—including 25% of Republicans under 50—it’s undeniable that a real Jew-hating constituency exists in the GOP. Still, 60% of Republicans either categorically reject antisemites or say they should be disbarred from positions of power and leadership in the party. It’s also notable that black and Hispanic GOP voters are more likely to hold antisemitic views than whites. For example, 77% of Hispanic Republican voters deny or minimize the Holocaust, compared with 30% of white Republican voters. While the phenomenon of non-white white nationalists is real, this points to an inherent tension in Groyperism. Does Fuentes care more about ending “white genocide” or “Jewish subversion”? If he prioritizes antisemitism, Fuentes can maintain a broader coalition with low-information, high-gullibility minorities: the Candace Owens set. Fuentes could also make inroads among left-wing anti-Zionists, who are comfortable with anti-Jewish hatred but not full-spectrum racism. Yet ending the Great Replacement requires expelling his non-white supporters from the country, while dialing back on white supremacy would lead to accusations of cuckery. Internal contradictions can survive the unreality of internet shitposting, but if Fuentes ever achieved real power, he’d face actual political decisions that would divide his base. If they want to go beyond just posting dank memes, the Groypers will have to decide: are they serious or trolling?

On that note, what does “ending Jewish subversion” look like IRL? If history is any guide, it would involve enacting numerus clausus laws. In 1887, on top of previous residency, economic, and professional restrictions, the Russian Empire passed a law limiting the number of Jews who could attend high schools and universities. In 1920, Hungary introduced a similar law requiring the ethnic makeup of student bodies to match their proportions within the total population, which in practice targeted Jews. Interwar Poland and Romania enacted their own anti-Jewish restrictions, either legally or through common practice, as, of course, did Nazi Germany prior to the Holocaust. In the United States, too, Jews were informally excluded from elite institutions during the first half of the 20th century. Ironically, given right-wing opposition to woke racial preferences, Groyper anti-Jewish laws would ultimately resemble DEI for goyim.¹ And herein lies another rub. Would the Groyper attack on meritocracy really stop at Jews? What about Asians, who are overrepresented at elite college and tech companies? Malaysia’s official policy is to provide preferential treatment for ethnic Malays over Chinese and Indians in education, housing, and the public sector. If Groyper rhetoric were to become reality, we could see similar laws passed to favor “Heritage Americans” in the US. Since most Americans disapprove of taking race and ethnicity into account for college admissions and hiring decisions, it’s reasonable to assume that reverse affirmative action would be an unpopular position, even among its beneficiaries.

But more fundamentally, if you scapegoat a group for all of your problems, those problems will remain even if you persecute, expel, or murder them. And so the list of enemies, boosted by algorithmic bloodlust, will keep growing. According to Fuentes: “Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise.” But what if the Groypers succeed in making life so miserable for American Jews that they leave for Israel, in barring women from the workforce and the voting booth, in throwing most of the black population in jail, and yet the gates to Agartha don’t open? The fault lines for sectarian warfare are clear. “Racially pure” white nationalists versus brown LARPers like Vish Burra is an obvious one. Fuentes’ Catholic authoritarianism is in tension with America’s Protestant majority. Milo Yiannopoulos, who worked with Fuentes to “manage” Kanye West’s 2024 presidential bid, has already posted that “It’s Catholics and Muslims versus Protestants and Jews.” Fuentes himself has said “You're either a Catholic or you're with the Jews.” The real Heritage Americans are classically liberal WASPs, not trad-Cath Völkisch castizos, and they won’t let the nation they built be driven into the ground by pretenders. That, in fact, is why I’m convinced that a nihilistic ideology like Groyperism has no future in the US. Fuentes’ alt-right predecessor Richard Spencer was explicit that “America as it is currently constituted—and I don’t just mean the government; I mean America as constituted spiritually and ideologically—is the fundamental problem.” Fuentes is more politically cunning than unironic neo-Nazis, but his agenda is identical. Ultimately, Groypers hate the America that most Americans know and love, and it will be these average Americans, regardless of heritage, who bring the actual subversives to their knees.

1. Official anti-Jewish restrictions would also force Groypers to define what they mean by Jewish. In Tsarist Russia, some Jewish parents baptized their children so they could attend school. If he becomes Groyperführer, will Fuentes enforce a religious or racial definition of Jewishness? The antisemitic turn against Jake Lang, a Jewish-born Christian convert who literally burned the Talmud, suggests that, in the end, the Groypers would go full Nazi.