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Friday, November 28, 2025
The Mainstreaming of Extremism
The Mainstreaming of
Extremism
This is how the normalization of hatred works. Not with a
bang, but with a shrug.
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Over the Thanksgiving
holiday, I was privileged to be able to travel to Europe with my family. We
spent a few days in Amsterdam and I fell in love with the canals, the delicious
food, and the kind people. Of course, we visited the Van Gogh Museum and I marveled
at being able to see priceless works of art within just feet of where I stood
and to learn about the amazing life of an artist whose genius was only realized
after his death.
But the most powerful
and memorable moment was when we visited the Anne Frank House. I thought it was
important for my 11-year-old daughter to witness first-hand what another little
girl, very close to her own age, experienced at the hands of the Nazis. To feel
the cramped conditions of that Secret Annex, to listen to the voice of Anne’s
father, Otto Frank, as he explained the crushing darkness of losing his entire
family. To re-live the life of a brave little girl who may have passed 761 days
in near-silence, but whose written words fought loudly to be heard for decades
after her death.
Anne Frank’s life is one
of the clearest moral markers in modern history. A young girl who was just 13
years old when she was forced into hiding because hate became law. A child
whose voice survived when she tragically didn’t. Her diary is a testament to
what happens when bigotry stops being fringe and becomes policy. Anne’s life is
a reminder that the worst chapters of history begin not with gas chambers, but
with rhetoric, with excuses, and with normalization.
And that is exactly why
the current platforming and soft-pedaling of a white nationalist like Nick
Fuentes by major conservative media figures should set off alarms for anyone
paying attention.
Anne Frank was born in
1929 in Germany, a country sliding into authoritarianism. When the Nazi Regime
made antisemitism an organizing principle of its government, her family fled to
Amsterdam. For a few brief years, they thought they had dodged the extremism.
But hate doesn’t respect borders, and by May of 1940, the Nazis had invaded the
Netherlands and imported their ideology into the region.
By 1942, the signs were
unmistakable: Jews were banned from public life, forced out of schools,
stripped of all of their rights, and increasingly “othered”. When a deportation
notice arrived for Anne’s sister, Margot, the entire family went into hiding in
the Secret Annex behind Otto Frank’s company. Eight people shared just a few
cramped rooms. They lived under constant threat, dependent on the courage of
others, their own discipline, and the sheer will to survive the Nazi occupation
of Amsterdam.
Anne wrote in her diary
because it was the only freedom she had left. She dreamt of becoming a
journalist one day. Her diary captured not only the daily strain and stress of
hiding, but the rapid moral decay outside of the walls of their self-imposed
prison. She documented the kind of danger that grows slowly at first: a society
that accepts hate as a political identity that then becomes a government that
codifies bigotry into laws.
The Secret Annex was
discovered in August 1944 after informants tipped off the Nazis. This was just
two months after the successful landing by Allied Forces at Normandy. I visited
those incredible beaches last year; if only the soldiers that fell that day
knew the desperate hope those trapped under the rule of the Nazis had for their
success – as captured in Anne’s diary.
Anne and her sister were
first sent to Auschwitz, but then the two were transferred to another Nazi
concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen, in 1945. Bergen-Belsen would be their death
beds. Otto Frank was the sole survivor of the Frank family, and he published
her diary because he understood its purpose: to warn the world of the dangers
of looking away, or even worse, collaborating or sympathizing. And today, we
need that warning more than ever.
Let’s be clear: Nick
Fuentes is not a “provocateur.” He is not “edgy.” He is not “contrarian.”
Fuentes is a 27-year old, self-professed white supremacist, misogynist,
Holocaust denier, anti-Semite, and a man who openly praises the ideology that
murdered Anne Frank and millions of others deemed inferior. His beliefs are not
ambiguous; they are explicit embraced and proudly broadcast. Fuentes posts
conspiracy theories on social media like “white genocide and Jewish subversion”
to his more than 1 million followers on the cesspool of X.
Fuentes has said that
Hitler was “really fucking cool” and has denied that the Holocaust ever
happened. But, in the same breath, he has compared the genocide of millions of
Jews in concentration camps to the baking of cookies. And for years, even the
farthest right corners of conservative media kept him at arm’s length. But now,
the wall has cracked and those cracks are fracturing fast directly from the
top. In recent months, public figures like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly have
treated Fuentes not as a toxic, far-right extremist, but as someone whose
presence is negotiable under the guise of “public debate.”
