Rise of the Groyper

As we approach the end of 2025, we leave behind a year of increasing turmoil and political unrest within the Western Hemisphere. In the U.S. especially, polarization has led to unpredictable outcomes in the form of ideological and religious violence, exacerbating conflicts based on gender, ethnicity, race and even standard political affiliations. Many intelligence agencies in Europe as well as in the U.S. have reported that foreign actors seek to fuel and weaponize such discord in order to destabilize liberal democratic institutions and, by doing so, gain the upper hand in the perpetual tug-of-war between global powers. We will return to that at the end of the article.

The perhaps most notable change in 2025 came after the assassination of the Christian right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot whilst participating in one of his signature debate events at Utah Valley University. Charlie Kirk was a controversial figure up until, and even after, his death. 

Kirk embodied the “new” right in Donald Trump’s America: the rejuvenation of right-wing politics that attracted the young, self-aware generation who was the first to grow up with social media as a natural part of their daily lives and whose political education consisted more of memes and YouTube-essays than legacy media coverage or taking in what they were taught in school. 

Beyond that, this generation – commonly referred to as Generation Z – is known for their resentment towards the so-called baby boomers, the perceived injustices caused by them and the values for which they stand. This generational conflict covers the whole political spectrum and becomes more noticeable with each passing year.

Frustrations intensified and, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, led to a paradigm shift in right-wing politics. Another man suddenly emerged as the new face of the far-right. Enter Nick Fuentes, a self-described white nationalist, incel and promoter of various conspiracy theories. His followers, called Groypers, have waged an online war against mainstream Republicans as well as Trump’s MAGA movement since 2019, when Fuentes tried to sabotage a Turning Point USA meeting booth hosted by the late Charlie Kirk. 

Since their inception, the Groypers have antagonized and ridiculed all other positions on the political spectrum, but with an emphasis on less radical right-leaning views and their advocates. Until recently, Fuentes and his fans were mostly noticed by those who ventured into the dark realms of political discourse on the fringes of the internet. 

Things have changed radically since Charlie Kirk’s death however, as stated earlier. The void that opened on the digital right was swiftly filled by the Groypers and their hate-fueled ideology. Just days after his death, Fuentes fans began speculating as to whether Charlie Kirk’s wife Erika was somehow involved in the murder. Soon after, Fuentes truly began to take the internet by storm. 

Many young people found their algorithms filled with Groyper content, ranging from racist rants proposing segregation to convoluted theories about how the Jews secretly control every facet of American society. Some traditional conservatives noted ironically that this shift towards antisemitism and identity politics – in this case manifested in white pride, religious conviction as a justification for violence and so on – closely resembles the attitudes and behavior which they often attribute to the contemporary political left, albeit with different motives. Whatever one makes of that paradox, no one can longer deny that Nick Fuentes and his followers have become a political factor to be reckoned with. 

Tucker Carlson, the former host of the immensely popular news program Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, was the first major media profile to provide Nick Fuentes with a mainstream platform for sharing his views. Carlson, who is otherwise known to be a fierce interviewer, avoided posing any hard questions regarding Fuentes’ ideology or his conspiracy theories. Instead, he settled for mildly criticizing certain aspects of his antisemitism and a handful of specific phrases he made in earlier public statements.

As many critics have pointed out though, most of his questions were softballs. In this forum Fuentes finally had the opportunity to spread his message to millions of viewers worldwide whilst remaining largely unchallenged. This was seen by many as a clear sign of mainstream acceptance of Fuentes’ and his media presence.

Any efforts to deplatform him had so far been unsuccessful, as is often the case with controversial figures. His following continues to expand with each passing day. Nick Fuentes has even recently been invited to join the much more centrist journalist Piers Morgan for a debate segment. This would have been unimaginable just a couple of months ago. 

