MAGA fracture alarms as college Republicans show 'extremist' shift

When the College Republicans of America appointed a student with ties to white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes as its political director, social media praise rolled in from university chapters.

“We are @KaiSchwemmer,” posted Nick Jacobs, president of the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans.

“UF LET’S GO!! Kai is a legend! We are so happy to see his continued success!” said the University of Florida College Republicans on X, whose chapter was recently disbanded by the university for alleged antisemitic behaviors.

The Utah Federation of College Republicans said on X it’s “extremely excited for @KaiSchwemmer stepping into this new role with our national charter College Republicans of America.”

A simple “Nice!” from the Virginia College Republicans.

Kai Schwemmer, a student at Brigham Young University, the Mormon flagship in Utah, came under fire for his past association with Fuentes, whom he met and praised in a documentary, saying he "fell in love with the movement" after hearing Fuentes speak about immigration.

Schwemmer was promoted as a special guest for a Fuentes conference and has streamed on the “anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Black, antisemitic” platform, Cozy.TV, founded by Fuentes and conspiracist theorist Alex Jones.

Schwemmer appeared to post misogynistic and homophobic content on fringe platforms, along with Adolf Hitler cartoons, Vice reported.

Last week Schwemmer came into the spotlight again when he announced plans to run for a vacant Utah Republican treasurer role — a “low-profile race that could reveal the future of the Utah GOP," Deseret News reported.

The College Republicans of America and other conservatives have stuck by Schwemmer, which experts tell Raw Story indicates a broader shift for some in the GOP as President Donald Trump’s MAGA following weakens.

“What was offered to a fracturing MAGA base was a new direction into historical antisemitism, and what you see with the College Republicans of America, what you see there is a movement in that direction,” said Lawrence Rosenthal, chair and lead researcher of the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies.

An embrace of the ideology spread by Fuentes and his followers, who are called “groypers,” has alarmed liberals and some conservatives such as the California Republican Party, which released a memo this year warning about the growing popularity of a “white nationalist,” America-First ideology “modeled closely after Nazi Germany.”

“You're watching an extremist form of conservatism basically overtake Republicanism, and so we're looking at a shift away further down the line in which that type of thing is going to come to a head at some point,” said Jamie Cohen, an associate professor at Queens College, CUNY, who specializes in digital culture.

“The normalization of Nick Fuentes … that's a completely different shift than we've seen in a long time.”

Rosenthal said this type of ideology is “disproportionately attractive to young men and,m to some extent, young women as well.”

“It's exaggerated considerably among youth in the same way that hypermasculinity that characterizes the extreme right, both in the USA and internationally, has an extraordinary appeal for young men,” Rosenthal said.

The college groups did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

‘Provoking extremism’

The president of the College Republicans of America, Martin Bertao, doubled down on Schwemmer’s appointment amid backlash.

“Over the last day I have done a lot of reflecting on my decision to appoint Kai as CRA’s political director. And in that reflection I have came to the decision that I would like to apologize… to absolutely NOBODY, CRA will never back down to the WOKE mob!” Bertao posted on X on March 6.

That kind of doubling down is characteristic of Fuentes and his followers, said Jamie Cohen, noting that groypers responded to the overturning of the right to abortion granted in Roe v. Wade with the provocative slogan, “Your body. My choice.”

“Not only do they have to support his appointment, but they do it even more if people get mad,” Cohen said.

Schwemmer denied being a groyper despite his affiliations with Fuentes.

“Life is a process of growth and refinement. My comments in high school and as a teenager should not be taken to accurately reflect my views or demeanor now. I condemn all forms of hatred, including antisemitism, obviously,” Schwemmer posted on X on March 13.

“I’m not a groyper; I am simply and unapologetically an American nationalist. Additionally, all positions I hold are personal ones, not those of the CRA. I reject the ADL’s allegation that the College Republicans or I currently hate or have ever hated Jews.

“In the past, I’ve spoken in ways that were unnecessarily crass or demeaning. I’m conscious of that fact, and since returning from my service as a missionary, I have made adjustments to become a better disciple of Christ.”

Schwemmer’s post was in response to the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, calling his appointment “normalizing antisemitism and white supremacy, full stop,” noting that Schwemmer appeared on Fuentes’s platforms, at his conference and promoted “‘Zionists’ in America” conspiracy theories.

Justin Buchler, an associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, shied away from calling Fuentes and his associates “far-right” but said groypers “are younger voters, and they have some really extreme positions.”

“With somebody like Nick Fuentes, you just call him a neo-Nazi, because Nick Fuentes is a neo-Nazi,” Buchler said.

Elevating someone with associations to Fuentes reflects how the two political parties are increasingly “provoking each other into extremism,” Buchler said.

“What's going on politically is we are in a period of hyper-polarization, and the ideological sides and the two parties have moved very far apart, both left and right, and it's a dynamic process,” Buchler said.

‘Violence begets violence’

The College Republicans of America, which appointed Schwemmer, came to be in 2023 as a rejection of the College Republican National Committee, founded by the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans and the California College Republicans.

Some of the biggest names in political megadonors have infused money into these groups and their leadership.

For one, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the billionaire founders of the shipping company Uline, donated $1 million total to the Wisconsin Federal of College Republicans in December 2025, according to filings with the State of Wisconsin Ethics Commission.

Jacobs, the Wisconsin group’s president, was the recipient of a $1 million check given away by tech billionaire and former Trump appointee Elon Musk as part of his massive $25 million spend on a state judicial race.

“Money from Uihleins has been reshaping Republican politics, flowing into Republican campaigns in the post-Citizens United era. This is a power couple who has been willing to dig deep, write very large checks and support their preferred candidates through all sorts of massive investments,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit focused on campaign finance reform.

“They are pushing a certain type of vision for the Republican Party. They are supporting certain types of Republican candidates ... their money was also very supportive of not only President Trump and his campaigns over the years, but his January 6 rally.”

Buchler countered that “the influence of money is vastly overstated, generally across the board, in politics,” and that looking at political donations is used by both the left and right “to explain the other side's behavior without grappling with the idea that maybe people just disagree.”

Fuentes himself has raked in significant money, bringing in at nearly $900,000 since 2025 from fan donations, along with other income from selling shirts with swastika imagery and subscriptions to his private chatrooms, according to a Washington Post analysis.

“The normalization of racism begets more racism. Violence begets violence,” Cohen said.

“Racism is on the lower end of the extremism sphere, and on the other end of the extreme sphere is violence, so it would be in everyone's best interest to tamp this down sooner than later.”