Detail of the "unified reich" text beneath a hypothetical "MAGA!!" headline. [X.com](https://x.com/MikeSington/status/1792883196033376467) Former President Donald Trump posted a video to Truth Social Thursday night portraying hypothetical headlines about a second Trump term. Beneath one is text about "the creation of a unified reich." The post had been removed from Truth as of Tuesday morning, but several Twitter users reposted it before it could be taken down. The video purports to show news stories that would be written if Trump were elected: "ECONOMY BOOMS," reads one headline. "BORDER CLOSED," declares another. The video ends on a large headline reading "MAGA!!" Beneath it, in blurry but legible text, a smaller headline talks about the "creation of a unified reich." The use of the German word "reich" is reminiscent of the Third Reich, the official Nazi designation for its government and territory. In another part of the video, a background headline also says, "President Trump rejects globalist warmon" — the word "warmongers" presumably being cut off here. Some consider the word "globalist" an [antisemitic slur](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/the-origins-of-the-globalist-slur/555479/). Throughout the video, the newspaper backgrounds appear to have been cobbled together from World War I-era news, referring to events and dates from that time period. The incident adds to a long line of connections between the former president and antisemitism. Last fall, Trump [called his opponents "vermin,"](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213746885/trump-vermin-hitler-immigration-authoritarian-republican-primary) and in an interview with a far-right website said that immigrants were "poisoning the blood" of the nation — language that echoed Adolf Hitler. Then, not long after the "vermin" speech, Trump [hosted a dinner](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/25/trump-white-nationalist-nick-fuentes-kanye-00070825) attended Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite. Fuentes was a guest at that dinner of Kanye West, another Trump ally with a history of antisemitic views. In all of these cases, Trump denies wrongdoing. For example, he later [posted to Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109405826070401204) that he "knew nothing about" Fuentes, and that West brought him uninvited to the dinner. These antisemitic connections stretch back to the 2016 campaign. In early 2016, he [at one point declined](https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/28/politics/donald-trump-white-supremacists/index.html) to disavow the support he was receiving from white supremacists including former KKK grand wizard David Duke. Later that year, [he shared an image on Twitter](https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-star-david-225058) featuring a six-pointed star with text declaring Hillary Clinton to be the "most corrupt candidate ever!" The star was placed next Hillary Clinton's head, photoshopped over a background of money. And as president in 2017, he responded to the violence during a Charlottesville, Va., white nationalist rally by declaring there to be "very fine people on both sides." The Trump campaign has not yet responded to NPR's request for comment. In a Philadelphia speech to members of the Service Employees International Union, Vice President Kamala Harris blasted Trump for posting the video: "This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president, and it is appalling. And we've got to tell him who we are. And once again it shows that our freedom and our very democracy are at stake." Later, President Biden blasted the video at a fundraiser in Boston, saying Trump uses Hitler's language, not America's, according to the pool report.

It is hard to be shocked by Donald Trump anymore. The former president’s trial over hush money paid to a porn star has made history, and his performance in court has been so farcical that Mr. Trump was threatened with jail time for contempt of court. He has called his political enemies “vermin” and said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America. Mr. Trump’s transgressions against American political norms are by now almost a cliché. Yet when Mr. Trump [posted on Monday a video](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/us/donald-trump-reich-video.html) on his Truth Social account that featured mock headlines about his re-election in 2024, including one that predicted that “what’s next for America” was the “creation of a unified reich,” it was a shock of a different order, a suggestion that our country was on a glide path toward Nazi Germany in a second Trump term. Mr. Trump’s penchant for flirting with authoritarianism and fascism is well known — he [praised](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/) the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, has [dined](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/us/politics/trump-nick-fuentes-dinner.html) with the white supremacist Nick Fuentes and of course instigated the Jan. 6 riot. But the “unified reich” video shows a different kind of danger in another Trump presidency. The [Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/trump-election-2024-rhetoric-germany-antisemitism-31002afb91b642c0314223d19e51f427#) reported that the references in the video “appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern Pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single reich, or empire, in 1871.” A Trump campaign representative [claimed](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/us/donald-trump-reich-video.html) that the video was posted by a campaign staff member while the candidate was in court. That underscores the bigger problem in the Republican Party today, one that goes far beyond Mr. Trump: a generation of young Republican staff members appears to be developing terminal white nationalist brain. And they will staff the next Republican administration. This is a problem that other Republican candidates have faced as well. Last July the Ron DeSantis campaign fired a speechwriter and former National Review contributor, Nate Hochman, for promoting a pro-DeSantis video [featuring Nazi imagery](https://www.axios.com/2023/07/25/desantis-campaign-video-nazi-symbol-sonnenrad); and scores of Republican aides on Capitol Hill have been outed by reporters as “groypers” — a term used to describe fans of Mr. Fuentes. Not every young Republican campaign staff member is a fascist. But the far right is a significant part of the Republican Party’s political coalition. Mr. Trump sailed through the G.O.P. primary and has probably secured the nomination. The presence of so many extremist elements in positions of power and influence is the price to be paid in the party’s bargain with MAGAism: Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar [addressed](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-leaders-denounce-greene-gosar-speaking-white-nationalist-event-rcna18050) a white nationalist conference in 2022, and an investigative report from 2020 found that [at least](https://capitalandmain.com/the-white-supremacist-house-extremism-in-the-trump-administration-video) 12 Trump administrative aides had ties to neo-Nazi and anti-immigrant hate groups. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F05%2F23%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-unified-reich.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F05%2F23%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-unified-reich.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F05%2F23%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-unified-reich.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F05%2F23%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-unified-reich.html).

R Derek Black, whose dad is the notorious Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black, was once the poster child of the white nationalist movement in America. Now, they’ve abandoned their family’s beliefs, come out as transgender and recently released a book called The Klansman’s Son. Published in May, the memoir tells the complex story of their journey from white nationalism to antiracism and how one’s upbringing doesn’t have to define their ideology. “It’s terrible to have no sense of privacy as a child,” Black said. “But as an adult, I can reach out to the people I care about. I can engage in the world and be a person who stands up for things that are important to me.” The book, published by Abrams Press, grapples with the theme of a childhood built around fear and is the product of years of internal reflection. “I’ve never had a moment in my life when the world didn’t have some stake in me,” they added. “But now I’m focusing on the future.” Growing up, Black bought into the hateful rhetoric of the belief system that surrounded them, co-hosting The Don and Derek Black Show_,_ and starting a subset of Stormfront for kids. They were also perpetually surrounded by leaders of the movement like David Duke. At age 10, they gave their first public interview on The Jenny Jones Show, declaring their intent to lead the white nationalist movement for the younger generation. Afterwards, the producers offered to pay for a trip to DisneyQuest, the virtual reality park that had recently opened nearby in downtown Chicago, as a reward. [](https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/07/kkk-leader-don-black-child-abandons-white-nationalism-memoir#img-2) R Derek Black's book 'The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism.' Photograph: Harry N Abrams “My family foreclosed on the possibility of having a private life,” Black said when describing revisiting this archival footage for the sake of the memoir. “It was revealing and emotional rewatching the years of my adolescence in those interviews, trying to remember what it felt like at the time.” Black was born in 1989 in Florida, and their pathway to white nationalism began at home. Broadly, the movement is fueled by white supremacy and followers often claim that white people are unfairly persecuted and support the existence of ethnostates. Experts believe white nationalism in the US became a popular term among white supremacists hoping to soften their image in the public sphere and disseminate their views into the mainstream. Derek’s father, Don, was instrumental in the movement. He led the KKK in the 1980s and created Stormfront, the first major international racial hate website generally credited with bringing the movement online. > I am haunted by the legacy of the White nationalist movement I inherited, and whose future I helped advance R Derek Black The site, which was shut down in 2017, was popular with extremist groups like neo-Nazis and holocaust deniers and included forums where subscribers promoted white power events. In 2002, it had 5,000 members. By 2008, this number had risen to 133,000. A handful of these subscribers went on to commit hate crimes, according to the hate-watch group Southern Poverty Law Center. One message board user shot and wounded three children at a Jewish daycare center in Los Angeles in 1999. “I am haunted by the legacy of the White nationalist movement I inherited, and whose future I helped advance,” Black writes in the book. “Its violence is a source of infinite guilt and irreparable harm.” The opening chapters of the memoir deal with these early events in Black’s life, leading up to their moment of enlightenment while a student at New College of Florida in Sarasota. They describe feeling “boxed in” by the public appearances they were forced into making as a child, and difficult, seemingly painful childhood memories are recollected with candor and clarity. “I gained more power to cause more harm to people and society in ways I deeply regret,” Black recounts, in the beginning chapters. “Each additional interview, each choice to go deeper and become a more involved leader of the movement that my parents had helped create, constricted the possibilities I saw for myself.” [ Ibram X Kendi on why not being racist is not enough ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/14/ibram-x-kendi-on-why-not-being-racist-is-not-enough) While a student at New College in 2010, Black was forced, for the first time, to re-examine the core tenets of their belief system. When other students found out about their involvement with the white nationalist movement and exposed them, Black was ostracized by many, and gradually, things began to fall apart. Emphasizing that this shift happened while they were away from home was crucial to the author when writing their memoir. “I wanted to emphasize when reading the book that we think of persuasion as submission,” Black said. “We can only look at what we know is true once we shift away from the people and community that defines us.” In the years since, Black has used their platform to advocate for antiracism, delving deep into how our community shapes us and what individuals can do to be aware of this inevitability. Primarily, they lean into public education opportunities, writing, speaking and workshopping with organizations like Ibram X Kendi’s center for antiracism research and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum based in Washington DC. “My focus isn’t speaking to white nationalists,” Black said. “I’m more hopeful of using my experience and research to talk to a broader audience to draw attention to the way racist and antisemitic beliefs exist pervasively within our society, which fuels the movement.” Figuring out how to come out as transgender, and talk about it and share it, was something they thought a lot about when writing the book. At the time, Black recalled they were just acknowledging this realization themselves, but if they were writing the memoir again at this point in time, they would include a lot more about it. > I realized silence was not a moral decision R Derek Black Notably, the decision to move ahead with writing stemmed mainly from the events following the [2020 election](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-elections-2020). Black believed that people weren’t focusing on the dangers a movement like white nationalism still posed nationwide, especially following the aftermath of the Trump presidency. “For years, I felt like I’d done enough damage and didn’t want to speak out,” they said. “Then I realized silence was not a moral decision.” Today, roughly 100 chapters of the white nationalist movement still exist in the US. The movement has been unable to mobilize in the same capacity as during Trump’s time in office, but the rhetoric and policies, such as opposition to immigration and a belief that national belonging should be decided by race, remain consistent. Black’s family, which is still heavily aligned with the movement today, has not reacted pleasantly to the book and its revelations. “I don’t want to talk about that too much,” the author said, “but I can say it hasn’t been a positive reaction. Ask me again in five years.”

[](/search?tid=168) [Wilson](/~Wilson) (42865)发表于 2024年06月07日 23时26分 星期五 [新浪微博分享](//service.weibo.com/share/share.php?url=//www.solidot.org/story?sid=78387&appkey=1370085986&title=%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%B1%E5%92%8C%E5%85%9A%E4%BA%BA%E7%BB%A7%E7%BB%AD%E6%94%AF%E6%8C%81%E7%89%B9%E6%9C%97%E6%99%AE%EF%BC%9F) [](javascript:void(0);) **来自图书馆员与遗失的神灯** 发表在《The British Journal of Criminology》期刊上的一项研究探讨了为什么美国人、尤其是共和党选民会几乎无条件支持特朗普（Donald Trump）。研究认为，很多美国人对于美国成为白人国家的愿望比确保国家被遵守法律的总统领导的愿望更强烈。研究人员设计了一个实验，去分析为什么美国人会继续支持面临严重刑事指控的特朗普。参与者被随机分配到三实验条件之一：没有发现任何证据表明特朗普积极协助 2021 年 1 月的国会山骚乱；电邮证据表明特朗普敦促极右翼团体反对选举结果；有证据表明特朗普有意不允许国民警卫队阻止抗议者。研究人员还收集了参与者的政治观点和种族态度。结果显示，白人国家主义者（White nationalist）政治倾向对他们的立场有巨大影响 ... https://www.psypost.org/why-do-republicans-stick-with-trump-new-study-explores-the-role-of-white-nationalism/ https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azae025

