Inside the Groyper Campaign: What James Fishback's Florida Flop Reveals

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Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, Pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the Pray.com app today. Hello, I'm Tim Rice. Welcome to another edition of Behind the Story. Joining me today is Repeat Guest.

My friend and colleague, Daley Wire, managing editor Dylan Halsman. I wouldn't have had you back right one after the other if the story wasn't really worth it, but it really is. So thanks for being here. Glad to be back. It is one of the burdens of writing regular bangers.

“Sometimes you have to do the show twice in a row, but you know, that's just the burden I bear.”

So speaking of the bangers and you do write them so frequently, there are many. But this one in particular is titled "Here Live a Groopers, a Dispatch from Podcastistan." And this one took you a little bit out of your comfort zone and out of the swamp.

Tell us first, just broadly what the piece was about.

Yeah, we can start 30 thousand feet above the swamps of Florida. I went from the swamps of DC to the swamps of Florida, literally down into Everglade, Ish country. And people might recall that there was a governor election, a governor primary election last week in Florida. They might also recall that there was this fellow named James Fishback, who was writing it for governor in their Republican primary.

And the short version of who James Fishback is, is that he launched his campaign, running very aggressively against Israel, running against APEC. At various times, running against the Jews, more explicitly, he was really dog whistling with very specific turns phrase and messaging towards the neck. Flood does crowd, the grippers is what they call themselves, hence the title of the piece. You started about there being Goi Slop being fed to the kids at school cafeteria, which is obviously an antisemitic dog whistle.

“Is it even a dog whistle, actually, with that point, I guess?”

No, it's really dog whistle. It's more of a shout. A dog shout. Antisemitic whistle. And yeah, he ran this very online, targeted at these very young men, streamer watching antisemitic antisrile anti-APEC.

Folks, and gained a lot of attention on the internet as a result, over the course of his campaign, he kind of shifted somewhat. He still maintained a lot of that base, but he also started running in a more traditional kind of populist manner. I would say he was talking a lot about data centers, he lately started talking a lot about flock. He wanted to return to old Florida, as he put it, very harsh on immigration on H1BVs. So we're in this kind of populist nationalist campaign, but it very much began with this anti-Azrile anti-APEC anti-Jewish at times, messaging that got all of the online kind of, you know, all right.

Type, so really into him. And so I wanted to go down to Florida to see how does this translate into the real world. You know, this gets a ton of attention online, people are fighting on Twitter about it. They're fighting on Instagram about it. There's all these snipes back and forth between the various camps of the right and the online sphere.

But most of these guys that have run for office this way, as basically, you know, online provocateurs try to just get attention.

By being racist and anti-Semitic on the internet, most of them have flamed out completely when they actually run for anything. They don't really get anywhere. This back was a little different. In the sense that he was running a real campaign. He wasn't able to raise much money, but he had some volunteers.

He was doing a ton of campaign stops. He was taking, he got, once like a Carlson, people might remember and got a big boost from that. He got backed by Nick Funtas. So he had the, you know, alternative media support, fully in his corner. And so I was like, okay, to the extent that any of these people are serious.

And their attempts to run for office fish back in a way. He's not a serious person as we can discuss more later. But in a way, he was running a more serious campaign and most of these other kind of provocateurs. I wanted to go down there, talk to some of his supporters, go to some of his events. I actually ended up talking to him himself and one of his events.

Uh, and kind of observe what these people were about. Do they exist in real life?

“What are the great books look like outside their basements at that type of thing?”

Before we get further into the grovers and you already said all this, but this was just my favorite part of the piece.

Fish back.

“Uh, he launched his campaign within flammatory Twitter tirades about Israel in a pack.”

He secured endorsements from both Tucker Carlson and Funtas. He frequently lobbied racist attacks against the opponent byron Donalds.

But the critical difference from other grooper grifters was the act of running a real campaign.

He made dozens of stops in the closing days of the campaign alone. Had a strong digital operation, an organized group of real volunteers. And as a gifted communicator, when he isn't triggered in a telling a black voter, they should be lynched. Yeah, that is, I was hoping people would get the reference.

