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The last programming that viewers of RT America saw, on the morning of March 1, was a half hour of BoomBu$tthe Russian-funded networks business show. That day, cohost Rachel Blevins, a 27-year-old from Mineral Wells, an hour west of Fort Worth, had led with a roundup of economic fallout from Western sanctions against Russia over, as she put it, its ongoing military operation in Ukraine, using Vladimir Putins euphemism for his war.

Though that days coverage of the conflict on BoomBu$t was mellow compared to the previous RT America show, which had featured one guest averring that not all Ukrainians are Nazis and another complaining that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was being hailed as a hero. Blevins focused on the negative impacts from the sanctions: higher oil prices, a potential 2008-style global financial crisis, recession fears, and even tensions over the International Space Station. Next: a plug for The World According to Jessehosted by Jesse Ventura, the wrestler, conspiracy theorist, and former Minnesota governorfollowed by a cheeky house ad that said, RT is not alt-left or alt-right, but we are a solid alternative to the bullshit. Then, abruptly, the screen went dark and a message appeared: This channel is no longer available. DirecTV.

It was another blow to a network that was seeing its reach drastically curtailed due to government bans in Europe (an EU ban took effect the next day) and restrictions imposed by big tech companies such as Facebook and TikTok. Two days later, RT America announced that it was suspending its operations altogether. Launched in 2010, the channel was the Washington, D.C.based offshoot of the network formerly known as Russia Today. RT had begun broadcasting in 2005, soon expanding into a globe-spanning network of TV channels and digital media funded by the Russian government and run by close affiliates of Vladimir Putin. RT America became a home for iconoclasts, second-act pundits, and opportunistic apparatchiks, many of whom pretended not to notice their employers alignment with the Kremlin.

Blevins, along with most of the staff, was out of a job. She hadnt been the most prominent host at RT America, but she was one of its most loyal. She started working at RT America in 2018, just over a year after graduating from Texas Tech University with a degree in journalism. Her last BoomBu$t show was her 196th. In the early days of Russias invasion, Blevinss coverage had been highly diversionary; while the Russian military pressed into Ukraine on February 25, the second day of what RT called a special operation, Blevins led the program with a story about a Russian investigation into genocide in the breakaway Donbas region of Ukraine that had purportedly been carried out by Ukrainian neofascists. Analysts had warned just a week before that Putin would use exactly such a fabrication in order to justify invading Ukraine, as he had done in the lead-up to the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

As RT was systematically deplatformed in Europe and America, Blevins became one of the loudest voices defending her employer. On Twitter, she batted back at a legion of critics who saw her as a fitting target for their rage over RT and Russias war. A representative example: Your profile bio has a typo, it says Opinions are my own, it should say Opinion are from Vlad. Fixed it for you, I take payments in euros or dollars (sorry no rubles atm).

On February 27, as Russian troops bore down on Ukraine, Blevins took to Rokfin.coman Austin-based subscription platform similar to Patreon that mostly features wrestling and conspiracy contentto address RT critics. Ive never been told by RT what I should or shouldnt say. Ive never been told I needed to follow any sort of narrative and thats why I work for the network I work for, she said. She went on to defend the way RT covered the war in Ukraine, referring to the so-called invasion and linking the conflict to U.S. policy. For all the people sitting there saying, Well, Ukraine is a sovereign country, they should be able to do what they want to dowell, to a certain extent, sure, however, thats not whats happening now. Ukraine is not acting as a sovereign nation...it is acting under the influence of NATO.

On February 28, when Twitter slapped a label on her account warning that it constituted Russian-affiliated state media, Blevins fired back, insisting that she is an individual journalist who does not speak for Russia or Russian media. After being bombarded by what she describes as a flurry of hate mail, Blevins deleted the tweet only to surface the next day to address her critics. If youre one of the people pushing to ban RT and threatening myself and my colleaguesI hope you know that youre not achieving what you think you are. And when RT America shut down on March 3, she was one of the few RT employees to speak out, writing on Twitter that she was heartbroken and signing off with a George Orwell quote: Journalism is printing what someone else does not want publishedeverything else is public relations. When I talked to her on the phone the next day, she said she felt as if she was in a nightmare I still havent woken up from.

Blevins, for all her pro-Kremlin messaging, had never quite fit the stereotype that might leap to mind when one thinks of Putins American puppets. For lack of a better term, she came across as a normal young American journalist, passionate and seemingly sincere. But shed been with RT America for three and a half years, and she continues to vociferously defend its journalism. All of which raises some questions, foremost among them: how did a young woman from a small town in Texas end up as the face of RT America as the network spectacularly imploded?

