Nick Fuentes & Free Speech: The Debate Over Platforming Radicalism

Opinion from the Center

If you’ve been following the news lately, you’ve most likely read about Nick Fuentes or heard one of his recent interviews.

Fuentes broke the internet this fall, rising to notoriety amidst controversies related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the conservative civil war, in which Fuentes is arguably the spearhead of the insurgency.

There is ongoing debate surrounding whether Fuentes - a self-proclaimed racist - should be platformed by louder voices; prominent conservative pundits such as Tucker Carlson, Steven Crowder, and Patrick Bet-David have all hosted him on their shows recently.

While Fuentes carries an often dangerous message, it is also true that commentators and organizations who have demanded Fuentes be silenced or canceled are contributing to the erosion of free speech culture in America.

The Conservative Civil War

The debate over Fuentes picked up strongly after he appeared on the podcast of another conservative maverick, Tucker Carlson (Right bias). Fuentes, who often uses flippant rhetoric which has led the media to label him a white supremacist, is not only another proposed savior for disenfranchised white men, but also a critical danger for the mainstream conservative movement.

Fuentes has appealed to an increasingly disillusioned group of Americans - those who are middle class, who dislike increasingly diverse demographics, and those who are highly critical of Israel.

Ben Shapiro (Right bias) has been scrutinized in past weeks for allegedly calling for Tucker Carlson’s cancellation over interviewing Nick Fuentes. Critics of Shapiro claim hypocrisy, as Shapiro was a free speech warrior up until the anti-Israel Fuentes began gaining a platform.

Liberals came to Shapiro’s defense, however, claiming that he did not call for Carlson’s cancellation, but rather for Carlson to have raised greater scrutiny against Fuentes and his beliefs during his interview.

Shapiro claimed in an interview that Fuentes’ absurd views shouldn’t be treated with normalcy, therefore they shouldn’t be engaged with. He says he isn’t cancelling Fuentes, but rather Fuentes is simply “not worthy of response.” Yet Fuentes has been ignored and ostracized for years, and this has not seemed to have the dwindling effect on Fuentes’ influence that Shapiro might have expected.

When Shapiro says Fuentes is not worthy of a response, he may be right, but he is also allowing Fuentes’ views to fester and metastasize without proper rebuttal. Merely ignoring him won’t be enough.

Amidst this war, Shapiro has been associated with neoconservatives for insisting on further US support for Israel, and has been losing support within the conservative movement since Fuentes’ rise to prominence.

Cancel Culture is Back

Free speech has in fact been threatened in the name of preventing Fuentes’ rise to popularity - most notably when conservative columnist, Josh Hammer, wrote in an op-ed that people like Fuentes and Tucker should be “neutralized.” Hammer exclaimed in an article for the Daily Mail referring to Carlson, “The fox is now comfortably ensconced in the hen house, and unless the fox is neutralized, the victim could be the entire extant GOP coalition itself.”

The internet blew up on Hammer for these remarks, and Hammer quickly responded with a post on X saying, “One has to be truly stupid or willfully disingenuous (or both, as the case may be) to think that “neutralized” here means anything other than its most common usages,” in which he posted its definition which reads “to make ineffective; counteract; nullify.”

Hammer’s argument is well taken, but in a time of unprecedented political violence, the words thought leaders use online can be interpreted maliciously and must be carefully chosen.

For example, when Joe Biden said during the 2024 presidential run that we needed to put Trump in the “bullseye,” conservatives were quick to claim it as an incitation of political violence.

Conservatives such as Jesse Watters have said Trump’s numerous assassination attempts are a result of adversaries making comments akin to that of ‘ending,’ ‘destroying,’ or ‘neutralizing’ Trump. We cannot pretend that it is outside the realm of possibility that a psychotic or unwell activist might take Josh Hammer’s comment as authorizing political violence against Carlson or Fuentes.

