Democrats have spent the last several years failing to learn that social media is not real life. Republicans are in the same boat, though, and the sooner that they recognize that, the sooner they can cut loose the toxic elements of the party.
The California Republican Party has recognized this, sending a memo out to its county associates to blacklist GOP candidates who are followers of racist podcaster Nick Fuentes. Too many Republican politicians have allowed themselves to believe that Fuentes is an important voice on the right (even though he hates Republicans and is now promising to vote for Democrats).
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This was evidenced by Joe Kent, the conspiracy theorist who recently resigned from the White House’s National Counterterrorism Center. Back when Kent was running for Congress, he reached out to Fuentes for advice on his social media operation. Kent, the kind of politician that the California GOP is referring to, ended up losing his race in an R+11 congressional district.
After resigning from the National Counterterrorism Center, Kent has gone running to the Tucker Carlson podcast circuit, where disgraced “conservative” pundits rant and rave about Israel and the Jews. Carlson is still, for some reason, seen by some GOP politicians as an important figure among GOP voters.
The reality is that Carlson, Fuentes, and their ilk (including Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly) have almost no pull in the GOP. Their “influence” is a social media creation that does not register in the real world. Case in point, they are all ranting and raving about President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran being an Israeli-controlled warmongering operation that betrays Trump’s MAGA movement.
In reality, according to an NBC News poll, Trump has a 100% approval rating among self-described MAGA Republicans. (Yes, you read that number right). The people that Trump has supposedly betrayed, according to these social media pundits, give him a perfect grade so far. Not only that, but the percentage of voters who call themselves “MAGA” has actually increased since the 2024 elections, from 28% to 30%. Trump, in ignoring these Israel-obsessed hysterics, has increased his base of support among MAGA voters.
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To really drive home the point, a J.L. Partners poll found that 83% of Republicans trust Trump’s judgement on Iran. When asked about Carlson and Kelly specifically, just 6% put more trust in their judgement, 6% agree with their foreign policy view over Trump’s, and again 6% say they take them more seriously than Trump. For some perspective, the share of Democrats who support abolishing vaccine requirements for public school students is also 6%. I.e., 6% is a negligible minority.
The sooner that Republican politicians realize that their voters do not care about figures like Carlson, the sooner the party can cut them loose and focus on winning voters who actually swing elections. Social media is not real life, and that is no more true for anything than it is for the pseudo-Republican, Israel-obsessed podcasters that have far too much credibility among the GOP political class.