It is not often that one must restate what should be among the most unambiguous moral principles in civilized life: Adolf Hitler was not right. The Holocaust did happen.
And anyone who grants a microphone to those who deny these truths disgraces both themselves and the nation that allows it.
Yet here we are, in 2025, forced to confront the grotesque spectacle of Tucker Carlson, once a respected voice in American conservatism, now acting as the midwife for one of the most vile hatemongers to emerge from the swamp of online extremism: Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes is not a provocateur. He is not a “contrarian” or a “nationalist commentator.” He is a Holocaust-denying, Hitler-admiring antisemite who has built his brand by mocking the murder of six million Jews, spewing racial slurs, and glamorizing fascism under the paper-thin veneer of political rebellion. He is, in every sense, an enemy of decency.
And Tucker Carlson, who once anchored one of the most-watched news programs in America, has now chosen to become his enabler.
Carlson’s decision to give Fuentes a prominent platform - an uncritical, hourlong interview that allowed the neo-fascist to rant about “organized Jewry” and rail against “Christian Zionists” without meaningful pushback - was not journalism. It was moral malpractice.
As countless media outlets have observed, the conversation was not a probing interrogation of a dangerous mind. It was a credulous performance, in which Carlson nodded along as Fuentes repackaged 1930s antisemitic propaganda for a new generation of the disaffected and ignorant.
Fuentes’ rhetoric - denying the Holocaust, extolling Hitler as “awesome,” and blaming “Zionist Jews” for America’s supposed decline - is not shocking because it is novel. It is shocking because it was broadcast, unfiltered, by a man who once occupied a legitimate seat in the conservative mainstream.
This was not a test of free speech. Free speech allows Nick Fuentes to rant in the dank corners of the internet; it does not oblige anyone with a conscience or a platform to amplify his diseased worldview. Carlson’s choice to host Fuentes is not an act of journalistic courage - it is an act of cowardice cloaked in contrarian theater.
Even more alarming has been the subsequent response from certain corners of the institutional right. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, issued a disgraceful statement defending Carlson while offering only half-hearted disapproval of Fuentes.
“I disagree with-and even abhor-things that Nick Fuentes says,” Roberts said, “but canceling him is not the answer.”
That equivocation is an abdication of moral responsibility. Roberts’ statement reeks of the same spineless moral relativism that has infected too much of modern discourse - the notion that all viewpoints, no matter how evil, deserve “a seat at the table.”
They do not.
There is no “other side” to genocide denial. There is no “conversation” to be had with a man who declares himself “on Team Hitler.”
As The New York Post editorial board aptly noted, “It is a moral issue, not a free-speech issue.” The Heritage Foundation - once a bastion of principled conservatism - should have known better than to flirt with such filth under the guise of intellectual pluralism.
Fuentes and his so-called “Groypers” - his coterie of aggrieved young men radicalized online - are not political actors. They are malcontents masquerading as ideologues, whose entire identity is built around contrarian cruelty and racial resentment.
These are not defenders of Western civilization; they are its desecrators. They romanticize authoritarianism, sneer at democracy, and despise both Jews and Christians who refuse to bow before their deranged, pseudo-religious nationalism.
Carlson’s decision to give these extremists legitimacy is, therefore, doubly dangerous. By treating Fuentes as a figure worthy of engagement, he invites young conservatives - disillusioned, digitally immersed, and often politically naive - to confuse nihilism with courage and bigotry with bravery.
And to what end? Internet clicks? Five million YouTube views? A passing storm of controversy to fuel the algorithm?
Online success is no substitute for moral seriousness - and it is utterly divorced from the concerns of ordinary Americans, who care about making a living, raising their children safely, and living in a nation that still believes in decency.
If Carlson and his ilk believe that normalizing antisemitism or cozying up to neo-Nazis will somehow strengthen the right, they are not only morally bankrupt - they are politically suicidal.
“Israel-bashing and barely concealed antisemitism are the hot thing on the left these days,” The New York Post observed, “guaranteed to win cheers at a Democratic Socialists rally.” But for Republicans - for pro-freedom, pro-America conservatives - this path leads nowhere but oblivion.
Every time someone like Tucker Carlson dignifies the likes of Nick Fuentes, they gift the left a propaganda victory. They alienate Jewish voters, disgust mainstream conservatives, and fracture the moral core of the Republican coalition. They drag the party not toward populism but toward perdition.
The right’s recent electoral successes have come not from pandering to fringe conspiracies but from focusing on the issues that matter: economic freedom, border security, parental rights, and the preservation of individual liberty. Fuentes’ fever dreams and Carlson’s indulgent ramblings have nothing to do with these priorities - and everything to do with self-destruction.
Let us be clear: this is not a partisan issue. It is not a matter of left versus right. It is a question of moral clarity versus cowardice.
To provide a platform to a Holocaust denier is to normalize evil. To excuse such an act in the name of “free debate” is to betray the very principles that make debate possible in a civilized society.
There can be no false equivalence, no rationalization, no lazy appeal to “cancel culture” in this context. This is not about censorship; it is about conscience. A society that cannot draw a moral line against those who glorify Hitler has already begun to erase the very memory of what Hitler destroyed.
The conservative movement, if it wishes to survive as a credible moral force, must excommunicate this poison from its midst. It must make clear - unambiguously and without apology - that Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and anyone who excuses them have no place in respectable discourse.
Institutions such as the Heritage Foundation must choose: Do they wish to be guardians of principle or apologists for hate?
Carlson’s descent into moral obscenity should serve as a warning to every commentator and politician tempted to chase viral fame at the cost of decency. To flirt with fascism, even under the guise of “provocation,” is to betray everything America stands for.
80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the world is once again reminded how fragile memory can be. Holocaust denial and antisemitism persist not because truth has failed, but because too many have stopped defending it.
The right - if it is to have any claim to moral seriousness - must draw its line here, and hold it. It must say, without equivocation, that there will be no room for Hitler apologists, Holocaust deniers, or those who give them a platform.
Carlson’s complicity in mainstreaming Nick Fuentes is not just an affront to history - it is an affront to humanity. The American right, and indeed all Americans who cherish the values of freedom and dignity, must reject it utterly, loudly, and without remorse.
Anything less is complicity. And complicity, history reminds us, is how evil wins.