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In September, the former darling of the alt-right, Milo Yiannopoulos, used the messaging app Telegram to complain to his followers that he was talking to the same 1,000 people, none of whom buy books, tickets or anything or donate and that he cant put food on the table that way. A case can be made that Yiannopoulos complaints display a bitterness at his shrinking audience and a diminished reach, following a period of relative fame as the alt-rights charismatic bad boy.

The main complaint Yiannopoulos is making, however, is that he is not creating enough revenue to financially keep afloat. Like other alt-right figureheads, he apparently relies on donations. Requests for donations are common across the far-right web. And while far-right personalities are not the only people asking for donations online, the constant, public referral to ones financial troubles is recurring.

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Within the far-right, requests for money include crowdfunding via donations through sites like Patreon, the constant reiterations by InfoWars host Alex Jones to buy his products and lengthy, emotional YouTube videos made by far-right activists and media personalities.

Begging for money is a well-known device of far-right agitators, and it by far exceeds the simple request to donate a few dollars every once in a while. Constant begging is not an indicator of mere grifting but has a number of different functions and benefits. For one, if people pay money for something instead of getting it for free, they tend to ascribe a higher value to it. So, besides the obvious benefit of generating revenue, the increased commitment of followers to figureheads alone could justify the permanent request for donations.

It stands to reason, however, that repeated and personal requests for money transcends this aim. To shine a light on todays far-right media personalities strategies, it helps to look at their ideological ancestors.

In the late 1930s, Theodor Adorno wrote in The Psychological Technique of Thomas Radio Addresses about the Christian fundamentalist Martin Luther Thomas. Adorno described the psychological tricks Thomas employed for his political, personal and financial gains. While a few of the devices seem like common rhetoric, such as referencing the good old times, some of them are rather unusual. One of these is what Adorno calls the great little man device.

The great little man is both weak and strong: weak insofar as each member of the crowd is convinced as being capable of identifying himself with the leader who, therefore, must not be superior to the follower; strong insofar as he represents the powerful collectivity which is achieved through the unification of those whom he addresses.

Requesting money, or begging, as Adorno puts it, is an important tool to construct this image: Financial worries are relatable to most people. Raising the issue of financial struggles in Yiannopoulos case that he allegedly cannot put food on the table is part of this great little man strategy. Adorno writes about Thomas: the way in which he discusses money with them is rather unusual. No consideration of dignity inhibits him from asking for money again and again All his speeches are interspersed with whining and pointedly shameless appeals for funds; one may say that he plays the beggar.

This, of course, contradicts the usual image as a leader that far-right figureheads often seek to convey. Yiannopoulos combines this begging attitude with personal disappointment in his followers who dont buy books and tickets and have thus failed him.

Yiannopoulos is by far not the only alt-right personality to use this strategy in his social media appearances. Richard Spencer, the most prominent figure of the alt-right, published a video requesting money for a legal fund for himself. These donations would help fund the lawsuit resulting from the deadly Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.

Likewise, Christopher Cantwell, depicted in a Vice documentary about the rally, begged for money in the aftermath of the event. Cantwell, often mockingly referred to as the crying Nazi, embodies the great little man in the performance which brought about his nickname. His crying is not a break in the performance, but a crucial part of it.

Adorno describes several other strategies that are tied in with the great little man device. For example, there is the indefatigability device, or claiming that the great little man works tirelessly for the cause, and that the opposition never stops, or the prosecuted innocence device claiming to have done no harm and yet being prosecuted by foes regardless.

What all of these methods have in common, and which make the great little man device quite effective, is the mixture of pettiness and grandeur, a combination commonly found throughout the far-right, where a sense of superiority (or supremacy) goes hand in hand with victim narratives. With these great little men making prominent comebacks, being aware of its implications and effectiveness is crucial for understanding far-right online culture.

*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Rightis a partner institution ofFair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorsown and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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Great Little Men: Why the Alt-Right Begs for Money - Fair Observer

In an incredible twist of irony, Donald Trump Jr. was heckled off stage last week during a talk about his new book Triggered after he couldnt handle the onslaught of right-wing trolling at his event.

Trumps son being harassed from the right seemed surprising, but the heckling represented a new height for a growing movement thats been seeded by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist upstart whos been taking advantage of major tech platforms to gain prominence. The increasingly prominent racist had been feuding with Charlie Kirk, Don Jr.s friend and the founder of Turning Point USA, an organization for young conservatives with chapters at colleges nationwide.

