FML. Here Come the Nick Fuentes Clones.

Plus: A Florida gubernatorial candidate’s luxury watch drama.

John Doyle. (Screenshot via TheBlaze.com)

Can Right-Wing Media Concoct a New Nick Fuentes?

NICK FUENTES’S EFFORTS to co-opt the MAGA movement continue to roil right-wing media, with Donald Trump Jr. becoming the latest right-wing figure to go soft when asked about the infamous white nationalist podcaster. Given Fuentes’s popularity, it was probably only a matter of time before an outlet asked itself: Rather than tying ourselves into knots about this, what if we instead just got our own Nick Fuentes?

That’s the logic at the Blaze, the right-wing media outlet founded by Glenn Beck, which has increasingly tilted towards groyperism in its programming. And given the momentum racist and antisemitic figures like Fuentes have in right-wing media right now, I don’t think this will be the last time we will see established conservative publications trying to synthesize their own Fuentes clones. If you can’t beat ’em, recreate ’em.

Beck himself all but retired from the Blaze in October, announcing that he will be devoting himself instead to building an AI version of George Washington to offer guided tours of a digital library containing copies of the contents of several “tornado-proof” historical archives Beck has had constructed across the country. The archives’ purpose, among other things, is to prove that some Native American tribes were “bloodthirsty and slave owners.” Beck’s AI Washington will set America’s families straight on that and show that most of “what you were taught in school was . . . a half-truth, or most likely an out-and-out lie.”

And yet, somehow, the Blaze has gotten nuttier without Beck. Last month, it all but accused a former Capitol Police officer of being the January 6th pipe bomber, with the argument resting on a novel investigative method called “gait analysis.” That story looks even worse now: CBS News reported last week that the officer has video evidence proving her innocence and that the FBI has ruled her out as a suspect. But the Blaze wasn’t done there. The site paid far-right commentator Matt Forney—author of sex tourist guide Do the Philippines—to write about H-1B visas, only to can him two days later over his tweets (the Blaze countered that he’d been only a freelancer). It also launched a talk show featuring anti-DEI activist Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman (alias: “Lomez”), the publisher of Passage Press, which specializes in pre-World War II fascist literature.

But the most interesting figure in the newly groyperfied Blaze has to be John Doyle, a former Fuentes acolyte who has been reinvented by the site as a slightly more palatable take on the groyper king. Last month, the Blaze launched “The John Doyle Show,” wherein Doyle holds forth on important issues, like how Thanksgiving is a “Holiday of Christ and Conquest,” while sitting in front of a statuette of Donald Trump as Buddha.

If you squint, you might think the Blaze had hired Fuentes himself. Doyle is a self-described “white nationalist” who wears a tie, and he has little Fuentes-like quips. Talking about early American colonists shooting off guns on his most recent show, Doyle said, “God forbid white boys get a little goofy.”

All of this has been a bit baffling for the Blaze’s traditional audience.

“What the hell is happening at The Blaze?” conservative pundit Dave Reaboi posted on X after Doyle’s show launched.

But if the Blaze was hoping Doyle would capture some of the Fuentes’s fans, they’ll be sorely disappointed. That’s because, although they appeared alongside each other at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Michigan in November 2020, Doyle and Fuentes are archenemies.

In Fuentes’s telling, the pair had a falling out after Doyle refused to have him on his YouTube show out of fear of getting banned himself. Fuentes has called Doyle “Dorkle,” while groypers have also mocked Doyle for his comparatively milquetoast YouTube show, “Heck Off, Commie.”

“Doyle had an opportunity years ago to be like me,” Fuentes said in 2023. “Instead, he decided to cuck out. And now look where he’s at.”

So far, Doyle’s videos with the Blaze have failed to crack 50,000 views, with most of them at half of that.

Still, the Blaze is going all in on Doyle’s image as a sort of upmarket Fuentes. Witness the intro to his show. First, there is a luxury Omega watch on Doyle’s wrist. Then, an aide hands Doyle a piece of paper to review. Then, a faceless female assistant leans in to light his cigarette for him, before kissing him on the cheek.

The intro closes as Doyle drafts a tweet: “Democrats are gay. I just really don’t like Democrats.”

Nice guy!

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Fishback Debt Woes

IT’S BEEN A MIXED WEEK for James Fishback, the fake-it-till-you-make-it “investor” now running as a Republican in the Florida gubernatorial primary.

On one hand, Fishback has been endorsed by a member of the state’s board of education. And bettors on the political prediction site Kalshi currently give him a 15 percent chance of winning the nomination against Trump-backed Rep. Byron Donalds. On the other hand, Fishback’s former hedge fund employer is on the verge of seizing everything he owns.

I wrote about Fishback’s legal antics last month. But I had to check in again, because even as Fishback attempts to pose as a sort of powerful business tycoon turned politician, he still owes his former hedge fund employer a whopping $228,988.71—money he said in a recent deposition that he has no way of paying.

Fishback’s attempts to satisfy this loan have produced some more comedy. First, the court ordered his Tesla Model Y seized, then his ex-employer, Greenlight Capital, bought it at auction for $20,000. Then, on November 25, the hedge fund complained in a court filing that Fishback has been spending lavishly on luxury items to the tune of more than $26,000 at stores like Brunello Cucinelli, Louis Vuitton, and Burberry despite owing a hefty bill to said hedge fund.

“Fishback has continued to live extravagantly and has failed to make any payments to satisfy the judgment,” the hedge fund wrote in its filing.

Much of the court’s attention has focused on Fishback’s pricey wristwear. In June, according to credit card records revealed in legal filings, Fishback spent more than $7,400 at a luxury watch store in Virginia that sells Cartier watches. When he wore a Cartier watch to a deposition in the case two months later, lawyers asked if the timepiece was an asset he could liquidate to pay off the judgment. Fishback had a rather unbelievable explanation.

“Fishback wore a Cartier watch,” the hedge fund’s filing reads. “When asked whether he owned the Cartier watch, Fishback testified under oath that he does not own any jewelry. . . . When confronted about the fact that he was indeed wearing jewelry, specifically the Cartier watch, he stated that it belongs to his friend.”

In a transcript of the deposition, Fishback insisted that he and his friend just swap luxury items all the time—as one does.

“He has my Prada shoes right now,” Fishback said.