Film Sessions: The Hate Nerd with Thought Slime

 

Editor's note: welcome back to Film Sessions; our quasi-regular feature here on Media Madness in which I share, analyze and expand on a relevant video created by someone on the left wing of YouTube. 

Nick Fuentes Should Be In Jail Though

As you may have heard recently, perhaps even from everyone's favorite crypto-Strasserist online media personality, noted insurrection enthusiast and white nationalist provocateur Nick Fuentes is claiming that he's been placed on the U.S. government's "no-fly" list, presumably as retaliation for his, um, political commentary. You might remember the "no-fly" list as an authoritarian relic of the War on Terror that was typically applied in an extremely racist manner to restrict the movement of Muslims in America; most of whom were in fact U.S. residents, and some of whom were mere infants at the time. Given these known facts about the no-fly list, you might also be surprised to learn that yes, it still exists; even though we know it doesn't work and is habitually abused. It is in short, an extremely bullshit form of security theater that probably should have been abolished a long time ago; regardless of the current row with Fuentes.

Perhaps then you will not be surprised to learn that Fuentes' claims about being placed on the no fly list, immediately lead to widespread calls to protect his civil liberties across a broad spectrum of the fascist and fascist-curious reactionary right; including outlets like Andy Ngo's Post Millennial, the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News, and of course, Glenn Greenwald. This hue and cry in turn has lead some portions of the online left to question whether or not responsible opposition to the clearly authoritarian no-fly list, would require one to defend someone as odious as Nick Fuentes; an issue we will return to in a moment.

Of course, it must be noted here that there is some doubt about whether or not Fuentes actually has been placed on the so-called "no fly" list; he's provided a short video on Twitter as proof, but this is in fact something he's been accused of lying about before. Furthermore there is at least some evidence that Fuentes is currently under some type of investigation by the FBI, and the internet is full of video clips featuring this little hate troll threatening to murder airline stewardesses if they ask him to don a mask because of Covid-19 concerns. Maybe the reason Nick can't get on a plane is because the airlines themselves would rather not have him as a passenger; who can say? 

Truthfully, I can't answer that question, so I won't waste any more time speculating on it here. What I am going to do however is present you with a twenty-two minute video published by anarchist YouTube creator Thought Slime, and in doing so answer some key questions about the larger debate surrounding Fuentes. You may recall Thought Slime's work from our December 2020 Film Sessions post looking at their emotionally satisfying video "Oligarchs Will Let The World Burn," or perhaps my recent essay about online crypto-fascism "The Enemy of My Enemy Is Still a Fascist, Actually," in which I featured Thought Slime's video essay "The Boogaloo Boys: A meme that kills people."  

So what kind of questions are we talking about answering here? How about things like "just who the fuck is Nick Fuentes," or "where did this goddamn muppet come from," and why does this discount Matt Gaetz-looking dipshit matter at all?" Although I don't want to spoil too much of the video, let's offer up some back of the napkin answers to these three basic queries:

• To describe Fuentes accurately but still in the broadest possible strokes, it would be best to refer to him as an extremely fucking online fascist provocateur who seeks to repackage white nationalist ideas and eliminationist conspiracy theories for a conservative audience; an audience he is able to reach because, I shit you not, he's got a stock broker's haircut and wears an ill-fitting, off-the-rack suit. While our featured video does a good job of running through some of Nick's greatest reactionary hits, you can also read more about him in this Southern Poverty Law Center report, as well as numerous other outlets that track online fascists.
• While the fact that his online content is constantly being deleted for violating hate speech rules does make it a little difficult to pin down an origin story for Nick Fuentes, his path to public notoriety is somewhat easier to track. Nick first hit the national spotlight by tricking pinheads in the mainstream media into believing he was a victim of political intolerance after he was "forced" to quit his studies at Boston University when he was identified as a participant in the deadly "Unite the Right" neo-nazi rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina. Fuentes parlayed this into a hosting role on the nativist, pro-Trump Youtube streaming channel Right Side Broadcasting, before seeking to elevate his profile through a series of unhinged (but highly amusing) attacks on various Republicans for not being fascist, nativist, or racist enough. This in turn has allowed Nick to establish himself as a leading figure in the so-called Groyper movement, set up an objectively fascist political conference, and ultimately settle into his highly-profitable current role as the host of the nightly streaming show "America First."
• Fuentes himself probably doesn't matter in an individual sense at all; he's a twenty-something year old white nationalist with an internet talk show that you absolutely would never have heard about if not for famous American nativists and Fox News. As part of a larger trend in which openly fascist ideas are being washed into mainstream American political culture as bog standard conservatism however, Fuentes and folks who're a lot like him, are in fact an extremely serious problem.

