Photo via PragerU
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James Fishback, a 31-year-old proud “fourth-generation Floridian,” has been an ideological firebrand for an increasingly iconoclastic conservative movement ever since he announced his run for Florida governor this past November. Despite running against the Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds and Florida’s current lieutenant governor, Jay Collins, for the Republican nomination, Fishback has generated tremendous traction online, particularly around his pronounced “America First” ideas. Although it is almost a certainty that Fishback will lose to Byron Donalds, based on his lack of funding alone, James Fishback is a good look at the new face of a rising generation of radical conservatives, for better or worse.
Fishback embodies many of the supposed “woke right’s,” as James Lindsay has coined it, grievance politics and strategies. However, the “woke right” and its trademarks far predate James Lindsay and transcend both the right and the left. The “woke right’s” main component, a propensity towards victimhood, constitutes the foundation of American politics since the 20th century. Whether organizing against a perceived economic or racial injustice, mobilizing constituencies against a conjured, both perfectly tangible and abstract, “enemy,” wins elections and creates movements like MAGA and Fishback for Governor.
James Fishback has many “enemies” he is running to destroy, a great majority of them appealing targets to a strong, “silent majority” of Americans. However, some of his enemies are, terrifyingly, our closest freedoms and rights in this metaphor of mine. For example, Fishback has championed a “full abortion ban,” including in cases of rape and incest. In a video he posted on X, Fishback stands outside a Planned Parenthood and proudly proclaims he will shut down every Planned Parenthood as Florida governor, as “all they offer is murder,” and replace each with crisis pregnancy centers open “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.” In the same vein, he has called our nation’s abortions a “holocaust against the pre-born.”
This sort of Christian extremism is an unwelcome, recurring blight of James Fishback’s candidacy. It is also a small part of a much larger ascendancy of Christian nationalism, coupled with a tolerance towards authoritarianism, in the Republican body politic.
Ever the imaginative (prospective) authoritarian, Fishback has additionally pledged to unleash the Florida National Guard on Florida’s homeless population on his first day in office, taking them “off of our streets” and putting them where they can get the “help that they need.” Although a great many of Florida’s homeless should be placed into facilities, whether that is voluntarily or involuntarily, sending the military to do so in an indiscriminate, massive operation is foolish, fringe lunacy, plain and simple. Militarization, as has been demonstrated in ICE’s operations, sews needless civil unrest. Innocent people will get hurt.
At the same time, Fishback has endorsed a strict public school agenda where boys will be required to wear a school uniform consisting of “a white polo, khakis, and a belt,” while girls will be required to wear “knee-length dresses or pant suits,” in order to establish the “order and discipline” required to create strong schools. Once again, although America’s public schools do desperately need some strict enforcement of said “order and discipline,” the authoritarian plan Fishback advances, which entails the stamping out of necessary student choice and autonomy, nullifies Fishback’s otherwise right-headed idea of reigning in the anarchy of our children’s schools.
Finally, Fishback is a part of a growing conservative backlash against Israeli influence and permanence in our politics. In a recent viral clip, Fishback draws attention to the supposed “385 million dollars” that “Republicans and Democrats in Tallahassee” have “foolishly sent” to the State of Israel. He promises, as Florida governor, that “the only call” he will make to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be to ask, “Where is our money? You depraved war criminal, where is our money?!” The crowd breaks into rapturous applause and chants of, “Fishback! Fishback!”
More Americans than ever hold a negative view of Israel, particularly young people, almost half of whom hold that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. A seismic shift has occurred where the perception of Israelis and Palestinians has flipped, with Palestinians no longer callously blamed for their plight and Israelis no longer possessing their oft-promoted “right to defend themselves,” no matter the war crimes. However, Fishback’s shock language respecting Israel is unhelpful and unlikely to persuade or win over moderates, a constituency he desperately needs.
James Fishback’s language and a plurality of his policies are frequently alienating and easy fodder for his opposition to malign him and for moderates to dismiss him. And, if that’s not enough for you, Fishback has issued some incredibly incendiary statements. Fishback has tweeted that, “By’rone [Donalds] wants to turn Florida into a Section 8 ghetto,” a prima facie (on its face) racist statement. Fishback has also recently tweeted, “Don Lemon is lucky he’s not getting hanged in the public square for ransacking a church,” a remark bordering on an incitement to violence, regardless of how malignant Don Lemon and his actions can be seen.
