C. Jay Engel is a far-right white nationalist commentator and podcast host who is part of a movement to create a Christian nationalist community in Tennessee.Virulently anti-immigrant, Engel has cheered on the administration's brutal deportation campaign, called for the "repeal of the Twentieth Century," and advocated for Taylor Swift to be "arrested and executed."
When President Donald Trump was reelected in 2024, Engel celebrated that "our guys" were now in control and bragged that "there are very good right-wing Heritage Americans in staff positions all over Washington." The term "Heritage American," when used by Engel and his ilk, is essentially a euphemism for a form of anti-immigrant white nationalism that insists only those whose ancestors have been in this country for several generations truly qualify as Americans.
Last week, Engel appeared on "The J. Burden Show," where he revealed that "our guys" are placed in influential positions surrounding Vice President J.D. Vance.
"You have to confront power with power," Engel said. "I think J.D. Vance and others in his circles have also gone through that transformation. Maybe they're not quite as radicalized as us, but I do know for a fact that they have staffers and people in their ear that are our guys. They operate within our circles, they talk to us, they're in our group chats."
Engel said that traditional neocon establishment Republicans are afraid of Vance because they realize that their influence is fading while Vance's far-right white Christian nationalist ideology represents the future of the conservative movement.
"Vance and some of the people that he operates with, including friends of mine, they actually are ideologically set on destroying the residues of neoconservative thinking in Washington," Engel claimed. "So they're concerned that a Vance rise represents the complete liquidation of everything that they've contributed to the American political system since the 1990s. And I think that's true. I think that Vance does represent that, because Vance has connections to people on the right wing that are much more resolute in their right-wingness compared to the people in Trump's circles. Trump is opening a lot of doors, but the people that Vance has on staff, including Tucker Carlson's son, they're a lot more radicalized than Trump staffers, except for maybe Stephen Miller or something. So I think that Vance does represent a very healthy trend."
