December 23, 2025 ❧ The Right asks “Are we Nazis?”, LA Governor assigned to Greenland, landmines return, and a polar bear adopts a cub!

Plus: Maryland explores what reparations might look like, RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz try to ban youth gender affirming care, and New Yorkers gain access to medical euthanasia. 

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HERE & ABROAD

❧ DEEP DIVE: MAGA can’t decide how much Nazism they want ❧

With Trump bringing fake gold and fascism anew to the Oval Office, 2025 saw the ascendency of the MAGA movement to what might be its zenith. And at the top, MAGA sat back, looked around at their lot, and said “Wait, are we Nazis?” 

Trump isn’t the one asking this question, nor is Stephen Miller. They don’t give a shit, but bigotry on the right has been a topic du jour since October, when Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes—the 27-year-old leader of the Groypers, an online community of Hitler stans—as gently as he might a Kardashian on a press tour. People freaked out over Carlson’s easy integration of Fuentes’s overt hatefulness into the MAGA mainstream, alarmed by his record of unabashed antisemitism, the only -ism that can even give the right pause. The president of the Heritage Foundation weighed in and said Carlson’s interview was, essentially, fine, prompting many senior members of the foundation to resign. During the same month, a slur-laden group text of Young Republican leadership was leaked by Politico.

Art by Kayla E. from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 8, Issue 6

Ever since, “how antisemitic and bigoted do we want to be?” has been a topic of discussion in the MAGA movement. Of course, “not bigoted” isn’t on the table. Instead, the two options seem to be: 1) As bigoted as Nick Fuentes, an outright neo-Nazi and 2) as bigoted as Mike Pence, an advocate of conversion therapy for LBGTQ people, whose organization Advancing American Freedom has absorbed over a dozen staffers fleeing the Heritage Foundation.

Choose your fighter.

The debate was taken to the stage last week at AmericaFest, a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix that draws about the same political crowd as Charlie Kirk’s funeral. Vivek Ramaswamy railed against the idea of “heritage Americans," advanced by Vice President JD Vance, which posits that true Americanism is determined not by adherence to American ideals, but by birth and ancestry in this country. He also called out rising anti-South Asian hate. Ben Shapiro attacked Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Candance Owens as a group, calling them conspiracy theorists and grifters. Kelly felt Shapiro was trying to cancel her over her criticism of Israel. Vance took the stage and denounced issuing “purity tests” to members of the conservative coalition. Apparently, the question on this purity test would be: do you hate Jews? In this context, Vance’s refusal to denounce the right’s bigotry is a tacit endorsement of it. 

Thank god, Nicki Minaj also offered some thoughts. The newly minted MAGA-ite said Donald Trump is “handsome, dashing” and, sitting next to Erika Kirk, called J.D. Vance an assassin. It was meant as a compliment. 

Art by Aidan Y-M from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 8, Issue 6

If I may offer assistance to settle the question of “Is MAGA a Nazi movement?”, allow me to direct you to the results of a recent Manhattan Institute questionnaire distributed to conservatives under 30. One young man said “Hitler was a nationalist. He was like, we have to take Germany back for Germans. And I feel like we should do that in America.” Another participant, asked what she thought about Hitler, said “I think he was a great leader, to be honest.”

All considered together, the inevitable conclusion is that the party has a sizable, openly pro-Nazi faction, and it's only going to grow if not denounced. This reckoning should have come much, much sooner. The real question is what to do about it now.

❧ In Other News ❧

❧ MARYLAND CREATES COMMISSION ON REPARATIONS. The Maryland legislature voted to create a commission that will study what reparations might look like in the state. The bill had initially been vetoed by the state’s governor, Wes Moore, a Black Democrat, who felt it was time to shift focus from the legacy of slavery to the work of narrowing inequalities. However, the Democrat-controlled legislature overrode his veto. Maryland’s population is 30 percent Black.

❧ LOUISIANA GOVERNOR TO DO IMPERIALISM IN GREENLAND. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry welcomed the National Guard to New Orleans, and now Trump thinks he might be able to welcome Greenland into the Union. The president appointed Landry as Special Envoy to Greenland. In a video posted to X, Landry explained his “volunteer” job thusly: “All we’re going to do is have us a great conversation with those folks in Greenland. They’re in the Western Hemisphere, fits inside the Monroe Doctrine, and we’re gonna bring them some great Cajun food.” He will remain governor of Louisiana. The Danes, of course, are pissed. But if Landry starts spending more time in Greenland than Louisiana, we can only celebrate this as good news for Louisiana. (Sorry, Greenland!)

