After years of our political obsession, culture wars, and a never-ending election cycle, it’s tempting to look away from the latest warning signs. But don’t. This stuff with Kanye is a big deal. Why? Because people agree with him and his hate loosens up the restrictions on theirs. You’re sick of Trump. Rightfully so. But don’t look away from that meeting with Nick Fuentes. It’s a big deal that adds more fuel to a movement that is already an inferno burning across America. And the realtime radicalization of Elon Musk is a big deal, too. Don’t cower in the face of his anti-woke hogwash. Pay attention. If the man who has benefited more from the status quo than anyone on Earth, who has made his fortune on the credit card swipes of the very political group he now attacks, can be radicalized into believing he is a victim of a broad conspiracy against people like him, anyone can believe it.

The threat of white supremacy movements did not disappear with the 2022 election. Kathleen Belew, history professor and author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America talks about what the Fuentes dinner and other recent events mean to the (getting less) fringe movement. And in The Atlantic, Tom Nichols explains that The Authoritarian Right Is Regrouping. “Over the past week, the global right has shown signs of trying to regroup after taking a hiding everywhere from the ballot box to the battlefield. Some of it seems little more than disorganized thrashing about, such as Jair Bolsonaro’s election challenge in Brazil and Kari Lake’s refusal to concede in Arizona. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is trying out a bolder version of his 2016 and 2020 race-baiting strategies by hosting a dinner for an anti-Semite and a racist—a pathetic and vulgar event that in a better political environment would be treated as yet another disqualification for participation in our public life.” This isn’t just political posturing. The FBI has consistently said that White supremacists ‘pose the primary threat’ of lethal domestic terrorism.

The recent acts of public antisemitism and antidemocratic leanings are examples of how this stuff spreads and movements go from the edges to the mainstream. For a great review, watch Ken Burns latest series, America and the Holocaust. Parts of it will feel remarkably familiar. And here’s a take from Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article): Antisemitism’s March Into the Mainstream. “For most of my adult life, antisemites — with exceptions like Pat Buchanan and Mel Gibson — have lacked status in America. The most virulent antisemites tended to hate Jews from below, blaming them for their own failures and disappointments. Now, however, anti-Jewish bigotry, or at least tacit approval of anti-Jewish bigotry, is coming from people with serious power: the leader of a major political party, a famous pop star, and the world’s richest man.”