The Indiana’s governor’s race should not, under normal circumstances, be remotely competitive. In 2020, Donald Trump won the state by 16 percentage points, and the current Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, won by more than 20. All the state’s leading officials are Republicans, and the party has supermajorities in both legislative chambers. But after the Republican convention this weekend, the influential conservative lawyer James Bopp Jr. wrote, in a [confidential memo](https://x.com/adamwren/status/1802518758352625749) obtained by Politico’s Adam Wren, that there’s a “serious threat” to the party’s nominee for governor, Senator Mike Braun. That threat is Micah Beckwith, a Pentecostal pastor, podcaster and self-described Christian nationalist who was just chosen, despite Braun’s wishes, to be his running mate. Ordinarily, The Indianapolis Star [reports](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/06/15/delegates-nominate-micah-beckwith-buck-mike-braun-lt-governor-pick/74108296007/), convention delegates rubber-stamp their candidate’s choice of lieutenant. But this year, they rebelled, rejecting Braun’s selection, a state representative named Julie McGuire, for Beckwith, who embodies the combative spiritual fervor ascendant among the party’s grass-roots. As a result, wrote Bopp, “Democrats have a real opportunity to launch a serious campaign in the fall because of Beckwith’s nomination, and it has already begun.” Democrats will have plenty of material to work with. The day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Beckwith [said](https://x.com/JourdynBerry/status/1347332870818451457) that God had told him: “Micah, I sent those riots to Washington. What you saw yesterday was my hand at work.” He’s [said](https://importantville.substack.com/p/confessions-of-an-alleged-book-banner) that the “progressive left has taken over the Republican Party in Indiana,” and promised that if he wins, he’ll be a thorn in the side to the governor. Before his victory this weekend, Beckwith was probably best known for leading a campaign to purge the young-adult shelves at the Hamilton East Public Library, where he was a board member until January. (He resigned after a policy he’d promoted, which removed books that included sex, violence or repeated profanity from a section for teenagers, [was reversed](https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/hepl-board-ends-controversial-review-policy-will-return-books-to-teen-section).) Braun, wrote Bopp, will be “made to answer” for every statement Beckwith has ever made. Beckwith’s elevation is the latest sign of a conflict splitting Republican parties nationwide, as G.O.P. activists demand ever greater levels of purity and belligerence from their leaders. I’ve written about this in Minnesota, where delegates to the state convention [endorsed](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/opinion/royce-white-senate-maga.html) the Alex Jones acolyte Royce White for Senate, and in [Colorado](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/10/opinion/colorado-gop-pride.html), where the state party recently called for the burning of Pride flags. Cadres of true believers inspired by Donald Trump, and by the religious movement that sees him as divinely ordained, are seizing the party from the bottom up, much to the consternation of more traditional Republicans who thought they could indulge the MAGA movement without being overtaken by it. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F17%2Fopinion%2Findiana-christian-nationalist-republican-party.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F17%2Fopinion%2Findiana-christian-nationalist-republican-party.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F17%2Fopinion%2Findiana-christian-nationalist-republican-party.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F17%2Fopinion%2Findiana-christian-nationalist-republican-party.html).

Seven years after deadly violence erupted during the [2017 Unite the Right rally](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/oct/08/no-accident-behind-the-fight-for-justice-after-the-unite-the-right-rally) in Charlottesville, Virginia, a federal appeals court has reinstated more than $2m in punitive damages for white nationalist leaders and organizations implicated in physical or emotional injuries suffered by people at the event. The decision brought the total that a jury ordered to be paid to more than $26m. Most of that money, $24m, was for punitive damages, but a judge later slashed that amount to $350,000 – to be shared by eight plaintiffs. On Monday, the Richmond-based fourth US circuit court of appeals restored more than $2m in punitive damages, finding that each of the plaintiffs should receive $350,000, instead of the $43,750 each would have received under the lower court’s ruling. A three-judge panel at the fourth circuit affirmed the jury’s award of $2m in compensatory damages – but it found that a state law that imposes the $350,000 cap on punitive damages should be applied per person instead of for all eight plaintiffs, as a lower court judge had ruled. The ruling stems from a federal lawsuit against two dozen white nationalists and organizations that participated in two days of demonstrations in Charlottesville to protest against the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee. On the second day, after the Unite the Right rally had been declared an unlawful assembly, James Alex Fields Jr, a white supremacist from Maumee, Ohio, intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens more. Fields, who was one of the defendants in the civil case, is now serving a [life sentence](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/15/charlottesville-james-alex-fields-sentencing) for murder and hate crimes. The fourth circuit panel rejected a request from the defendants that the court ask Virginia’s supreme court to rule on the question of whether each plaintiff could receive $350,000 in punitive damages, saying in its ruling that it found the state law’s language and history “clear enough to predict how Virginia’s high court would rule”. “Over two years ago, the jury used its $24m punitive damages award to send an unmistakable message to the defendants and to the public about the outrageous misconduct that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. While the law compels us to reduce the award, it’s long past time for that message to be delivered,” the court’s chief judge, Albert Diaz, wrote in the 3-0 ruling. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they were pleased by the court’s ruling. “Today’s decision restores over $2m in punitive damages from the jury’s verdict, which sent a clear message against racist and antisemitic hate and violence,” attorneys Roberta Kaplan, David E Mills and Gabrielle E Tenzer said in a statement. Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The verdict from the 2021 trial was a rebuke to the white nationalist movement, particularly for the two dozen individuals and organizations accused in a federal lawsuit of orchestrating violence against Black people, Jewish people and others in a meticulously planned conspiracy.

Things should have been settled. The weary delegates should have already chosen a presidential nominee, packed up their Welcome to New York souvenirs and returned home in time for the nation’s celebration of what it stood for. Instead, the study in indecision that was the Democratic National Convention of 1924 staggered through the Fourth of July weekend, its 3,000 delegates all but ensnared in the red-white-and-blue bunting adorning a tired Manhattan arena slated for demolition. The convention, which lasted 16 days and an astounding 103 ballots, is notorious both for being the longest in history and for being infected by the Ku Klux Klan, which cast a long shadow over the America of that time. Just a few dozen miles to the south, it was celebrating a white-nationalist Independence Day with a hood-and-robe parade right down the Broadway of a beachside New Jersey city. The simultaneous events reflected the divide over what it meant to be an American. Instead of proudly asserting who we are, that distant summer day raised a question being debated over the July Fourth weekend a century later: Who are we? At play were the tensions between the rural and the urban; the isolationist and the world-engaged; the America of white Protestant Christianity and the multiracial America of all faiths; the America that distrusted immigrants and the America that saw itself in those immigrants, and wished to extend a hand. Exploiting these conflicts was the Klan, the post-Civil War white-supremacist organization that had been resurrected a decade earlier. Its “America First” mantra resonated with an aggrieved Protestant middle class — some Republicans, some Democrats — who sensed their power slipping away. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F07%2F05%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocratic-convention-1924.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F07%2F05%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocratic-convention-1924.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F07%2F05%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocratic-convention-1924.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F07%2F05%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocratic-convention-1924.html).

Jul 16, 2024 10:41 AM Lawmakers, influencers, and religious leaders are all portraying Donald Trump surviving an assassination attempt as part of God’s plan to protect him and deliver a Christian America.  Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters/Redux On Monday night at the [Republican National Convention](https://www.wired.com/story/jd-vance-trump-vice-president/) in Milwaukee, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina took to the stage and declared he believes in miracles. “Thank God almighty,” Scott said. “Our God still saves, still delivers, still sets free. Because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle. But an American lion got back up on his feet and he roared.” Scott, a man who once literally [hammered the Ten Commandments to the wall](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/05/22/tim-scott-2024-ten-commandments-faith-voters/70227989007/) of a government building, is one of dozens if not hundreds of lawmakers, religious leaders, and influencers who have framed [former president Donald Trump surviving an assassination attempt](https://www.wired.com/story/trump-shooting-assassination-conspiracies/) as some sort of divine act. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, currently serving a jail sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena, [described it](https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/07/13/exc-steve-bannon-reacts-to-45-assassination-attempt-trump-wears-the-armor-of-god/?feed_id=13176&_unique_id=669338c84dd4c) plainly: “Trump wears the Armor of God.” Some white evangelical Christians have claimed for some time that Trump was divinely chosen by God to lead America. More recently, such claims have inflected a distinct political tendency—white Christian nationalism, which envisions the United States as a divinely ordained promised land for Christians of European descent. “A central tenet of this theological worldview is ‘spiritual warfare,’ the idea that Christians are engaged in a daily battle between good and evil, God and the devil, with prayers of the faithful thwarting evil plans,” Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research Institute and author of the best-selling book [_The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future_](https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Roots-White-Supremacy-American/dp/166800951X), tells WIRED. “But this worldview trades in a kind of ex post facto theology, where being saved from danger or sickness or other disaster is seen retroactively as evidence of divine protection. Its after-the-fact selectivity is glaringly apparent. I’m certain, for example, that none of these voices would be saying it was God’s will had Trump been assassinated.” Now, in the wake of the shooting, claims that Trump is the anointed leader of Christian America have escalated dramatically—not only among those who have openly espoused Christian nationalist beliefs, but also among a much broader range of Trump supporters. Despite Trump’s behavior often being antithetical to Christian beliefs and his apparent lack of religiosity—he was famously [unfamiliar](https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/state/donald-trump-religion/) with even the name of a book of the New Testament during his first run for the presidency—evangelicals have long been Trump’s most ardent supporters. According to polling from PRRI, two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants hold Christian nationalist views, viewing themselves as the rightful chosen people to be in charge of the United States with Trump as their defender. And on Sunday morning, as Americans were still coming to terms with what had happened the previous evening, evangelical pastors across the country portrayed the incident as a signal that Trump had been anointed by God. “You preserved \[Trump’s\] life, and you don’t preserve anything you don’t have a purpose for,” Pastor Jentezen Franklin of Free Chapel in Georgia told his congregation. Speaking to Fox News hours after the shooting, Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas said the shooting “is evidence of the reality of evil in the world. We thank God for protecting the life of this courageous leader who is a warrior for truth and the friend of Christians everywhere.” “GOD protected President Trump yesterday,” claimed House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has been a major proponent [of Christian nationalist ideology](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/15/mike-johnson-separation-church-state-misnomer), in a [post](https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1812516744679858260) on X. Trump himself echoed these claims in a post on Truth Social: “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” the former president said. But in the days following the shooting, a much broader range of Trump supporters began to invoke the idea that Trump had been protected by God to deliver a Christian America. “If it isn't apparent enough who God wants to win,” YouTuber and boxer Jake Paul, who [recently invited Trump to one of his fights](https://www.wired.com/story/donald-trump-jake-paul-fight-invite/), [posted](https://x.com/jakepaul/status/1812273062588436903) on X. “When you try and kill God's angels and saviors of the world it just makes them bigger.” On Sunday evening, on the eve of the RNC, Trump supporters held [a prayer vigil](https://x.com/donie/status/1812595083797209533) outside the event venue. In interviews with 18 RNC delegates on Monday, [Reuters found](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-supporters-see-his-narrow-escape-death-gods-work-2024-07-16/) that all but two believed God had a hand to play in Trump’s survival. Many people, including Trump’s own son [Eric Trump](https://www.instagram.com/p/C9admnKv40C/?hl=en&img_index=1), his [former adviser Roger Stone](https://x.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/1812627542182178862), and endless conspiracy posters on X, labeled the slight turn of the head that caused the bullet to graze Trump’s ear rather than kill him as a moment of “divine intervention.” In many cases, these claims were accompanied by what appear to be AI-generated images of Trump with Jesus Christ standing behind him with his hands on Trump’s shoulders. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and cochair of the RNC, was among those [sharing](https://www.instagram.com/p/C9Y2U1FtikV/?hl=en) such pictures. Others [claimed](https://x.com/Trumpfan81/status/1812335940385521831) that an American flag flapping in the breeze above the stage where Trump spoke resembled the form taken by an angel. Charlie Kirk, the founder of conservative activist group Turning Point USA, posted on X that he believed God had intervened to protect Trump and the future of the US. “Consider for a moment that Donald Trump, and the fortunes of the entire country, might have been saved today by a gust of wind that pushed that bullet ever so slightly,” Kirk [wrote](https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1812296987133505590) on X. “The Holy Spirit in scripture is often associated with a gust of wind. God's hand is on Donald Trump.” Many Trump supporters also looked for significance in the mundane details of the shooting. “The bullets were fired at 6:11pm,” far-right troll and Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec [wrote](https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1812532328779915740) on X, adding: “Ephesians 6:11.” The Bible verse says: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” While not specifically Christian nationalist, the idea that God had intervened was also promoted by spiritual influencers on X, Instagram, and Telegram, highlighting prophetic claims made months ago that appeared to accurately predict what happened on Saturday. Earlier this month, for example, a self-described visionary named Jelaila Starr predicted on a YouTube show that there would be a failed assassination attempt on Trump in July or August. “She said that it would be a replay of galactic history when humanity lived in its 2nd great experiment in the Pleiadian constellation,” the host of the show, Michael Salla, [wrote](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhCEyQ1mEjc&ab_channel=MichaelSalla) this week. Separately, a number of pro-Trump accounts also flagged a video from April where an evangelical “prophet” claimed to have had a dream about an assassination attempt on Trump, where the bullet passed so close to his head that it shattered his eardrum. What was noticeably absent from all of these claims of God protecting Trump was any reference to [Corey Comperatore](https://apnews.com/article/trump-rally-victim-fire-chief-11e1aa65e6e45584f49577686d38766e), the former fire chief who was killed by a bullet meant for Trump while using his body to shield his family at the rally. This, Jones said, speaks to the dangerous divisions that result from claiming that God was protecting Trump but not anyone else. “The danger with such ex post facto theology for a democratic society is that it is perhaps the most powerful source of confirmation bias and polarization: It attributes providential action to contingent events, but only if they conform to preconceived beliefs,” Jones said. “It’s ultimately a crass and arrogant declaration that God is on our side, that God protects our candidates and our interests but not others.”