When browsing the radical corners of the internet, it becomes obvious that the American right is in a state of rapid ideological decline. Those who were seen as extreme outliers only a few years back are now considered part of the “establishment” according to the new American right, as defined earlier in this article. It seems that Donald Trump’s arrogant disregard of the consequences of his divisive rhetoric has finally come back to bite him. The Groypers show no more mercy towards him, his political affiliates and his supporters than they do to Democrats and ethnic minorities. To them, Trump is just another Jewish puppet. 

Mechanisms of Groyper Mobilization

Why did the Groypers gain such momentum during the latter half of 2025, and who will benefit from their whirlwind radicalization of young Americans? To answer the first question, one must take our current Zeitgeist into account. As mentioned earlier, Generation Z entered adulthood in very troubling times. It is said that history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. A hundred years ago, optimism permeated the period which we now call the Roaring Twenties. The war to end all wars had been won and the economy was thriving. Many took for granted that human civilization was moving toward its peak. Then came the Thirties.

One could argue that we are experiencing a comparable phenomenon today; the difference being that the dark clouds are upon us ten years prematurely. Our current decade started with a worldwide pandemic, resulting in a lethal threat to the old and weak as well as generational anguish and mental harm suffered by the young due to lockdown protocols. The long-term consequences of an entire generation missing out on school and other important social and intellectual stimuli have probably yet to be fully grasped.

Just when the pandemic had settled war broke out in Europe, completely reshaping Western foreign policy and once more igniting fears of human annihilation. As if that weren’t enough, Generation Z grew up with the constant, looming threat of climate change and its potentially catastrophic consequences. 

When taking all these things into account, it is no wonder that many young people turn fear into rage; people seek easy answers to explain their problems and a scapegoat for all the failures and inadequacies of their societies and how they function. Political radicalization happens successively, but it is always the result of disappointment. 

When a radical political figure comes along and takes center stage without making good on the promises that put him there, people turn to someone with an even more radical “solution”. If the political establishment is perceived as hindering such a person or movement, the flames of outrage will be fanned. Nick Fuentes understands this and capitalizes on it. 

That brings us to the second question about who the winners are when it comes to the distrust and anti-democratic values that Nick Fuentes instils in his viewers. What is achieved by the indoctrination in contempt and utter loathing for every idea and principle that modern liberal democratic culture (its laws, its diplomacy, its science) was built upon? This is no doubt a sensitive and somewhat speculative topic, but one that must be discussed if we truly want to protect the freedoms and democratic possibilities that we in the world’s liberal democratic nations have taken for granted. 

To dwell deeper into this subject, we must first establish that there is a common denominator between Fuentes and his peers on social media. The anti-democratic sentiments described above can be heard not only from Fuentes, but many American “right-wing influencers”. What the new right preaches is not even closely related to that which they claim to hold sacred – namely Western values and institutions. In fact, their opinions often align more with despots and the autocratic and brutal practices of underdeveloped nations. Sometimes this preference is explicit, as when Fuentes praises Stalin, but other times it is not. With these things in mind, we can finally get to the bottom of who’s celebrating when civilized discourse is pushed away in favor of paranoid hate mongering.

The New Right and its Dangerous Hypocrisy 

Let’s take another look at Tucker Carlson, who first platformed Fuentes. When Carlson left Fox News, it was suggested that he could finally pursue “the truth” without any corporate restraints. What has happened since then does not seem to align with this prediction. Instead, Carlson has spun a carefully calibrated narrative that paints American politicians and institutions as treacherous, whilst simultaneously legitimizing dictators such as Russia’s Putin and Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed. He aggressively taunts interviewees belonging to the first category but declines to do the same with the foreign dictators and conspiracy theorists that he hosts. 

And he does so all while insisting that he is acting in America’s best interest by uncovering “the truth”. There are countless other examples of American right-wing influencers, politicians and media personalities who engage in this sort of subversive behavior. Fuentes does differ from most of them by being outright and honest about his hatred of liberal democratic values. He makes it plain that his mission is to abolish what America currently is and replace it with a country divided by race and gender; a theological autocracy that takes orders from the Vatican. 

