Well, Nick "The N•zi of Berwyn" Fuentes seems to gaining more and more prominence amongst the Republicans and the American right more generally of late. Most notably, Nicky the Fash enjoyed a long softball interview on Tucker Carlson's show. And Tucker isn't receiving much pushback from his fellow right wingers for platforming a candidly racist, enthusiastically antisemitic, gleefully Islamophobic and loudly misogynist white supremacist. Also of note is that Nicholas let it slip last year that he has ambitions of being president one day. Well, considering I live in the same quaint hamlet as Nicholas, I think it's my duty to offer my perspective on the man.
He is loud. Appears to be confident. He is slyly manipulative of his incel audience. And he is as uncultured and as ignorant as the day is long. He loudly declares that the US needs to dominate the Western Hemisphere, that women and non-white people need to be subservient to white men and that Jews... (insert hackneyed hysterical delusional conspiracy theory here). There's only one problem: Nicholas doesn't *know* anything about the literary, visual arts, performing arts, musical, culinary, architectural, philosophical, theological, scientific and other cultural contributions of the groups he hates and seeks to oppress.
I guess this is how MAGA and right-of-MAGA bigotry works: It is predicated upon ignorance, upon a vacuum of information where knowledge and familiarity should be. Actually studying and getting to know a Monk or Ellington composition, a Cortazar or Toni Morrison novel, living with it, understanding and interpreting it could conceivably decay the bigotry. And so Nicholas remains loud, cocky, snarky, but most of all: IGNORANT.
Perhaps these ideas can be summed up in a story that Miles Davis recounts in his autobiography. From a 2011 Guardian article: "Davis was a man of few words. When he did speak, his words often had a similar effect to a hand grenade being lobbed into the room. In 1987, he was invited to a White House dinner by Ronald Reagan. Few of the guests appeared to know who he was. During dinner, Nancy Reagan turned to him and asked what he'd done with his life to merit an invitation. Straight-faced, Davis replied: 'Well, I've changed the course of music five or six times..."
(bebop, cool jazz, orchestral jazz, modal jazz, electric/fusion)?
pictured: Nicky the Fash next to his Berwyn home and studio
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