Over the past year or so, there’s been what appears to be an intensification of certain political sensibilities among pockets of the conservative youth. These currents bear a familial resemblance to the alt-right phenomenon of the mid-2010s, yet they have acquired a more pointed and unapologetic animus, one that frequently coalesces around explicit anti-Semitism, often cloaked in the rhetoric of patriotic realism or skepticism toward foreign entanglements.

A central figure in these developments is Nicholas J. Fuentes, founder of the “Groyper” movement, a group of young online activists who have been radicalizing mainstream conservative spaces with nationalist, traditionalist, and ethnocentric provocations. Fuentes has made a name for himself through livestreamed commentary laced with anti-Semitic tropes and Holocaust revisionism, all presented as unvarnished criticism of elite influence and American foreign policy. His appeal lies in his ability to articulate a sense of disenfranchisement felt by many young men who regard themselves as politically homeless in the aftermath of the Trump years, economic stagnation, and cultural dislocation. 

Fuentes was present on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021. He addressed supporters, encouraged their advance toward the building, and afterward described the events in terms that many found celebratory, though he himself did not enter the structure. While the House Select Committee subpoenaed him in connection with its investigation, and while hundreds of participants faced legal consequences, Fuentes has thus far avoided criminal conviction for direct involvement in the riot. Observers such as Tucker Carlson have publicly noted the apparent disparity. 2

Deplatformed repeatedly from mainstream services, Fuentes has found a home on Rumble, a video platform that positions itself as a bastion of free expression amid what it portrays as widespread corporate censorship. Early investment in Rumble included participation by Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur and venture capitalist whose other major venture, Palantir Technologies, maintains extensive contracts with American intelligence and military entities as well as with the Israeli government. Thiel has expressed a general inclination to defer to Israel on matters of its national security. The convergence of such funding networks with the platform’s tolerance for extreme content invites uncomfortable questions about ideological consistency, market incentives, and the architecture of contemporary discourse. 3

Palantir’s government contracts merit particular scrutiny in this context. The company, co-founded by Thiel, has become a cornerstone of U.S. military and intelligence operations. In recent years,  it secured a massive enterprise agreement with the U.S. Army worth up to $10 billion over a decade, consolidating various data analytics and AI tools into a unified system for decision-making across domains. Additional Pentagon contracts, including expansions of the Maven AI initiative, have reached ceilings of $1.3 billion or more. These tools ingest vast quantities of data to detect patterns, support targeting, and enhance operational efficiency. Similar technology has been deployed in support of Israeli defense efforts, with Palantir announcing a strategic partnership shortly after October 2023 to aid “war-related missions.” CEO Alex Karp has spoken openly about the company’s pride in supporting Israel. 4 5

Such arrangements highlight a profound entanglement between private surveillance capitalism and state power. Palantir’s platforms like Gotham are designed for integration of disparate intelligence sources, enabling predictive analytics that governments find indispensable. Critics argue this creates a feedback loop: technologies developed with public funds and deployed in foreign conflicts return home to shape domestic surveillance, while the same networks fund platforms that host dissenting or extreme voices. The optics are striking. A firm deeply embedded in pro-Israel security operations indirectly sustains spaces where anti-Semitic rhetoric flourishes. Whether this reflects deliberate orchestration or the messy logic of profit and ideology remains open to debate, but it underscores how modern power operates through layered, often opaque institutional relationships rather than cartoonish cabals.

We now witness racists and anti-Semites voicing their positions with unprecedented openness through readily traceable channels. At the same time, technologies of surveillance perfected by firms like Palantir have become integral to state operations. It is tempting to discern in these patterns the shadow of a larger strategy: the subtle hijacking of legitimate grievances, particularly anti-interventionist or anti-war sentiment, so as to associate them with extremism and thereby discredit broader critiques. Historical precedent lends the suspicion some weight. During the Vietnam era, federal programs such as COINTELPRO involved infiltration and provocation of anti-war movements, pushing factions toward radicalism in ways that ultimately undermined public support for the cause. 

The parallels to COINTELPRO are worth examining at some length, not as proof of identical repetition but as a lens for understanding recurring dynamics of power and dissent. From 1956 to 1971, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover ran a series of covert operations targeting a wide array of groups: civil rights organizations, Black Power advocates, New Left activists, and especially anti-Vietnam War voices. Tactics included infiltration by informants, dissemination of false information to sow paranoia and factionalism, anonymous letters to discredit leaders, and encouragement of violence to justify repression. The goal was rarely outright elimination but neutralization, disrupting unity, amplifying extremes, and tainting legitimate protest with association to chaos. Senate investigations in the mid-1970s, prompted by leaks and public outrage, exposed how the Bureau viewed any challenge to the status quo as a threat requiring disruption, even when groups remained nonviolent.

In our digital age, direct analogies require care. We lack smoking-gun evidence of a centralized COINTELPRO-style program targeting today’s online right. Yet echoes persist in the way algorithms, platform policies, and occasional state-adjacent actors interact with fringe movements. Online extremism, particularly on the right, often radicalizes through recommendation systems that reward engagement with more intense content. Infiltration concerns surface periodically, with accusations of feds amplifying division within dissident spaces. Anti-war or isolationist sentiments on the right can quickly brush against conspiratorial anti-Semitism, much as anti-war left movements in the 1960s sometimes fractured along ideological lines exploited by outsiders. The effect, intentional or not, is similar, legitimate critiques of foreign policy or elite power become entangled with toxic elements, making it easier for mainstream institutions to dismiss the whole.

Unlike the analog era of COINTELPRO, today’s environment is decentralized and profit driven. Palantir’s tools, for instance, do not merely survey; they shape perception at scale by enabling sophisticated data fusion that governments and private actors alike can leverage. When such capabilities coexist with platforms hosting Fuentes content, one confronts a system that profits from both monitoring extremism and providing the megaphone for it. This duality raises profound questions about consent, accountability, and the health of public discourse. Does the state, through its contractors, indirectly benefit from the visibility of extremes that justify further surveillance spending? Or is this simply late-capitalist chaos, where every incentive pulls toward polarization?

The deeper difficulty lies in the spiritual and social emptiness that makes such frameworks seductive in the first place. In an age of fragmentation, young men seeking meaning, community, or enemies encounter figures like Fuentes because the architecture of the medium rewards precisely that encounter. Legitimate concerns about endless wars or undue foreign influence need not, and should not, collapse into white supremacist frameworks. How, precisely, a society might address this without resorting to futile suppression or paranoid overreach remains one of the more disquieting questions of our moment. Only time, rigorous scrutiny, and a measure of intellectual honesty will tell.

Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole.

Wikipedia contributors. “Nick Fuentes.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fuentes

 NBC News. “Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Two Far-Right Activists.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-committee-subpoenas-two-far-right-activists-n1287747

The Wall Street Journal. “Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance Invest in Rumble Video Platform Popular on Political Right.” https://www.wsj.com/tech/peter-thiel-j-d-vance-invest-in-rumble-video-platform-popular-on-political-right-11621447661

Reuters. “Pentagon to Adopt Palantir AI as Core US Military System.” https://www.reuters.com/technology/pentagon-adopt-palantir-ai-as-core-us-military-system-memo-says-2026-03-20/

Bloomberg. “Palantir Supplying Israel with New Tools Since Hamas War Started.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-10/palantir-supplying-israel-with-new-tools-since-hamas-war-started

Wikipedia contributors. “COINTELPRO.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO