In a now deleted X post, Republican state Rep. Jennifer Gross shared a video on June 28 featuring Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, known for his antisemitic views and admiration of Adolf Hitler, and claiming undocumented immigrants are hurting the U.S. 

The video comes from an X account called “socksgrypr,” and was originally posted on May 25. It features a segment from one of Fuentes’s livestreams. In it, he claims “the border crisis is literally killing our country,” adding that illegal immigrants from Latin America are “bankrupting our country, they’re killing the people in our country, they’re taking up space in the public spaces of our most important cities. It’s an invasion.” 

Gross of West Chester shared the video on her X account, writing in her June 28 post that it was “spot on.” 

(Studies have refuted ties between higher crime rates and undocumented immigrants, in part citing the possibility of deportation. Stanford University academic Ran Abramitzky found that since 1960, immigrants are “60% less likely to be incarcerated (30% relative to US-born whites).” Immigrants are also subject to restrictions on help from federal agencies. According to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,“unqualified,” immigrants are ineligible for federal public benefits like Medicaid and Section 8, while “qualified,” immigrants must wait five years, with exceptions for refugees and asylum seekers.) 

Contacted by phone, email, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, Gross did not respond to requests for comment from the Capital Journal.

Fuentes’s comments are closely associated with the “Great Replacement Theory,” a conspiracy theory that has been linked to multiple mass shootings in the past five years. 

“One of the most prominent white supremacist conspiracy theories today,” said Morgan Moon, an investigative researcher with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. Replacement theory is “this belief that native white Europeans are being replaced in their own countries by non-white immigrants, with the end result being the extinction of the white race.” It often relies on antisemitic tropes, claiming a “shadowy cabal” of Jews are orchestrating this replacement. 

How have lawmakers reacted?

State Rep. Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, denounced Gross’s actions in a Facebook post June 30, writing “Nick Fuentes is an avowed white nationalist and Nazi who recently called for a ‘holy war’ against Jews,” and that Gross’s decision to share his message “is disgusting and abhorrent and must be condemned.”

House Minority Leader Allison Russo responded the same day, writing “Casually scrolling through this app this morning to find an #Ohio state legislator proudly promoting the views of an avowed white nationalist and neo-Nazi,” on X in reference to Rep. Gross’s tweet. “I’d be shocked, but it’s very on-brand for the extremism in our state legislature. Gross.”

Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens did not respond to requests for comment from the Capital Journal when contacted by email, phone, LinkedIn, and Facebook. 

Landon Meador, a 23-year-old Democratic candidate running against Gross in District 45 uploaded a video on TikTok discussing the incident. “She doesn’t care about you or me, she cares about profits, and she is MAGA-tized, to the further extreme our country has to offer,” Meador said in the video. “A literal Neo-Nazi, white supremacist.” 

Who is Nick Fuentes? 

Described as a “white nationalist livestreamer” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Fuentes hosts the “America First” program that  is livestreamed to his followers, who refer to themselves as “Groypers.” That nickname is derived from the “groyper” meme popular on far-right message boards, itself a variation of the “Pepe the Frog” iconography frequently used by the alt-right. 

Fuentes and his supporters first gained prominence in 2019 for disrupting Turning Point USA’s conference, criticizing the group’s founder Charlie Kirk for his support of Israel, and using the event to spread antisemiticconspiracy theories.

Fuentes “was once a strong supporter of Donald Trump, particularly Donald Trump’s America First agenda,” Moon said. “As the show continued, and as he got influence, he became more and more angry and disenfranchised with the Republican Party as it is today. He believes that even individuals like Donald Trump weren’t necessarily doing enough to deal with demographic and cultural changes that he believes were affecting the white population here in the United States.” 

According to Moon, TPUSA represented for Fuentes and his followers the “mainstream GOP,” which wasn’t doing enough to preserve the white majority of America. 

Fuentes participated in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, writing on Facebook that  “a tidal wave of white identity is coming.” He  also promoted conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election being stolen. Fuentes participated in numerous “Stop the Steal,” rallies, and threatened violence against state legislators who didn’t assist in overturning election results. 

“What can you or I do to a state legislator, besides kill them?” Fuentes said in a livestream from Jan. 4,2021, adding, “I am not advising that, but I mean, what else can you do, right?”

During the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to reporting from The New Yorker, Fuentes spoke to his followers, saying “It is usand our ancestors that created everything good that you see in this country,” and “all these people that have taken over our country — we do not need them.”

Fuentes has called for “perfidious Jews” along with atheists and “devil worshipers,” to be executed, in a livestream from Dec. 8 last year, described Adolf Hitler as “really f**king cool,” and called for a dictatorship, saying, “We need to take control of the media, take control of the government, and force the people to believe what we believe.” 

“Their ultimate goal is to preserve what they view as the white European American identity of the United States,” explained Moon. “They want to close the U.S border. They oppose liberal values like feminism, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights.”

What ties does he have to elected officials?

Despite his extremist views, Fuentes has managed to cultivate relationships with elected officials and political operatives. 

Since 2020, he has held the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), with speakers over the years including U.S. Reps.  Paul Gosar of Arizona and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, all Republicans. 

On Nov. 22, 2022, former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dined with Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago, with Fuentes attending a dinner between Trump and Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. 

“In the last several years we’ve seen Fuentes being embraced by a variety of mainstream figures,” Moon said. “This mainstream embrace really represents this historical shift in the white supremacist movement, promoting, among other things, widespread media coverage of Fuentes’s activity and the groyper movement.” 

While Fuentes has managed to establish connections with lawmakers, many have distanced themselves from him. 

Speaking to Fox News, Trump said he had “never heard of,” Fuentes, and his views wouldn’t have been accepted if they were expressed at Mar-a-Lago. 

Similarly,  Greene condemned Fuentes, saying she was “worried about kids that would follow him,” and Gosar sought to distance himself as well, saying “Nick’s got a problem with his mouth.”

Reporting from Talking Points Memo on May 13 of last year found that Gosar’s digital director Wade Searle was an avid follower of Fuentes. 

“I think Fuentes, the role of the Groyper movement, is a really interesting case study of how these extremist groups, and how these white supremacists, are able to infiltrate mainstream society, to get their beliefs across to a wider audience,” Moon said. 

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This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.