Two [US military](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-military) service members were “physically attacked” in the port city of Izmir in western Turkey on Monday by members of an anti-American youth group, authorities said. Fifteen suspected assailants were detained in the attack on the two service members, who were dressed in civilian clothing at the time of the incident. Five other US service members joined in the incident after seeing the violent encounter, officials said. Those detained were members of the [Turkey](https://www.theguardian.com/world/turkey) Youth Union (TGB), a youth offshoot of the nationalist opposition Vatan Party. Police intervened in the incident and authorities are conducting an investigation, officials said. “We can confirm reports that US service members embarked aboard the USS Wasp were the victims of an assault in İzmir today, and are now safe,” the US embassy to Turkey [said](https://x.com/USEmbassyTurkey/status/1830635020077130111) on X. “We thank Turkish authorities for their rapid response and ongoing investigation.” An apparent TGB social media account posted a video on X that purported to show a group of men holding a US soldier and placing a white hood over his head. “No one will be able to respond to the cries for help from U.S. soldiers. Your hands are stained with the blood of our brave soldiers and thousands of Palestinians,” @YouthUnionTR [said](https://x.com/YouthUnionTR/status/1830626155486982655) in its X missive. TGB posted a video on X in November 2021 where members [boasted](https://x.com/YouthUnionTR) about putting a sack on a US soldier. “YANKEE GO HOME!” TGB said in a caption on the post. The US embassy in Ankara said earlier Monday that the Wasp was on a port visit to Izmir, a coastal town. The ship arrived on Sunday following joint training with Turkish military ships in the Mediterranean. The US has ramped up its military presence in the Middle East as the Israel-Gaza war continues. An aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, and its strike group are presently operating in the region’s waters of US Central Command, [according to Navy Times](https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/08/22/uss-abraham-lincoln-arrives-in-middle-east/). * _Reuters contributed to this report_

A rightwing activist who [last month trained poll workers](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/us/politics/republican-national-committee-2024-posobiec.html) for the Republican National Committee will speak in Washington DC on Thursday night alongside an extremist writer who is a “[proponent of scientific racism](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/peter-brimelow)” and a law professor who was suspended after allegedly making “[racist, sexist and homophobic](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/us/university-of-pennsylvania-law-school-amy-wax.html)” remarks and inviting a white nationalist to address her class. Jack Posobiec, Steve Sailer and Amy Wax will appear together at the event, which will take place at the presidential suite at Washington DC’s Union Station, according to ticketing information obtained by the Guardian. The event has been promoted by Sailer’s far-right publisher Passage Press, and was originally scheduled to take place after Sailer’s speaking date at New College of Florida (NCF), which [the Guardian reported](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/28/new-college-of-florida-hosting-extremist-writer-steve-sailer) on last month. The Florida event has now been postponed until next year according to the NCF spokesperson Nathan March, who said that the NCF campus has been evacuated in advance of the expected arrival of Hurricane Milton. The event and Posobiec’s position as an influential pro-Donald Trump operative raise questions about the further penetration of openly racist politics into the Republican party. The Guardian emailed Events at Union Station and the Republican National Committee but received no response. Sailer’s publisher, Passage Press, is marketing the event as a leg of his book tour, Noticing. Last month, the Guardian [reported on the contents of that book](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/28/new-college-of-florida-hosting-extremist-writer-steve-sailer). In it Sailer claims that Black Americans are inherently more prone to criminal behavior on average; that liberal attitudes to race allows the purported criminal tendencies of Black people to go unchecked; that Black people around the world are on average less intelligent than white people; and that Black people are prone to “primitive” beliefs and behaviors. Earlier this year, the Guardian [identified](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/14/far-right-twitter-identity-revealed) Jonathan Keeperman as the man behind Passage Press and the influential “New Right” Twitter/X account “L0m3z”. Posobiec’s history as a pro-Trump influencer has been extensively reported in [the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/26/jack-posobiec-digital-influencers-far-right-republicans-trolling) and other outlets. Posobiec has been prominent since 2016 in promoting disinformation on social media and on fringe, partisan news outlets including Rebel News and One America News Network. The Guardian last year outlined Posobiec’s role in promoting conspiracy theories including “#Pizzagate” and claims about Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the murder of the Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. Posobiec has used X, where his account now has 2.7 million followers, to “promote Russian military intelligence operations, pushed false claims of election fraud and collaborated with white nationalists, Proud Boys and neo-Nazis”. But this has not hindered Posobiec’s rise in the Trump-era Republican party. Last year Semafor [reported](https://www.semafor.com/article/03/17/2023/the-2024-right-wing-influencer-primary-heats-up) that Posobiec was seen by Republican strategists as the influencer with “the most clout with Republican voters” and Posobiec has used this influence to promote false narratives about elections. According to the [Southern Poverty Law Center’s extremist file](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jack-posobiec) on Posobiec, he spread falsehoods about primary and general elections under the “#StoptheSteal” banner in 2016, 2018 and 2020, with the latter campaign preceding the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Posobiec has also spread misinformation in this election season, posting [unsourced](https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1843416528277975224) and [unverified](https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1843631337590403481) information about the [election itself](https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1842950615221317898), about Haitian immigrants, and [hurricane flooding](https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1841955852825063617) in Appalachia. Posobiec’s work as an author has so far drawn little scrutiny from reporters. Since 2017 he has published five books, including one children’s book, with a sixth title scheduled for publication later this month. The Guardian has reviewed a selection of his extant books. From 2018, 4D Warfare offers rightwingers “a new way of waging the culture wars–and winning!”, promotes tactics including “disinformation” (defined as “the dissemination of false, half-true, and misleading information”) and “large-scale deception programs”, and counsels: “Deception helps you to achieve your goals by confusing your adversaries about what they truly are.” Last July, Posobiec released Unhumans, whose title is a characterization of Posobiec’s perceived enemies, including “communists in the twentieth century and progressives of our own day”. The book comes with blurbs by rightwing luminaries including [Tucker Carlson](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/tucker-carlson), Donald Trump Jr and his vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance. The latter wrote: “In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people.” Posobiec writes of the titular “unhumans”: “They undo order. They undo the basic bonds of society that make communities and nations possible. They destroy the human rights of life, liberty, and property – and undo their own humanity in the process by fully embracing nihilism, cynicism, and envy.” The book praises murderous dictators including Francisco Franco and Chiang Kai-shek for their opposition to communism, and recommends that “unhumans” in the US be subject to targeted “lawfare” including “RICO lawsuits” against “Soros-affiliated NGOs”, and “well-publicized lists with dossiers” targeting perceived opponents in “education but also in media, throughout the economy, and more”. His co-writer on Unhumans, Joshua Lisec, has ghostwritten books for other rightwing influencers, and claims on [his website](https://web.archive.org/web/20241002004407/https://lisecghostwriting.com/) to be “the only Certified Ghostwriter and Certified Hypnotist in the world”, marketing his process as “hypnowriting”. Lisec is also co-author of the forthcoming Bulletproof, which claims to offer “the truth about the assassination attempts on Donald Trump”. Posobiec’s history as a conspiracy theorist has apparently not discredited him in the eyes of the current, Trump-aligned Republican establishment. According to the New York Times, [Posobiec told Republican committee volunteers](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/26/us/politics/republican-national-committee-2024-posobiec.html) scheduled to monitor polling in Michigan that the key to elections is that “it doesn’t matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes”. Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project against Hate and Extremism, said of Posobiec’s place inside the Republican party’s tent meant that “the Republican party has gone over the edge”. Beirich added: “This Republican party and its officials associate with extremists of seemingly every stripe,” and that the party “is unrecognizable … What the hell happened to Bush’s party, or Reagan’s party?” Wax, who will share the stage with Sailer and Posobiec, [was suspended](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/penn-suspends-amy-wax-law-professor-accused-of-racist-remarks) by the University of Pennsylvania this year after a string of controversial statements stretching back to 2017. That year she co-authored an [op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer](https://web.archive.org/web/20241007234000/https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/commentary/paying-the-price-for-breakdown-of-the-countrys-bourgeois-culture-20170809.html) claiming: “All cultures are not equal,” and criticized “the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants”. Later that year, Wax [said in an interview](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/15/penn-law-professor-who-said-black-students-rarely-perform-well-loses-teaching-duties/) that she had “rarely, rarely” seen a Black student graduate in the top half of their class at Penn Law, a claim which was later disputed by Penn Law’s then dean, Theodore Ruger. In 2019, at the National Conservatism conference, [Wax said](https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-penn-law-professor-wants-to-make-america-white-again) that the US would be “better off with more whites and fewer non-whites”. In 2022, she told the conservative economist Glenn Loury [in an interview](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/penn-law-sanction-professor-said-us-better-fewer-asians-rcna12749) that the US would be “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration”, and [told Tucker Carlson the same year](https://www.newsweek.com/amy-wax-tucker-carlson-black-people-resent-western-achievements-1697182) that “Blacks” and other “non-Western” groups harbor “resentment, shame, and envy” against western people for their “outsized achievements”, and non-white critics of the west know “on some level, their country is a shithole”. Wax’s Washington appearance comes just over a month before her [scheduled appearance](https://archive.is/YMhXQ) at American Renaissance, the annual white nationalist gathering hosted by Jared Taylor. Other advertised speakers there include Martin Sellner, founder of Austrian far-right nationalist group Identitäre Bewegung Österreich. Wax has [invited Taylor to her classroom](https://www.inquirer.com/education/amy-wax-penn-jared-taylor-white-nationalism-eugenics-20230912.html) several times. Beirich said that Wax is “a flat-out white nationalist with a ton of white nationalist friends. There’s no pussyfooting around her politics.” A Penn spokesperson told the Guardian: “Last year, a five-member faculty Hearing Board determined that Professor Amy Wax violated the University’s behavioral standards by engaging in years of flagrantly unprofessional conduct within and outside of the classroom that breached her responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal learning opportunity to all students,” adding: “These findings are now final.”

The unknown artist or artists who fashioned [a swirled bronze piece of feces](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/25/poop-pelosi-desk-statue-january-6-insurrectionists) on a replica of the former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk – and placed it on the National Mall recently – appear to have struck again. This time, the artistic-political commentary is focused not on the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack carried out by [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) supporters, when a participant did indeed defecate on Pelosi’s desk. Instead, the display satirically evokes the notorious white nationalist Unite the Right tiki torch parade through Charlottesville’s University of Virginia campus in August 2017, with some marchers chanting: “Jews will not replace us”. A tiki torch statue titled The Donald J Trump Enduring Flame was placed on display in Washington DC’s Freedom Plaza, a few blocks from the White House, on Monday. The plaque beneath the piece alludes to how the former president referred to “some very fine people on both sides” at the rally, which led to the murder of a counterprotestor demonstrating against white supremacy. “This monument pays tribute to President [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) and the ‘very fine people’ he boldly stood to defend when they marched in Charlottesville, Virginia,” the plaque reads. Alluding to remarks from Trump at the time that the media had treated people at the rally “absolutely unfairly”, the plaque adds: “While many have called them white supremacists and neo-Nazis, President Trump’s voice rang out above the rest to remind all that they were ‘treated absolutely unfairly’. This monument stands as an everlasting reminder of that bold proclamation.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/29/neo-nazi-tiki-torch-statue#img-2) Multiple white nationalist groups march with torches through the University of Virginia campus on August 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Photograph: Mykal McEldowney/AP The timing and placement of the scatological and torch works come as artists have sought ways to interpret the moment through satire. In September, a vast model of a naked Trump was placed on a highway outside Las Vegas, prompting complaints from local Republican officials supporting his second run for the presidency in the 5 November election against Kamala Harris. But the tiki torch is a more direct commentary on political undercurrents that have resurfaced in the closing days of the 2024 election, with the vice-president and her Democratic allies warning that a return to the White House for Trump risks a slide into authoritarianism. Torchlight parades were a feature of German national socialism in the 1930s. After a spell that returned the tiki to non-political purposes, including lighting summer barbecues and repelling mosquitoes, the Charlottesville rally reimbued them with sinister connotations. After the deadly Unite the Right rally, Tiki Brand Products of Wisconsin put out a [statement](https://x.com/KieranSuckling/status/896858551892815872/photo/1) that the brand “was not in any way associated with the events that took place in Charlottesville and … deeply saddened and disappointed. “We do not support their message or the use of our products in this way,” the company added. Civic Crafted LLC, the maker of the desk and tiki torch pieces, was granted a temporary license for display by the US park service. The agency said last week that when issuing permits it “does not consider the content of the message to be presented”. Vandals removed Pelosi’s name from the desk and poop piece soon after it was installed and drew crowds. An inscription on the piece said it was meant to honor “the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6 2021 to loot, urinate and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election” that Trump lost to Joe Biden. For its part, the 9ft tiki torch went largely unnoticed after it was put up, [according to the Washington Post.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/10/28/tiki-torch-statue-poop-artist-freedom-plaza-white-supremacists-charlottesville/) “I think it’s a perfect piece of satirical sculpture in its placement, in its timing, in its execution,” Eric Brewer, 56, told the Post. “It may be a warning sign of what could be to come.” The park service permit allows the tiki torch work to remain in place until Thursday.

