Welcome to Your Reckoning

Republicans discover—with shock!—that white supremacists were the call coming from inside the house

They were so worried about pronouns. So consumed by the specter of “gender ideology.” So convinced the real threat was kids reading books about gay penguins or whatever moral panic was trending that week.

Meanwhile, actual Nazis were building infrastructure in their movement. And now—now—Heritage Foundation staffers are tweeting “NAZIS ARE BAD” like it’s a brave revelation requiring a meme. Erick Erickson is discovering moral courage consists of pointing out that the Vice President of the United States just let antisemitic conspiracy theories slide without correction because... what? Correcting them might cost zoomer votes?

The leopards-eating-faces energy is exquisite.

Let’s be precise about what’s happening here. Tucker Carlson—who Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts just defended as “a close friend” who “always will be”—sat down with Nick Fuentes. Not to challenge him. Not to expose him. To platform him. To normalize him. To give millions of viewers a friendly interview with a white nationalist who jokes about the Holocaust and calls for defeating “global Jewry.”

And when Roberts was called on this, when asked to disavow, he doubled down. He released a video defending Tucker. He said he “disagrees with and even abhors” things Fuentes says, but that “canceling him is not the answer.” As if anyone was asking Heritage to “cancel” Fuentes—they were asking Heritage not to defend the person giving him a massive platform.

But here’s the tell: Roberts opens his defense by saying “Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic.” Which would be a perfectly reasonable statement if that’s what anyone was talking about. But nobody was. Fuentes doesn’t critique Israeli policy. He promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories. He celebrates Hitler. He jokes about dead Jews.

Roberts knows this. He’s not confused. He’s providing cover. He’s constructing a rhetorical escape hatch: conflating legitimate criticism of a government with hatred of Jews. Making it seem like the real issue is free speech about foreign policy rather than accommodating Nazi-adjacent figures in the conservative coalition.

And why? Erick Erickson nails it:

“Roberts, Vance, etc. have adopted the Left’s playbook of no enemies on their side because they think the Left was successful with that strategy... They want to attract young zoomers to their side, many of them male, and they think the way to do that is to punch back hard at critics, refuse to fold to criticism, and show a high tolerance for inflammatory positions that rile up the left. If they have to accommodate a few closeted gay guys with a Nazi fetish who blame the Jews for everything, they’ll do it and reason that, once they win, they can clean up.”

Read that again. The Vice President of the United States and the President of the Heritage Foundation—the organization that writes Republican policy—are knowingly accommodating antisemitism because they think it helps them win. They’ve calculated that zoomer men radicalized on 4chan and following Fuentes are a constituency they need. And they’re willing to let antisemitic conspiracy theories pass unchallenged to keep that constituency engaged.

This is moral cowardice dressed as strategy. This is “we’ll clean it up later” while the rot spreads. This is exactly how respectable conservatism gets captured by fascist movements—one accommodation at a time, each one justified as tactical necessity.

And JD Vance? When confronted by a student suggesting that Israel’s religion “openly supports the prosecution of ours”—when handed an opportunity to correct blatant antisemitic conspiracy theory—Vance didn’t challenge it. He agreed with the premise and just said Trump is different. “When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the President of the United States, they’re not controlling this President.”

Notice what he does there. He accepts the framing that Jews control other presidents. He just exempts Trump. He lets the conspiracy theory stand. He gives it legitimacy. Because correcting it might cost him with the constituency he’s courting.

As Erickson says: “That is moral cowardice. It’s a large language model processing what the questioner wants to hear without offending.”

But wait—it gets better.

Because while Heritage staffers were discovering that “NAZIS ARE BAD” and Vance was letting antisemitic conspiracy theories slide unchallenged, the Department of Homeland Security was posting propaganda videos that looked like they were styled by Leni Riefenstahl’s intern.