Unsurprisingly, Fishback has not distanced himself from Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk’s supposed “successor,” subtly complimenting his white nationalist followers, “groypers,” as “very insightful and patriotic.” This makes sense as Fishback largely draws increasingly conservative young men to his cause. The future of America’s young men is radicalization, an inevitability in a country with anemic institutions, a crippled economy, and an unabashedly degenerate, “bowling alone” social system let loose upon each and every one of us. We’re all grasping at straws, and Fishback, at least, provides some stark answers.
Fishback’s solutions are populist and, largely, the future. As Tucker Carlson has said, “Pretty soon, all winning Republican politicians will talk like this.” However, whether or not these Republicans will be “winning” is a big, big if. The Republican establishment, or “deep state,” will never be too keen on outsiders and dissenters against the fragile, schizophrenic Republican consensus (case in point, Thomas Massie). This applies too to those few Republicans who oppose the prevailing corporate donor sentiment, or “class power” as the brilliant Marxist academic David Harvey would call it.
Fishback defies both the Republican establishment and corporate interests, maligning his opponent, Byron Donalds, as “a slave to his donors… a slave to the corporate interests,” a legitimate criticism, if delivered in poor taste, considering Donald’s melanin composition. Channeling the frustrations of disaffected middle-class Americans, Fishback derides the “H1B1 scam,” which even the left acknowledges “replace American workers with lower-paid workers from abroad” (my emphasis). With college graduates systematically struggling to find employment, any decent politician should prioritize Americans, just as well-qualified as foreigners, for whatever job in our domestic job market. Fishback promotes just this.
Florida’s underdog contender is admittedly “inspired” by our New York City mayor’s winning message of affordability. Despite disagreeing on solutions, James Fishback is running a popular campaign based around affordability, and it shows. He has repeatedly promised to block the development of AI Data centers that will allegedly raise Florida’s electricity bills and poison the state’s water supply. He has also, quite rightfully, set out to bar corporations like Blackstone from “buying up single-family homes.” To put it simply, Fishback is prioritizing Floridians over said “corporate interests,” running on obvious popular, winning issues that other politicians, bound to their corporate donors and special interests, cannot endorse. Someday, hopefully, it will cost them their prized incumbencies. Until then, it should be Fishback’s race to win.
Unfortunately, James Fishback’s aforementioned, more divisive policy prescriptions render him unelectable. I do not think all of Fishback’s policies are racist. In many ways, James Fishback is a promising and talented candidate for the Republican Party, promoting conservative, family-centric values and policies and shaking the system, proposing groundbreaking policies stressing “economic dignity” that also include a disincentivizing “sin tax” and the elimination of Florida’s property tax, an appealing libertarian hallmark against one of the many socialist policies that “really haven’t really worked over the last 10,000 years.” Ultimately, James Fishback also hits at new bursting aspects of American politics—including pride in our respective great American heritage.
Nevertheless, in most other respects, Fishback is a deeply disturbing sign of disorder to come. He has baggage, a lot of it, including a lot of very personal baggage. He is extremely flawed, yet extraordinarily charismatic and engaging—the characteristics of a typical charlatan—differentiated personally only by his genuine engagement in good-faith dialogue with Florida voters, humbly inviting Floridians to ask him whatever questions they like for hours on end at meet and greets and rallies, occurring seemingly every other day. Not many politicians are this open and transparent.
In conclusion, James Fishback, like all persons, is a man full of contradictions, promoting a true, virtuous vision of “America First” policy, albeit not ideals. He is a necessary figure, polling high as the only candidate for Florida governor actually talking about Florida’s citrus groves and the like—the affordability policies the average Floridian lives through and cares about. If he could only exorcise a bulk of his rhetoric—from his platform on gun policy to decrying “goyslop,” among a great multitude of other extremist hot air and opinion—James Fishback could truly be “Florida’s next Republican governor.” The majority of his ideas and “somewhat reasonable populist agenda,” if not his disqualifying person, have my reserved support. Hopefully, someday, he will be able to reform. Unfortunately, I doubt this and question if Fishback can ever be redeemed.
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This article was edited by Simon Shalett and Cynthia Duchitanga.
Cooper Toland 
Glenmarie Rios Rodriguez 
Domenick Fedele