By [David Gilbert](https://www.wired.com/author/david-gilbert/) and [Vittoria Elliott](https://www.wired.com/author/vittoria-elliott/) Nov 4, 2024 6:30 AM The weekend before the election, one Pennsylvania pastor told congregants that hosting Elon Musk weeks earlier was “phenomenal.” In Nevada, another dressed as a garbageman while urging his flock to vote Trump.  Photo-Illustration: Wired Staff/Getty In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this Sunday, at the Life Center megachurch, hundreds of people filed in for a 9 am service. A table on the right side of the entryway stood under a sign reading “Voter’s Guide Here.” Congregants manning the tables asked others if they’d already voted, and handed out sample ballots for nearby counties—Dauphin, Lancaster, York, Lebanon. At the table, there was also an election guide from the evangelical magazine _Decision_, featuring a picture of Vice President Kamala Harris next to former president Donald Trump with a banner reading “Socialism vs. Freedom.” Another pamphlet, titled the PA Family Voter Guide—created by the evangelical Pennsylvania Family Council, which describes it as a “nonpartisan, informative guide” for candidates running for office in Pennsylvania—was also available. Families milled around, grabbing coffee at an in-house cafe, before joining a worship service that could rival many small rock concerts. “Tuesday, go vote,” [pastor Ben Evenson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1YiDyNHtFs), told congregants at the service. “Let your voice be heard, and let God handle the details. We love this nation, God loves this nation.” Just two weeks before, the church had played host to centibillionaire and X owner Elon Musk, as he hosted a town hall in support of Trump. There, he [quipped (again)](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-harris-trump-assassination-joke-church-1235139632/) that “no one’s even bothering to try to kill Kamala Harris” because she is a “puppet” while answering questions at the event. The day after Musk’s visit, the church’s founder, Charles Stock, [gave a sermon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD3i-q8rQsI) entitled “How to Vote Like Jesus,” in which he discouraged congregants from voting third party or writing in a candidate, saying, “The devil will be happy you didn’t vote.” Stock also told congregants that “a flawed leader who does good things is better than suffering under Ahab and Jezebel, who are wicked,” and argued that government had stepped out of its role by “redefining marriage” and “erasing gender,” which he called a “plague upon our nation.” He also told worshippers about a petition from Musk’s America PAC supporting the First and Second Amendments, and Musk’s ([possibly illegal](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter/index.html)) $1 million per day giveaway in the days leading up to the election. “It was phenomenal,” he said of hosting Musk’s visit. “It was an honor to host a wider community here, and be a blessing.” A congregant who spoke to WIRED said that some members of the church did attend the Musk event, and that he felt there was some alignment with Musk when it came to issues of constitutional rights and free speech. Across the country in Clark County, Nevada, just after 8 am in the low-ceilinged room at Calvary Red Rock church just east of the Las Vegas strip, the band on stage was finishing its set, the lights went up, and Pastor Gregg Seymour strode onto stage, dressed as a garbageman. The audience cheered loudly, and on two huge TV screens either side of the pulpit, an image of a garbage truck was displayed, alongside the phrase "G.A.R.B.A.G.E." It turned out to stand for "Great America Rebels Believing Almighty God is Everything." “You know that if anybody in here is a Trump supporter, you are now garbage," Seymour told the audience, trusting that the allusion to President Joe Biden [possibly](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd09e4nl30o) having called Trump supporters garbage would be understood. “For any of you who are in that camp, you are garbage." The church is heavily involved in election integrity efforts. It has a dropbox in the lobby which is overseen by Seymour's daughter Alex, who tells WIRED that many members of the congregation feel safer posting their ballots at church because they don't trust the postal service. The church also ran training last month for people Seymour described as “patriots who care about upholding election integrity." The training helped organize people to work in shifts to observe the election processing center in Clark County. Seymour tells WIRED that he is certain the election was stolen, though he cannot say exactly why, mentioning Dominion voting machines and vague allegations of hacking and manipulation. Seymour tells WIRED he doesn’t see himself as a Christian nationalist, but in the same breath says the "church needs to be involved in government.” He adds that there are aspects of Trump's character he does not agree with, including his embrace of prophetic Christian groups and leaders like Lance Wallnau. But he's happy to vote for him because, he says, “less babies will die under a Trump administration.” American Christians as a whole [don’t see Trump as a Christian candidate](https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/09/trump-harris-poll-neither-christian-or-religious/)—they also don’t see Harris as one—but white evangelicals, who have been [promised more power during a second Trump administration](https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/trump-tells-christian-nationalist-leaders-us-will-be-better-when-hes-given-them-more?utm_source=rww&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bestof), do. They have been working overtime to help get him back into the White House. “Religious-right leaders rallied around Trump in 2016 and 2020 and they are working hard to put him back in power this year,” Peter Montgomery, research director at People For the American Way, tells WIRED. “Conservative white evangelicals have voted for Trump in overwhelming numbers and he is counting on them to put him back in power.” Trump has always had very strong support within the evangelical community, but this time around, there has been a concerted effort among leaders on the religious right to engage with members of their congregations who rarely or never vote. They have done this through high-profile events and tours across swing states while evangelical pastors have pushed the message to their own congregations from the pulpit. These evangelical groups have also been helping to recruit poll workers and train poll workers. The most high-profile of these efforts has been the Courage Tour, organized by Lance Wallnau, a leader in the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation movement, which wants to see Christianity put at the center of all aspects of American society. The tour combined religious revivalism with MAGA politicking and traveled to the key swing states in the months leading up to the election. The speakers on the tour claimed Trump was battling the [“forces of darkness”](https://apnews.com/article/conservative-christians-spiritual-warfare-donald-trump-kamala-harris-9c861aa7c58907ff67bde3c3499a9365) and that [demonic forces had overtaken America](https://theconversation.com/the-courage-tour-is-attempting-to-get-christians-to-vote-for-trump-and-focused-on-defeating-demons-241335). The Courage Tour was supported by pro-Trump conservative activist groups such as Turning Point USA and America First Works, the political arm of the America First Policy Institute. (Linda McMahon, chair of the latter—which the New York Times has [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign-america-first-policy-institute.html) is poised to be more influential than Project 2025 in the event of a Trump victory—was recently [among those sued](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/wwe-vince-linda-mcmahon-sex-abuse-lawsuit-1235140067/) for allegedly turning a blind eye to child molestation in WWE.) Another Christian nationalist traveling roadshow that has been traversing the US since 2021 is the ReAwaken America tour, which brings leaders in the Christian nationalist world together with election deniers, far-right extremists, and MAGA insiders, including a number of Trump’s own family members. Life Center, the Harrisburg megachurch, has, as Evenson acknowledged in his sermon, been labeled as “Christian dominionist.” [In May](https://www.instagram.com/lifecenterharrisburg/p/C6beyrFOOmF/?img_index=1), the church played host to [Sean Feucht](https://www.mediamatters.org/turning-point-usa/right-wing-media-are-promoting-sean-feucht-christian-nationalist-singer-bringing), the political activist and Chrisitian nationalist worship leader, [who held large gatherings during Covid-19](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-01/sean-feucht-kirk-cameron-gatherings-new-years-eve). Earlier this month, [one of Life Center’s apostles performed the opening prayer for Feucht](https://www.pennlive.com/news/2024/10/a-christian-nationalist-church-is-hosting-elon-musks-town-hall-in-harrisburg.html), as part of his “Kingdom of the Capitol” tour of US state capitals. Feucht [unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2020](https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/charlie-kirk-endorses-sean-feucht-congressional-candidate-backed-by-christian-nationalists-and-dominionists), and has since dedicated himself to mobilizing evangelicals to be more politically engaged. He [performed](https://x.com/BrianKaylor/status/1589072000760582144) as part of the ReAwaken America tour. Feucht spent the [Sunday before the election in Scottsdale, Arizona](https://x.com/seanfeucht/status/1853201242950160652), with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Republican senatorial candidate Kari Lake, hosting a worship service called Pray For The Nation ([Kirk endorsed Feucht](https://x.com/BrianKaylor/status/1589072000760582144) during his congressional run). Other groups that have spent millions of dollars to get Trump reelected with get out the vote efforts are Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, the American Family Association’s ivoterguide.com, the Paula White-led National Faith Advisory Board, and My Faith Votes, Montgomery tells WIRED. “Many Christian-right media figures have significant media platforms which they use to promote Trump to their supporters. Shows like FlashPoint on Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel provide a steady flow of pro-Trump propaganda,” Montgomery said. “Conservative Christians have been told over and over again that Trump has been anointed by God to lead the country. At a recent rally on the National Mall, New Apostolic Reformation leader Che Ahn issued an ‘apostolic decree’ that Trump would win the election.” While many conservative politicians have enjoyed broad support from evangelical Christians in the past, the way evangelical leaders speak about Trump as a messianic leader, [particularly in the wake of the failed assassination attempt in July](https://www.wired.com/story/supporters-believe-hand-of-god-saved-trump/), is something new. “Because many of Trump's core evangelical advisers and most prominent evangelical boosters are charismatic, they have also used charismatic spirituality to imbue Trump with a quasi-messianic aura, using their prophecies and messages to link him to many biblical characters,” Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where he specializes in American Christianity, tells WIRED. “Paula White-Cain has been the chair of all of these efforts and a gatekeeper controlling religious leaders' access to Trump, so she has played a pivotal role in guiding these connections.” As well as supporting Trump’s candidacy, evangelicals are also more willing to indulge the former president’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “Evangelical Christians, particularly, but not exclusively white evangelicals, have been \[Trump’s\] most unwavering bloc of supporters,” Taylor said. “ If roughly one third of the country believes Trump's 2020 election lies, among white evangelicals it's closer to two-thirds.” Trump, who has struggled to present himself as a man of faith—in 2016, he proved [unfamiliar](https://www.npr.org/2016/01/18/463528847/citing-two-corinthians-trump-struggles-to-make-the-sale-to-evangelicals) with even the naming conventions of Biblical texts—has himself also been taking part, attending a "[Believers for Trump](https://believers.donaldjtrump.com/)" event in Michigan last month and taking part in a “national faith summit” organized by his first adminstratiuon’s faith leader Paula White last week. “We believe you’re a vessel,” Pastor Jentezen Franklin told Trump on stage during the event. “You’re a chosen vessel,” he added, while comparing the former president to the Apostle Paul.

Nov 5, 2024 8:01 PM At an Arizona polling location, a college GOP group, supporters of an antisemitic influencer, and a Christian nationalist pastor were handing out hot dogs and burgers—but only if you voted for Trump.  Pastor David McClellan serving a hot dog at a table for Republicans United outside a polling station at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, AZ.Photograph: Jamie Lee Taete Mesa, AZ — A group of America First groypers, college Republicans, and a Christian nationalist pastor were handing out burgers and hot dogs to voters in Phoenix on Tuesday—but only if they voted for former president Donald Trump. The cookout took place about 100 yards from a polling station—and it was likely illegal. The effort was organized by the far-right College Republicans United group, in association with the Patriot Party of Arizona. It began just after polls opened at the Mesa Convention Center. Groypers, the name that followers of white nationalist Nick Fuentes give themselves, were helping hand out hot dogs, burgers, and cold drinks. Manning the grill was Pastor David MacLellan, a Christian nationalist who is the chaplain for the Patriot Party of Arizona and subscribes to the [extremist ideology of the Black Robe Regiment](https://www.vice.com/en/article/who-are-the-black-robe-regiment/). “We’re giving away hot dogs and hamburgers to folks who are doing the right thing, voting for Trump,” MacLellan tells WIRED. Isaiah, a self-identified groyper who would not provide his last name, confirmed that the group was giving food only to Trump voters, but added that the food is “specifically for Trump voters, but we do welcome others if they do want to come over and change their mind.” Providing food for a specific group of people at a polling location is in breach of federal law. “Not only is it illegal to give just to voters for one candidate, one cannot limit it only to voters. It must be made available to all people in the area, including children and others ineligible to vote, to avoid running afoul of federal law against vote buying,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA, tells WIRED, [citing the same rules](https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146397) that Elon Musk was accused of breaching with his $1 million ballot. The Arizona Secretary of State’s office, which sets the rules for behavior at polling locations, did not respond to a request for comment. The College Republican United group was set up in 2018 by Rick Thomas, who is also a member of the Patriot Party of Arizona. Thomas told WIRED he founded the group out of frustration at the Republican student group that was in place at Arizona State University. “We eventually broke off and formed our own organization that was very pro-Trump,” Thomas said. “We are American first; we are MAGA.” While not all members of College Republican United are members of Fuentes’ group, there is a significant overlap, Isaiah told WIRED. Thomas portrayed the group as a relatively mainstream student group, but evidence online indicates otherwise: The College Republican United’s website’s book recommendations page features two deeply antisemitic works: the _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_ and Henry Ford’s _The International Jew_: The World’s Foremost Problem. Another member of the CRU, Kevin Decuyper, was recently [hired as an aide to former far-right sheriff Joe Arpaio,](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/04/joe-arpaio-aide-kevin-decuyper-known-extremist/76018418007/) "There are reasons why College Republicans United have been denounced by so many GOP organizations,” says Nick Martin, an investigative journalist who closely tracks extremist groups in Arizona and who runs the online publication [The Informant](https://www.informant.news/). “The organization recommends its members read discredited and debunked books filled with racist pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Their guest speakers have included white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Pizzagate peddlers, fringe political candidates and, rarely, some actual Republicans.” _You can follow all of [WIRED's 2024 presidential election coverage here](https://www.wired.com/2024-us-election/)._

