Opinion: Why Nick Fuentes is popular with Gen Z: A warning
Opinion | By Easton Martin | March 17, 2026
Which demographic is most susceptible to some of today’s most powerful anti-Jewish voices? That seems to have a patently obvious answer: Gen Z.
As a member of Gen Z who remains unconvinced by much of what people like Nick Fuentes say, I find it an uncomfortable fact that many teenagers and young adults find the rhetoric of people like Fuentes to be reasonable.
The core of the problem involves Gen Z falling in love with the messaging of figures like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. This specific rhetoric reverberates with teenagers and young adults in a way that the establishment simply fails to grasp. Unfortunately, many people fail to understand why figures like Fuentes make sense to Gen Z.
Most voices in the media claim this luring towards his rhetoric happens because these young men are just incels looking for something to give them power and purpose. That way of thinking ignores the actual mechanics of the situation. These figures are successful because they are seen as funny and relatable to a generation that cannot relate to the Zionism and pro-Israel policy of the baby boomers. Gen Z men in particular find the Fuentes brand of commentary relatable. They see a connection to someone who is fed up with the status quo.
But how do figures like Fuentes and Tucker find an audience among them? They use that connection to stoke a deep suspicion and a bias that is easily instilled in a young audience. The messaging broadcast by this movement suggests that Jews are greedy by nature and cannot be trusted because they run the banks, the media, and the porn industry.
Regarding Jews, these young people see a group of individuals who represent the epitome of being opposed to Christ. They look at scripture and see that powerful Jews like the Sanhedrin participated in bringing the charges against Jesus that led to his crucifixion. This perspective requires them to ignore the fact that the early followers of the Gospel were Jewish and that Jesus himself was also Jewish.
What you have then is a group that is easily influenced, motivated by humor, and suspicious of the status quo. The conservative movement needs to do more than scream about “God’s chosen people” or handwave and say “Israel is our greatest ally!” These are unpersuasive talking points to a generation that has grown weary of what they see as America having an “Israel first” foreign policy.
Perhaps politicians and conservative thinkers hate to hear it, but the only thing that will be persuasive to this group is the facts. I do not think trying to argue for dispensational eschatology is going to move the needle. As much as many people refuse to admit it, we have to engage with the talking points of Fuentes. He cannot be simply labeled as an internet loser anymore. Conservatives who find an issue with his thinking are now at the point where writing him or his talking points off will not do.
The fact of the matter is that many people, not just teenagers and young adults, are starting to feel that our politicians are selling out this country to third-worlders whose value system is entirely antithetical to the collective consciousness of the Western world. Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson are by no means the only people recognizing it, but they are certainly some of the loudest. If Fuentes is right on this, what else is he right on, they must think? It is all too easy of a pipeline from acknowledging this fact to getting sucked into Holocaust denial, grand Jewish conspiracies, and Aryan pseudohistory.