Naturally, our YouTube video essayist delves into each of these topics in more detail over the course of this presentation, but given the reason we're even talking about Nick Fuentes today, it's that last point I'd like to focus in on here for a moment. Look, I know it can be hard to take Fuentes seriously because he's a walking meme with ginormous hands and extremely weird hobbies for a fascist. The problem is that despite all this Nick is still a very real danger to not only marginalized communities, but basically anyone who isn't also a white nationalist with open fascist beliefs. Furthermore, this is only partially because of his ability to spew hateful and eliminationist rhetoric; despite his bizarre game of Simon Says provocation, Fuentes also appears to be criminally responsible for inciting a violent insurrection attempt, election interference, and encouraging his devotees to obstruct a federal investigation into the January 6th, Capitol Hill riot by destroying their phones.

In other words, even by the extremely permissive standards of the "defend free speech for nazis" brigade online, Fuentes isn't a victim of political repression so much as a guy engaged in criminal acts of inciting violence; which means this isn't a civil liberties issue at all, and pretending otherwise ultimately makes one a party to those acts - at least from a moral perspective. Even setting aside the fact that Fuentes probably isn't on the no-fly list, the hard truth here is that whatever harm preventing this muppet from stepping on an airplane causes to political freedom in the United States, is more than offset by the harm reduction accomplished by simply not defending and legitimizing a shithead like Nick Fuentes with "civil liberties" arguments on his behalf; especially from the "left." Frankly I'm inclined to believe it's probably always a bad idea to cry tears of outrage for fascist criminals who sincerely want to kill you for political reasons, but as always your mileage may vary.

While I'm certain that staring deeply into the abyss that is the mind of Nick Fuentes has by no means made you happier, I hope this mini-essay and Thought Slime's video will demonstrate to you why you shouldn't let yourself get roped into defending this human piece of fascist dogshit by nazis arguing in bad faith. You can check out "Nick Fuentes is the Hate Nerd" by clicking the header below, or watching the embedded video itself:

Know Your Fash: Nick Fuentes is the Hate Nerd

Additional Resources

Thought Slime Youtube Channel

Thought Slime Wikitubia Entry

Meet the White Nationalist Organizer Who Spewed Hate Against Lawmakers

Nick Fuentes, The Zoomer Nazi, Living in LaGrange Park, IL

Fuentes Denies Being A White Nationalist By Explaining That He Is One

Fuentes: Racial Hostility Toward Minorities a Fair ‘Trade Off’ to End ‘White Genocide’

Fuentes, Capitol Hill Riots and Michigan Stop the Steal Rally

How Extremists Weaponize Irony To Spread Hate

White Nationalist Nick Fuentes Says He's Banned From Flying

Feds Seize Funds from White Nationalist Leader

White nationalist "groyper" movement links up with anti-vaxxers

Groyper Army Fractures Amid Feud Between Patrick Casey And Nick Fuentes

Extremists Are Cashing in on a Youth-Targeted Gaming Website

How the far-right group behind AFPAC is using Twitter to grow its movement

How Far-Right Personalities Are Cashing in on the Pandemic Online

Why Intolerance Should Not Be Tolerated

The Boogaloo Boys: A meme that kills people

The Proud Boys are Dangerous - Know Your Fash

Kyle Rittenhouse is Not Innocent

Film Sessions: Oligarchs Will Let the World Burn

The Enemy of My Enemy Is Still a Fascist, Actually

nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Homework Assignment 4: Fascism, White Nationalism and American Values

 

Editor's note: as I briefly mentioned at the start of this series, I've decided to engage in an ongoing series of (typically) brief discussions about modern (mostly American) fascism that center around recommended reading links and some of my own decolonization theory, for what I hope are educational purposes; today we're back with Part Four of those discussions. 

Please note this post represents new content and has never before appeared on the internet.

In Homework Assignment 2 "But He's Not Hitler..." I explored some of the reasons why I believe Americans and many Western Europeans struggle to identify fascism and fascist ideology at home (even if they're quite eager to apply the label to those deemed from abroad somehow.) Obviously the focus of that discussion was the fact that Trump himself didn't have to be exactly like Adolph Hitler to be a fascist; indeed, the argument itself is pretty ridiculous because not even other contemporary fascists leaders in the 1930's were exactly like Hitler. Today we're going to switch gears slightly and talk about the distinct individual characteristics of fascist and reactionary ultra-nationalist movements or perhaps more specifically, where those individual characteristics come from. 

First let's look at localized fascist movements inside nation states, in our case this primarily means examining American fascism. I think there is an unfortunate tendency among novice observers to get bogged down in what I've been calling "fascist scrabble" - the myriad of terms, titles and variations on the eliminationist, reactionary ultranationalism that forms the heart of all fascist movements; be they ethno-nationalist, religious nationalism or cultural nationalism. The truth however is that much of this nazi word-salad is about obfuscation and bad faith argumentation for the fascist movements that adopt this lexicon, and can thus be safely ignored by anyone who isn't devoting time and energy to an extremely granular study of violent, right wing extremist politics.

Are there minor differences among various fascist movements inside a given state? Well, yes, at least in terms of organizational structure, tactics and even ideological justification for the violent suppression of their political and racial enemies. At the end of the day however, they all believe in strict legal enforcement of unequal hierarchies, they all share an intense antipathy towards the left, or even milquetoast liberal social justice initiatives and they're all prepared to commit unimaginable violence against their societal enemies to protect their own personalized concept of the nation and the people "who matter." Whatever inter-squad disagreements the violent reactionary right may have, they are united in their loathing, hatred and desire to destroy the left such as they see it.   

Why don't fascists just call themselves fascists? Frankly the historical track record of fascism suggests its adherents will probably end up bleeding to death in the mud and it's pretty hard to sell new converts on the upside of "rotting in prison for the rest of your life" or "swinging by your neck until you expire" like the boys at Nuremberg did. Furthermore, running around openly preaching eliminationism and antidemocratic rhetoric has a way of alarming voters and political opponents, although curiously (or perhaps, revealingly), aggressive nativism does not, even though it certainly should. Naturally, post-War fascist movements have solved these problems the same way their ideological ancestors solved societal reluctance to adopt open fascism; by lying and as such it's a really bad idea to take a fascist's word for it when he says he's not a fascist - they have after all, been known to bullsh*t.

Even despite all of this however, and if you step back from the minutiae of the American fascist quilt in particular, there are readily apparent differences between fascist movements across time and especially across the state borders that define "the volk" for most nationalist ideologies. As Eco touched on and a cursory examination of history demonstrates, there were significant differences (particularly in terms of organizational philosophy and animating myths) between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Spain under Franco; let alone the vast differences between these movements and the Reich's allies in Imperial Japan - which despite the trappings of the Emperor, was unquestionably an entho-nationalist military cult that at least functioned exactly like fascism.