Silicon Valley and the nativist right worked together to elect Trump. Now the infighting has begun.  Brandon Bell / Getty December 30, 2024, 12:55 PM ET Elon Musk spent Christmas Day online, in the thick of a particularly venomous culture war, one that would lead him to later make the un-Christmas-like demand of his critics to “take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face.” Donald Trump had ignited this war by appointing the venture-capitalist Sriram Krishnan to be his senior AI-policy adviser. Encouraged by the MAGA acolyte and expert troll [Laura Loomer](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/laura-loomer-trump-gop/679905/), parts of the far-right internet melted down, arguing that Krishnan’s appointment symbolized a betrayal of the principles of the “America First” movement. Krishnan is an Indian immigrant and a U.S. citizen who, by virtue of his heritage, became a totem for the MAGA right to argue about H-1B visas, which allow certain skilled immigrants to work in the United States. ([Many tech companies](https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-continue-to-exploit-the-h-1b-visa-program-at-a-time-of-mass-layoffs-the-top-30-h-1b-employers-hired-34000-new-h-1b-workers-in-2022-and-laid-off-at-least-85000-workers/) rely on this labor.) In response to Krishnan’s appointment, some right-wing posters used [racist memes](https://x.com/unconquered_sol/status/1872739689758900529?s=51&t=GuMw7uqg32H9fNfPrixr7w) to smear Indians, who have made up nearly-three quarters of H-1B recipients in recent years. Loomer [called](https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1871639183900787083) such workers “third world invaders” and [invoked](https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1871642214327103749) the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims that America’s white population is being purposefully replaced by nonwhite people from other countries. Although Musk has seemingly embraced [white supremacy](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/x-white-supremacist-site/680538/) on the platform he owns, X, he apparently could not stand for an attack on a government program that has helped make him money. He is himself an immigrant from South Africa who has [said](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1850439863079678073) that he worked in the U.S. under an H-1B visa before becoming a citizen. Musk also employs such workers at his companies. He posted on X in support of the H-1B program, [arguing](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1872374103983759835) that it brings elite talent to America. This perspective is not remotely controversial for the Silicon Valley set, but the reactionary and nationalist wings of the Republican Party got very upset with Musk, very quickly. “The American people don’t view America as a sports team or a company,” the provocateur Jack Posobiec [wrote](https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1872378087431917777) in response to one of Musk’s tweets on Thursday. “They view it as their home.” Later, Musk [warned](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1872860577057448306?s=46) his critics that he will “go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.” By the weekend, Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, had [called](https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-slams-scam-h1b-visas-as-laura-loomer-warns-gop-about-elon-musk/) H-1Bs a “scam” and said that Musk’s defense of highly skilled immigrants is showing his “true colors.” The tech right and nationalist right are separate (but overlapping) factions that operated in tandem to help get Trump reelected. Now they are at odds. For possibly the first time since Trump’s victory, the racial animus and nativism that galvanized the nationalist right cannot immediately be reconciled with the tech right’s desire to effectively conquer the world (and cosmos, in Musk’s case) using any possible advantage. After winning the election together, one side was going to have to lose. [Read: Even the Koch brothers weren’t this brazen](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/tech-billionaires-trump-administration/680930/) It should be said that opposing H-1Bs is not an inherently MAGA position. The program has [well-documented flaws](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/19/biden-h-1b-visa-conundrum-524254), and has received bipartisan criticism. For instance, Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, has [previously argued](https://www.computerworld.com/article/1367869/bernie-sanders-h-1b-skeptic.html) that highly skilled immigrant labor is a potential weapon that business owners can use to lower wages. Similarly, supporting H-1Bs says only so much about someone’s politics. Although Musk casts his defense of highly skilled immigrants as racially inclusive, he has repeatedly [flirted](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/05/elon-musk-tucker-carlson/) with [racial prejudice](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/07/twitter-elon-musk-white-genocide-nationalist-supremacist-tweets/) on X and has [vocally supported](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/world/europe/musk-support-for-german-far-right-afd.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) a German far-right party with ties to neo-Nazis. In any case, the coalition of the tech right and the nationalist right was bound to be tested. The two are similar in certain ways: They share a reactionary, anti-“woke” commitment to reversing a perceived pattern of American weakness brought about by DEI initiatives, and both [have exhibited authoritarian tendencies](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/facebook-meta-silicon-valley-politics/677168/). But there were always fissures. The tech right’s desire for free markets is in fundamental tension with a rising conservative skepticism of unchecked capitalism; Tucker Carlson, for example, has spoken critically of “market capitalism,” [arguing that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJrplNkmkcg) “any economic system that weakens and destroys families isn’t worth having.” Much of the nationalist far right sees itself as a movement that values the flourishing, vitality, and self-determination of human beings (as long as they are of the correct race or nationality). Meanwhile, much of the tech right is concerned with advancing technology above all else—the most extreme wings don’t even mind if that ultimately results in [human extinction](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/effective-accelerationism/). For a little while, it almost seemed like the right could dodge these conflicts. Vice President–Elect J. D. Vance is the physical embodiment of a compromise between the far-right, aggressively reactionary, nationalist wing of the Republican Party and its tech-evangelist faction. He worked in a venture-capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, the right-wing tech billionaire; has [criticized](https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/07/beyond-libertarianism#:~:text=We%20live%20in,take%20those%20drugs.) unbridled free markets; and [has been cheered on](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/jd-vance-silicon-valley-far-right/679058/) by far-right influencers with big followings. He has [spoken out against H-1B visas](https://www.axios.com/2022/04/22/jd-vances-investments-made-use-of-h-1b-visas-he-opposes?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=economy-business-jdvance) even as he invested in companies that applied to use them. But part of Vance’s job is to unite his party against a common enemy; that role became less urgent after Election Day. [Read: Silicon Valley got their guy](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/jd-vance-silicon-valley-far-right/679058/) This skirmish is a preview of how tension between the tech right and the nationalist right may play out once Trump takes office. The nationalists will likely get most of what they want—Trump has already promised mass deportations, to their delight—but when they butt heads with Silicon Valley, Trump will likely [defer](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-x-congress-shutown/681120/) to his wealthiest friends. That’s how things went during his first term. Despite Trump’s populist promise in 2016 that he would create an economy that benefited common people at the expense of large corporations and the rich (a position popular with the more nationalist wing of the right), he largely did the opposite, supporting and signing into law tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. This happened even as much of the tech world rebuked Trump over his “[Muslim ban](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trumps-travel-ban-logic-flaw/579631/)” and family-separation policy, which employees of tech giants prodded their leaders to oppose. This time around, with Musk and the tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy running the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, the billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen helping [staff the department](https://fortune.com/2024/12/05/marc-andreessen-department-of-government-efficiency-trump-musk-bezos-recruiter-staff/), and Krishnan set to advise on AI policy, the tech right is being integrated into the incoming administration. Trump’s other appointments also suggest that his administration will be friendly to the rich and powerful. His advisers and Cabinet appointments [so far consist of](https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-tapped-unprecedented-13-billionaires-top-administration-roles/story?id=116872968) ultra-rich confidants from finance and real estate—industries that prioritize markets above other conservative principles. His proposed Cabinet includes few who would be considered dedicated members of the nationalist right. No surprise, then, that Trump seemed to side with Musk, [telling](https://nypost.com/2024/12/28/us-news/donald-trump-backs-h-1b-visa-program-supported-by-elon-musk/) the _New York Post_ on Saturday, “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them.” Perhaps even more so than last time, the plutocrats are in control.

Jan 14, 2025 12:33 PM White supremacists and MAGA livestreamers are using the wildfires to solicit donations, juice social media engagement, and recruit new followers.  Photograph: Ali Matin/Getty Extremists including [white supremacists](https://www.wired.com/story/neo-nazi-demonstrations-trump/) and [border livestreamers](https://www.wired.com/story/far-right-convoy-youtube-live-stream-harass-migrants/) have descended on Los Angeles in [the midst of the wildfires](https://www.wired.com/story/wildfires-have-given-los-angeles-a-contaminated-water-problem/) there to gain followers, juice social media engagement, solicit donations and, experts claim, recruit new members, while in some cases LARPing as emergency workers. This past weekend Ryan Sánchez and three other members of his Nationalist Network group set up shop at the entrance to Santa Monica Pier. Sánchez, who was [caught on video giving a Nazi salute](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna140335?s=09) during last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, and his crew had driven overnight from Arizona, where they live. Sánchez, who was a member of the now-defunct white supremacist fight club known as the [Rise Above Movement](https://www.counterextremism.com/supremacy/rise-above-movement), is an ally of white supremacist Nick Fuentes and is sometimes known by his online moniker “Culture War Criminal.” Sánchez, who did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment, claims on his social media accounts that his group “got much more support than anticipated” and said that all of the donations were given to the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall, a building said to be sheltering veterans as well as charities involved with military and veterans affairs. (It did not respond to a request to confirm that Sánchez’s group made donations.) While Sánchez and his colleagues claim they are in LA to do good, experts who track the activities of far-right groups tell WIRED that what they are really engaging in is “disaster tourism” to further their own agenda by appearing to do good for society. “Based on a lot of their past activities, this is probably being used as a recruitment effort, which is something that's been happening a lot more over the last year where far-right groups engage in disaster tourism,” says Freddy Cruz, the program manager for monitoring and training at Western States Center. “We saw it with Hurricane Helene, and now we're seeing it again. These groups are essentially just traveling to disaster zones to create propaganda, solicit donations, and in some cases actually stealing donations from people on the ground.” On Monday, Sánchez said that while his group was no longer collecting goods for the relief effort, it was still interested in meeting potential new recruits. “We will not be accepting any more donations tomorrow, but if you are still interested in volunteering, contact us,” Sánchez wrote on Telegram and X on Sunday morning. A donation link Sánchez posted to his Telegram channel links directly to his personal Cash App account, and it’s unclear where any money being donated was going, though Sánchez suggested it was being used to fund his group’s travel and accommodation. “The crisis in Los Angeles continues, with high winds expected in the coming days. Thanks to your support, the Nationalist Network will be here for our fellow Americans,” Sánchez wrote on his Telegram and X accounts on Monday, before asking for further donations “if you would like to help keep our activists fed and in the fight.” As well as Sánchez and the Nationalist Network, multiple [MAGA livestreamers](https://www.wired.com/story/far-right-convoy-youtube-live-stream-harass-migrants/) traveled to LA in recent days to begin posting content from the aftermath of the fires while at the same time soliciting money from their followers. One pair of livestreamers, who in the past have been featured on Alex Jones’ Infowars platforms, produced a 17-minute “documentary” on the wildfires filled with disinformation about the source of the fires and the actions of the LA fire department. In some cases, livestreamers moved from documenting the aftermath of the fires to LARPing as firefighters. A livestreamer who is known online as Anthony Aguero, who typically livestreams from the US-Mexico border while pushing anti-immigrant disinformation, posted a video of himself tackling a fire he says he came across while driving in LA on Monday. “I jumped on to action and became a firefighter for a few minutes,” Aguero wrote on X. “I don’t understand how not 1 person tried to stop this fire, it took a guy from Texas to stop it.” The video shows Aguero carrying a bucket filled with water toward the flames; as he leaves, there are clearly still flames visible behind him. Aguero, who calls himself an “independent reporter bringing you raw truth,” also posted a video in which he was talking to Los Angeles Police Department officers on Sunday, claiming in accompanying text that 20 to 30 officers were involved in questioning him and a number of other people who were with him at the time after they were “SWATTED BY LEFTISTS.” In another video posted on YouTube, Aguero is seen chasing police cars through the streets of LA trying to see what incident they were responding to. Aguero didn’t respond to a request for comment. Aguero is one of numerous so-called citizen journalists who have filmed themselves in dangerous situations in recent days. Some appear in the midst of firefighters trying to tackle a blaze, at times traveling toward approaching fires rather than away from them. Other videos show them engaging in vigilantism, chasing people they allege to be looters while continuing to livestream to their followers. These videos are typically posted on X and YouTube, where livestreamers solicit donations or post links to their merchandise sites. Almost all of the streamers have blue checkmarks on X, which means their accounts are able to monetize the content they post.