As to the question of what is achieved by these developments and who profits from them, one thing is clear. Hostile foreign powers who wish to undermine Western democracies and institutions, so as to strengthen their own position, benefit enormously when the job is done for them by people from within. This naturally raises another question as to which foreign powers may be involved, and to what extent, in shaping the destabilizing narratives spread by people like Nick Fuentes and the kindred spirits who support and enable them. 

Let’s first address the elephant in the room when it comes to discussing America’s foreign relations: Israel. American media in general still portrays Israel in a good light, despite all the horrendous things its government has done in recent years. There are also many pro-Israeli political organizations and pro-Zionist Christian groups who hold sway over U.S foreign policy. 

Therefore, it is important to make clear that the ongoing critique of Israel and its influence on American politics through organizations like AIPAC (one of the most influential lobbying groups in American politics) is a completely reasonable one, and it comes from both the left and the right. It is also very reasonable to question why many American politicians want to support Israel, no matter what violations of international law they commit. There is of course no denying that the Israeli government, like many other, wishes to influence the politics of the world’s most powerful nation and, in their case, most important ally. But what this part of the article aims to show is how hypocritically selective this critique seems when conveyed by Groypers.

The problem with Groypers is that they can’t distinguish valid criticism of Israel from pure antisemitic conspiracy theories. As a result, Fuentes, like his Nazi role models, takes every argument to the extreme by claiming that global Jewry is in cahoots and that all Jews who reside in other countries feel loyalty towards Israel first and foremost. According to his worldview, they’re willing to undermine whatever nation they happen to be born in, and a part of, as long as it benefits Jewishness in general and the state of Israel in particular. 

Most people would still find this line of thinking unreasonable; to hold an entire ethnic group accountable for what one government decides to do. Jews – like all other people – differ when it comes to politics. Some of the most outspoken critics of Israeli policy in Gaza and the West Bank are in fact Jewish. Indeed, many are Israeli.

When it comes to other foreign influences on American politics however, discussions in the far-right media landscape are all too often absent. Therein lies the selective hypocrisy. Qatar, for instance, has poured enormous resources into lobbying in the U.S. during the last decade. We know that they have sought and successfully participated in deliberations with key figures in the Trump administration, including current FBI director Kash Patel. Some reports even suggest that they have specifically targeted conservative American news outlets to paint a rosy picture of the Qatari government. 

Another well-established fact – that many seem to have forgotten – is that the Russian government, since at least the 2016 American election, has engaged in an ongoing campaign to shape American politics to their liking by extensive information warfare. Thousands of bot accounts are created to spread disinformation and make it seem as if political division in the West is worse than it is. Russian intelligence agencies also try, and often succeed, to gain sympathy for the Russian government in liberal democracies by pumping out vast amounts of pro-Russian propaganda from seemingly Western accounts. 

Most nations do engage in these types of information warfare, including liberal democracies. That in and of itself is not a major cause for alarm. What is worrisome, however, is that a major youth-oriented political trend, whose ideological legitimacy is based upon the notion of patriotically protecting one’s homeland, is being hijacked by foreign powers and the falsehoods they dictate; all under the guise of revealing “the corruption within”. 

This is perhaps the most astounding hypocrisy in the narratives spread by the new right: the issue of democracy. Whether or not these champions of far-right ideology are consciously trying to break apart the democratic system or are just useful fools for authoritarian regimes, remains to be seen. Both types probably exist though. Regardless of the underlying factors, the whole premise of patriotism by attacking the very things they claim to protect seems counter-intuitive. But when a lie is repeated time and time again, through endless scrolling sessions, it becomes perceived as a reality. 

Purposefully targeting a volatile generation who grew up on digitally induced fear – and using that same tool against them – is admittedly an expert move when it comes to this sort of manipulation. The Groypers claim that Jews are the puppet masters of America and Europe; someone should ask Nick Fuentes and his friends who their puppet masters are.