Why Piers Morgan Couldn’t Beat Nick Fuentes (And Why Most Catholics Can't Either)

Piers Morgan spent two hours trying to convince Nick Fuentes he’s a bad person.

He called him racist, misogynist, offensive, and unfit for the name “Christian.”

But young Catholic men are still following him.

Because “that’s racist” isn’t a persuasive argument anymore.

Fighting with Borrowed Weapons

Nick Fuentes is a 27-year-old far-right political streamer with millions of followers, famous for edgy humor, racist remarks, and white nationalism. His traditional Catholicism has earned him the ear of thousands of young Catholic men.

British television personality, Piers Morgan, invited Fuentes on his show to confront him about his beliefs. And it did not go well for Piers Morgan.

Morgan tried to beat Fuentes using secular liberal morality. He called him antisemitic and misogynistic and racist, etc, etc. But Fuentes happily accepted those labels.

Piers: “You’re violating liberal social norms!”

Fuentes: “I don’t care about your norms.”

Stalemate. They can’t have a conversation because they are operating from different conceptions of what is good. For Nick Fuentes and the young Catholic men who follow him, the liberal social norms are irrelevant. They’ve rejected them, so appeals to them don’t work.

Unfortunately, most Catholics do the exact same thing when dealing with Fuentes and his followers. We yell “That’s racist! That’s misogynist! That’s offensive!”

And they don’t care.

The problem is, we’re fighting with weapons we borrowed from liberalism. We’ve internalized secular values so deeply that we don’t even notice. “Racism is bad,” we say—but why? Because of equality? Social justice? These are liberal values that Fuentes explicitly rejects.

The Church has actual reasons why racism is wrong (and what qualifies as racism), rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the inherent dignity of every human person.

But we rarely reference it. Instead, we appeal to the same secular framework our opponents don’t accept.

The Catholic response to Nick Fuentes

In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us to think about “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable.” Notice what’s not there: “whatever is politically correct, inoffensive, or socially acceptable.”

The question isn’t whether Fuentes’s followers are violating liberal norms. They are. Happily. The question is whether they are pursuing virtue and becoming like Christ, something they claim to care about!

If you want to reach young men following Fuentes, stop calling them racist and start asking them real questions:

• Is it temperate to mock your enemies online?

• Is your view of different races just?

• Is Holocaust denial true?

• Does this speech reflect love of neighbor?

• Are you pursuing holiness?

• Is this making you more like Christ?

These questions don’t rely on liberal values. They rely on the classical virtues and the Beatitudes. And these young men actually respond to this. Many of his followers claim Catholicism. They claim to want standards, want virtue, want to become better men. Let’s take them at their word.

What they don’t want is a lecture about violating norms they never agreed to in the first place.

The Real Battlefield

All of this needs a caveat: you can’t correct someone you don’t love or know personally.

Most people condemning Fuentes obviously hate him. They want him destroyed, not converted. They want him silenced.

But Christ said, “Love your enemies,” and that includes the antisemites.

If you actually loved these young men, you’d ask what they’re seeking and what wound they’re trying to fill. They’re looking for strength, purpose, community, and masculine identity. You say Fuentes offers a fake version. But at least he offers something. Where’s the Catholic alternative that actually loves them enough to form them properly?

Formation requires relationship, time, and community. You can’t form someone by calling them racist online. You form them in parishes, in friendships, in accountability.

The reason Fuentes has influence is that the Church abandoned its job. We stopped forming young men. We stopped teaching virtue. We stopped offering them something worth living for, so they went looking elsewhere.

Piers Morgan thought he could defeat bad ideas with moral smugness. Catholics think they can defeat bad ideas by borrowing secular morality. Both are wrong.

Bad ideas are not defeated by better ideas, as the old liberal adage claims. Bad ideas are defeated by truth spoken in love.