Now that Trump is president again, the right’s moment of unity is over.  Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Allen Eyestone / Alamy; Somodevilla / Getty; David Dee Delgado / Getty; Kimberly White / Getty. January 23, 2025, 2:20 PM ET On Sunday night, in the basement ballroom of the Salamander Hotel in Washington, D.C., Charlie Kirk was happier than I’d ever seen him. “I truly believe that this is God’s grace on our country, giving us another chance to fight and to flourish,” Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth-outreach organization, said to cheers from the hundreds of MAGA loyalists who had come out for his pre-inaugural ball. “What we are about to experience is a new golden era, an American renaissance.” The celebrations have continued now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, as he has signed a flurry of executive orders to make good on his campaign promises. But this might be the best mood that MAGA world will be in for a while. The president’s coalition is split between two distinct but overlapping factions that are destined for infighting. On one side are the far-right nationalists and reactionaries who have stood by Trump since he descended down his golden escalator. Among them are Stephen Miller, [who is seen as a chief](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/politics/stephen-miller-trump.html) [architect of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/politics/stephen-miller-trump.html), and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and the former executive chair of _Breitbart News_. On the other side is the tech right: Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley elites, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, who have become ardent supporters of the president. Already, these groups are butting heads on key aspects of Trump’s immigration crackdown. In Trump’s second term, not everyone can win. During the campaign, it was easy for these two groups to be aligned in the goal of electing Trump. Members of the nationalist wing took glee in how Musk boosted their ideology on X, the social platform he owns. With his more than 200 million followers, Musk has helped spread far-right conspiracy theories, such as the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio [are eating people’s pets](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/donald-trump-cat-memes/679775/). Meanwhile, the tech right has relished attacks on DEI efforts in the workplace—attacks that have allowed them to more easily [walk back hiring practices](https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/01/the-end-of-the-dei-era/681345/), against the wishes of their more liberal employees. But the two groups also want different things. The nationalist right wants an economy that prioritizes and assists American-born families (specifically, traditional nuclear ones), sometimes at the expense of business interests; the tech right wants a deregulated economy that bolsters its bottom line. The nationalist right wants to stop almost all immigration; the tech right wants to bring in immigrant workers as it pleases. The nationalist right wants to return America to a pre-internet era that it perceives as stable and prosperous; the tech right wants to usher in a bold, globally focused new economy. Already, the cracks have started to show. Last month, Trump’s pick of the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an AI adviser led to a bitter and very public spat between the two camps over visas for highly skilled immigrants. (“FUCK YOURSELF in the face,” Musk at one point told his critics on the right.) At the time, I argued that [the MAGA honeymoon is over](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-maga-fight-h1b/681187/). The disagreements have only intensified. Last week, after former President Joe Biden used his farewell speech to warn about the influence of Silicon Valley oligarchs and the “tech industrial complex,” the white-nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes posted on X that “Biden is right.” Bannon in particular has not relented: Earlier this month, he [told an Italian newspaper that](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/us/politics/steve-bannon-elon-musk.html) Musk is a “truly evil person” and that would get the billionaire “kicked out” of Trump’s orbit by Inauguration Day. (Considering that [Musk is reportedly getting](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/us/politics/elon-musk-office-west-wing.html) an office in the West Wing, Bannon does not seem to have been successful in that quest.) In an [interview](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/tech-zuckerberg-trump-inauguration-oligarchy/681381/) with my colleagues Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, Bannon described the tech titans as “nerds” whom Trump was humiliating. Seeing them on Inauguration Day was “like walking into Teddy Roosevelt’s lodge and seeing the mounted heads of all the big game he shot,” Bannon said. In a sense, he is right. During the inauguration ceremony, tech billionaires—including Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple CEO Tim Cook—sat directly behind Trump’s family on the dais. They are not all as forcefully pro-Trump as Musk, but they have cozied up to the president by dining with him at Mar-a-Lago and making million-dollar donations to his inaugural fund (in some cases from their personal bank accounts, and in others from the corporations they head). In doing so, they’ve gotten his ear and can now influence the president in ways that might not line up with the priorities of the nationalist right. On Monday, during his first press conference from the White House this term, Trump defended the H-1B visa program: “We want competent people coming into our country,” he said. Later, Bannon responded on his podcast, lamenting the “techno-feudalists” to whom Trump is apparently listening. Both factions still have overlapping interests. They are both fed up with a country that they see as having grown weak and overly considerate to the needs of the vulnerable, at the expense of the most productive. America lacks a “masculine energy,” as Zuckerberg recently put it. Some members in both camps seem interested in trying to reconcile their differences, or at least in not driving the wedge further. On the eve of the inauguration, just before Turning Point USA’s ball, the right-wing publishing house Passage Publishing held its own ball in D.C.—an event intended to be a [night when](https://x.com/PassagePress/status/1876350531679244480) “MAGA meets the Tech Right.” The head of Passage Publishing, Jonathan Keeperman, has been keen on playing peacemaker. Last month, he went on Kirk’s podcast and tried to frame the debate over visas as one where his reactionary, nativist wing of the right could find common cause with the tech right. By limiting immigration and “developing our own native-born” STEM talent, he said, Silicon Valley can “win the AI arms race.” Kirk couldn’t keep his frustration toward the tech elite from seeping out. “Big Tech has censored us and smeared us and treated us terribly,” he said. “Why would we then accommodate their policy wishes?” It’s easy to imagine Musk asking the same question. He and his peers run some of the most powerful companies in the world. They’re not going to give that up because a few people, on the very platforms that they own, told them to. Each side is steadfast in what it wants, and won’t easily give in. We already can guess how this will end. During his first administration, despite making populist promises on the campaign trail, Trump eventually sided with the wealthy. Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist during the start of his first term, pushed for tax hikes on the wealthy. Seven months into his presidency, Trump fired him, and then proceeded to pass tax cuts. In his new administration, the nationalist right will certainly make gains—it is thrilled with Trump’s moves around birthright citizenship and his pledge to push forward with mass deportations. But if it’s ever in conflict with what Trump’s rich advisers in the tech world want, good luck. Remember, it was Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk who sat on the dais at Trump’s inauguration. Bannon, Keeperman, and Kirk were nowhere in sight.

A disgraced speechwriter gets a second shot at the State Department.  Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: John Rudoff / AP; Getty. February 5, 2025, 3:06 PM ET Darren Beattie may not be a household name, but you are almost certainly familiar with his long-standing ideas and preoccupations. Beattie, a speechwriter whom Trump fired in 2018 and appointed to a top State Department job this week, is a fixture in far-right conspiracist circles. Over the years, Beattie has [reportedly](https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/kfile-darren-beattie-state-department-controversial-tweets-white-nationalist-conference/index.html) spoken alongside white nationalists, alleged that the FBI orchestrated January 6—his preferred term is [_Fedsurrection_](https://x.com/DarrenJBeattie/status/1661785756245929999)—and repeatedly posted online that various Black personalities and politicians should “take a KNEE to MAGA.” In his new role as under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, he will help shape the tone of America’s public messaging abroad, oversee “the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Global Public Affairs,” and participate “in foreign policy development,” according to the State Department’s website. Beattie’s ascent is another sign that the new administration has no interest in catering to norms established by its critics or perceived political foes. What was a scandal in Trump’s first term is grounds for a promotion in his second. Beattie’s 2018 firing came after [CNN reported](https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/kfile-darren-beattie-state-department-controversial-tweets-white-nationalist-conference/index.html) that he had spoken at the 2016 H. L. Mencken Club, an event whose attendees have included prominent white nationalists such as Richard Spencer and Peter Brimelow. Beattie then launched Revolver News, a right-wing website that trumpeted his appointment and described him as “a relentless force in exposing the left’s DEI agenda, their censorship schemes, and the J6 entrapment operation.” Many of the site’s articles are standard conservative fare: attacks on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats alongside criticism of powerful technology companies that purportedly censor the right, including Revolver itself. Other content on the site veers sharply into conspiracism: It often posts external links to content from the likes of [Bronze Age Pervert](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/674762/), a pseudonym of the pro-authoritarianism writer Costin Alamariu, who has posited that “Black Africans” are so genetically ”divergent from the rest of humanity that they exceed the threshold commonly used in other species to draw sub-species boundaries,” and Steve Sailer, another prominent booster of [pseudoscientific racism](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/08/race-science-far-right-charlie-kirk/679527/). Beattie has also used Revolver as a platform to advance his nationalist views, including [pushing for mass deportation and](https://revolver.news/2024/06/american-people-demand-mass-deportation-squads-now/) “America-first [trade policy](https://revolver.news/2024/08/trump-manufacturing-victories-and-the-right-way-of-doing-america-first/).” [From the September 2023 issue: How Bronze Age Pervert charmed the far right](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/674762/) Beattie is a “well-regarded” and “beloved” figure in Trump world, as [_Semafor_](https://www.semafor.com/article/02/02/2025/maga-intellectual-darren-beattie-will-fill-key-state-department-role) and [_Politico_](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2025/02/03/the-brits-take-on-the-next-trump-era-00202177) describe him, respectively. (Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson both praised Beattie in text messages to _Semafor_’s Ben Smith_._) His appointment will likely be seen as a win for the nationalist wing of the Republican Party, which has been fighting against tech-right figures including Elon Musk and the venture capitalist David Sacks for influence in the Trump administration. While the tech-right and nationalists have been aligned in many areas, they vocally diverged on H-1B visas for highly skilled immigrants in [a very public internet fight](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-maga-fight-h1b/681187/) in December. More recently, as my colleagues Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer [reported](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/elon-musk-doge-green-card-trump/681575/), Trump advisers stopped Musk from hiring a noncitizen at DOGE, the team he leads within the Trump administration. Bannon, who sits squarely in the populist-nationalist camp and is friends with Beattie, has aggressively criticized Musk and other tech elites and said publicly that he wants to impede their influence. True adherents to the nationalist-populist wing of MAGA are almost nonexistent in Trump’s Cabinet. For as long as he is in his acting role in the State Department, however, Beattie joins a small but powerful group of nationalist Trump appointees. The immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller, who is now Trump’s deputy chief of staff, and his fellow conservative intellectual Michael Anton, who is also at the State Department, are among this cohort. The ascendant intellectual wing of the nationalist right will be particularly pleased with Beattie’s appointment. Prior to his time in the Trump administration, Beattie received a Ph.D. in political theory from Duke University, where he wrote his dissertation on the prominent German philosopher Martin Heidegger, and he has contributed to _The_ _New Atlantis_, a publication with a reputation among the right for its rigorous critiques of technology. If nothing else, Beattie’s eccentricities—buttoned-up intellectualism on one hand, crude and offensive polemic on the other—demonstrate one underlying truth of Trump world: It’s a big tent. Kiss the ring, and you may just be welcomed back.

Paul Ingrassia, an online reactionary, is in place at the DOJ.  Pete Kiehart / The Washington Post / Getty February 8, 2025, 6 AM ET Paul Ingrassia is just your average right-wing edgelord with a law degree and a high-level position at the Justice Department. In the past several years, on X, he has likened Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer, to the “ancient ideal of excellence”; he has written a Substack post titled “Free Nick Fuentes” in support of reinstating the white nationalist’s X account (when it was still banned); and he has called Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s former United Nations ambassador who ran against Trump in the Republican primary, an “insufferable bitch” who might be an “anchor baby” too. On Inauguration Day, Ingrassia was sworn in as the new White House liaison for the DOJ. In his new job, Ingrassia—who did not respond to a request for comment—is [responsible for managing](https://oig.justice.gov/news/doj-oig-releases-management-advisory-memorandum-regarding-lack-department-justice-process) other White House appointments within the DOJ, and for identifying and recommending people to potentially be hired or promoted within the agency, according to a department memo. As such, Ingrassia is part of a small but growing class of important Trump officials with a history of posting things (and doing things) that might have been disqualifying for any other administration in recent memory, up to and including Trump’s own four years ago. This group includes [Darren Beattie](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/darren-beattie-state-department/681582/), appointed to a top post at the State Department despite having been dismissed from his job as a Trump speechwriter in 2018 after reportedly appearing at an event alongside white nationalists, and having claimed online that January 6 was orchestrated by the FBI. And also Gavin Kliger, an employee of Elon Musk’s DOGE, who appears to have [shared](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/musk-doge-techies-young-what-we-know-1235256687/) a Fuentes post that disparages white people who adopt Black children and uses the pejorative slang term for women, “huzz.” (Kliger did not respond to a request for comment.) [Read: A speechwriter gets a second shot at the State Department](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/darren-beattie-state-department/681582/) Not every such indiscretion has been completely ignored by the Trump administration and its allies. Another DOGE employee, Marko Elez, resigned on Thursday, [reportedly](https://www.wsj.com/tech/doge-staffer-resigns-over-racist-posts-d9f11a93) over having made racist posts including “Normalize Indian hate” and “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.” Within 24 hours, however, Vice President J. D. Vance was [lobbying](https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633) to rehire him under the justification that “stupid social media activity” shouldn’t “ruin a kid’s life.” Later that afternoon, Musk [announced](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887957783783391423) that Elez would be brought back. Ingrassia’s appointment represents another win for young, online reactionaries in Washington. He praised and reposted an article from the fitness enthusiast and proponent of [”race science”](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/08/race-science-far-right-charlie-kirk/679527/) Raw Egg Nationalist. He has worked for the Gateway Pundit—a conservative news site that frequently publishes lies and conspiracy theories. And he has extensive ties to Tate, having worked on his legal team; he even [posted a picture](https://jasonahart.com/2025/02/05/meet-doj-white-house-liaison-paul-ingrassia/#:~:text=Joseph%20McBride%2C%20Andrew%20Tate%2C%20Paul%20Ingrassia%2C%20and%20Tristan%20Tate) of himself with Tate and Tate’s brother. Tate is currently being investigated by Romanian authorities for alleged rape and human trafficking, and he has been separately accused of rape and assault in the United Kingdom. He has denied all of the allegations against him. Ingrassia’s “Free Nick Fuentes” post called for Musk to end a ban on Fuentes’s account that dated to 2021. (Fuentes was banned after what a Twitter spokesperson described as “repeated violations” of the company’s rules.) Such a move was necessary, Ingrassia argued, to [“shift the Overton Window”](https://x.com/PaulIngrassia/status/1655271622092128257) on social media. People who argue against content moderation on social platforms often do so by arguing that more speech is always better. (In Fuentes’s case, that meant more Holocaust denial, more praise of Adolf Hitler, and more denigration of women and Black people.) But Ingrassia also appears to be drawn to at least some of the substance of what Fuentes posted. And although there were almost certainly members of the first Trump administration who shared Ingrassia’s views, few if any publicly said so, or discussed their ideas online under their own name. They seemed to understand that there were stakes and consequences for airing such beliefs in public. Ingrassia’s presence in the new administration reflects a departure from that era. It also shows that not all young, online reactionaries are the same. Ingrassia appears to represent the populist, nationalist wing of the MAGA coalition, which [stands in opposition](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/01/maga-trump-tech-nationalist-conflict/681422/), in certain ways, to the tech-right faction including Kliger and led by Musk. The two groups were aligned through the election and still have many shared goals: Witness Ingrassia and Kliger’s shared interest in Nick Fuentes. But they have also [aggressively diverged](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-maga-fight-h1b/681187/) on some issues. The tech industry generally supports the use of H-1B visas for highly skilled immigrants, whereas MAGA nationalists tend to oppose them. Ingrassia, in the latter camp, has written that the United States should end the H-1B-visa program as well as birthright citizenship, and institute a “20 year moratorium on legal immigration.” That this internal disagreement has been spilling out into public view may be the flip side of the no-longer-need-to-hide-it administration. The H-1B fight, which took off at the end of December, was very visible online. People like Ingrassia, Kliger, and Beattie, with their freewheeling and unapologetic social-media personas, have helped make these internal tensions very clear. They’re just posting through it.