The video features Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino in a stylized black-and-white still—calf-length black trench coat, star collar pins, slicked crewcut hair, hands clasped beneath the lapels of a double-breasted coat. Set to a gabber-style remix of Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” with the text overlay “WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED,” because apparently someone at DHS thought: you know what this federal law enforcement video needs? The aesthetic of a 1940s Gestapo officer.

The comparisons were immediate and unavoidable. “Nice SS vibe,” wrote one observer. “If not Nazi, why shaped like Nazi?” became a meme. People posted side-by-side comparisons with actual SS officers, and the resemblance was... let’s say remarkable.

Gavin Newsom reposted the video and wrote: “If you think the calls of fascism and authoritarianism are hyperbole pause and watch this video. They aren’t even trying to hide who they are.”

And here’s the thing—they’re not. They’re not trying to hide it. This isn’t dog whistle. This isn’t subtle. This is DHS posting a video of a federal officer styled to look like he stepped out of a Schindler’s List flashback, with text declaring “WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED” while he’s under court order for deploying chemical weapons at a Halloween parade with children in costume.

When asked about the video, DHS said: “He is wearing his Border Patrol uniform.” When asked if the uniform had been designed to resemble an SS-style jacket, they didn’t respond.

Because what are they going to say? “No, the long black trench coat and slicked hair and authoritarian aesthetic and the black-and-white cinematography designed to evoke 1940s propaganda films—that’s all just coincidence”?

This is the same agency that, this same week, engaged with a Nazi-sympathizing influencer known as “Hermes” who has “a track record of posting openly racist, antisemitic, and homophobic online content.” The same agency posting far-right rhetoric like “Which way, American man?” and “Remigrate.”

They’re not hiding who they are. They’re advertising it. They’re recruiting with it. They’re making Nazi aesthetics the brand.

And this is happening while Heritage is defending Tucker’s Nazi interview, while Vance is accommodating antisemitic conspiracy theories, while the Vice President of the United States treats “Jews control the government” as a premise too valuable to challenge because it might cost zoomer votes.

The aesthetic and the ideology are converging. The accommodation and the embrace are happening simultaneously. Kevin Roberts defends Tucker for platforming Fuentes while DHS posts videos that look like SS recruitment material. Vance lets antisemitic conspiracy theories slide while federal agents dress like extras from Triumph of the Will.

This isn’t separate stories. This is the same story. The respectable conservative establishment accommodating Nazi ideology creates space for federal agencies to adopt Nazi aesthetics. The intellectual infrastructure (Heritage, think tanks, policy shops) providing cover for antisemitism enables the operational infrastructure (DHS, Border Patrol, ICE) to embrace the visual language of fascism.

And now Heritage staffers tweet “NAZIS ARE BAD.”

Now they’re shocked—shocked!—to discover that when you accommodate Nazis for tactical advantage, you end up with Nazis in your coalition. When you let antisemitic conspiracy theories pass unchallenged, federal agencies start posting videos styled like SS propaganda.

The irony would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Your boss just defended Tucker Carlson for platforming a Nazi, your federal government is posting Gestapo cosplay, and you’re tweeting about how other people forget that Nazis are bad?

Ted Cruz—Ted Cruz—is calling this out: “Now is a time for choosing. If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very cool and that their mission is to defeat ‘global Jewry,’ and you say nothing, then you are a coward, and you are complicit.”

When Ted Cruz has more moral clarity than your leadership, you should ask yourself some hard questions about how you got here.

But here’s what makes this moment so rich: they were warned. For years, people on the left—and principled conservatives who hadn’t lost their minds—pointed out that the right was cultivating white nationalist movements. That “very fine people on both sides” was a tell. That the Great Replacement Theory was becoming mainstream. That Tucker was mainstreaming fascist talking points. That figures like Fuentes were building infrastructure and influence.

And what did respectable conservatives say? “You’re being hysterical. You’re calling everyone you disagree with a Nazi. You’re practicing cancel culture. The real threat is wokeness. The real problem is pronouns. The real danger is DEI.”