Sidenote: I’m often asked where I go to do research for my reporting. One of
the main research tools I use is called Ground News. Ground News shows me how
stories are being covered from different political perspectives, and it
highlights “blindspots” where only left-wing or right-wing media is covering a
story.
Ground News has been a great sponsor of my YouTube channel, and they’re
now sponsoring this post as well. I worked out a deal with them: if you go
to ground.news/phang, you can get 40% off Ground
News’ top-tier Vantage plan, which gives you unlimited access to all the
research tools I use.
Ground News is
subscriber-funded, so they don’t rely on ads that could introduce bias. By
subscribing, you support both our channel and their independent team working to
keep the media transparent.
Now back to where I left
off.
Just last month, Carlson
and Fuentes hung out like old buddies on Carlson’s podcast for more than 2
hours. That interview has now been viewed by more than 6.5 million people and
counting on YouTube. Carlson’s idea- and image-laundering of Fuentes included
portraying him as being just another voice that deserves to be heard because
the world couldn’t possibly cancel Fuentes for having a different point of
view. Just like the canonization of Charlie Kirk and the reframing of many of
his odious ideas as being acceptable in the arena of “political debate,” the
negative reactions to Nick Fuentes’ even more odious views are now being framed
as “overblown” by folks like Tucker Carlson.
Kelly herself
entertained conversations with Carlson and Ben Shapiro that treat Fuentes’
extremism as a potentially political inconvenience rather than a moral
disqualifier. Her recent defense of Carlson’s sit-down with Fuentes, as well as
her defense of Fuentes’ right to say extremist things because of “open
dialogue,” veer dangerously into the land of normalizing anti-Semitism and
hate. Fuentes, who would once have been radioactive, is being publicly shuffled
toward respectability, all with the help of Carlson and Kelly, who provide the
permission structure for people not only to listen to Fuentes, but to consider
his raging anti-Semitism to be some version of legitimate policy.
And don’t forget about
Convicted Felon Donald Trump’s infamous 2022 dinner at Mar-a-Lago with not only
Nick Fuentes, but Kanye West, both of whom are in a race to the bottom of the
barrel when it comes to who can be the most anti-Semitic. Trump breaking bread
with Fuentes and West is yet another example of the normalization of hatred.
So this isn’t about one
pundit or one interview. It’s about the signal being sent to the millions of
viewers and followers of Carlson and Kelly. When major conservative voices
minimize Fuentes’ disgusting ideology, they shift the boundary of what counts as
acceptable. They turn Holocaust denial into a topic of conversation instead of
a red line that must never be crossed. They turn antisemitism and white
supremacy into a matter of opinion instead of a proven existential threat.
Extremism doesn’t rise
because zealots get louder. It rises because powerful people who moonlight as
thought leaders decide to play footsies with dangerous ideas. Because
gatekeepers stop guarding the gate and the people with platforms act as if
their responsibility is optional.
Anne Frank’s story is
often wrapped in sentimentality, but the reality of her murder is harsher. Anne
Frank didn’t die because her world was filled with monsters. She died because
enough ordinary people decided that the monsters weren’t their problem. They
looked away. They adjusted their discomfort in ways that allowed the
unacceptable to become the normal.
Today’s political
climate may not be 1930s Europe, but it’s getting damn close because some of
the mechanics are becoming disturbingly familiar: the conspiracy theories, the
dehumanizing language, the minimization of hate as “just politics.” The
elevation of extremists as if they deserve to be taken seriously assisted by a
far-right media ecosystem willing to normalize bigotry because it drives
engagement and subscribers and followers.
There is a direct line
between dismissing extremist rhetoric and emboldening extremist behavior. Nick
Fuentes knows this and his supporters know this. And the public figures who
treat him as a political curiosity should know it, too.
The rise of Nick Fuentes
tells us something troubling about where the American Right is heading. When
someone who denies the Holocaust and praises Hitler is treated as someone worth
platforming versus unequivocally condemning, the line between mainstream
conservatism and white supremacist ideology becomes dangerously thin, if not
erased. The responsibility to draw that line clearly and forcefully belongs to
everyone with a platform, especially those whose voices shape public opinion.
Anne Frank wrote that
she believed people were “really good at heart.” She wrote it at a time when
there was zero evidence of decency left for that kind of optimism. It wasn’t
naïveté on her part; it was a clear challenge to us all. If Anne’s story teaches
us anything, it’s that we don’t get to be passive bystanders to the
normalization of hate. We don’t get to treat extremism as a ratings
opportunity. And we don’t get to forget what happens when society decides that
the worst ideas deserve a seat at the table.
