'Swallow your tongue': Republicans refuse to rebuke far-right influencers for one simple reason

New York Times opinion writer David French says that the Heritage Foundation president's public relations crisis in embracing far-right, neo-Nazi rhetoric highlights a disturbing endorsement of Trump's legacy of cruelty, bigotry, and rage.

"The hatred of the left — and of conservatives who are critical of Donald Trump — is so overwhelming that even the most basic acts of moral hygiene are considered weak or woke, or worse," French writes.

"Even if you are uncomfortable with the words or actions of your fellow Republicans, there is relentless pressure to swallow your tongue. There should be no enemies to your right. The left is the true existential threat to the United States," he adds.

Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, which is spearheading Project 2025's attempts to reshape the federal government by consolidating executive power, dismantling certain federal agencies, and recruiting and vetting politically aligned individuals to fill government positions in a future Republican administration, "must be confused," French writes.

"Last month, he turned to the most reliable move in the Republican crisis-management playbook, and it didn’t work. On Oct. 30, three days after his friend Tucker Carlson released a softball interview with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and perhaps the most notorious fan of Adolf Hitler in American public life, Roberts posted a video online that decried cancel culture," French explains.

Roberts' defense of Carlson, who has faced significant accusations of antisemitism from various Jewish groups, politicians, and media commentators stemming from specific comments he has made and, more recently, his decision to interview and platform Fuentes, "tore the Heritage Foundation apart," French writes.

President Donald Trump, French says, also contributed to this split.

"Trump’s rise not only eviscerated the idea that there should be any kind of character test for participation in Republican politics, it also resulted in an aggressive, vicious purge from the party and the movement of anyone who attempted to hold Trump accountable for depravity and lawlessness," he notes.

"Some of us have even been told that we’ve abandoned our Christian faith for opposing Trump," French adds.

Some conservatives, French says, have found a way around things.

"Many of the conservatives who remained didn’t want to abandon the president, but they also didn’t want to completely abandon decency, either," he explains. "So they chose a third way. Trump receives special dispensation (witness the much more muted response to Trump’s dinner with Fuentes, especially among Republican lawmakers), but standards still apply to everyone else. Other Republicans have to toe the line."

French notes that the most consequential example of Republicans refusing to hold Trump accountable was in his second impeachment conviction vote in 2021, and most recently in "the Trump administration’s about-face on releasing the Epstein files."

French says this strategy is ill-fated: "But this approach suffers from a fatal flaw. A movement, especially one that verges on an outright cult of personality, is defined by its leader, not by its rank and file. And when the leader is lawless and depraved, then efforts to contain his influence while preserving his power are doomed to fail."

The proof of this, he writes, is everywhere.

"Throughout the Trump era, many of the most prominent voices of right-wing America have only become shriller, angrier and, yes, more racist and more antisemitic. The right-wing media universe is culturally different in 2015 than it was in 2025 — substantially so," French says.

"The balance of power has flipped upside down. The fringe has become mainstream, and the mainstream has become fringe," he explains.

Some conservatives, he notes, may be waking up, especially as Trump's presidency comes to an end. However, French says, it may not be enough.

"I’m rather afraid that they’re too late. One sign that might be the case is that virtually every person who’s raised a voice against Carlson has a far smaller audience than he does. Since Carlson posted his interview with Fuentes less than two weeks ago on X, it has racked up almost 18 million views. On YouTube it has 5.6 million views," he writes.

French also notes that while some conservatives won't defend Carlson or Fuentes, they will, however, attack those who condemn them.

Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, for example, went after far-right influencer Ben Shapiro after he condemned Carlson and Fuentes.

"We can’t condemn good old Tucker for elevating an actual fan of Hitler in front of many millions of people because that will distract from taking on the real enemy, Jake Tapper," French notes.

French points to the excommunication of former Republicans and vocal Trump critics Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney as examples of this as well.

"The Republican rank and file have also been conditioned to dismiss moral arguments against MAGA as sanctimonious and complaints about Republican racism and antisemitism as inherently leftist. Hearts are hardened, ears shut," he writes.

Meanwhile, French writes, "Carlson and Fuentes and their constellation of friends and allies are far too popular to cancel or even to contain," right now.

"Until the demand for decency reaches toward the very top of the movement, then Trump’s malignant influence will continue to metastasize, and he’ll hand the baton to a woman or a man (including, possibly, Carlson himself) who extends Trump’s legacy of cruelty, bigotry and rage," French says.