Turning towards more contemporary "fascist-movements-in-progress" we also see significant purposeful differentiation in the animating myths and rhetorical forms of modern ultranationalist reactionary movements. For example, in Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has built a fascist political machine based on exulting latent anti-Indigenous racism and a loving embrace of the country's 1964 - 1985 (fascist) military dictatorship. By contrast, Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in India have achieved much the same results by embracing portions of the ongoing political legacy of its extremist (and openly fascist) ideological progenitor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and embracing the Hidutva ideology of a (mythical) patriarchal, sexually chaste and culturally pure Hindu nation corrupted by decadent Muslims and eventually Christians. 

On the surface these two movements, and Trumpism for that matter, may seem very different (at least at times) and thus capable of defying a fair classification as "fascist." As illustrated at length in Professor Jason Stanley's recent book "How Fascism Works" however, the only functional understanding of fascism that is not vulnerable to fascist lies and fascist word salad is one that defines fascist movements as those that practice fascist politics. Still, while that insight is extremely useful for identifying "fascist-movements-in-progress" it still does little to explain why fascist movements evolve differently, in different times and places.

Naturally, some of this differentiation will be structural and dictated by the material and social conditions in nations that birth fascist movements; it would after all be extremely difficult to sell a wholly racialized Aryan-supremacist ideology fueled by a debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory in a racially diverse, largely non-white country like India. It's not just a matter of flopping the names around either; the animating powers of Nazi race science and its associated conspiracies (which are increasingly making a comeback in America and Europe) simply don't pack the same punch where preexisting nationalist sentiments and animosities revolve around religion and culture instead of purely race.

After spending much of the past five years actively studying and writing about fascism however, I think I've stumbled on two (interrelated) seemingly universal similarities shared by fascist movements that, perhaps perversely, function to make each new fascist movement at least appear unique.

First and most obviously, fascist movements invariably work to actively exploit preexisting societal divisions, prejudices and nationalist sentiments along racial, religious or cultural fault lines. The Nazis certainly didn't invent antisemitism, Social Darwinism or attitudes of militant German superiority, even if they did work extremely hard to encapsulate all of these concepts into the (still preexisting and altogether fabricated) construct of a fictional "Aryan" race. These hateful ideas were already well represented in Germany and ultimately helped serve as a vehicle to power for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party; just as the hateful ideas, sentiments and enthusiasms that propelled Bolsonaro and Modi to power were already deeply established before their elections in Brazil and India respectively.

Indeed after studying a wide variety of fascist movements the past few years, I've largely come to the conclusion that they don't really create anything, even ideas, so much as loot, appropriate and re-purpose them; which fits in well with the popular theory that fascism is at its root a kind of death cult. 

This brings me to the second similarity, the fact that all fascists seem to borrow their myths, political ideology and conspiracy theories from preexisting reactionary movements in a given society of origin. To once again turn towards the most infamous fascists in history - the Nazi Party ideology originally formed out of the reactionary volkisch movement in Germany, grew its influence by exploiting the right wing "stabbed in the back" myth popularized after the Kaiser's defeat in World War I, and finally vaulted Hitler to absolute power primarily on the back of a decades old, thoroughly debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory originally forged by Tsarist Russians; the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 

Without belaboring the point and while recognizing that the pattern match is (as of yet) imperfect, you can easily see echoes of this same appropriation in Modi's co-option of his former party's (RSS) platform and Hidutva ideology, as well as Bolsonaro's repeated association with the Brazilian military dictatorship and comparable fascist leaders in the region, like Agusto Pinochet.

All of which brings us to a fairly obvious and important question; if Trump is a fascist and his administration is openly employing fascist politics, what are the preexisting ideologies, conspiracies and animating myths this movement is employing to sell Downmarket Mussolini's fascist agenda? To answer that question we turn to today's reading assignment, an April 2019 article in the Atlantic by Adam Serwer that explores White Nationalism, the white genocide conspiracy theory and the ideological progenitor of the hateful beliefs Trump is capitalizing on to seize total power - check it out by clicking on the link below: 

White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”