Does “infighting” on X matter or not?

For the millionth time: what about Nazis?

Since November 5, conservatives have been reeling from a trifecta of “wait, what?” moments. New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani — an Islamo-Communist who called for the globalization of intifada — as their mayor; Virginians elected Jay Jones — the villain of a texting scandal uncovered by National Review involving his repeatedly confirmed desire to murder his political opponents and their families — as their attorney General, along with Abigail Spanberger — whose strategy for dealing with the aforementioned texting scandal was to bury her head beneath nine inches of sand and wait for November 5 — as their new governor; and New Jersey elected Mikie Sherrill — whose lack of support for Hamas or death upon her opponent’s children is at least a welcome change of pace — as their new governor.

Now, it’s fair to say that this was a bad election night for the GOP, with even President Donald Trump acknowledging that it was “not good for Republicans.” But as these losses added fuel to the ongoing “infighting” within the American Right over the sanitization, ideological laundering, and embrace of anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and pro-Nazi rhetoric, it’s time to answer the question on the lips of so many right-wing influencers: who is to blame?

First, let’s rewind briefly. For weeks, a battle within the ever-widening tent of the conservative movement has erupted over the notion that we should mimic the Left and ignore (or even accept) the radical fringe of our own side as part of an overarching strategy to “win,” pushing many — including yours truly — to ask: what about Nazis?

Just days prior to the election, this battle reached fever pitch when Tucker Carlson gave the softest of softball interviews to self-professed Jew-hating, white-supremacist, Hitler-loving Nick Fuentes. While some remain outraged — and rightly so — others have doubled down on calls to downplay, dismiss, and/or unite, including political commentators, right-wing institutions, and even the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance.

It’s a well-known fact that J.D. Vance has a close relationship with Tucker Carlson, with Vance even hiring Carlson’s 28-year-old son as his deputy press secretary. It would therefore be fair to presume that Vance would react unenthusiastically to his friend’s embrace of someone like Nick Fuentes, a man who described the vice president as a race-traitor “fat guy who’s married to a jeet” — a racial slur targeting Usha Vance, an American-born Hindu, graduate of Yale University, Yale Law School, and Clare College, Cambridge (two out of three ain’t bad), and Vance’s wife of eleven years and mother of his three beautiful children.

And yet, you’d presume wrong, with J.D. Vance arguing that “it’s idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states,” and that “the infighting is stupid.”

“I care about my fellow citizens--particularly young Americans--being able to afford a decent life, I care about immigration and our sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home. If you care about those things too, let’s work together,” Vance concluded.

OK…but what about Nazis?

This is the same J.D. Vance who had no issue disavowing Nick Fuentes during his candidacy, calling him a “total loser” in 2024. So why does the addition of his supposed friend Tucker Carlson change the calculus here?