Photo by Hamilton Nolan, from his recent article “New Orleans Won’t Back Down Against ICE”

CURRENT-EST AFFAIRS

What’s new in the magazine this week?

The Year Everyone Dropped Bad Albums

Ok, not every album was bad, but albums from some of our time’s biggest stars landed in flop city in 2025. Drake, Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5 (yes, they released an album), and the big kahuna, Taylor Swift, all put out albums that were, by turns, laughable and lazy, characterized by retrodden ideas and self-absorption. We could blame the artist, and sure, the fame has probably messed with their heads, but we might be better off blaming the billionaire tech oligarchy, which only grew more entrenched this year under the Trump administration. “The economics of streaming platforms, and the consolidation of the entire music industry under just a handful of major labels, have created an environment that rewards low-effort slop and disincentivizes creativity,” Current Affairs associate editor Alex Skopic writes. The result: “Pasteurized Processed Music Product.” Skopic’s pieces tells us exactly how streaming makes music tasteless and rubbery, and how we might be able to save good music yet.

❧ In More News ❧

❧ REGULATING TRANS KIDS OUT OF HEALTHCARE. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the guy in charge of Medicaid and Medicare, have introduced policies that will all but eliminate transgender care for minors across the country. The proposed rules bar all Medicare and Medicaid funds from doctors and hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to people under the age of 18, and cut off reimbursements for such care. The proposition is that if a hospital wants to take care of the poor and the elderly, the clientele of Medicaid and Medicare, respectively, they cannot care for trans youth. The American Civil Liberties Union plans to sue.

Art by Seb Westcott from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 6, Issue 5

❧ NEW YORKERS GAIN ACCESS TO PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED DEATH. Terminally ill, resident New Yorkers with six months to live or less will now have access to medical euthanasia. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the decision to sign such a bill into law was a tough one for her, but seeing her mother die of ALS influenced her decision. She did make changes before adding her signature. The bill as it arrived on Hochul’s desk required two doctors to sign off on euthanasia requests, but the governor added a third to the list: a psychiatrist or psychologist that can attest that “the patient was not under duress.” Those with chronic mental illness will not qualify for euthanasia in New York, as they do just over the border in Canada, where disability activists have sounded alarms over the policy. 

Art by C.M. Duffy from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 8, Issue 6

❧ POLAND WILL LAY LANDMINES FOR FIRST TIME SINCE COLD WAR. Poland has left the Mine Ban Treaty and will begin producing landmines as soon as its six-month withdrawal period ends in February. The Polish government says they are laying anti-personnel mines to fortify Europe’s eastern border with Russia and Belarus, and may send mines to Ukraine, too. Anti-land mine groups Humanity & Inclusion and International Campaign to Ban Landmines both condemned the move. HI told Common Dreams, “antipersonnel mines disproportionately harm civilians. They render land unusable for agriculture, block access to essential services, and cause casualties decades after conflicts end. Their use is devastating for civilian populations. Producing landmines is cheap, but removing them would be even more expensive and complicated.” In the same article, ICBL said, “History shows that around 90 percent of landmine casualties are civilians, nearly half of them children.”

ANIMAL FACT OF THE WEEK

A polar bear has adopted a cub!

Here’s a little familial holiday cheer, courtesy of X33991. Not to be confused with Elon Musk’s latest kid, X33991 is the name of a polar bear scientists are tracking in northeastern Canada who has adopted a cub while caring for her own baby. It’s the 13th instance of adoption in this Hudson Bay bear community, and will double the mama bear’s work for the next few years as she teaches the cubs how to survive on the ice. “We really think it’s just because [polar bears are] so maternally charged and such good mothers and they can’t leave a cub crying on the tundra, so they pick them up and take them along with them,” Canadian scientist Evan Richardson told CBC News in a video that is full of adorable pictures of the growing polar bear family.

Photo via CBC News.

Writing and research by Emily Carmichael. Editing and additional material by Emily Topping and Nathan J. Robinson. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.

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