One of the realities of far-right extremist movements and organizations we’ve observed historically is that, because they are run by paranoid, antagonistic egotists—nearly all of whom are grifters running scams of various stripes—and attract footsoldiers with similarly unstable personalities, they often have relatively short shelf lives and crumble apart under the weight of dueling egos and internecine bickering. So it was almost inevitable that Nick Fuentes’ white-nationalist “Groyper army”—which specializes in the politics of bigoted confrontation targeting insufficiently “red-pilled” conservatives—would run aground on the shoals of that reality.
Sure enough, as Tess Owen reveals in her latest report on the Groypers for Vice, Fuentes’ increasingly strident and erratic behavior has soured a number of white nationalists who have been avid participants in his America First organization. Among them is a former lieutenant who went on a podcast and revealed how Fuentes manipulated followers, including himself, causing a sudden exodus of now-former Groypers.
The podcast, first revealed by Nick Martin at The Informant, featured another Fuentes ex-acolyte named Simon Dickerman. McNeil, who was America First’s treasurer, spilled tea about how Fuentes hides the organization’s finances from board members like “Groyper mommy” Michelle Malkin and himself. He also expressed concern that Fuentes had all of his personal information and was likely to use it for retribution.
McNeil, who said he first met Fuentes in 2019 when he was an organizer with Charlie Kirk’s right-wing college organization Turning Point USA, got “red-pilled” after watching Fuentes’ livestreams and contacted him. While enrolled at Kansas State, he posted a racist tweet approving of George Floyd’s murder, which created a campus imbroglio and calls for his expulsion—upon which Fuentes reached out and offered him a position with America First, complete with free housing.
“He said, ‘Why don’t you come out to Chicago? I bought a building, you can live in the basement, stream there, not pay rent, it’s its own unit, and I’ll pay you on top of that,’” McNeil recalled. “Leave my family, leave the girlfriend, leave all the things I had going on back in Kansas or whatever and drive out to Chicago.”
Instead, he said, the only payment he’d ever received from Fuentes was $1,000 for filming work in 2020. He described Fuentes as his “best friend” at one time, but said he now sees him as a “cult leader.” He said Fuentes first isolates young men and radicalizes them, and then demands their absolute fealty.
McNeil’s assessment of his years as Fuentes’ loyal lieutenant has left him without money, friends, or prospects, and only a Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch profile to show for it all.
Moreover, he voiced concern about Fuentes’ operation—specifically, how he collects personal information from all employees and makes them sign NDAs. He said Fuentes threatened to release his Social Security number, and has threatened other employees as well with doxxing or reporting them, or otherwise damaging their reputations.
“This guy is a sick person who wants to destroy young men’s lives,” said McNeil. “He’s threatening all these underage people, young men, that are willing to put their lives on the line, their identity on the line, for him.”
According to Owen, some Groypers shortly afterward posted videos showing them burning their blue “America First” ballcaps, a standard Groyper group signifier. And in chat forums, the Fuentes-bashing suddenly cascaded:
One person on a subreddit dedicated to gossip about the America First movement lamented what they saw as Fuentes’ downfall. “Say what you want, but his start was very promising, his format used to be more mature,” they wrote. “I truly wonder what happened.” Others have zeroed in on Fuentes’ embrace of his “incel” status. Fuentes has called himself a “proud incel,” urged his supporters to abstain from sex, and made bizarre asssertions like “all sex is gay.” The forum Kiwi Farms became a hub for anonymous gossip about Fuentes and America First infighting, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. There were so many messages that the site admins had to create a dedicated area of the forum solely for that topic; SPLC said that throughout May, there were 47,000 messages about it.
Similar gossip about Fuentes has been circulating in Groyper-adjacent forums, including online chat rooms devoted to the white-nationalist American Populist Union (APU). A number of young white nationalists voiced concern that Fuentes’ rhetoric had become too over-the-top—particularly his open endorsements of Vladimir Putin—and suggested that they found APU leader John Doyle a much more appealing figurehead, as Ben Lorber reported for Political Research Associates:
In online chat rooms associated with APU and its leading personalities, groyper anons practice a kind of entryism, encouraging people to watch Fuentes’ videos and championing his White nationalist political positions. More commonly, however, other anons express appreciation for Fuentes and the groyper movement, while arguing that the groyper movement’s indelible association with open White nationalism and antisemitism hampers its stated goal of influencing the conservative mainstream. “True, we love Fuentes,” one anon allowed, but “you can’t always just go out and say everything Fuentes says and expect people to turn over. Sometimes a more moderate voice will start their path towards the right.” Fuentes “was good because he started the movement,” another explained, “but he has failed to evolve. Doyle has usurped him.”
Indeed, most concurred, as one put it, that “Doyle and Fuentes believe essentially the same stuff” but that, as another elaborated, “Nick fuentes is literally just more open about his beliefs than John is and that’s the problem.” One anon used Christian imagery to express the widely-held hope that Doyle would serve as a gateway towards Fuentes. “As St Paul says we don’t feed new born babies meat or hard substance but tender milk…when he matures then we give him meat.”
Doyle, who recently led a Groyper contingent in a homophobic protest outside a Dallas Pride event, was one of the featured speakers at this year’s America First PAC convention, held in Florida in February. Fuentes has praised Doyle as “based,” and the two of them organized a “Stop the Steal” rally in Detroit in November 2020.
Doyle and his frequent cohort, white nationalist YouTuber Kai Schwemmer, also played leading roles in America First’s apparent victory in the “Groyper wars,” finally overwhelming their longtime target, Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization, which “Groypers” had deemed insufficiently radical. TPUSA signaled its surrender earlier this year when Doyle and Schwemmer were the featured speakers at TPUSA events in California that attracted protesters.
Former TPUSA organizer Alex Clark, who was one of Fuentes’ chief targets during the “Groyper wars,” said Fuentes’ demise was bound to happen.
“He’s been spiraling ever since Paul Gosar disavowed him. His rhetoric got too out of control. Nick can't help himself. He's dropping the N-word,” Clark told Owen. “If you’re trying to be a serious political activist, if you want congressmen and women to support you, optics-wise it’s a stupid move. Not to mention it's disgusting and racist.”