If I included in the piece, he literally told a black voter at one of his campaign. So it's because he, he, one step back. Fish back was incredibly accused of dating a 17 year old. I don't know if it was ever adjudicated 100%. But we can go incredibly accused.

And somebody asked him about this in a campaign event, a black man. And he told him he should be lynched for asking him. That's like an example of, you know, just so people think this isn't like, Oh, you know, proclutching this guy's a racist. Now, he's very actually racist.

Yeah, that's, there's no, there's no two ways. That's like that. But, but as I said to the piece and the line you just read,

“very talented communicator and speaker when he's not being completely unhinged.”

Like you do have to hand it to him in that sense. Right. All right. So you get down to the swamps of Florida. You got down what it was two days before.

I got there Monday morning. Uh, I went Monday night to his final speech of his campaign, which is down again in kind of the swampish country down in South Florida. And then I went to his campaign watch party rally victory party. It's he would have called it whatever you want to call it.

On Tuesday night on actual election day. All right. So just walk us through. You get down there to start walking us through your experience in the land of the grovers. Yeah.

So the first thing I did, I flew to Orlando.

I knew that Byron Donald was going to be in Orlando on Tuesday for his election night event. I was hoping to potentially catch up with him if I was able to. I knew fish back was going to be in Tampa, which is about an hour and a half down the road. So flying to Orlando. I don't know exactly what I'm going to do first.

But then I find out about this closing speech tapping later that night. It's about three hours drive from where I was in a very rural town. A town of about 7,000 people. So I drove the three hours in Orlando. It was being held at this church.

“The, I believe it was the turning point, church of God was the name of the church.”

Really out in the middle of nowhere. Very rural areas. I said, I get there. I see fish back in the parking lot helping his volunteers bring signs into the church. And stuff is probably at 45 minutes before he started.

Only a handful of people there at that point. I walk into the church. I see the pastor of the church who I looked up before getting there and to see. You know, he was going to be directly involved with this. What his deal was.

Find out he was a fish back supporter. So I went into the church what to talk to the pastor. He was very forthcoming with me.

And the first thing I noticed was that I don't know his exact age.

But I would peg him and he had a 21 year old son. I'd peg him as being, you know, Jen X probably. Not a full boomer, but you know, an older guy. And he sounded very much like a typical kind of popular stroke voter in many ways. You know, he talked about data centers.

He talked about immigration. He also talked about taxes. He wasn't big. You know, he's an economic conservative. He didn't want to pay a lot of taxes. Once wanted to cut taxes, things like that. Didn't talk about Israel all didn't talk about the Jews.

None of these kind of conspiracy, you know, racist, bizarre online things that like the Nick Flint As types are into. None of that was present in this conversation. And so that was my first thing I noticed. I actually asked him about Israel at one point in conversation because I was like,

you know, James, he got a lot of attention with his anti Israel rhetoric. But I'm curious, like, as a pastor and a supporter of his like where you stand on that. And he said he was pro Israel. And notably, as I noted in the piece, his church had foreign flags lining the side of it.

I did a little research and this seems to be something within his Denomination that's kind of a common thing that it's kind of, you know, they view themselves as a global kind of entity summary. And so they were there flags lining the church. And one of them was these rarely flag.

It was actually the one all the way at the front directly next to James Fishback while he was giving a speech. I got a photo of him with the Israeli flag in the front. He was 20 feet away from it. And so he was pro Israel. I noticed that thought that was weird.

He said a son introduced in the James Fishback. So that talked to a son. His son knew him from working with him at this nonprofit that he used to run years ago. Where he was helping, you know, do like debate club training for like teenagers, which connected into the 17 year old dating situation.

But again, we don't know if you know that rabbit hole. But he met. He met if there was son, his son was a fan again, didn't mention anything about the Israel stuff, the Jews, any of that stuff. And then, you know, we went inside.