After a Turning Point USA event last month in which Kirk defended the US relationship with Israel, Fuentes decided to sic his followers on Kirk and his organization, advising them to show up at his and other conservative events and manipulate the question and answer portions into confrontations designed to spread alt-right ideasin effect, make them real-life internet red-pilling sessions designed to win converts to the racist, far-right. Fuentes followers flooded the mics with questions about Israel, littering their queries with suggestions for the crowd and people watching the events livestream to Google far-right conspiracies, including anti-semitic ones.

Fuentes has harnessed tech platforms to help fuel his rise and to spread white nationalism, using at least one YouTube account and a verified Twitter handle, which hes deployed to rally his followers to turn out for Turning Points events.

Its unclear why Fuentes still has a presence on the platforms. On YouTube, where he hosts his show, hes repeatedly denied the holocaust and said demeaning things about gay people including slurs like faggot, both of which should be considered violations of YouTubes hate speech policy, which bans promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes including Sex/Gender.

While Twitter has banned some white supremacists and stripped others of their verified badge, nether has happened with Fuentes. Instead the platform has emerged as a pivotal tool in his push to spread white nationalism. In 2017, he had barely 2,000 Twitter followers. He now has over 70,000, gaining 20,000 since he started targeting Turning Point USA events at the end of October, according to SocialBlade, a social media analytics website.

Its also possible that Fuentes actions violate both Twitter and YouTubes policies against coordinated abuse and harassment. Both companies have vague rules governing such violations, but in the past, Twitter has taken against users who took part in a coordinated harassment campaign telling journalists to learn to code in the wake of a large wave of media industry layoffs. The companies declined to answer questions for this piece, including whether Fuentes encouraging his followers to engage in a harassment campaign in which they spread antisemitic hoaxes would break their polices.

There is some precedent among tech companies for banning him. Reddit removed a subreddit in support of Fuentes earlier this month, according to The Daily Dot, but hasnt explained why it took down the group. The Daily Dot reported that it had been used to organize targeted harassment on Fuentess critics; Reddit did not respond to a Mother Jonesrequest for comment.

Joshua Citarella, an artist who researches and has written about fringe internet political trends, pointed out at least one instance where a Fuentes follower told viewers of a TPUSA event to Google an obscure antisemitic conspiracy prompting the most Google traffic its ever generated, according to the sites own search trends tool.

In the past, tech companies have been hesitant to act on problematic accounts on the right out of fear of sparking conservative outrage. While anti-immigration writer Michelle Malkin has supported Fuentes in his recent confrontations, many other conservatives have disavowed him, even saying that his ideas are Nazi ideas. Former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka even questioned why Fuentes has maintained his Twitter verification.

Actual Nazis seem to think that Fuentes is one of them, or at least on their side. Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer has excitedly chronicled Fuentes campaign against Kirk and written guides educating budding, young neo-Nazi, Fuentes fanboys on how they can successfully troll Turning Points events and redpill new followers. One Stormer post urged Fuentes followers to shout suggestions for those watching in the crowd and on the livestream to Google specific terms about far-right, fringe conspiracies, either during the Q&A or, if they were removed from the event, as security escorted them out .

Another reason tech platforms might be slow to react to Fuentes, despite his explicit bigotry and harassment campaigns, is that hes taken steps to shield his racism. As opposed to figures like Richard Spencer, Fuentes avoids giving voice to outright white nationalism. If pressed, hell deny it while putting forward more palatable seeming positions that can be but arent always necessarily racist.

In his own presentation, Fuentes isnt an antisemite, hes just posing reasonable questionable questions about Israel. Fuentes doesnt believe in outlandish conspiracies about the extermination of white people, hes just worried about birthrates. Fuentes doesnt hate people of color and want an ethnostate, he just believes that its fine to raise the question because of how valuable free speech is.

But no matter how careful he is, Fuentes ends up breaking character a lot, revealing who he and his followers actually are. In a livestream offering realtime commentary on a Turning Point USA event, he repeatedly called one of the speakers, who is gay, a faggot. In a debate against progressive streamers, Steve Bonnell, who streams under the name Destiny, and the Young Turks Hasan Piker, Fuentes says that he disagrees with interracial marriage.

Right Wing Watchs Jared Holt has documented other recurring slips by Fuentes seemingly outing himself as a white nationalist, including one instance where he explained that he doesnt publicly label himself as a white nationalist because its not politically expedientnot because, in his own words, he doesnt see the necessity for white people to have a homeland and for white people to have a country.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who is closely aligned with Turning Point USA and has appeared at its events, broke Fuentes doublespeak after dealing with it first-hand after his followers mobbed a Q&A session at Arizona State University where the congressmember spoke.

