Interviews

Nick Fuentes Wants Women in “Gulags”. Here’s Why That Matters. Shane Burley in conversation with Kelly Hayes – 16 February 2026

From Organizing My Thoughts, the official newsletter of writer and organizer Kelly Hayes.

Last week, far-right streamer Nick Fuentes openly called for the mass criminalization of women and girls. During an episode of his America First livestream on Rumble, Fuentes declared, “Just like Hitler imprisoned Gypsies, Jews, communists — all of his political rivals — we have to do the same thing with women … They go to the gulag first. They go to the breeding gulags.”

It would be easy to dismiss rhetoric this extreme as fringe theatrics. But Fuentes’ Groyper movement has come a long way from its meme-driven origins. The distance between its politics and the broader culture has narrowed, and its sexist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and racist ideas have become increasingly normalized in public life. In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Fuentes has been angling for greater influence within a conservative movement that is unsettled, divided, and shedding what few restraints remained.

Misogyny and the scapegoating of women are not new territory for Fuentes, who helped popularize the phrase “your body, my choice.” However, his recent rhetoric feels especially unnerving following the murder of Renée Good. Good’s killing by a DHS agent was met with dismissals or mockery from right-wing commentators who critiqued her queerness, perceived disobedience, and physical similarity to women whose attitudes had displeased them. In a moment when the extrajudicial execution of a woman in broad daylight has been met with arguments that she had it coming, the construction of women as an enemy of the fascist movement — as figures in need of criminalization and containment — is particularly disturbing.

While we are not facing the imminent mass detention of women, this escalating language feels dangerous in our increasingly volatile political climate. So how seriously should we take Fuentes right now? And what does rhetoric like this reveal about the broader trajectory of the movement he’s trying to shape?

To think through these dynamics, I spoke with my friend Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It and Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Kelly Hayes: Last week, on his streaming show America First, Nick Fuentes said, “Women get sent to the gulags first, obviously. Which women? All women. Every woman. Every woman and girl is sent to the gulags. We will determine who the good ones are after the fact.” Before we dig into the implications of that statement, I want to start with a grounding question: How seriously should we be taking Fuentes as a cultural and political force right now? He’s historically occupied a fringe position, but in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, he’s clearly jockeying for greater influence. How do you understand his current position within the right’s social and cultural hierarchy — and what does that position tell us about the broader trajectory of the movement?

Shane Burley: We should take Fuentes seriously as a voice of the young right, the edgier and less polished rhetoric that fuels them. Just as is true on the left, many people who work in the institutional world of politics and NGOs hold views more radical than they are allowed to express in their professional role. This is where Fuentes sits: he is the unfiltered, more energetic and undiluted voice of the American right. This is not altogether a new idea, the far-right has always been a key part of the larger world of American conservatism. The difference is that he has broken through some of the taboos (antisemitism, open race and IQ talk) and we are seeing his style of rhetoric and even ideas coming from institutions now housing young Republican professionals who came up on Fuentes-like media online. 

With Kirk’s death, Fuentes makes up an influential portion of one piece of the conservative movement that is currently fracturing over questions related to Israel. In this Israel-skeptical faction, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are still more important, but Fuentes is connected to the younger group of men, many of which had a more professionalized experience with organizations like Turning Point USA but like that Fuentes gives them a language for their more radical urges. To the extent that the Republican Party becomes more openly questioning of Israel and increasingly rooted in the politics of white resentment, Fuentes will likely play an important role in shaping that shift.

Fuentes’ growing visibility seems to reflect a broader acceleration on the right. The extremity of this administration’s actions and rhetoric has sometimes outpaced the politics of conventional conservatives. That dynamic can pull people forward into support for escalating violence, but it can also alienate supporters. How do you see that tension playing out? Does this kind of overt eliminationist language signal strength, desperation, or both?

I think it signals both. There is nothing that can justify what Trump is doing with ICE and police right now other than white nationalism. The authoritarianism on display runs in the face of 50 years of Republican self-narration, particularly on the far-right where fear of government overreach became endemic in the 1990s. The only way it makes sense is if racial fears are the primary motivating factor, which is true for pretty much all of the party today. So I think Trump has a mandate from his base and he is filling it out.

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