He was back to give the speech before the speech. I started talking to a few other people. Again, nobody's talking about the Jews. And we told him about Israel. It was an older crowd, more millennial in Gen X than like the young men who you would think will be watching.

Nick Flint as all day. And they were talking about, again, normal kind of popular issues. Data centers flock wanting to rain an immigration, wanting to get a lot of affordability talk.

And nobody was talking about these crazy online things.

“The only person who did bring up the kind of gripper stuff at this event was one campaign volunteer.”

Who I said next to him and talk to him. And he was the younger guy. I think he was 21 for a call correctly. And he said, yeah, he adjusted to the Israeli flag, which is actually how I noticed. It was in the rear of my head and even seen it.

He adjusted to the Israeli flag and was like, yeah, I do have feelings about that flag over there. But like the Israel thing is really just a broken record at this point. And I was like, what do you mean about that? And he's like, well, you know, we've said what we want about it.

Like people never we stand and people that just obsessively talk only about it all the time.

You know, it's kind of grand. It's kind of a waste of time. Like there gets old. There are other things that we need to be talking about. They're important, like the other issues we discussed.

I asked him what his media diet was. He very openly told me I listen to Nick Funtez. I listen to Tucker Carlson. He had a very online Gen Z media diet, I would say. And again, Tucker Carlson talks about Israel every single episode.

Nick Funtez virulently anti Israel. But this kid was like, yeah, like, I have those opinions. Fishback has those opinions, but like, we don't want to obsess over it. So that was that was the crux of the interesting observations from the first night at the church. And I guess I should close on the last point that fishback in his speech

did not talk about Israel all really. He had one reference to APAC if I were going correctly.

“I think he mentioned APAC once in the speech didn't mention Israel by name.”

I actually caught up with him after the speech and asked him why are you talking about Israel. APAC so much less. And he was like, well, I am still talking about it. But you know, I want to talk about the issues that matter to Floridians and talk about other things this well. Oh, well, well, and last had been about this night, I guess.

Actually, before we move on to the next step is as soon as I got done talking to fishback. I spent a few minutes with him talk to him. I asked him a question of why he's not talking about Israel. He impacts much, he moves on to get a handshake with the supporters. And a gentleman walks up to me who is older, who I wanted to talk to already because he seemed like an interesting guy.

I based on his actions throughout the night. And he walks up to me and introduces himself and said the first thing out of his mouth. It is, yeah, the Israel thing is death. We're not talking about that anymore. I was like, what do you mean? Who are you? What is this?

And he revealed himself to be an outside advisor to the fishback campaign,

who said that he would never support an anti-Israel candidate because Israel was the chosen people of God.

And the outgeologically, you know, we can't oppose Israel. And he was a flooring up political operator who had started advising the fishback campaign. You know, that a month and a half to two months prior. And said, yeah, I told James to cut that out essentially. Like, no more of the anti-Israel stuff that's stupid.

And he's like, I don't think James Fishback is anti-Israel or else I wouldn't be advising his campaign. And I was like, okay, man. Interesting thing. But that was a very interesting conversation.

“So you have, you go to this kind of his, his swan song rally, right?”

The last rally of this. It's closing arguments. It's closing arguments and you're thinking, okay, this is, he's not talking about Israel. There seem to be some adults in the room. This, it's, it looks like a political campaign and it quacks like a political campaign. Like my god, my Jimmy Fishback pulled off and then came election day.

And the crowd at the fishback victory party was a beast of a different nature. Tell us about that. Yes, I, you know, we, we all knew that Fishback was going to win. He was probably, he was pulling, you know, the high single legit's most polls. You know, maybe he gets 10%, 15%, but we knew he was going to win.

And so, you know, I come down here. Wanted to see these crazy supporters.

And after this first event, I'm thinking of myself, maybe my premise was wrong here.

Like, maybe there are none of these people in the real world. And like, I'm not going to get to talk to any of them. And even Fishback himself is really talking about this stuff anymore. Like, maybe, maybe I kind of missed the boat on this. And he, you know, this is just going to flame out and not be that interesting.

