It can be difficult to find the meaning of James Fishback. The tall Republican gubernatorial candidate for Florida is the son of an immigrant and a staunch naturalist, a self-proclaimed financial success story and popular economic politician, both supporting Trump and running against President-elect Donald Trump. He is also racist and hateful.
But one thing’s for sure: He’s getting a lot of attention.
Fishback is “a man who I think would not ordinarily be chosen to catch a dog. But he is a certain kind of catch,” You want summersenior reporter at Bulwark, told Today, It’s Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram recently. “He’s winning in the polls, and even though he’s not going to win yet, I think he’s giving us a glimpse of the future of the Republican Party.”
Sommer spoke with Sean about Fishback’s background, the movement he represents, and what might be next for him in Republican politics. The following is part of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s more throughout the episode, so tune in Today, It’s Explained wherever you find podcasts, incl Apple Podcasts, Pandoraand Spotify.
Where is this family from?
Almost anywhere. He was in finance. Apparently, according to court documents, he was a low-level employee at a hedge fund. And then, he pretended to be this real hedge-fund expert.
They claim he made his name up, and it kind of became a meme in the financial community, because it was so ridiculous. But through it, he managed to get into the Fox business a lot and used it to appear that he is a sponsor of this kind.
And to further complicate the shape-shifting identity of this candidate for white supremacy: He’s not…quite white.
This is one of the interesting things about it. He is very racist to Byron Donalds, a congressman who has been endorsed by Trump, who is the frontrunner in the race for governor of Florida.
At the same time, his mother is Colombian, so he is half Colombian. This is something we see more of, I think: racial extremism in Florida among Hispanics.
Recently there have been leaks of young Hispanic Republicans in Miami being overly racist, and he has become the face of, or one of the faces of, the white nationalist — groyper — movement surrounding podcaster Nick Fuentes.
Remind people who don’t care what Nick Fuentes and businessmen are all about.
Nick Fuentes is a 20-year-old man who protested in Charlottesville. (He is) a racist and a bigot who has established himself – especially after the murder of Charlie Kirk, which created a vacuum – as the racist face of the young Republican party.
What does the Venn diagram look like between Nick Fuentes, and the racists, and this longtime Florida gubernatorial candidate, James Fishback?
I would say that the Venn diagram is almost a circle.
James Fishback has greatly welcomed the help of groypers. Nick Fuentes has been praising him a lot. Fishback will pose with people in Nick Fuentes merchandise. He is very close to this right-wing journalist who said he will have more children and make other young people.
They’re a pretty close match, and I think Fishback is interesting, because he’s probably the closest we’ve come to a Nick Fuentes political candidate/groyper type. And his relative success suggests that such a candidate has some way to run among Gen Z Republicans.
Nick Fuentes is interesting to talk about right now because he is a white extremist, but he also says he wants to vote for Democrats in the next election. How does that affect someone like Fishback? Where does he sit on the ideological spectrum?
Fishback represents this growing discontent among young Republicans with the Trump administration — particularly over support for Israel and the war with Iran, but more broadly the implication that Trump is doing nothing about affordability to help young people own homes and start families.
It’s this populist – frankly, fascism – kind of government coming in to control families, control businesses. One of his suggestions is that, in marriage, if someone cheats, he should lose all the property of the marriage, which, to me, I think would provoke the murder of the spouse, if you will be poor if you divorce.
He has this idea where people go, Oh, yeah, that’s righteven though it’s crazy.
To emphasize one more, he talks about housing affordability in Florida, but most of his comments are hard taxes on anyone moving to Florida or somehow banning people from moving to Florida. (It is) a serious vision of government that he is proposing.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg went with hung out at Fishback events in Florida. He met with a registered Democrat, a fan of Zohran Mamdani, who said he was considering changing his registration to vote for Fishback in the primary.
Who is he talking to? How big is his tent?
Fishback benefits from several factors. One is that you have people who are legitimately alienated from mainstream politics, and because he’s this unconventional candidate, they follow him.
On the other hand, he also benefits from this toxic information system. Another person in Michelle Goldberg’s piece says they got on Fishback because they saw Kanye West posted a picture about Jews controlling the media.
There’s this crazy online system that loves to seek attention, and Fishback certainly does. He has this crowd that goes to Waffle Houses for events. He’ll make these eye-catching ideas like publicly hanging anyone associated with Jeffrey Epstein or taxing OnlyFans creators 50 percent of their revenue, and this will spark a feud with some OnlyFans stars.
He has managed to gain attention in many different ways despite running a fast-paced type of campaign.
You said earlier that he doesn’t really have a shot, but he’s getting enough attention to talk about it, because he seems to be influential here. What does he get into that, if he’s not running in Florida?
These days, being a right-wing journalist is in many ways better than being a politician — maybe not a governor, but we’ve seen someone like FBI deputy director Dan Bongino give up on podcasting.
If you want influence, in many ways it’s better to be someone like Candace Owens or Megyn Kelly with a big YouTube platform than a random congressman.
In a way, James Fishback is trying to play on that. And he is young; he could run for that position in the future. There is this sense that he, despite being frankly a big fraud in many ways, is exploiting this discontent among the youth.
Do young people think he is real? Because to hear you talk about his experience, or lack thereof, it sounds like he’s someone who has taken advantage of whoever is in the zeitgeist in front of him to increase his popularity.
Some people you will meet, they just cry. They meet a big celebrity. They just love Fishback.
On the other hand, I think many people of this type of groyper, are very disdainful of politics in general. They would like to see a fascist America, but they see the Fishback as a useful vehicle.
He is a young man who has a certain amount of charisma that appeals to some people, and they see him as someone who can capture some energy and also reflect this discontent within the Republican Party.
