Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sparked a heated debate this week when he announced he would push a resolution condemning white supremacist Nick Fuentes onto the Senate floor next week.
Critics of the move warned Schumer that he would be “elevating” the vehement misogynist and anti-Semite, giving him a valuable national boost in name recognition.
Schumer announced the move Thursday, writing, “NEWS: I am leading a resolution in the Senate to reject Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views. Antisemitism and white supremacy have growing and disturbing currency within the right. We all must condemn antisemitism and white supremacy wherever and whenever it occurs.”
Schumer also blasted President Donald Trump for refusing to condemn Fuentes, whom he had dined with in 2023, earlier in the week.
“The President of the United States DECLINED to condemn Nick Fuentes’s hateful views and defended Tucker Carlson’s decision to give Fuentes a platform. Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn Nick Fuentes’s ideology confirms that white supremacy and antisemitism have deep roots within the Republican Party,” Schumer wrote on Thursday.
While many defended Schumer’s resolution as a way to force Senate Republicans to go on the record regarding Fuentes’s long history of open bigotry and calls for violence, critics also accused him of being short-sighted.
Independent journalist Yashar Ali, who has long chronicled the rise of far-right extremism, replied to Schumer:
Absolutely the dumbest thing to do and shows that folks like Schumer — and there are people like him on both sides — know absolutely nothing about this moment and are not equipped to handle it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I am assuming Schumer is doing this for political purposes in the hopes that some Republicans won’t vote for it, and then he can point to them as part of the problem.
But what this does is galvanize Nick and gives him reason to tell his supporters, “See, look what they’re doing to try to silence us,” and it also makes Nick’s supporters believe he is on the right track.
And this will tip people who were on the fence regarding Nick and move them over to his side.
Pro-Trump pundit Shabbos Kestenbaum, another prominent critic of rising anti-Semitism, also took aim at Schumer’s strategy. “Nick Fuentes has a right to free speech. A congressional resolution against an American citizen is a terrible precedent. Chuck Schumer is elevating him by doing this. Chuck: work with Trump instead and deport non American students who engage in violence on our college campuses.”
Below are some more reactions, both in favor and against Schumer’s resolution:
__
The post Schumer Sparks Fierce Debate with Resolution Condemning Nick Fuentes: ‘Elevating Him’ first appeared on Mediaite.