The basic nature of their questions was to ask a question that at first seems like a legitimate policy difference, perfectly debatable, Crenshaw wrote inan email exchange with Voxs Jane Coaston. But what then becomes clearand there are hints along the waythe motivations are deeper and darker than their original question indicated.

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How Twitter and YouTube are Helping a White Nationalist Build a Community Fueled by Hate - Mother Jones

On 7 November, Lana Lokteff, an American white nationalist, introduced a thought criminal and political prisoner and friend as a featured guest on her internet talk show, Red Ice TV.

For about 90 minutes, Lokteff and her guest Greg Johnson, a prominent white nationalist and editor-in-chief of the white nationalist publisher Counter-Currents discussed Johnsons recent arrest in Norway amid authorities concerns about his past expression of respect for the far-right mass murderer Anders Breivik. In 2012, Johnson wrote that he was angered by Breiviks crimes because he feared they would harm the cause of white nationalism but had discovered a strange new respect for him during his trial; Breiviks murder of 77 people has been cited as an inspiration by the suspected Christchurch killer, the man who murdered the British MP Jo Cox, and a US coast guard officer accused of plotting a white nationalist terror attack.

Just a few weeks earlier, Red Ice TV had suffered a serious setback when it was permanently banned from YouTube for repeated violations of its policy against hate speech. But Red Ice TV still had a home on Facebook, allowing the channels 90,000 followers to stream the discussion on Facebook Watch the platform Mark Zuckerberg launched as a place to share an experience and bring people together who care about the same things.

The conversation wasnt a unique occurrence. Facebook promised to ban white nationalist content from its platform in March 2019, reversing a years-long policy to tolerate the ideology. But Red Ice TV is just one of several white nationalist outlets that remain active on the platform today.

A Guardian analysis found longstanding Facebook pages for VDare, a white nationalist website focused on opposition to immigration; the Affirmative Right, a rebranding of Richard Spencers blog Alternative Right, which helped launch the alt-right movement; and American Free Press, a newsletter founded by the white supremacist Willis Carto, in addition to multiple pages associated with Red Ice TV. Also operating openly on the platform are two Holocaust denial organizations, the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust and the Institute for Historical Review.

Theres no question that every single one of these groups is a white nationalist group, said Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Centers (SPLC) Intelligence Project, after reviewing the Guardians findings. Its not even up for debate. Theres really no excuse for not removing this material.

White nationalists support the establishment of whites-only nation states, both by excluding new non-white immigrants and, in some cases, by expelling or killing non-white citizens and residents. Many contemporary proponents of white nationalism fixate on conspiracy theories about demographic change and consider racial or ethnic diversity to be acts of genocide against the white race.

Facebook declined to take action against any of the pages identified by the Guardian. A company spokesperson said: We are investigating to determine whether any of these groups violate our policies against organized hate. We regularly review organizations against our policy and any that violate will be banned permanently.

The spokesperson also said that Facebook does not ban Holocaust denial, but does work to reduce the spread of such content by limiting the distribution of posts and preventing Holocaust-denying groups and pages from appearing in algorithmic recommendations. Such limitations are being applied to the two Holocaust denial groups identified by the Guardian, the spokesperson said.

The Guardian undertook a review of white nationalist outlets on Facebook amid a debate over the companys decision to include Breitbart News in Facebook News, a new section of its mobile app dedicated to high quality journalism. Facebook has faced significant pressure to reduce the distribution of misinformation on its platform. Critics of Breitbart News object to its inclusion in what Zuckerberg has described as a trusted source of information on two fronts: its repeated publication of partisan misinformation and conspiracy theories and its promotion of extreme rightwing views.

A growing body of evidence shows the influence of white nationalism on Breitbarts politics. Breitbarts former executive chairman Steve Bannon called the site the platform for the alt-right in 2016. In 2017, BuzzFeed News reported on emails and documents showing how a former Breitbart editor had worked directly with a white nationalist and a neo-Nazi to write and edit an article about the alt-right movement.

This month, the SPLC and numerous news organizations have reported on a cache of emails between the senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller and the former Breitbart writer Katie McHugh showing how Miller pushed for coverage and inclusion of white nationalist ideas in the publication. The emails show Miller directing McHugh to read links from VDare and another white nationalist publication, American Renaissance, among other sources. In one case, reported by NBC News, Breitbart ran an anti-immigration op-ed submitted by Miller under the byline Breitbart News.

