On Thursday night, the president of the Heritage Foundation — the MAGA right’s leading think tank — welcomed an open Nazi into his political coalition.

You might think I am exaggerating. I assure you I am not. The Nazi in question here, podcaster Nick Fuentes, has described Adolf Hitler as “really fucking cool” and said “perfidious Jews” must “be given the death penalty” after “we take power.”

And on Thursday, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts released a video defending this person’s inclusion in polite-right politics: describing Fuentes not as a hate-monger to be banished from the decent right, but as a coalition member whose view of Jews-as-evil-traitors should be politely debated.

“The American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right,” Roberts said. “I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says. But canceling him is not the answer.”

This is an epochal moment for American conservatism. In the past, the movement felt the need to hide bigotries — including antisemitism — behind a thin veil of plausible deniability. But with Fuentes, there’s no hidden message: He just says, over and over again, that Jews are evil and the source of America’s biggest problems. If someone like him can be considered one of Roberts’s “friends on the right,” then the movement’s leadership is now conceding that overt antisemitism is a legitimate political position in the MAGA movement.

Now, prominent conservative figures — like writers Erick Erickson and Rod Dreher — are aghast, raging against Fuentes’ newfound acceptability. Most strikingly, former Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) weighed in against Roberts, accusing Heritage of “carry[ing] water for antisemites.”

Earlier this week, I suggested the GOP might be in the opening stages of a civil war over the status of Jews in American life. I’m now convinced that it is. And the stakes couldn’t be higher.

How we got here: Tucker........

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