Blevinss family moved from Colorado to Mineral Wells, an economically struggling town of around 15,000, when she was eleven. She attended Community Christian School, a small, private religious institution, where she graduated as valedictorian in 2013. A scholarship landed her at Texas Tech, where she began taking journalism classes. After her professors warned that young journalists usually have to toil for years covering local crime and local elections, Blevins said she planned to switch majorsthat is, until one of her professors assigned her and her classmates to conduct an official interview with a source. She chose the topic of government control of media. Her father, a regular listener of talk radio, suggested she interview Ben Swann, a TV journalist originally from El Paso who has alternated between stints as an award-winning major-market local TV anchor and an enthusiastic promulgator of conspiracy theoriessometimes at the same time. When they met, Swann had a short-lived radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, a fringe Texas-based outlet that has repeatedly featured hard-core white supremacists and Holocaust deniers.

Blevins says the interview helped open her eyes to what she terms independent journalists and independent networks. Facebooks algorithm had catalyzed the explosive growth of viral content farms, many of them seat-of-the-pants publishers that specialized in sensational and conspiratorial storiesand it just so happened that Swann was launching a website, Truth in Media, that needed writers. I was kind of in the place of saying, Okay, well, I dont have much experience, but I can try. And so I started out writing for him. By June, she was regularly freelancing for the site.

Swann was also a regular guest on RT America at the time, sometimes echoing Kremlin propaganda. In one 2014 segment, he averred that any credible evidence does not seem to exist that Russian-backed insurgents in Ukraine were responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17an argument that was part of a larger campaign by Putin and RT to sow confusion about who was responsible for the 298 deaths that resulted. (An RT reporter resigned on air in disgust over the outlets coverage of the incident.) Years later, when Blevins had her own RT America show, Swann would pop up as a guest; in one of her last shows, he was introduced as a crypto analyst.

It didnt take long for Blevins to get noticed by RT higher-ups. Just a few months into her freelancing gig at Truth in Media, during the fall semester of her sophomore year, the news director for RT America saw one of Blevinss stories and reached out to offer her a job as a reporter. I said, Hey, Im still in college; Im going to get this degree. I will reach back out, and lets keep in touch and basically keep the networking going until I graduate. The offer might seem odd, or premature, but it was standard practice for RT. A 2020 Oxford study, based on interviews with 23 RT journalists, found that the networks management deliberately recruited journalists with little to no experience, in order to be able to mold the newly hired journalists and shape their minds.

The Truth in Media site no longer exists, but from what I could find, Blevinss work was fairly tamemostly write-ups of headline news with a libertarian bent. But it introduced her to a wider community of conspiracy-prone, Russia-credulous outlets. Soon she was freelancing for two more such sites, the Free Thought Project and We Are Change, the latter of which is run by Luke Rudkowski, an associate of Alex Jones who got his start as a leader of the 9/11 Truth movement in New York and came to viral YouTube fame in 2007 for yelling that former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was New World Order scum. Blevins produced stories that mostly focused on police brutality in the U.S. and American atrocities abroad, but bore the hallmarks of the RT style: persistent whataboutism, fury at the mainstream media, and a reflexively pro-Putin posture.

For a newsletter for Texas Techs College of Media and Communication, Blevins was writing articles with headlines like Department of Public Relations Presents Student and Faculty Member of the Year Awards. At the same time, for We Are Change, she was writing articles with all-caps headlines like WHY ITS TIME FOR THE WASHINGTON POST TO GIVE UP THE ANTI-RUSSIA CAMPAIGN, WHY THE U.S. IS DEMONIZING RUSSIA TO COVER UP FAILURE IN SYRIA, and RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN WARNS DONALD TRUMP OF COUP DETAT, the latter of which published in January 2017 and argues in the lede that Putins latest sensational comments put the nail in the coffin of this whole Russian hacking scandal that we have been hearing about for the past two months.

Two Texas Tech journalism professors I spoke to said they knew nothing about Blevinss unusual freelance gigs during her time there. But they praised her as a top student. She was one of the sharpest young girls that came through the program, said Mary Ann Edwards, who taught her news writing. She was diligent; she was so conscientious about everything she did. Professor Randy Reddick recalled that she got a 94 on a paper criticizing media coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign. His main criticism to her: Be careful, this is opinionatedyou might rephrase.

After graduating in 2017, Blevins kept churning out freelance pieces as well as making her own videos for Facebookat least until the platform began cracking down on misinformation in the wake of Trumps election. In 2018, Facebook scrubbed the Free Thought Projectwhich was reaching 20 to 30 million people per week, according to one of its foundersfrom the platform. Later it zapped Blevinss own Facebook page, where she had accumulated close to 70,000 followers and posted videos, some of which she claims had a million views. With her freelance work drying up, Blevins turned to her next best option: the network that had made her an offer three years earlier.

