A very particular and ugly recent history

April 8, 2024 1:08 PM

When Candace Owens, the far-right political commentator, parted ways with conservative media company the Daily Wire in late March, the news unleashed something strange on the internet. Factions emerged to yell at each other about theology, censorship, and bigotry. Extremists chatted with establishment right-wingers in audio chatrooms on social media. Content creators wrote blog posts and produced YouTube videos with their take on one particular phrase: “Christ Is King.” That phrase gripped the right for days, leaving movement leaders struggling with layers of infighting that proved difficult to parse for all but the most egregiously online people. It was also, for those tracking the right’s strange coalition-building, a warning sign: The establishment conservatives’ pragmatic alliance with hateful white supremacist groups may finally be breaking under the awkwardness of having avowed antisemites in a pro-Israel movement. from The Establishment Right’s Alliance With Open Bigots Is Under a New Kind of Pressure [Slate]
posted by chavenet (35 comments total)

something strange on the internet. Factions emerged to yell at each other about theology, censorship, and bigotry

Meet the new internet, same as the old internet
posted by verstegan at 1:16 PM on April 8 [14 favorites]

The right will get their shit together for the greater evil. They're this close to pushing the world over the brink into decades of misery and horror, and they won't let a little infighting stop them now. Meanwhile we'll still be arguing about privilege while they round us up and ship us off to the camps.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:24 PM on April 8 [41 favorites]

Slight warning: reading this article means reading a lot of bigoted talking points. It’s not a bad article, but brace yourself.

They also don’t really do Alex Jones justice. He likes throwing “genocide” at Israel because he hates Jews. He doesn’t really care if Palestinians die because he hates Muslims. He is, however, concerned that refugees will come to the US, because he hates non-white people. Basically, Alex Jones is a land of conflicted bigotry.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:27 PM on April 8 [34 favorites]

I wonder what is going on with the flow of money to these propagandists. They keep talking about the money — is not enough going to the key personalities to keep the messages aligned? Just as the insurrectionists behind J6 were given financial and logistical support, these right-wing extremists aren't working for free. Trump is having a tough time raising campaign funds. Russia and Israel are fighting expensive wars. Are the usual sources of money to the American right wing getting tighter?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:31 PM on April 8 [10 favorites]

The left spent so much time telling each other the Nazi Bar story that it forgot to tell the Republicans.
posted by mittens at 1:35 PM on April 8 [15 favorites]

Said before and will say again - the reactionary right's greatest innovation in the last ten years is making alliances based on what everyone involved hates rather than on what everyone involved believes in. Nazis will happily march next to Ben Shapiro as long as they can keep the action and attention on how much everyone hates secular leftists and Muslims. As soon as anyone expresses an affirmative belief, though, rather than a negative one, the coalition falls apart. Right wing politics now consists of keeping everyone's attention on what they hate vs letting anyone say in public what they actually want. The big tent is a lot easier to sustain when everyone involved is very cagey about their specific goals.

This approach collapses when someone (Owens in this case) expresses an affirmative belief.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 1:42 PM on April 8 [55 favorites]

The left spent so much time telling each other the Nazi Bar story that it forgot to tell the Republicans.

Oh no, Republicans were told that same story, but since Cleek's Law is a real thing, they let the Nazis in just to spite the liberals.
posted by NoMich at 1:44 PM on April 8 [15 favorites]

I think there’s two streams of conservative money in the US — the very wealthy, who are willing to do things like back unprofitable media platforms (e.g. Musk), do large campaign contributions, and buy RVs, and the lower-income grift mill of the Alex Joneses, Steven Crowders, and Ben Shapiros of the world (Shapiro straddles both streams).

Since at least 2023, Trump has been soaking up a lot of both streams (sorry for that image), the money is tighter, and none of these people can stand each other. I do like Pickman’sNTM’s observation that they are united in hate, and that includes hatred and jealousy of each other. The National Justice Party collapsed last year ostensibly because of a consensual three-way, but more because the leaders all wanted the lion’s share of the money, which I think they sensed was drying up.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:56 PM on April 8 [10 favorites]

godzilla-let-them-fight.gif

It's kind of amazing to see a pretty explicit Neo-Nazi like Fuentes support an increasingly antisemitic Black woman in a feud with her far-right, pro-Israel Jewish boss, though. I've previously been grudgingly impressed at how much of a big tent the far right has been able to construct in the US, but it had to start bursting at the seams at some point, and I assume (and hope) we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the near future.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:03 PM on April 8 [6 favorites]