A Breitbart spokeswoman, Elizabeth Moore, said that the outlet is not now nor has it ever been a platform for the alt-right. Moore also said McHugh was a troubled individual who had been fired for a number of reasons including lying.

Breitbart is the funnel through which VDares ideas get out to the public, said Beirich. Its basically a conduit of conspiracy theory and racism into the conservative movement We dont list them as a hate group, but to consider them a trusted news source is pandering at best.

Facebook executives have responded defensively to criticism of Breitbart Newss inclusion in the Facebook News tab, arguing that the company should not pick ideological sides.

Part of having this be a trusted source is that it needs to have a diversity of views in there, Zuckerberg said at an event in New York in response to a question about Breitbarts inclusion. Campbell Brown, Facebooks head of news partnerships, wrote in a lengthy Facebook post that she believed Facebook should include content from ideological publishers on both the left and the right. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram and a longtime Facebook executive, questioned on Twitter whether the companys critics really want a platform of our scale to make decisions to exclude news organizations based on their ideology. In response to a question from the Guardian, Mosseri acknowledged that Facebook does ban the ideology of white nationalism, then added: The tricky bit is, and this is always the case, where exactly to draw the line.

One of the challenges for Facebook is that white nationalist and white supremacist groups adopt the trappings of news outlets or publications to disseminate their views, said Joan Donovan, the director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard and an expert on media manipulation.

Red Ice TV is a group that styles themselves as a news organization when they are primarily a political organization, and the politics are staunchly white supremacist, Donovan said. We have seen this happen in the past where organizations like the KKK have produced their own newspapers It doesnt mean that it qualifies as news.

Many people argue that Breitbart is more of a political front than a news operation, she added. When Steve Bannon left Breitbart in order to work much more concretely with campaigns, you could see that Breitbart was a political organ before anything else. Really what they were trying to do was give white supremacist politics a veneer of objectivity.

Donovan said she expects platform companies will reassess their treatment of Breitbart following the release of the Miller emails. She also called for Facebook to take a more holistic approach to combating US domestic terrorism, as it does with foreign terrorist groups.

A Facebook spokesperson noted that Facebook News is still in a test phase and that Facebook is not paying Breitbart News for its inclusion in the program. The spokesperson said the company would continue to listen to feedback from news publishers.

Facebook has long asserted that hate speech has no space on Facebook, whether it comes from a news outlet or not.

But the $566bn company has consistently allowed a variety of hate groups to use its platform to spread their message, even when alerted to their presence by the media or advocacy groups. In July 2017, in response to queries from the Guardian, Facebook said that more than 160 pages and groups identified as hate groups by SPLC did not violate its community standards. Those groups included:

American Renaissance, a white supremacist website and magazine;

The Council of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist organization referenced in the manifesto written by Dylann Roof before he murdered nine people in a black church;

The Occidental Observer, an online publication described by the Anti-Defamation League as the primary voice for antisemitism from far-right intellectuals;

the Traditionalist Worker party, a neo-Nazi group that had already been involved in multiple violent incidents; and

Counter-Currents, the white nationalist publishing imprint run by the white nationalist Greg Johnson, the recent guest on Red Ice TV.

Three weeks later, following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Facebook announced a crackdown on violent threats and removed pages associated with the the Traditionalist Worker party, Counter-Currents, and the neo-Nazi organization Gallows Tree Wotansvolk. Many of the rest remained.

A year later, a Guardian review found that many of the groups and individuals involved in the Charlottesville event were back on Facebook, including the neo-Confederate League of the South, Patriot Front and Jason Kessler, who organized Unite the Right. Facebook took those pages down following inquiries from the Guardian, but declined to take action against the page of David Duke, the notorious white supremacist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

In May 2018, Vice Newss Motherboard reported on internal Facebook training documents that showed the company was distinguishing between white supremacy and white nationalism and explicitly allowing white nationalism.

In July 2018, Zuckerberg defended the motivations of people who engage in Holocaust denial during an interview, saying that he did not think that theyre intentionally getting it wrong. Following widespread criticism, he retracted his remarks.

It was not until March 2019 that Facebook acknowledged that white nationalism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups and banned it.

Beirich expressed deep frustration with Facebooks track record.

We have consulted with Facebook many, many times, Beirich added. We have sent them our list of hate groups. Its not like theyre not aware, and I always get the sense that there is good faith desire [to take action], and yet over and over again [hate groups] keep popping up. Its just not possible for civil rights groups like SPLC to play the role of flagging this stuff for Facebook. Its a company that makes $42bn a year and I have a staff of 45.

