Rapper Kanye West has announced his presidential run in the 2024 elections, and he wants to onboard former President Donald Trump in his presidential bid. West tweeted about his meeting with Trump at Mar-a-lago in Florida, where he asked him to be his running mate.
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West was also joined by Nick Fuentes, a notorious alt-right, white supremacist political commentator and live streamer. Ahead of their meetup at Trump’s Florida residence, they were spotted together at Miami airport.
Who is Nick Fuentes?
Fuentes first gained widespread attention after he left Boston University, claiming he was receiving threats after attending the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlotteville, Virginia.
Fuentes rose as a crucial alt-right commentator after this incident, as he cemented his identity as an American nationalist and a Christian conservative. In 2017, he started hosting his own Livestream show America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, which has gained a mass following, so much so that Fuentes refers to them as “Groypers” or the “Groyper Army.”
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Fuentes uses his platform to further conservative and supremacist ideology as well as several conspiracy theories. He is a proponent of “White Genocide.” He once tweeted “our civilization is being dismantled, our people are being genocided, and conservatives can’t think past what will play well with liberal media in the next election.”
In recent years, Fuentes has distanced himself from the mainstream GOP ideology, leading a crowd to chant “destroy the GOP” in a pro-Trump rally in December of 2020 at Washington. He founded the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in 2020, in order to counterbalance the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that takes place at the same time. AFPAC hosted several right-wing political commentators in 2021, including Michelle Malkin and Steve King. The reason for dissociating himself from the GOP, as he states, is because, “the new Republican Party is the party of climate change, universal health care, and black lives matter.”
Fuentes was one of the organizer and speakers at the Stop the Steal rally, which culminated to the January 6 Capitol riots, post which his DLive account received a permanent suspension for “inciting violent and illegal activities”.