The linked article notes the "happy ending" here, where unity was restored to the far right a few days later when they all got to mend the tent seams by throwing a big shit fit together over Transgender Day of Visibility.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 2:05 PM on April 8 [10 favorites]

I had to laugh out loud at this one, though: "the Daily Wire, a company that is so influential it has its own film studio"

They produce low-budget "movies" for their own streaming service, and whatever attempts they'd made at theatrical release have been disastrous. Not suprisingly, Ben Shapiro doesn't know how to make movies.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:07 PM on April 8 [16 favorites]

> Meet the new internet, same as the old internet

"Have you ever used hate speech to personally insult someone on the other side of the world? You will."
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:11 PM on April 8 [11 favorites]

It's kind of amazing to see a pretty explicit Neo-Nazi like Fuentes support an increasingly antisemitic Black woman in a feud with her far-right, pro-Israel Jewish boss, though.

It's kind of like how one of the most prominent anti-feminism, anti-equality, anti-woman figures in American history was named Phyllis.

Owens is useful to him, in that while she obviously ticks one box he doesn't like (African-American), she ticks several others that he does like (name value amongst Trumpoid circles, embrace of anti-semitism, a thorn in the side of Shapiro, a touch of semi-mainstream credibility by association, devoted to getting Trump elected again so that Trump and his minions can stomp hard on almost everyone Fuentes hates).
posted by delfin at 2:26 PM on April 8 [12 favorites]

Well, today I learned that The Daily Wire produces movies.

TV shows, too, including Mr. Birchum (Daily Wire link), in which someone whose career highlights include Crank Yankers and The Man Show dusts off an old project and sinks a little lower.

Promising an 'all-star voice cast that has never been assembled before,' the credits offer up Jay Mohr, Patrick Warburton, Danny Trejo, Roseanne Barr, and, because Adam Carolla doesn't think women are funny so what difference does it make, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly.

It still sounds better than Lady Ballers, a sports comedy that features the rare credit: 'Ted Cruz as Senator Ted Cruz.'
posted by box at 2:29 PM on April 8 [4 favorites]

I just don't think that these newly monarchical christologists are being entirely sincere.
posted by meehawl at 3:17 PM on April 8 [7 favorites]

Danny and Patrick noooooo
posted by hototogisu at 3:21 PM on April 8 [22 favorites]

On the Daily Wire's filmmaking and Ladyballers, Some More News on Youtube did a whole video dissecting that terrible movie. (1h9m)
posted by JHarris at 3:36 PM on April 8 [7 favorites]

‘Viva Cristo Rey’ was a slogan of the Carlists (who were monarchist absolutists, and opposed to liberal parliamentary democracy and communism both, and of course, to Jews) who fought, most recently, in the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War on the Francoist side, and who participated in war crimes, but I would bet any number of pesetas or Euros that nobody in the American right who’s using the phrase knows that. Strange ideas have a way of surviving and metastasising
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:42 PM on April 8 [11 favorites]

remember it was white suburban women who voted in the T.rump
posted by djseafood at 4:37 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

"remember it was white suburban women who voted in the T.rump"

No one else in the country voted for trump? That doesn't sound right....
posted by WatTylerJr at 4:40 PM on April 8 [7 favorites]

I'm pretty sure white men voted overwhelmingly for Trump. But it sure is easier to blame women than to fix whatever is wrong with white men.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:46 PM on April 8 [45 favorites]

white men are at least voting because it keeps them on top. what's white women's excuse for voting to have their rights curtailed?
posted by kokaku at 5:22 PM on April 8 [9 favorites]

White women did go for Trump and this was, I think, literal weeks after him admitting to serially sexually assaulting women on tape. I was pretty young then but I remember there being lots of media analysis of how disappointing this was--that white women, as a demographic bloc, supported him regardless. Every POC demographic went for Clinton.

I'm pretty sure white men voted overwhelmingly for Trump. But it sure is easier to blame women than to fix whatever is wrong with white men.

Not "women" but white women specifically. Who did go for Trump by a majority, despite him repeatedly showing extreme contempt for women. If we're going to be "blaming" demographics and I'm not sure what the wisdom of that is, I think Trump's 2016 victory is pretty clearly a case of white racial animus and hatred overpowering every other force, including self-interest and dignity and even bodily autonomy.