History has already
shown us where this road ends.
Thursday, November 27, 2025
A Pardoned Turkey, an Unpardonable Man
A Pardoned Turkey, an
Unpardonable Man
Nov. 27, 2025
By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens
Mr.
Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer. Mr. Stephens is an Opinion columnist.
Bret Stephens: Hi, Frank. There are a few turkeys we need to dig
into, politically speaking, before we get to the actual one. Let me start with
an appetizer: What do you think of Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation,
urging people to dress up for air travel?
Frank Bruni: I didn’t see that question coming! But good on you —
it’s perfectly timed for the frenzied flying and crowded airports of the long
Thanksgiving weekend. I must say, I don’t hate Duffy’s appeal for fewer track
suits, less open-toe footwear. As long as we don’t veer into any elitist,
priggish dress code, asking passengers to show minimal sartorial respect (and
let’s keep hygiene in mind, too!) when jamming into a tight space with other
humans doesn’t seem so very evil. You?
Bret: I was astounded by a statistic that went with Duffy’s
plea: a 400 percent increase in “in-flight
outbursts” since 2019, including 13,800 “unruly passenger incidents” since
2021. I realize there was a lot of pent-up rage that went with the pandemic,
but that should have cooled off by now, don’t you think?
Frank: I think Americans are increasingly unfamiliar with —
and uninterested in — the ideal, importance and rites of civility. The pandemic
merely accelerated that.
Bret: “Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them,
in a great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, and
now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or
debase, barbarize or refine us. … According to their quality, they aid morals,
they supply them, or they totally destroy them.”
Sorry, but I can’t pass
up the temptation to quote Edmund Burke. Ireland’s greatest son
would have understood the moment we’re in.
Frank: No apology necessary. I love it when you whisper sweet 18th-century philosophers in my ear. What you see in planes and airports is what you see in Congress and in the Trump administration. I’m not being glib. Too many of us are focused solely on getting what we want, and our preferred vent for frustration is demonizing and screeching at people who dare to get in our way. Is it such a leap from airborne outbursts to Secretary of Defense — excuse me, Secretary of War — Pete Hegseth trying to, I don’t know, court-martial Senator Mark Kelly, who’s a real American hero?
Bret: Hegseth — and Donald Trump, for that matter — are
reminders that, even if “clothes make the man,” as the saying goes,
short-fingered vulgarians will always be themselves. As for Senator Kelly,
insisting that unlawful orders must not be obeyed makes him a patriot. If Major
Hegseth wants to go after him, I’d say bring it on. It will go about as well
for the War Department as the indictments of James Comey and Letitia James did
for the Justice Department.
Frank: Kelly, Comey, James and too many others — they’re
victims of the malignant belief among Trump and his co-conspirators that
intimidation is the primary instrument of power and that the desire for vengeance is
something to be quenched, like thirst. I can’t tell you, Bret, how much the
sheer ugliness of it gnaws at me. I think part of what drives Robert F. Kennedy
Jr., our esteemed secretary of illness — pardon me, health — to trash the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and elevate junk medicine over the real
thing is that those behaviors flex his muscle and make him look fearsome in a
way that boring, responsible stewardship wouldn’t. What’s power, after all,
without the mischief and menace?
Bret: This has always been the Trumpian M.O.: the
desperate, and unwittingly revealing, need to show that they’re the bigger man.
Did Arnold Palmer ever feel such a compulsion? I doubt it.
The larger problem,
though, is that a politics of politicized justice, of pursuing petty vendettas,
winds up being self-defeating. The lesson of the efforts to prosecute Trump in
the last administration is that trying to jail your political enemies winds up
making them stronger. That’s exactly what this administration is going to wind
up doing: strengthening its opponents. Which, perversely, may not be the worst
thing. …
Frank: Not the worst thing at all. Let’s be clear about
something, though: This notion, so popular with Trump and his abettors, that
his politicized Department of Justice is simply a mirror of President Joe
Biden’s and that the prosecutions he’s demanding echo the prosecutions of him
is the epitome of a false equivalence and pure bunk.
Yeah, the indictment and conviction of Trump for falsifying business records,
in the case brought by Alvin Bragg in Manhattan, went overboard. But the other
cases? They were solid. And they were righteous.
Bret: The only solid case I saw was the classified
documents case.
