{"id":943,"date":"2026-08-28T14:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=943"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:46:08","slug":"how-many-fascist-cronies-can-one-republican-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=943","title":{"rendered":"How Many Fascist Cronies Can One Republican Have?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Not for the first time, Republican Georgia congressman and Senate nominee Mike Collins is having to fend off questions about a former staffer\u2019s florid public embrace of racism. On Thursday, The Washington Post <\/em>reported that \u201ca former staffer for Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) shared images in June and July on his X account of a swastika and one that depicts himself in Ku Klux Klan robes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more A Minimum Wage for Writers? \u2018The Nation\u2019 (Almost) Proposed It In 1912.<\/a><\/p>\n

The former staffer in question is 24-year-old Mike Parra, who worked as an intern for Collins as well as a contractor for a pro-Collins leadership PAC. Parra says he was merely being \u201csatirical,\u201d and that he is not really a white supremacist. But he has also described himself as a \u201ctwink fascist,\u201d used anti-Black slurs, and said he thinks \u201cthe white race contributes more to the world,\u201d which most people would recognize as the core belief of white supremacists.<\/p>\n

Since Parra no longer works for Collins, his racist posts might seem a minor matter. But this is not the first such scandal involving Collins and his staff\u2014not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

As The Washington Post<\/em> sums up:<\/p>\n

\n

A number of people in Collins\u2019s orbit have been accused of having ties to white nationalists or of making racist or antisemitic comments, and the congressman\u2019s own social media presence has also drawn scrutiny\u2026.<\/p>\n

Collins, a trucking executive, has faced scrutiny over his own social media feed, where he has shared posts that were called\u00a0racist\u00a0and\u00a0antisemitic, allegations he has denied\u2026.<\/p>\n

In July, Collins replaced his\u2026chief of staff Kip Talley after Slate\u00a0reported\u00a0on his participation in a group chat that included Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer, both of whom are white supremacists and antisemites\u2026.<\/p>\n

CNN\u00a0reported in July\u00a0that Collins\u2019s son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, has shared Nazi imagery online\u2026.<\/p>\n

In May, another Collins ex-staffer, William Paul, confronted Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) at a bar, hurling antisemitic insults at him\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Having one racist crony may be regarded as a misfortune. Having several should make even the most na\u00efve investigator suspicious.<\/p>\n

Read more Will Moderna\u2019s Cancer Vaccine Be Good for People, or Profits?<\/a><\/p>\n

Aside from these incidents of racism and antisemitism from various confederates, Collins also fired another staffer, Brandon Phillips, for a vile post mocking the attempted suicide of the wife of a rival political consultant. The viciousness of that post shares an affinity with the racist trolling that Collins and his associates have often indulged in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a mistake to see this nastiness and bigotry as having no wider importance beyond the individuals concerned. Rather, they reflect a political fact that extends beyond Collins: over the last 10 years, racist invective has become one of the main ways that the GOP activates its base and courts younger voters. It was not by chance that figures like Parra and Phillips worked for Collins. Rather, their passion for outr\u00e9 violations of common decency were what made them desirable employees \u2014 until they went too far and had to be disavowed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2017, in the wake of the infamous Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia, the journalist Alex Pareene wrote a remarkably prophetic essay for Splinter arguing that the alt right racist provocateurs who attended the rally were the future of the GOP. Pareene noted that:<\/p>\n

\n

Racial resentment has been a driving force behind College Republican recruitment\u00a0for years,\u00a0but at this point it\u2019s really all they have left to offer. In the age of President Donald Trump, what inspires a young person not merely to\u00a0be<\/em>\u00a0conservative or vote Republican, but to get active in organized Republican politics? Do you think it\u2019s a fervent belief that Paul Ryan knows the optimal tax policy to spur economic growth? Or do you think it\u2019s more likely to be something else?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pareene ended his essay by naming one rally attendee:<\/p>\n

\n

These future Republican elected officials could easily look very much like rally attendee Nicholas Fuentes, a Boston University student\u00a0until his decision this week to leave the school. He didn\u2019t appear to be a formal member of any young Republican organizations, but he was a self-described Republican. In interviews,\u00a0he denies\u00a0being a white supremacist.\u00a0On Facebook,\u00a0after the rally, he wrote: \u201cThe rootless transnational elite knows that a tidal wave of white identity is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In 2017, Fuentes was, to borrow a Bob Dylan phrase, a complete unknown, a college dropout with some local notoriety for his racist provocations. But he would shortly become one of the most popular streamers on the far right, infamous for his repeated Holocaust denial and praise of Nazism. Both Trump and his vice president JD Vance have been diligent about cultivating the hard-core racists in their coalition, including Fuentes, who infamously dined with Trump and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re now a decade into Trump\u2019s takeover of the GOP. It ill-behoves us at this late date to be shocked by the fact that a Trump acolyte like Mike Collins has said bigoted things, has bigoted family members, and has repeatedly hired bigots for his staff. Collins does all this because this is how you succeed in GOP politics.<\/p>\n

Read more This Little Bird Is in Big Trouble\u2014and Trump Is Making Things Worse<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Many Fascist Cronies Can One Republican Have? - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=943\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Many Fascist Cronies Can One Republican Have? - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=943\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-28T14:46:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"How Many Fascist Cronies Can One Republican Have?\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-28T14:46:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943\"},\"wordCount\":896,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/cffac7b2b6f0059b5460398842f0dd5f.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=943\",\"name\":\"How Many Fascist Cronies Can One Republican Have? 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