White *people* and their hatred and fear of the other gave us Trump. Full stop.
posted by lizard2590 at 5:54 PM on April 8 [41 favorites]

> what's white women's excuse for voting to have their rights curtailed?

Because it reinforces their dominance over nonwhite women. Humans are more interested in their position relative to those they consider similar to themselves than their absolute position. We're a bucket of crabs. That's why the proletariat would rather get angry at migrants for "stealing their jobs" than at capitalists for creating an economic hellscape. It's a universal tendency at all demographics.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:56 PM on April 8 [17 favorites]

If the two. extreme halves of the Conservative Right want to destroy each other, how did I slip them ammunition to wipe each other out? Thoughts and prayers to anyone caught in the middle, but if you didn't see that coming, I don't feel too bad for ya.

As for Alex Jones, Alex Jones hates anyone not Alex Jones.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:07 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

Danny and Patrick noooooo

Patrick Warburton does seem to be a conservative (sigh) but Danny Trejo is a Democrat who goes around giving socks to homeless people. I dunno what he's doing mixed up in this Adam Carolla cartoon mess. Maybe they're old pals or something. Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel also go way back, but I'd be really surprised if Kimmel plays any part in this. He's made fun of Trump so relentlessly that if Trump does get back in office I think Kimmel would pretty much have to flee the country.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:08 PM on April 8 [7 favorites]

Speaking as a high school woodworking/construction teacher, Mr. Birchum can go fuck himself
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:07 PM on April 8 [7 favorites]

Yeah I’m hoping this is more a “Danny Trejo works with anyone” situation, but these days I don’t initially assume the best.
posted by hototogisu at 12:02 AM on April 9 [6 favorites]

The extreme right has always been anti-semitic at its core. Right-wing talking head Ben Shapiro has to ignore the elephant in the room and hope it doesn't stomp him into the ground at some future point. Given that extremist movements tend to become more extreme as "moderate" members get pushed out, that future point may not be that far away.
posted by tommasz at 4:12 AM on April 9 [10 favorites]

If we're going to be "blaming" demographics and I'm not sure what the wisdom of that is, I think Trump's 2016 victory is pretty clearly a case of white racial animus and hatred overpowering every other force, including self-interest and dignity and even bodily autonomy.

Oh no, the bodily autonomy piece was a reason to vote for Trump, not something most of these women voted for him in spite of. There are a lot of pro-forced-birth women.

I remember looking into the stats at the time and the white women who voted for Trump were overwhelmingly evangelical and Catholic. The media reported it like the most relevant factor was that they were suburbanites, but if you looked at religious affiliation it was like, oh. 80% of evangelical white women voted Trump, iirc, and they make up a quarter of the electorate. Religiously unaffiliated white women overwhelmingly voted Clinton and iirc mainstream Protestant white women went slightly for Clinton. See How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis (does not break down by gender).

White evangelism is a white nationalist belief system and trying to deny people abortions is part of that. Racism and patriarchy, two terrible tastes that go great together.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:08 AM on April 9 [13 favorites]

White evangelism is a white nationalist belief system…

Right-wing white evangelism. I know lots of folk here don’t believe it’s possible, but there are a ton of left-leaning evangelicals in this country. My wife, for instance.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:40 AM on April 9 [8 favorites]

My apologies, Thorzdad, you're right, I did mean right-wing.
posted by joannemerriam at 11:19 AM on April 9 [1 favorite]

Danny Trejo is going to be 80 this year and from what I can tell spent most of the 60s being a junkie in the California state prison system. He has an unfortunate level of visibility, but that'll screw anybody up for life. Or maybe he has a grudge for the 94 crime bill.
posted by rhizome at 11:49 AM on April 9 [1 favorite]

Danny Trejo is a Democrat who goes around giving socks to homeless people

"I honestly believe that politicians have to be ‘A’ students in government. We’ve had so much problem in the United States by voting in celebrities. Look where we’re at right now!"

"My assistant and I were passing out Pampers to young married couples and he said, 'Damn, we can never go back to the joint now.' I said, 'Why?' And he says, 'We’d get a nickname like Huggies!'"
posted by kirkaracha at 9:50 AM on April 10 [3 favorites]

The thing I first and foremost identify with Candace Owens is this, which is evidence she was a pretty terrible person long before hopping on the right-wing gravy train.
posted by jackbishop at 2:31 PM on April 10 [1 favorite]