Frank: Wait, wait — what about Georgia? There was audiotape. Trump is on the phone with Brad Raffensperger, the top
election official in Georgia, telling him to go find and count 11,780
nonexistent votes. How is that not wrong and rank?
Bret: Wrong and rank don’t equal criminal. Fanni Willis,
the hapless prosecutor, couldn’t make a case out of it, and now a judge
has dismissed it for good. Generally speaking,
the idea of trying to criminalize your political opponents is a bad one, except
in some of the most egregious cases — most of which seem to take place in New
Jersey.
Frank: Paging Robert Menendez!
Bret: You can trace Trump’s political resurrection, in
early 2023 when the political smart set thought Ron DeSantis was the likely
Republican nominee, almost to the moment the criminal indictments started to be
brought against him. Do Democrats still think that treating Trump like an
outlaw can hurt him or was ever going to — given that his whole political
persona is based on its outlaw appeal?
Frank: I agree that the prosecutions ended up helping him,
in part because Bragg’s was the first (and, in the end, only) one to come to
trial. But in the same way that wrong and rank may not equal criminal,
politically unwise does not equal unwarranted. Democrats weren’t going after
Trump on a whim. It wasn’t persecution.
Bret: What’s going to wind up damaging Trump and other
Republicans isn’t the illegality. It’s the incompetence. That’s where Democrats
need to keep a laser focus. Is the cost of living going down? Are college
graduates finding it easier to get a first job? Is the national debt under
control? Do you feel prouder to be an American? Is the surrender plan that
Trump has arranged for Ukraine a good idea that will bring lasting peace?
Frank: You have rhetorical questions, I have practical
answers! No, no, no, no and no.
Bret: There’s a leadership issue with Democrats right now.
I don’t envy Chuck Schumer, trying to hold together a Senate caucus that
includes the “fight club” of colleagues like Elizabeth Warren
and Bernie Sanders, versus the “don’t do stupid stuff club” of people like
Jeanne Shaheen and John Fetterman. What’s your advice to our friend from
Brooklyn?
Frank: Poor Chuck. He’s a very, very smart man with an
unrivaled work ethic who wants more than anyone — trust me — for Democrats
to reclaim the Senate majority. My advice to him and
to that “fight club” of senators unhappy with him is the same: The other side
within your party has some points and some wisdom. This isn’t a binary. Meet in the middle; the middle
is underrated. If you let this disagreement get too noisy and nasty, you all lose. And so, God help us, does
America.
Bret: The middle is two things, I think. First, it’s tonal.
The tone of nonstop, sky-is-falling, democracy-is-ending hysteria that typifies
a lot of liberal discourse isn’t helping. Second, it’s about policy. Democrats
need to reclaim the dead center of American politics. In some ways, that’s
going to require a considerable shift to the right. Like on tariffs, for
instance, or on education. If Democrats really want to fight, picking a fight
with entrenched teachers’ unions that are doing more to help themselves than to
educate public school kids — whose reading and math scores keep falling — would be a good place to start.
Frank: You know I’m with you on the dangers of Democrats
tacking too far left and on the verdant, fertile political pastureland of the
center. If the party has any doubts about that verdure and fertility, just look
at Trump’s sudden desire to get somewhere
closer to the center by now reportedly considering the extension of the
Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies that his own legislation eliminated.
Bret: Here is where my inner conservative makes an
appearance: Extending the subsidies when we are $38 trillion in debt is a bad
idea! As policy. As politics, it’s surely good for Democrats.
Frank: I’m just noting Trump’s belated, baby-steps centrism.
Bret: Frank, I have to leave this conversation and get back
to being a useful member of my family. Last question: Read anything good
lately?
Frank: I loved a recent article in The New Yorker by Zach Helfand about the glow-up
and metastasis of special-access airport lounges. Could anything be more America circa
late 2025? (Well, apart from air rage and unruly passengers?) There’s the
economic tiering of those lounges, the indulgence, the insistence that even air
travel — which is supposed to be hellish, as a matter of character building — be
bubble-wrapped and lubricated with bubbly drinks. Many affluent Americans no
longer believe in civic institutions or community groups. But they believe in
the free mediocre sushi and abundant charging stations of the airport lounge.
Bret: Oh, Frank. You just need to switch to a better
airline, with better lounges and sushi. In the meantime, hope you have a great,
joyous, politics-free Thanksgiving.
Frank: Same to you, my friend. Turkey, here I come!
Bret: That’s Eric Adams’s line, too, I’ll bet.
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