The nativist right is starting to make peace with Elon Musk.  Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Stringer / Anadolu / Getty; Curtis Means-Pool / Getty. April 1, 2025, 1:08 PM ET Steve Bannon seems resigned to sharing power with the “tech bros,” as he calls them. Last week, when I spoke with President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist and continued ally, he was clear about his disagreements with Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley elites on the so-called tech right. “Nationalist populists,” Bannon’s self-identified political clan, “don’t trust these oligarchs,” he told me. But, he added, “we see the usefulness of working together on broad things.” It was a noticeably different tone for Bannon. In recent months, he has taken every opportunity to bash Musk. In January, Bannon said that the billionaire is a “truly evil guy, a very bad guy,” and that he’d have Musk “run out” of Trump’s inner circle by Inauguration Day. Musk and other “techno-feudalists,” Bannon said later that month, “don’t give a flying fuck about the human being.” In February, he called Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant.” (Musk seemingly isn’t a fan of Bannon, either: “Bannon is a great talker, but not a great doer,” [he posted on X in February](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887543328864149734?lang=en). “What did he get done this week? Nothing.”) The nationalist right and the tech right came together to elect Trump in November, but the MAGA coalition has seemed on the verge of falling apart ever since. The nationalist right sees social conservatism—such as mass deportations, heavy immigration restrictions, and a more explicitly Christian government—as paramount, even if it comes at the expense of free markets. Prominent members of the tech right, including the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel, prioritize private-sector technological progress above all else. In December, [d](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-maga-fight-h1b/681187/)[uring a public spat](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-maga-fight-h1b/681187/) with the nationalists over highly skilled immigrants, Musk posted on X that anyone who disagreed with him should “fuck” themselves “in the face.” Billionaire cosmopolitans who want to hire immigrants don’t mix easily with vehemently nativist populists who want to ratchet up taxes on said billionaires. Last month, in a speech at a tech summit in Washington, D.C., Vice President J. D. Vance said that he would “like to speak to these tensions as a proud member of both tribes.” This is not a thing you would feel the need to say about a relationship that is running smoothly. [Read: The MAGA honeymoon is over](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-maga-fight-h1b/681187/) But to assume that a fallout is inevitable is a mistake. The two sides don’t love each other, but for now, they are still together. Musk continues to be one of the most consequential people in government, and Bannon and other nationalists continue to hold sway over a White House that is cracking down on immigrants. Rather than split up, this new MAGA coalition might persist for years to come. What the tech right and nationalist right are going through looks like an update to how conservatism has long worked. Especially before the Trump era, being “conservative” meant a commitment to free markets and traditional social views. This alliance wasn’t always a given. During the mid-20th century, traditionalists were suspicious of the potential harms of unchecked businesses, while libertarians saw excessive government encroachment as constraining the lives of Americans. But in spite of the difference, they still managed to stay together under one coalition. “Fusionism,” as the _National Review_ editor Frank Meyer famously [called it](https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-frank-meyer-the-father-of-fusionism/), worked because both sides had a clear, binding tie: opposition to communism. The current moment looks a lot like fusionism 2.0: The uniting through line of opposing communism has been replaced by an opposition to “wokeness,” as the University of Virginia historian David Austin Walsh [has observed](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/trumps-bid-at-a-new-fusionism/). The similarities between the political moments provide a rough model for how the new MAGA coalition might persist. In the original fusionism, communism was almost always a bigger deal than whatever libertarians and social conservatives didn’t see eye to eye on. This worked because “communism” never just meant one thing. It could be invoked to oppose the Soviet Union and the literal ideology of communism, to thwart the supposedly communist-infilitrated civil-rights and anti-war movements, or to refer to anything related to left-wing politics. Wokeness now serves that function on the right. It’s no coincidence that wokeness is a rebranded version of the right’s previous bogeyman: “[cultural Marxism](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/woke-ideology-history-origins-flaws/675454/).” As Musk has ripped up federal agencies in a supposed effort to reduce government waste, a lot of what DOGE has actually focused on is rooting out perceived wokeness. Musk has enthusiastically helped carry out Trump’s anti-DEI executive order by targeting related programs for cuts, sometimes taking this to an almost-comic level of absurdity: DOGE reportedly placed one government worker whose job involved managing relationships with private-equity firms on administrative leave, [seemingly mistakenly believing](https://www.yahoo.com/news/doges-anti-dei-drive-flagged-031009875.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACcXiCo9owHwjvYSIzXvftTahD41xjgXpRk0HgrsMxX1YLRkqTD8V6QGyWZirkGU3O_TlfyyvptbmUmgzXeY8dc8JYR32ndP91ka3BRVKAeU4P7jdlBqF4yqHhm95g2rO3q_pNP2pBvBTkbphmaYkg-18Ic28mIZqI9iyo7ct-2M) that the employee’s work was related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Andreessen, who played an early role in staffing DOGE, has also [railed against](https://x.com/pmarca/status/1868202653844672647) wokeness. Charlie Kirk, the right-wing podcast host and [member of the conservative power elite](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/charlie-kirk-turning-point-usa-kingmaker/680534/), loves to talk about how much he hates wokeness, and has [applauded DOGE](https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1885096093026844964) for “hunting down those insane DEI departments.” [Read: Charlie Kirk is the right’s new kingmaker](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/charlie-kirk-turning-point-usa-kingmaker/680534/) In many cases, the two factions detest wokeness in the same specific ways. Joe Lonsdale, a Palantir co-founder and tech investor who is also a [large donor to right-wing](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-01/joe-lonsdale-like-peter-thiel-plows-his-tech-fortune-into-conservative-causes?embedded-checkout=true) causes, [recently posted](https://x.com/JTLonsdale/status/1901424003891232867) that Columbia University “delenda est,” Latin for “must be destroyed.” Similarly, Bannon told me that he has urged Trump and other administration officials to target public universities such as the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Purge the faculties and purge the administrators,” he said. “The states have no money to back up universities, so hold federal funding until they purge.” Wokeness is even vaguer and more malleable than communism, which makes it especially useful. DEI hiring practices and critical race theory in schools count as wokeness on the right, but depending on whom you talk to, so is something as simple as a TV show or a movie with [gay](https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/12/21/netflixs-cocomelon-lane-garners-anti-woke-backlash-for-featuring-gay-couple/) people. It can be bent into a passionate opposition to anything that might have the faintest traces of being liberal, left-wing, or progressive. “As long as there are common enemies,” Walsh, the UVA historian told me, the new MAGA coalition “will remain stable.” People within the coalition at least partially agree. To the right, wokeness “is the glue that holds the left together,” Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank, told me. Carl, a self-proclaimed nationalist who worked in the first Trump administration, explained that both factions of the right sincerely don’t like the rough assemblage of things they deem to be woke, but they also lean on it because they see it as a unifying point. “My nationalist group chats are not filled with people spewing anger at Elon,” he said. “They like Elon. They think he’s doing a great job." None of this means that the tech right and nationalist right are destined to stay together. The groups in the original fusionism were often on a similar footing in terms of power. That’s not the case now. The tech elites hold a disproportionate amount of leverage in their ability to influence elections through massive donations. Musk is still throwing his money around, funneling millions of dollars to try to sway a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. His influence does not seem to be waning, even as he has continued to pursue an agenda at DOGE that has reportedly [irritat](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/us/politics/trump-musk-doge-power.html)[ed a number](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/us/politics/trump-musk-doge-power.html) of Trump’s other senior administration officials. This power imbalance gives the tech right an advantage. Even if the relationship still benefits the nationalists, they become the political equivalent of a group of [suckerfish riding a w](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-suckerfish-stick-whales-surfing-180976215/)[hale](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-suckerfish-stick-whales-surfing-180976215/). When we spoke, Bannon rejected the entire idea of fusionism 2.0. “Let me say it bluntly: Fuck fusionism,” he said. At another point in the conversation, he referred to Silicon Valley as an “apartheid state” in which white-collar tech jobs are filled by immigrants instead of native-born Americans. In Bannon’s view, MAGA is not fusing together so much as begrudgingly forced to stick together—the way that the Democratic Party was once a coalition between northern liberals and southern Dixiecrats. But even if Bannon’s view is right, it still suggests a MAGA coalition that is far more robust than it seemed just a few months ago. The Silicon Valley elite, Musk especially, has already moved closer to the nationalist right over the past several years. The nationalists, however wary of the tech right, have welcomed them. They understand that Musk and the rest of the tech right are deep-pocketed, powerful allies against wokeness in all its forms. Each faction still has every reason to keep putting its differences aside. [Ali Breland](https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ali-breland/) is a staff writer at _The Atlantic_.

No one else with direct access to the president has been as outwardly bigoted.  Nicole Craine / The New York Times / Redux April 5, 2025, 9:44 AM ET White House staffers, it seems, had better hope that they stay in Laura Loomer’s good graces. This week, Loomer—a far-right provocateur who has described herself as “pro–white nationalism” and Islam as a “cancer on humanity”—met with Donald Trump in the Oval Office. After she [reportedly](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/us/politics/trump-meeting-laura-loomer.html) railed against National Security Council officials she believed were disloyal to the president, the White House fired six NSC staff members the next day. More firings could be on their way: Yesterday, a person close to the administration [told my colleague Michael Scherer](https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/04/the-conspiracy-theorist-advising-trump/682289/) that “Loomer has been asked to put together a list of people at State who are not MAGA loyalists.” Loomer doesn’t have an official job in the Trump administration, and the president has denied that she had anything to do with the NSC firings. But she is one of the president’s confidantes, and she has come to exercise a significant amount of influence over the White House. Lots of people in Trump’s inner circle have unlikely backgrounds (defense secretaries are not usually hired straight from Fox News), but Loomer’s is probably the least likely of them all. Over the past decade, she has earned a reputation as an unapologetically racist troll. In 2018, after she was banned from Twitter for criticizing then-incoming Representative Ilhan Omar and her Muslim faith, she famously handcuffed herself to the door of Twitter’s New York City headquarters. She was reinstated after Elon Musk bought the platform, and has continued to post racist things on X: In September, she suggested that a Kamala Harris election win would mean that “the White House will smell like curry.” (Loomer did not respond to a request for comment.) Loomer’s power marks how little Trump now seems to care about being around people who have expressed racist and extremist ideas and [kept racist and extremist company](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/watch-laura-loomer-and-neo-nazi-nick-fuentes-toast-to-the-hostile-takeover-of-the-republican-party/ar-AA1qwWs5?ocid=BingNewsVerp&apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1). She is a bit like the Forrest Gump of Trumpworld—an unlikely but persistent character who just keeps popping up during some of the right’s biggest moments. When Trump got off his private plane on his way to the presidential debate in September, Loomer appeared with him. The next day, when Trump traveled to New York for a 9/11-anniversary memorial, Loomer was again there with him. (She has called 9/11 an “inside job.”) [As I wrote at the time](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/laura-loomer-trump-gop/679905/), prominent Republicans did not like that their presidential candidate was associating himself with Loomer, and publicly challenged Trump over it. He seemingly has not listened. [Read: Laura Loomer is where Republicans draw the line](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/laura-loomer-trump-gop/679905/) Loomer has also played a role in directing discourse on the right. She was integral to drumming up the hoax that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets, which became one of the most prominent right-wing causes du jour during the presidential campaign. In December, she instigated a war on the right over high-skilled immigration after she criticized the administration’s hiring of Sriram Krishnan as an AI-policy adviser and called attention to his past comments advocating for expanding H-1B visas. Most workers on H-1B visas are from India, and Loomer [posted](https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1871639183900787083) that Indian immigrants are “third world invaders.” There is perhaps no one with direct access to the president who has been as outwardly and vociferously racist and bigoted. For all of the arguments that critics of Musk make about how he has [bo](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/x-white-supremacist-site/680538/)[osted white supremacy on X](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/x-white-supremacist-site/680538/), he has maintained a level of plausible deniability by never disparaging minority groups in a manner as direct as Loomer has. Someone like Loomer likely would not have had access to Trump in his first term. Richard Spencer never made it into Trump’s administration, and the president went out of his way to disavow the white nationalist. In 2018, when [CNN reported](https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/19/politics/darren-beattie-mencken-club/index.html) that Darren Beattie, then a White House speechwriter, had spoken at an event that also featured a white nationalist, he was fired. But now Beattie has been [hired to a senior role in this administration](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/02/darren-beattie-state-department/681582/). The president has already clearly established that his second term will be more extreme. Instead of the limited Muslim travel ban, he is pushing for mass deportations and has effectively shut down USAID, an agency largely devoted to helping poorer countries. But by welcoming Loomer into his inner circle, Trump is offering an even starker glimpse into how this administration is different. She is a testament to how much further to the right Trump has moved since his first term, and how much further he may be open to going. [Ali Breland](https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ali-breland/) is a staff writer at _The Atlantic_.

