Chris Rufo Warns Right's Conspiracy Culture Is Splintering Trump 2.0 Agenda

2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 30

Chris Rufo, a leading architect of the right’s anti-DEI and anti-CRT campaigns, said the movement now faces an “escalating war of influencers” trading conspiracies and counterconspiracies.
That unease comes from a figure who helped drive major policy wins—from shaping Ron DeSantis’s agenda to influencing Trump’s early second-term executive orders against diversity programs.
Rufo also tied his activism to immigration enforcement, citing reporting on alleged Minneapolis fraud rings that fed into ICE and CBP deployments to Minnesota.
The New York Times opinion interview frames the central question as whether Rufo’s tactics delivered short-term victories while helping create a polluted information sphere that now hinders the right’s broader goals.