Why Republican Normies Will Bend the Knee to Groypers

The "I just want to grill" crowd will not save conservatism

In response to my article about how Groypers will likely have a major influence in the 2028 Republican primaries, some argued that I was too online. From Spouting Thomas:

The median GOP primary voter is like 55-60 years old. They don't know what a Groyper is or who Fuentes is and would probably regard him as a snot-nosed punk if they did know. They think of Bannon as Sloppy Steve, a has-been.

Sheluyang Peng agrees:

Yeah, seems like Hanania spends too much time on Twitter and thinks it’s representative of most Republican voters. Support for Israel has declined not because Nick Fuentes rants about it but because of the unpopularity of the current war in Gaza. The proof is that support for Israel has heavily declined among Democrats over the last few years, even though Fuentes has no influence on Democrats.

And no Republican in Congress would say that only white people can be American. The future of the GOP is already a multiracial one.

I think that this misunderstands the dynamics on the GOP side, even if the future of the party is in fact multiracial.

This position assumes that we have a Republican Party where, say, 20% are very online dissident right or Groyper types, 20% are Nikki Haley types, and 60% are indifferent to politics or just watch Fox News. These latter two groups form an overwhelming majority, so when Trump goes away, they’ll support normal Republicans who want to do normal Republican things.

I agree that normies outnumber online extremists. But online extremists will still determine the future of the party, based on everything we’ve seen happen within the GOP over the last few decades.