It can be hard to make sense of James Fishback. The longshot Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate is the son of an immigrant and fiercely nativist, a self-proclaimed finance success story turned economic populist, and both pro-Trump and running against President Donald Trump\u2019s chosen candidate. He\u2019s also openly racist and antisemitic.<\/p>\n
But one thing is for sure: He\u2019s getting a lot of attention.<\/p>\n
Fishback is \u201csomeone who I think typically couldn\u2019t be elected for dog catcher. But he\u2019s kind of catching on,\u201d Will Sommer<\/a>, a senior reporter at the Bulwark, told Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram recently. \u201cHe\u2019s gaining in the polls, and while he still probably won\u2019t win, I think he\u2019s offering us a face of one potential future for the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n Sommer spoke with Sean about Fishback\u2019s history, the movement he represents, and what could be next for him in Republican politics. Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There\u2019s much more in the full episode, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Pandora<\/a>, and Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n Where did this dude come from?<\/p>\n Just about nowhere. He was in finance. He was, apparently, according to court documents, a pretty low-level employee at a hedge fund. And then, he styled himself as this real hedge-fund expert.<\/p>\n They claim he made up his title, and that kind of became a meme in the finance community, because it was just so ridiculous. But through that, he managed to get on Fox Business a lot and leverage that into appearing that he\u2019s this expert financier type.<\/p>\n And to further complicate the shape-shifting identity of this white supremacist candidate: He\u2019s not\u2026 super\u2026 white.<\/p>\n This is one of the fascinating things about him. He\u2019s extremely racist to Byron Donalds, the congressman who\u2019s been endorsed by Trump, who\u2019s the frontrunner in the Florida governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n At the same time, his mother is Colombian, and so he\u2019s half Colombian. This is something we\u2019re seeing more of, I think: this racial extremism in Florida among Hispanic people.<\/p>\n There was recently a leak of young Republicans who are Hispanic in Miami being extremely racist, and he\u2019s become the face of, or one of the faces of, the white nationalist \u2014 the so-called \u201cGroyper\u201d \u2014 movement that surrounds the podcaster Nick Fuentes.<\/p>\n Remind people who don\u2019t pay attention to Nick Fuentes and the Groypers what they\u2019re all about.<\/p>\n Nick Fuentes is a young man in his late 20s who marched in Charlottesville. [He\u2019s an] avowed racist and antisemite who has styled himself \u2014 particularly after the murder of Charlie Kirk, which created a vacuum \u2014 as the racist face of young Republicanism.<\/p>\n What does the Venn diagram look like between Nick Fuentes, and the racist Groypers, and this longshot candidate for Florida governor, James Fishback?<\/p>\n I would say that the Venn diagram is just about a circle.<\/p>\n James Fishback has really welcomed the Groypers\u2019 support. Nick Fuentes has been very complimentary towards him. Fishback will pose for pictures with people in Nick Fuentes merchandise. He\u2019s very close with this right-wing media figure who said she\u2019s going to have some more kids and make some more young Groypers.<\/p>\n They\u2019re very closely aligned, and I think Fishback is interesting, because he is probably the closest we\u2019ve come to a Nick Fuentes\/Groyper-type political candidate. And his relative success suggests that that kind of candidate has some runway among Gen Z Republicans.<\/p>\n Nick Fuentes is interesting to talk about this moment because he\u2019s a white supremacist, but he also says he wants to vote for Democrats in the next election. How does that affect someone like Fishback? Where does he sit in the ideological spectrum? <\/p>\n Fishback represents this growing discontent among young Republicans with the Trump administration \u2014 particularly over support for Israel and the war with Iran, but more broadly this sense that Trump isn\u2019t doing anything about affordability to help young people own homes and start families.<\/p>\n It\u2019s this populist \u2014 to be frank, quasi-fascist \u2014 kind of government stepping in to control families, to control businesses. One of his proposals is that, in a marriage, if someone cheats, they should lose all of the marital assets, which, to me, I think would just incentivize spousal murder, if you\u2019re going to be a pauper if you get divorced.<\/p>\n He has these ideas where people go, Oh, yeah, that\u2019s true, even though it\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n To underline one more, he talks about housing affordability in Florida, but a lot of his ideas are either onerous taxes on anyone who moves to Florida or somehow banning people from moving to Florida. [It\u2019s a] really heavy-handed government vision that he\u2019s proposing.<\/p>\n