The [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration)’s promotion of white Christian nationalists and prosperity gospel preachers to key government roles will lead to the “further dismantling of government institutions” and the chilling of free speech, experts have warned. Donald Trump announced the creation of an “anti-Christian bias” taskforce and a White House Faith Office (WHFO) [in February](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/establishment-of-the-white-house-faith-office/), saying it would make recommendations to him “regarding changes to policies, programs, and practices” and consult with outside experts in “combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias”. Both initiatives are dominated by rightwing Christian loyalists – a stark contrast to similar faith-based efforts under Joe Biden and Barack Obama, both of whom welcomed Muslim and Sikh leaders. This has prompted concern that a specific brand of [Christianity](https://www.theguardian.com/world/christianity) will be prioritised over other faiths and Christian denominations. With Trump having recently been pictured being prayed over in the White House by a host of white Christian nationalists, concerns are rising about what a government influenced by those beliefs could mean. White Christian nationalists typically are anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigration and anti-[efforts to ensure racial equality](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/27/bad-faith-documentary-christian-nationalism), and broadly believe that America was founded as a white Christian nation and must be returned to such. “We will see the further dismantling of government institutions. We will see an abandonment of democratic principles and a further perversion of the institutions of justice,” said Katherine Stewart, a journalist and author of [Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy](https://www.amazon.com/Money-Lies-God-Movement-Democracy/dp/163557854X), which explores what Stewart calls the “antidemocratic movement” – a mix of Christian nationalists, billionaire or super-rich oligarchs and conservative ideologues who have seized control of the Republican party, and aim to fundamentally change the US. “Trump’s anti-Christian bias taskforce will lead to a further chilling of free speech, political opposition, and investigations of corruption. We will see public funds flowing directly to religious institutions, and the insertion of the Bible and sectarian messaging in public schools, town meetings and other places that serve religiously diverse populations. The intention is to make anyone who is not onboard with their agenda feel that they don’t belong.” The faith office [is headed by Paula White](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/05/paula-white-faith-office-trump), the tongues-speaking, multimillionaire televangelist who called the Black Lives Matter movement the “Antichrist” and said Jesus would have been “sinful” and not “our Messiah” if he had broken immigration law. And the other appointees to the WHFO are also Christian. Trump appointed Jennifer Korn as deputy assistant to the president and faith director of WHFO. Korn was previously senior adviser of the National Faith Advisory Board, [the rightwing, Trump-backing](https://religionnews.com/2021/09/04/trump-and-his-religion-advisors-launch-new-national-faith-advisory-board/#:~:text=The%20Pentecostal%20megachurch%20pastor%20said,we%20are%20one%20strong%20voice.%E2%80%9D) Christian group founded by White. Jackson Lane will serve as deputy director of faith engagement. Lane graduated from Missouri Baptist University and was previously deputy director of faith outreach for the Trump-Vance 2024 campaign. Barack Obama had a similar faith-based office, but his leadership notably [included people of Muslim and Jewish faith](https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publications/an-overview-of-the-white-house-office-on-faith-based-and-neighborhood-partnerships-and-the-council-on-faith-based-and-neighborhood-partnerships). In announcing his own office, Joe Biden said that “when Methodists and Muslims, Buddhists and Baptists, Sikhs and Secular Humanists serve together, we strengthen one another and we strengthen America,” and his office sought to include a range of religious voices, including at [its 2022 United We Stand](https://religionnews.com/2022/09/16/biden-includes-faith-leaders-in-summits-charge-to-rise-together-against-hate/) anti-hate summit. The makeup of Trump’s faith office is so far “not at all” representative of the various religions practiced in the US, said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a professor at Calvin University and research fellow at the center for philosophy of religion at the University of Notre Dame. “It’s not even representative of Christianity in the United States,” said Du Mez, who authored the book ​​[Jesus and John Wayne](https://kristindumez.com/books/jesus-and-john-wayne/): How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. “It’s a pretty narrow slice of rightwing, predominantly, but not exclusively, white conservative Protestantism. But that is the Christianity that Trump thinks of when he thinks of Christianity.” Trump appears unlikely to reach out to non-Christians, however, and the contrast between him and his predecessors was shown in [a White House post on X](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1902462717010575809/photo/1) in March. “The White House Faith Office and Faith Leaders from across the country joined President Trump to pray in the Oval Office,” the post read, beneath a photo showing more than a dozen people, most of them white, looking solemn behind Trump, some with their arms on his shoulders. The trophy for the upcoming Club World Cup soccer competition was next to Trump’s desk, apparently left over [from a photoshoot](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/mar/12/gianni-infantino-donald-trump-2026-world-cup) that had, oddly, taken place a week earlier. [The Daily Mail](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14519421/trump-prayer-army-faith-leaders-advising-president.html) identified all 15 of the faith leaders, and found that each of them was Christian, including some who are openly Christian nationalist. They included William Wolfe, who worked in the first Trump administration and who [told the rightwing Daily Signal](https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/03/19/christian-leader-urges-white-house-faith-office-protect-unborn-life/) that he had used the March meeting with Trump to “push aggressively” for pro-life policies. Wolfe claimed that “Christians were not welcome in the Biden administration or the Obama administration,” and according to the Daily Signal said mass deportations were a Christian issue. “We actually believe it is directly related to the preservation of America as we know it,” Wolfe said. Du Mez pointed to other figures who carry a lot of influence in the Trump administration, including Russell Vought, who [Associated Press reported](https://apnews.com/article/trump-russell-vought-confirmation-budget-project-2025-7d1c476694176876256e95cecbd49231) has “unabashedly advanced ‘Christian nationalism”. Vought, one of architects of Project 2025, the rightwing plan for Trump’s second term, was appointed White House budget director in February. It’s one of the less glamorous roles, but holds sprawling responsibilities including managing the development and implementation of the federal budget and overseeing federal agencies. In [a 2021 opinion article](https://www.newsweek.com/there-anything-actually-wrong-christian-nationalism-opinion-1577519), Vought wrote that Christian nationalism was “a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society”. That influence could extend beyond social issues, Du Mez said. “When people hear ‘Christian nationalism’, they tend to think of a narrow set of \[beliefs\] prioritizing Christian faith, Christian supremacy – people tend to think of these kind of moral values issues,” Du Mez said. “But it is also anti-woke. It is also anti-immigration, and it is also, if you look historically at the Christian right ideas of Christian America and returning America to its Christian foundations, have always been, for almost a century, intertwined with deregulationism, free market capitalism.” Stewart warned that Trump’s appointment of Pete Hegseth to defense secretary could also be problematic. Hegseth drew scrutiny in March after it emerged he had a tattoo of what the Council on American-Islamic Relations described as “a display of … anti-Muslim hostility”, along with other tattoos tied to the Christian crusades. Last year [the Idaho Capital Sun reported](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/11/21/trumps-defense-secretary-nominee-has-close-ties-to-idaho-christian-nationalists/) that Hegseth “has close ties to an Idaho-based Christian nationalist church”. Also concerning is [the sheer number of people](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/key-project-2025-authors-now-staffing-trump-administration-rcna195107) involved in Project 2025, which the Charles F Kettering foundation, a non-partisan research foundation which seeks to preserve democracy, [described as](https://kettering.org/project-2025-the-blueprint-for-christian-nationalist-regime-change/) “The Blueprint for Christian Nationalist Regime Change”, who are now in Trump’s government. “It’s not unimportant that there are some people who identify as Christian nationalists who are playing a big role in the administration,” Stewart said. “But what’s important to understand is that the movement is driving policy, whether or not the people who are pushing that policy identify themselves as Christian nationalists or adhere to Christian nationalist ideas. “Part of what we’re also seeing is the favoring not of Christians per se, but of a certain kind of Christianity. Trump and his people are aiming not to just work with the movement, but to shape the movement itself, to make it more faux-populist, demagogic and frankly authoritarian.”

A national network of American neofascist fight clubs is endorsing youth-oriented offshoots aimed at grooming the next generation of racist activists. So-called “active clubs” have proliferated across the US and are a combination of fitness and mixed martial arts groups that often espouse neo-Nazi and fascist ideologies, openly taking their historical cues from the Third Reich’s obsession with machismo and European soccer hooliganism. Active clubs have emerged as perhaps the most dangerous form of far-right political organizing today. With links to other militant organizations, including Patriot Front, they encourage a seemingly mainstream version of masculinity, layered with ideologies promoting a US race war and using the popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) as a gateway to recruiting. Earlier this month, their main Telegram account, endorsed “youth clubs”, which are chapters beginning to spring up online across the country, showing pictures of 18-year-olds and under engaging in mixed martial arts, racist meme-ing, and posts referencing genocidal and bigoted literature. “Youth clubs are for those under 18 that still want to get active,” said the recent active club post with thousands of views, linking to the central account of all youth clubs. By all appearances, these youth clubs are proliferating. On Telegram alone, there are accounts showing nationwide chapters with photos of teens between the ages of 16 to 18 in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, the New England states, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, lowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan, among others. The chapters have close to a thousand followers in total and in some cases list the same recruitment contact, suggesting a certain level of national coordination and vetting – an important aspect of far-right recruiting done to prevent against police or antifascist infiltration. “Unapologetically Pro White”, posted one of the youth clubs, adding they were also “American Nationalist”. Combined with the massive popularity among teen boys of [the Tate brothers](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/06/im-andrew-tates-audience-and-i-know-why-he-appeals-to-young-men), mixed martial arts enthusiasts in their own right, young men and boys have emerged as the prime targets for far-right recruitment in recent years. “The youth clubs are part of the same concept of active clubs’ white supremacism ‘3.0’ strategy: a decentralized movement focused on combat sports, fitness, propaganda activities, and building local groups,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst of the American far right who has documented its rise for nearly 10 years. “The youth clubs are self-described white nationalist activist groups for young men 18 and younger who train in combat sports and participate in extreme right propaganda activities.” Their direct links to active clubs aren’t a secret or hidden, either. Fisher-Birch continued: “Several youth club Telegram channels have also shared posts from active club-affiliated accounts. Additionally, youth club chapter logos are modeled on active club symbols. The logos are nearly identical in some cases.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/active-youth-clubs-neo-nazi-groups#EmailSignup-skip-link-14) Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion The network of active clubs’ original founder, Robert Rundo, [pleaded guilty in 2024](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/13/neo-nazi-founder-robert-rundo-sentencing) to conspiracy to riot at 2017 political rallies in California. During that period, he was the leader of the [Rise Above Movement](https://www.propublica.org/article/white-hate-group-campaign-of-menace-rise-above-movement), a violent neo-Nazi gang that promoted combat sports and physical assault of perceived enemies. [Four](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/02/charlottesville-arrests-far-right-rally-protests-police-latest) of its members were charged for their part in the infamous [2017 Unite the Right rally](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/19/charlottesville-white-nationalist-torch-marchers-indicted) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rundo and other members of the active clubs network made it clear in the past that they saw young men and boys as the next and important frontier for building the new American fascist movement. Writing in a 2022 post on one of its main websites Rundo and others described how their “tools of persuasion” can draw underage boys to join them. Along with flyers and stickers of local areas with their Nazi propaganda they told followers to “target boxing and [MMA](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/mma) tournaments, gyms, and motocross courses”, but then went further. “Ground-level intelligence collection might then inform that same activist crew that changing demographics at a local high school have led to gang-beatings of minority White youth,” they said. “The cunning and resourceful activists see this news as \[an\] opportunity for a campaign focusing on the importance of a Brotherhood of young White men having each other’s backs.” During the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler made it a staple of his regime to create the Hitler Youth organization for minors to learn combat and survivalism skills under the guise of self-improvement and nationalist pride. Ever since, modern neofascists and Nazis like active clubs, have always placed particular emphasis on securing the next generation of white supremacy. “You will grow up to be men,” Hitler once said at [one of his German rallies](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1936/sep/13/life1.lifemagazine) for his young acolytes.