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Facebook banned white nationalists months ago. But prominent groups are still on the platform - The Guardian

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro is outraged that Chick-fil-A is no longer donating to anti-LGBT charities. (Araya Diaz/WireImage)

US conservative pundit Ben Shapiro is outraged that fast-food outlet Chick-fil-A is no longer donating to anti-LGBT charities and honestly who is even surprised by this.

The Daily Wire editor-in-chief took to Twitter yesterday to denounce the censorious Left while calling the companys move terrible.

For years, the baptist-owned chain has been dogged by boycotts and backlash from queer activists for its ties to groups that oppose marriage equality.

But officials confirmed that the chain will no longer do so and instead divert donations to supporting food banks and fighting against homelessness, prompting outrage from some right-wing figures.

As conservative circles have defended the company for its religious freedom in the past, Shapiro and several other right-wing personalities came together to mourn their loss.

Shapiro tweeted: Chick-Fil-A has survived and thrived because they served everyone AND refused to cater to the cancel culture.

Now theyve caved at the behest of the censorious Left.

This is a terrible move and just the latest indicator that the centre cannot hold.

Shapiro then elaborated his point, but basically said the same thing again.

A country in which we only eat at restaurants where we agree with the owners politics when the owners politics does not affect anything happening inside the restaurant is a country that cannot survive as a unified entity, he tweeted.

While fellow Daily Wire colleague Matt Walsh chimed in: Chick-fil-A defied the LGBT rage mob for years and only grew in popularity because of it.

Now all of a sudden they cave. This is the most pointless and counter productive surrender Ive ever seen.

The LGBT rage mob had, for years, raised awareness of the companys long and complicated history with LGBT+ rights, such as its CEO stating his opposition to marriage equality.

Moreover, Rubin Report presenter Davie Rubin, who once blamed wildfires on a utility company hiring gay people, was roiled at the news.

He said: Chick-fil-A was actually cool because it stood up to the progressive mind virus which is cancel culture.

Im not going back to that sad, dry, pathetic Burger King chicken sandwich.

However, as many users pointed out, Rubin was essentially calling for Chick-fil-A to be cancelled for caving into cancel culture.

Yes, one user said, boycott them to show you oppose cancel culture!

In retaliation, Rubin hit back that he advocates for the free market and for companies to do as they please.

But as more brought to light, he said this while detracting a company for doing exactly that.

They didnt cave to cancel culture, Blaine explained.

They simply shifted their donations toward causes (education, homelessness & hunger) that effect more people directly.

They have stated *nothing* about LGBTQ+ pressure.

Moreover, some were simply perplexed that Rubin was outraged that Chick-fil-A was now re-directing money to combat homeless charities instead:

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Ben Shapiro and his alt-right rabble are mourning the loss of homophobic chicken - PinkNews

Democrats who think that President Trump may have committed an impeachable offense for apparently trying to extort Ukraine are " human scum." A Republican congresswoman trying to make a political point during said hearing is " lying trash." Just as every person with an "R" next to their name became "racists," and every person with a "D" became "socialists," we have diluted the meaning of every word in the book as it pertains to politics, and now we're reaping the rewards.

Barack Obama was not a socialist, a fact that we can surely all see with his recent demands that Democrats slow down their sprint towards Stalinism. But the Right abandoned all nuance when it came to the former president and his social-democratic ways. Now, legitimately socialist Bolshevik presidential candidates and rising superstars have radically shifted the party's Overton window on policy. And conservatives no longer have the language to describe it.

Mitt Romney was not a racist. His vehement condemnation of Trump shrugging off literal white nationalists in Charlottesville should have made that clear. But just as all Republicans were for the better part of a decade, Romney was effectively smeared as a racist during the most milquetoast Republican presidential campaign of a generation. And now actual alt-right racists have earned the embrace of prominent Republicans, and Stephen Miller sits in the West Wing, firing off V-Dare and American Renaissance articles to journalists.

We should be able to excoriate racists and racism-apologists as such. But when everyone's already been branded a racist, no one is.

Now we've cranked the euphemism treadmill so fast that we're flying off the back end. Democrats and Republicans alike are now happy to get in the gutter and call each other scum and trash, using words we might have once reserved for machete-wielding MS-13 members and torch-bearing neo-Nazis. Words are supposed to mean things, but we've desensitized everyone. When perfectly fine members of Congress are now trash and scum, what do we call actual bigots or authoritarians? What about predators and murderers?

This isn't healthy. It isn't normal. But we can at least say that it's bipartisan.

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We've been flung off the euphemism treadmill - Washington Examiner