Not the case. I drove back to Orlando Tuesday night comes. I swing by the barren autos, election party briefly. Say hello to a few folks there. Then I make the hour and a half drive to Tampa.

And get there at about 730 to 8ish. And this is after the polls had closed. It was already clear that he was losing the results were officially end. That showed that he was not going to win. He ended up winning about 10% of the boat.

It's at the airport. Helden, I believe. Pick your make hotel chain. It was an airport hotel. And I believe it was a Helden.

I show up. Walk in. There's no kind of sign in. Driven volunteers really anywhere. I go back to the, I finally followed the scream of young kids and suits and dresses.

As I put it in the piece that we're kind of mingling about the hotel.

And I see the event.

I walk past the the credential table.

What the extent that it existed. Nobody stopped me. I just walked into the event. Started taking the measure of the room. And this was where you saw the grippers in full effect.

This crowd, unlike the previous night's crowd, which was older. More kind of rural. I would say normal Americans, so to speak, real Americans, who I, even if I don't agree with them about Jim's fish back, I could have some similar concerns to them and, you know, crack and bear with them and have good time.

This was a bunch. This looked like a problem after party.

This was a bunch of kids.

Look like they're about 20 years old dressed to the nines to the level that a 20 year old can dressed to the nines. And they were very much talking about Israel and the Jews and all of these things much more openly. And so I talked to some of the folks there. Again, got the vibe that these were the actual grippers.

But the thing that was interesting to me there. One of the things is that the people that were most worried about Israel and were attracted to the Israel stuff and Abax stuff and racism and the edge lordness and all that stuff were people that were not buying large from Florida. There were people who had come from other places to, you know,

“I think as I put in the piece to kind of pilgrimage, it seemed like that they thought James Fishback”

was like the leader of this movement and they needed to come pay honor to him. So it was interesting that the people that were actually his constituents potentially seemed less concerned with it. But that was where I saw all these kids who were the Nick Flint as types. And even there, there were some degree of, I would say, confusion and kind of a disconnect

between Fishback's rhetoric and who was supporting him because even there, I talked to a couple people. I noted in the piece there was this black girl, a teenager who volunteered for the campaign who said that she liked Fishback because she was pro-life and was a Christian. And he was strong in pro-life and he made religion a big thing that was campaign.

And she had just seen a social media clip of him talking about abortion and Christianity and stuff. That's how she got to know him. And I asked her, I said, you know, a lot of people think James Fishback is racist. And do you think he's racist?

And she said, well, we all have our moments. Right. But I don't think he would be so nice to me if he were racist. And I was like, that's an interesting answer. That's an interesting answer.

But yeah, that crab was very different. And confirmed to me two things. One, the grippers are real. In a sense, they do exist in the real world. They can get out.

They can vote. They can volunteer to these things. They do, they're not, in my opinion, an electorally significant piece of puzzle. That was kind of big, been the broader debate here amongst Republicans.

“Is like, do we need to give in any area to these kids who are crazy on the internet?”

Because if we don't, are we going to lose elections if they don't vote for us? And my conclusion from this experiment is no, because I just don't think there's enough of them in numbers. All 10% of James Fishback voters were like this, then it may be a debate, but they're not as I love it. So that's, that's one takeaway.

The second takeaway and you and I talked about this actually when I got back is like,

There's a youthful energy to this that is real. But it also is the type of thing that tends to fade and evolve over time, in my opinion. We've all, you know, all of us that are in DC have been involved in politics, some young age have gone to these conventions and these conferences as, you know, high schoolers and college kids and early adults, where you are super jazzed about all these new ideas and these new figures and this energy and your movement.

And like, it usually just doesn't pan out that way. Like the adults in the room usually still end up being the ones driving the ship. And the youth in search and seeing, you know, if the youth in search and see was real, you wouldn't see in a very different, even in this term of Trump, you would have seen a very different policy platform, I'd say, for Trump in a second term, if this youth in search and see was real and actually taking over the body.