I was reaching out to RT America, saying, Hey, you know, Ive been very vocal about foreign policy. Ive been very vocal in my frustration with some of the things that the U.S. government is doing and with the way the media landscape is today. And for me, RT America was the only option where I could actually cover the stories that I was passionate about, and it was the only place where I was seeing that coverage happen. She got the gig.

Part of the appeal for Blevins, she says, was RTs version of the old Fox News Fair and Balanced slogan: Question more. And indeed, RT wasnt left-wing or right-wing in the style of so many U.S. outlets. Thats because, as RTs own top leaders have acknowledged, the outlet is intended to impress Kremlin talking points on its audiences, particularly during times of war, and to sow division among Americans. It attracted American viewersand some of its editorial staffthrough a resonant critique of the failings and moral outrages of mainstream media and U.S. foreign policy. On some days, RT sounded like Noam Chomsky, on others, like Steve Bannon. The one constant theme was that America is a failing empirea contention that many Americans find appealing and absent from mainstream media.

Plus, as Bloomberg put it in 2017, referring to another young RT America anchor: Where else on cable news could a 27-year-old inveigh against U.S. imperialism on a nightly basis?

In conversations I had with Blevins, she had no qualms about working for RT and seemed mostly mystified by the backlash toward the networks coverage of the war in Ukraine.

It frustrates me that taking the stance of providing context to a conflict is automatically seen as supporting that conflict or supporting what the Russian military is doing, said Blevins, who calls herself incredibly anti-war. She added: And I think that its frustrating to come from a standpoint of everything has to be one way or the other. Everything has to be left or right, right or wrong, whatever.

Does Blevins really think Putin invaded Ukraine to fight Nazis? Had she used the Kremlins euphemistic phrase military operation because that was the Kremlins preferred phrasing for its war?

She admits to being surprised that Russia actually went through with an invasion, but cant quite process the criticism over the networks terminology. It feels like Im in a place where I cant win, she said. Every single thing I say, every term I use is going to be blown up in one way or another. And at the time, RT as a whole had been using that phrasing, and that was what we continued to use for our show just because we were in a position of trying to find the best way to navigate it, and we may not have chosen the best way to navigate it.

Blevins kept returning to context she said had been omitted by the mainstream media. In her account, its the U.S., not Russia, who is the primary aggressor. Russia did not wake up and decide that it was going to just take over Ukraine. I dont necessarily think that theyre fighting to take over Ukraine from what Ive heard and from what Ive paid attention to. But the way that the media coverage has been, that, you know, Putin is someone who wants to go in there and to overthrow the Ukrainian government and to install someone who he agrees with. And what weve actually seen happen is that the Russian government has two main demands from the moment that they lead this invasion in the country. Their demands have been that Ukraine be a neutral state and that it be a demilitarized state.

Moreover, she said, the U.S. media had turned a blind eye to the American financing of neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Russia understands the threat of having Nazis on their doorstep, she said. Exaggerating the threat of the far right in Ukrainewhich elected a Jewish president, Zelensky, in 2019 has been a consistent Kremlin messaging tactic at least since Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014. Like most propaganda, there is an element of truthUkrainian nationalists with neo-Nazi views played a prominent role in fighting Russia in the Donbas region in 2014. But outside Russia and the hallways of RT, Putins claim that his goal in waging war on Ukraine to denazify the country is greeted with ridicule.

With RT America off the air, perhaps forever, Blevins is trying to reboot as a freelancer. Her Twitter account, still bearing that Russian-affiliated state media label, looks scarcely different than it did when she was employed by RT. Shes making weekly videos for a tiny paying audience on Rokfin; the most recent had her explaining to fans that she had struggled with my coverage of the Ukraine conflict and conceding that she may not personally agree with exactly the way [Russia] has gone about invading Ukraine, while arguing again that Putin is taking on neo-Nazis.

But as for her time at RT, she says she has few regrets. The opportunities that I was given theregoing from being straight out of college into a reporter position, then going on to hosting an international business-finance showthose are opportunities I would not have gotten anywhere else, she said. I will always be so grateful for that.

