Sometimes I don’t know why these Republican groups are so upset. When you drill down to policy, they basically support the same hateful, racist, antisemitic, misogynistic bullshit that white supremacist Nick Fuentes spews daily. He just says it out loud. But look at what “mainstream” Republicans are doing in Arizona with anti-trans legislation, school curricula, voting rights, and abortion restrictions, among other hateful measures, and they’re essentially doing Fuentes’s work. Heck, State Senator Wendy Rogers and U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar have defended Fuentes and appeared at his America First “alternative CPAC,” i.e., the conference that’s too crazy for CPAC.
So when the Arizona State University chapter of College Republicans United (CRU) arranged for Fuentes to keynote their “Second Annual State and National Convention” at the historic Hassayampa Hotel in Prescott this July 30, they obviously figured other Republican groups would want to send speakers and cosponsor the big event.
CRU’s communications with other GOP parties, however, was not exactly upfront, as they failed to mention the main speaker was Hitler lover, Charlottesville kingpin, and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, who also says African Americans had it better under Jim Crow. But he wasn’t the only featured speaker they neglected to mention.
Along with Fuentes, other extremists are listed to speak, including Ryan Sanchez, who sometimes goes by the moniker “Culture War Criminal.” Sanchez is formerly a member of the Rise Above Movement, a Neo-Nazi fight club whose members have faced federal charges for political violence.
Too late! The poster advertising the July 30 hatefest was tweeted yesterday, listing as cosponsors the Pima County Republican Party and the Maricopa County Republican Committee. Within hours of the announcement, the “cosponsors” and some of the people listed as speakers were online saying they have nothing to do with the CRU event and they were duped:
“This was a set up,” Pima County GOP Chairman Dave Smith told the Mirror.
Smith said that ASU CRU’s Founder Rick Thomas … asked if the county party would speak at a “college republicans” event.
They agreed and ASU CRU later followed up with an email sending a flier that did not list Fuentes or Pima GOP as a sponsor.
“We just thought she was going to be a speaker at a Republican conference,” Smith said. “We were misrepresented to and lied to.”
Arizona’s college Republicans lying? I’m shocked! (They learned from their elders.) Even the “QAnon Shaman,” listed as a speaker, was upset that he was used by people who he thinks are nuts (gulp!): “Should I back out? Or should I do the event & blow this schmuck out of the water & expose a false prophet?” Said one false prophet to another. (If you are so inclined, “America’s Shaman”—that’s what he wants to be called now—is selling merchandise and offering one-hour coaching sessions for only $500. Get in line.)
CRU tweeted out another poster almost immediately with the cosponsors’ names removed, as well as any mention of Fuentes and other white supremacists. In their place a notice reads: “Other speakers redacted due to security.” They’ll have to find another location too, because the Hassayampa Hotel cancelled the event. The Shaman is still on the bill, however, so I guess he wasn’t pissed enough to forgo a marketing opportunity.
Republicans can protest all they want: there won’t be much daylight between what Nick Fuentes says and what the Arizona Republican Party endorses, or, for that matter, what the National GOP endorses, since Trump is their North Star—the man who “both sides” Charlottesville, who thinks women exist for him to grope, who hosted his two favorite antisemites at Mar-a-Lago, Nick Fuentes and Ye. I’m just guessing if Trump was on the poster with Fuentes, the county Republican parties wouldn’t be in such a rush to remove their names.