And so, you know, I came away from it not to not as concerned about this movement, I would say, as I may have previously been. So I think that's fair.

“And I think for those of us who, you know, are, share your sentiments and are also happy that, you know,”

groypers do not represent the future of their public and party. This is welcome news, but, you know, these kids aren't going anywhere. Nick Fuentes isn't going anywhere. James Fishback certainly isn't going anywhere. I mean, I guess the two questions are, what do you think happens next?

Right, what do you think happens, I suppose, in between now and in 2028? And is it possible that something could happen that would actually make them more electorally relevant, right? Like, and is it maybe more of these candidates, more of these groypers, Jason candidates, following James Fishback's example,

Yeah, I think there's two things that really come to mind on this question.

The first is that these people, these smart ones will moderate to some degree.

And the dumb ones will continue to be crazy and they'll fill them out. But they will moderate, and we saw that with Fishback's campaign himself. He ran for a close to a year. And at the beginning of that year, he was talking a very, you know, outlandish way. And every time, as that outsider, you know, pointedly put it to me, he evolved, you could say.

And he started running in a more traditionally populist, you know, Trump-like way than as crazy as he was at the beginning.

And I would even say someone like Nick Flint has, if you observe his rhetoric a little more closely.

In the past year or so, I would say he has started to get, and I would be clear. I'm not saying he's actually changed his underlying views. I have no way of knowing that. I would assume not. But to the degree that his rhetoric represents what he is, is pushing. He's like outflanked people like Tucker and Candace from the same side.

Like he asserted to call those types of people crazy and point out times when they're being outlandish and ridiculous.

“And I think there's very clearly a tactical move by him.”

And he's the person that all of these people look up to and kind of take their cues from. There's a clearer effort by him to at least be like, I'm not a, I'm not Candace of it. It's like, I'm not out there. I'm not Tucker Carlson who's talking about it as real ABC will not be said. He's starting to kind of triangulate back a little bit more towards the middle in a way,

with a lot of his rhetoric and what he's been talking about lately. And again, I don't think that means he's changed his views at all.

“But I think it represents an acknowledgement and an understanding that like being an insane.”

I don't know if I'm going to let a curse on this show, but you can try to make it. Yeah, being it the idea that being just like an unhinged poster on the internet as your political platform is like actually a way to attain power. There's clearly a recognition that that's not the move that's happening.

So that's the first thing I would say the second thing I would say is that a lot of this is going to depend on like the institutions within DC within politics.

A lot of these kids who I talk to at the second event are the type of kids that are going to end up being interns on the Capitol Hill. There's types of kids that are going to end up in like research assisted positions at big takes and at media companies and things like that in a few years once they get out of college. The types of kids, you know, lowered a lot of them that are going to get kind of absorbed into the political apparatus. And I think it's going to depend a lot and we've seen this happen with places like heritage for instance when they had the whole Tucker Carlson brew off Kevin Roberts and all that it's going to be up to these institutions when those kind of inflection points happen to make clear where they stand on some of these key issues and to not succumb to what the what they perceive to be the hot thing of the moment because if you do have the heritage foundations and the you know.

Pick your media companies of the world and the Senate offices of the Republican party and all these institutions at these kids filter into. If they all start to be like well I guess we kind of have to give it to the group or a little bit that is where the energy is I guess we're going to give it and maybe we'll be a little bit anti semantic or maybe we'll turn on his or a little bit maybe we a little bit racist like if that starts to happen. Then the kids won't grow up because they don't need to but if these institutions do kind of maintain a firm line of like yes.

You may have been a little out there in college whatever we don't want to cancel you but like if you come here to work at this think tank or this you know in the Senate office or whatever like there's an expectation you're going to grow up and like being adult now politically.

“If that happens then I think this stuff kind of naturally filters out but that's a big if I don't know I mean I think the other thing that could come into play and it's less of an active.”

Correction than what you just described obviously well it'll be obvious when I say it but one thing that really struck me about this whole campaign was just how little. Byron Donalds engaged with the most extreme rhetoric from fish back and I was I was constantly impressed I like byron Donalds I think he's he's a great politician I think he's very good at this obviously I think you know he handily won I think it's reasonable to assume he'll be the next governor of Florida. But he really at no point and that's rare these days right everyone punches back and punches down and if someone gives you a nickname you give him a nickname back right I mean it's what's made politics.

At times a little bit more entertaining but generally really insufferable is everyone's meaming at each other and the Democrats are doing it to Trump and Trump's doing it back and at some point it's just so exhausting but. Byron Donald that the rare thing of he I mean he engaged with him he criticized them on the merits and I believe a handful of times you know. In response to some of the more extreme racist comments that fish back made I think maybe once or twice Donald said something but otherwise he pretty much just ignored him went about running his campaign and I think that.

Because he showed that you still can succeed in especially in Republican primaries without necessarily giving into the kind of like dragged down baronuckle just like game of constant insults and who can be the meaner meaning to their opponent. I'm glad you mentioned that because that is a very important piece of the story and I hope to talk to baron at one point in the process of doing the story and he he was just very busy with the election night stuff obviously so it didn't bad out but. I did talk some people around him leading up the election and then on election night and.

He's a very your right he basically ignored him almost entirely throughout the campaign and you know people who talk to really yeah that's a very deliberate choice because.

One on just a personal level like baron is black man and having a guy make constant taxing on him about his race and use racial epithets toward him is not something he is going to want to dignify.

“I think that's a very good response since that obviously makes sense, but then also politically it is unnecessary especially a baron position where he has such a strong lead it's unnecessary to get down in the month and so I'm like that.”

And I've often, you know, it's hard to have counterfactuals and no for sure.

You know, it's a very strong thought at a gut level that we the collective role we as like saying the conservative media figures and political actors probably give too much.

Thought and too much energy towards these provocateurs and it depends which one you're talking about there are a little bit different but certainly someone like Fuentez or someone at this point like Candice Owens. But it does it translate as we've seen to real world political power and I think hinging on there every word clipping every questionable statement to Carlos and makes on his show clipping every single crazy thing Candice Owens says on our show and freaking out about it on Twitter and doing entire podcast episodes dedicated to debunking them.

Some of that you do have to make people aware and rebut some of the things that they're saying and make people especially someone who you know some of these people who have you know different audiences that they cultivated previously in their career that may not realize how they've changed. You do have to do some of that but I think at times we maybe give too much tension and too much air to these people and I think I do hope as you alluded to that like some Republicans and other conservatives look at how baron Donald's ran this campaign and say oh actually like.

“If we're running or dealing with this insane person or having a you know Twitter fighter podcast fight with this insane person like actually maybe instead of getting in the mud and having a dramatic back and forth and everything they say.”

Maybe just by being sane and presenting a positive alternative for people to support that people can be drawn to on their own without having to make it such a direct head to head conflicts. Maybe that is actually a more and more fruitful path because as well though kids love things that are rebellious. They love things that are that are you know dissident that that really rattled the establishment and their parents and their grandparents that you know didn't love them enough or whatever. Like the kids love that stuff and so if you are constantly scolding them and telling them that they're bad for what they're doing that might backfire.

“If you're just presenting a more sane reasonable alternative that's more attractive to them and that they can put two and two together and say hey.”

What I rather go with the funny guy they get 10% of the vote that's really crazy and makes me you know runs a tingle up my leg or when I rather go for the guy who like it's still pretty good but actually can win and like I can be an adult and like actually you know be part of something real. A lot of them might choose the latter option if you just you know aren't weird about it. We can only hope Dylan houseman is the managing editor of the daily wire go read his incredible. I guess we can now call it a post-mortem of the James Fishback campaign here live the groper's.

It's up on dailywired.com as we speak Dylan always a pleasure thanks for joining thanks to him.

I will do my best to turn on another bang or in the next few days so I can come back on next week and continue to monopolize the shit. Continue to the streak and whether whether it's with Dylan or not we will be back next week on behind the story thanks for tuning in. (gentle music)