They spent years dismissing warnings as partisan hysteria. They spent years more worried about trans athletes than about actual white nationalists building power in their coalition. They convinced themselves the threat from the left was so existential that they could accommodate anyone—anyone—who opposed it.

And now they’re shocked—shocked!—to discover that when you accommodate Nazis for tactical advantage, you end up with Nazis in your coalition. When you let antisemitism slide for zoomer votes, federal agencies start cosplaying as SS officers.

The call was coming from inside the house. And they were too busy screaming about bathrooms to notice.

Heritage staffers tweeting “NAZIS ARE BAD” think they’re being brave. They think they’re taking a stand. They think this matters.

But they’re still working for the organization whose president just defended Tucker Carlson’s Nazi interview. They’re still taking paychecks from the institution providing intellectual infrastructure for a movement that’s accommodating antisemitism. They’re still there.

If “NAZIS ARE BAD” is your red line, then quit. If you won’t quit, then your tweet is performance. It’s cover. It’s a way to signal disagreement without accepting any cost for that disagreement. It’s courage that requires nothing and changes nothing.

Here’s what actual moral courage looks like: Erick Erickson, a conservative who’s been in the movement for decades, publicly calling out the Vice President and Heritage leadership by name. Not subtweeting. Not hiding behind memes. Saying explicitly: this is moral cowardice, and I won’t be part of it.

That costs something. That burns bridges. That requires being willing to be cast out from spaces you used to occupy.

Meanwhile, the Heritage staffers tweet their memes and cash their checks and tell themselves they’re the good ones. That they’re holding the line from inside. That their subtle subtweets matter.

They don’t.

You know what would matter? Mass resignations. Public letters. Open revolt. Actually doing something that costs you something.

But that would require recognizing that you’re not the resistance inside a captured institution. You’re the moderate face that makes the capture possible. You’re the respectable veneer covering rotting foundations. You’re the people who’ll spend years saying “but we disagreed internally” while providing institutional legitimacy to moral collapse.

The pattern is familiar because we’ve seen it before. Good Germans. Respectable enablers. People who told themselves they were holding the line while the line moved under their feet. People who convinced themselves their subtle resistance mattered while the machine they served ground forward.

“NAZIS ARE BAD.”

Yes. Obviously. The fact that this needs saying—the fact that this is controversial at Heritage Foundation in 2025—tells you everything about where we are.

The fact that federal agencies are posting propaganda videos styled like SS recruitment material tells you where we’re going.

The right spent years dismissing warnings as hysterical. Spent years more worried about pronouns than white nationalists. Spent years building a coalition that accommodated anyone who opposed the left, regardless of what they believed.

And now the bill is due.

Now Kevin Roberts defends Tucker for platforming Nazis, and staffers tweet memes while cashing checks.

Now JD Vance lets antisemitic conspiracy theories slide because correcting them might cost zoomer votes.

Now DHS posts videos of federal officers styled to look like Gestapo commanders.

Now the Vice President of the United States acts as “a large language model processing what the questioner wants to hear” rather than defending basic truth.

Now Erick Erickson—who spent years defending conservative movement from left-wing criticism—is calling his own side cowards.

This is your reckoning. This is what happens when you spend years ignoring the calls coming from inside your house because you were too busy worrying about the imaginary threats outside.

The Nazis were always there. You just weren’t worried about them because they hated the same people you did. Because they voted the same way you did. Because accommodating them helped you win.

Now they’re powerful enough that your leaders defend them. Now they’re influential enough that your Vice President won’t correct them. Now they’re embedded enough that your federal agencies adopt their aesthetics. Now they’re normalized enough that speaking against them requires “courage.”

Welcome to what you built while you were busy worrying about pronouns.

Two plus two equals four. Nazis are bad. And accommodating them for tactical advantage—whether through intellectual cover or aesthetic embrace—makes you complicit, regardless of how many memes you tweet from inside the captured institution whose paychecks you keep cashing.

The warning was given. You dismissed it as hysteria.

Now live with what you chose not to see.

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