Guess who's coming to dinner?

Republicans ignoring extremists in their ranks have lessons for Democrats, too.

I can’t stop laughing. Tucker Carlson hosted white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his wildly popular internet show and conservatives are SHOCKED, I tell you, SHOCKED. Then the president of the Heritage Foundation came out with a video chastising conservatives for criticizing Carlson for platforming a guy that Ted Cruz called “a little Nazi.”

They all act like Tucker’s and the Heritage Foundation’s embrace of antisemitism and white nationalism came out of nowhere. Remember, before Tucker had Fuentes on his show, Donald Trump hosted him for dinner at Mar-a-Lago back in 2022. Trump also hosted the entertainer formerly known as Kanye West when he was in the midst of spewing antisemitic rot and praising Hitler and the Nazis. No red flags there.

Tucker, for his part, hosted a guy who says that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II and the Nazis’ Final Solution just got a little out of hand. On his Youtube channel, Carlson introduces conspiracy theorist Darryl Cooper as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” Who could have seen all this coming?

Since the Civil Rights Movement, mainstream conservatives have ignored the dogwhistles coming from the right. As the GOP developed into a virtually all-white party in an increasingly diverse world, they pretended that lower taxes, less government and Christian values were the draw. As long as people voted reliably Republican, anybody was welcome into the coalition, no questions asked.

Now, they’re like, “Tucker changed!” “That’s not my Heritage Foundation!” In fact, Tucker Carlson is the same guy and the Heritage Foundation has followed the natural evolution of its roots to maturity. They’ve just traded the dogwhistles for bullhorns as the bigots, antisemites, and homophobes have moved from the back of the bus to the driver’s seat.

To hear conservatives tell it, this toxic populist ideology grew up outside of the GOP circle. They’re consoling themselves with the fact that Tucker and Trump currently have a “frosty relationship” and Fuentes campaigned against the president. But they still need Tucker and his legion of followers. He’s on the TPUSA tour in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. He’s not going anywhere and conservatives aren’t, either. They’re stuck with each other.

The dirty little secret is that if the GOP exorcized the bigots from the party, they would be so deep in the minority they couldn’t elect a dogcatcher. Conservatives just held their noses as paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers became prominent parts of MAGA and they weren’t willing to either leave the party or make a stand strong enough to get rid of them. They spent fifty years denying the type of people who stormed the Capitol were in their midst and they’ve spent the last five years defending them.

In all of this rancor on the right, there are lessons for Democrats. The left has its own problems with antisemitism and extremism that alienates much of mainstream America. An example is playing out in the Maine U.S. Senate primary right now.

Graham Platner, a first-time candidate, started off with a bang, securing the endorsement of Bernie Sanders and saying a lot of things that appeal to the Democratic base, especially younger voters. It turns out, though, that he has long history of posting some pretty nasty stuff online, and not just when he was a kid. He also has a tattoo of a Nazi Death’s Head on his chest.

Platner’s defenders argue that in today’s world, we can’t hold everybody accountable for what they may have written online years ago. Too many people rip off posts without thinking too much about them. They have a point, but Platner has a long list of those type of posts and some were written in the past five years, when he was in his thirties, not teens or early twenties.

His defense of the tattoo is also a weak. He says he got when he was in the service twenty years ago and didn’t realize it was modeled after a Nazi symbol. Maybe, but he should have realized it before he decided to run for U.S. Senate.

I’m all for new blood in the Democratic Party and I’m less concerned about positions that may be to my left, but I find it unfortunate that the primary for U.S. Senate in Maine is between a 77-year-old governor with middling approval ratings and a guy with a Nazi tattoo. I don’t think the party should get in the habit of excusing extremism in a state that is as moderate as Maine. That said, at least Platner has owned and apologized for his posts instead of denying he wrote them.

Trump’s approval ratings are at an all-time low now and Democrats have an opportunity, but they need to appeal to a broader section of the electorate. According to a Washington Post poll, 68% of Americans say the Democratic Party is “out of touch” while only 61% say the same about Republicans. I suspect much that disconnect is a hangover from the cultural issues that played so prominently in last year’s election.

Democrats need to discuss problems that affect a broad number of people, not those affecting a narrow group. They should talk about what matters in people’s day-to-day lives. They don’t need to necessarily moderate their positions, but they need to let voters know they hear their concerns. Zohran Mamdani is going to be elected mayor of New York City because he talked about the price of housing and groceries and crime, not because he’s a Democratic Socialist.

That said, I don’t really understand the embrace of the socialist label. It alienates most voters who came of age during the Cold War and there are still a whole lot of those. If it works in New York, fine, but it’s not going to play in places like North Carolina. People my age don’t associate socialism with an expanded safety net. They associate it with higher taxes and less economic freedom. And we vote at a much higher rate than the people who might entertain DSA as part of the coalition. Embracing the label is a great way for Democrats to stay a minority party in states that lean right.

For fifty years, Republicans ignored the bigotry in their midst, treating it with a wink and a nod and believing they could keep it under control. Now it’s taken over the party. It’s fun to watch the two sides of the GOP civil war rationalize and shoot zingers at each other on social media, but it’s also a cautionary tale. Democrats should be wary of extremists in their midst. Be accepting of new ideas and new political talent. Don’t waver on matters of morality and principle. Otherwise, we can’t laugh hard enough at the party that nominates Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow.