In the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, the American right was consumed by a conflict over the “Indian question.” The flashpoint came in September, when Bo French, a Republican candidate in Texas, lamented a picture showing South Asian fans at a college football game. This open display of anti-Indian sentiment drew condemnation from mainstream Republicans, but echoed the views of many on the far right, such as the white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes. Other leading figures on the online “dissident” right endorsed French’s stance, presenting Indian identity as incompatible with a foundationally and essentially white America.
The irony of all this is that the European rightist thinking upon which today’s American far right draws has more often been Indophilic. A reminder of this legacy came in an earlier phase of the evolution of the far right. Shortly after Donald Trump first won the presidency in 2016, Richard B. Spencer, the founder of the alt-right, held a conference at his National Policy Institute. One of the speakers was Jason Reza Jorjani, an Iranian-American with a doctorate in philosophy who was at that time editor in chief of Arktos, then and now the world’s leading English-language publisher of authors belonging to the “New Right.” Jorjani called for “an affirmation of the Indo-European tradition,” arguing that “Indo-European or Aryan cultures are uniquely worthy of affirmation since they are the roots of every great discovery and world-historical development in spirituality, the sciences, and the arts.” His speech was applauded by the audience.
“Jorjani’s speech reflected a longstanding fascination on the radical right.”
Jorjani’s speech reflected a longstanding fascination on the radical right with India and Iran. Though the European radical right is now committed to maintaining what it calls the European “ethnos,” it was also often taken with the history and culture of “Aryan” civilizations like India and Iran, neither of which are exactly European.