Slander or remarks like these can produce a violent outcome, whether it is name calling someone a Nazi or fascist or directly calling for their neutralization. Crazed individuals may lash out, much like Tyler Robinson, who was willing to kill Charlie Kirk merely because he “had enough of his hatred” — a motivation that likely developed through what Robinson heard and on the internet.

Hammer has not called for legal reprimanding of Carlson or Fuentes, but he has set a precedent for other commentators when they try to voice their opinion: they may have op-eds written about them calling for their “neutralization,” which may squelch others from speaking freely out of fear of being labeled a target. This is not behavior in line with a culture of free speech; and if it was, Hammer would have merely scrutinized Carlson’s demeanor and left it at that.

Hammer is in effect calling to cancel Carlson, and has seemingly stoked the flames of the conservative civil war.

Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, also underwent major scrutiny when he initially defended Carlson for hosting Fuentes. After exclaiming that Christians must defend US interests over those of foreign nations or entities, Roberts asserted that the “venomous coalition attacking him [Carlson] are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail. Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking friends on the right.” Roberts went on to say canceling Nick Fuentes was not the answer, either.

Roberts apologized quickly after being bashed by critics and likely, donors. Morton Klein, President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) said at the Republican Jewish Coalition Summit that Roberts “must retract, apologize, and condemn Tucker; you [Roberts] must end relations with Tucker or you must resign yourself.”

Even in free speech societies, there are consequences to free speech — yet, when pundits and officials in power use their influence to disrupt careers or forcefully end friendships, this is definitionally ‘cancel culture’ and can be seen as hypocritical among those who most often defend our free speech society.

RELATED: AllStances: Perspectives on Cancel Culture

Should We Platform Hatred?

While we must defend free speech and the public square of ideas, political violence incited by commentators like Fuentes must not be tolerated. Even free speech absolutists believe violence is not acceptable in a free speech culture. Fuentes has called for the death penalty for those who suppress “the name of Christ” and act within the “occult element at the high levels of society, and specifically among the Jews.”

Contestants on a Jubilee episode debated whether hatred should be platformed. This was a common reason cited by Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro as to why they wouldn’t debate Nick Fuentes: The fear is that platforming Fuentes would make his ideas more morally adoptable by the mainstream.

Yet pretending to ignore these ideas might be even worse.

The fault is in the hands of those who will not dare to debate Fuentes. Fuentes has nevertheless managed to squeeze his way into the public discourse, which means it is time for Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, Josh Hammer, and other mainstream conservative commentators to lay into Fuentes one-on-one to prove his ideas wrong.

Fuentes has been lying in wait for years, being called the most cancelled man in America. Now that his movement is here, Fuentes will not lie down unless conservatives stamp out his arguments face-to-face.

Instead of ignoring or canceling Fuentes and Tucker, advocates for the opposition must rise up and challenge them. Piers Morgan did exactly this, having Fuentes on his show this Monday, relentlessly ripping at him for two hours. Both Fuentes and Morgan got a few zingers on one another, but it seemed this was the first time an interviewer made Fuentes sweat.

Like Morgan, political pundits must use free speech to their advantage to combat political operatives, not sacrifice free speech for political preferences.

Without this, Fuentes will continue to radicalize the conservative movement, pulling it closer and closer to authoritarianism, xenophobia, and ethnocentrism.

Moderate or center-right conservatives don’t agree with Fuentes’ comments about black and Jewish people, however they may agree with his general ideas surrounding the economy, immigration, and foreign policy, which appeal to middle class conservative Americans. 

If mainstream conservatives used their free speech to rebuke Fuentes’ more abhorrent rhetoric and embrace ideas that the majority of Americans support, the conservative movement may be salvageable before Fuentes leads it down a path of no return.

Gabriel James is a content intern for AllSides. He has a Center bias.

Reviewed by Julie Mastrine (Lean Right bias), Evan Wagner (Lean Left bias), and Editor-in-chief Henry A. Brechter (Center bias).