See more here:
How a 27-Year-Old Texan Became the Face of Russias American TV Network as It Imploded - Texas Monthly

Gotham fatigue is real. Over the past 17 years there have been roughly a half-dozen big screen Batmen outings, and all of them, from Christopher Nolans Dark Knight to Zack Snyders Batfleck, have been the same: a weary, hardened hero gearing up to fight another day. That Bruce Wayne is nowhere to be found in The Batman. Instead, director Matt Reeves alleviates the burnout by capturing the Caped Crusader at a different point in his life20 years after his parents were killed, but only two years into his quest for vengeance. Its a time that allows Reeves to build his Bat anew, and craft a compelling standalone story with a distinct style and tone.

And that tone is undeniably, unashamedly My Chemical Romance video circa 2005.

Make no mistake, this is the most emo Batman movie youll ever see. Thats meant as a compliment. Normally, comic book heroes are pretty hard to identify withall muscled super-soldiers or principled scientists. Even the ordinary ones plucked from obscurity by spider bite or radioactive incident have some deep well of courage to draw from that, if were being honest, is almost entirely alien to most people (and thats before you even get to the actual aliens). So early in the film, when Nirvanas Something in the Way kicks in and the Caped Crusader rips off his mask to reveal Twilights Robert Pattinson looking like Gerard Way, with his hair covering his eyes and his makeup running down his face, my 17-year-old self thought: Finally, a Batman I can relate to.

Not since Peter Parker got infected by Venom in Spider-Man 3 has there been a superhero more likely to shop at Hot Topic. This is a vulnerable, sophomore Bat, one in full amateur detective mode, trying to find his feet as he tracks down a mysterious killer targeting Gothams political elite. In showing us this proto-Batman, Reeves explicitly frames Bruce Waynes fight for justice as a misguided coping mechanism for dealing with tragedyalthough, because of Batmans vow never to murder, his teen angst does not actually have a body count. This Dark Knight is far more comfortable in the suit than he is as himselfwhen we see Pattinson venture out as Wayne he looks every inch the awkward adolescent. There are layers of camouflage.

Production on The Batman, out Friday, predates the recent emo revival on TikTok, which sparked a brief resurgence in popularity for the angsty guitar-heavy music, swoopy hair, and skinny jeans that dominated the early 2000s. But the movies emo-ness goes beyond the eyeliner and sartorial choices; its also the general vibe. The rain pours down in sheets. Gothams elite hang out in an underground club (run by the Penguin, a snarling mob fixer playedunbelievablyby Colin Farrell). Andy Serkis Alfred wears a waistcoat and shirt with the sleeves rolled up, like an indie rock bass player. (Youre not my father, Bruce shouts at Alfred at one point, before presumably storming up to his room to scroll tearily through MySpace.) When hes not stomping around the city in his knee-high boots, he broods, vampire-like, in a gothic skyscraper. He keeps a journal.

Theres also the city itself. Reevesperhaps best known for his gritty reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchisehas crafted one of the better renditions of Gotham City ever put on screen. In the Nolan films the metropolis seems like an afterthoughtjust a series of set pieces knitted together. It didnt feel lived in. This one does. Theres a dampness to it, a rot. Old ledgers crumble and flake away. Paint peels off walls. The city pulses with lifeit feels bigger than this rookie Batman, liable to swallow him up.

Even the main villain, played with an unsettling intensity by Paul Dano, has something of the scene about him. Danos Riddlera disaffected man, angry at the city and his circumstanceshas the feel of a singer in a mathy Midwest band: all strange time signatures and quiet-loud dynamics. Its an admirably serious and shockingly plausible take on a very unserious character; this version inspired more by the Zodiac killer and alt-right uprisings than the campy, green-clad source material.

Read more here:
'The Batman' Leans Hard Into the Emo Revival - WIRED

It has been interesting to watch media and public commentators come to the realisation sometimes slowly that the siege of parliament was not simply an anti-vaccine mandate protest but something with more sinister elements.

While researchers and journalists have noted the toxicity of some of the politics on display, as well as the presence of extreme fringe activists and groups, it should have come as little surprise.

These politics have been developing for some time, heavily influenced by the rise of a particular form of conspiratorial populism out of Donald Trumps America, and by the networking and misinformation possibilities of social media.

Internationally, researchers noted a decisive shift in 2015-16 and the subsequent exponential growth of extremist and vitriolic content online.

This intensified with the arrival of conspiracy movement QAnon in 2017 and the appearance of a number of alt-tech platforms that were designed to spread mis- and disinformation, conspiracy theories (old and new), and ultranationalism and racist views.

While local manifestations developed slowly, there was evidence that some groups and activists were beginning to realise the potential. The Dominion Movement and Action Zealandia embraced these new politics white nationalism, distrust of perceived corrupt elites and media along with the relatively sophisticated use of social media to influence and recruit.

These anti-authority, conspiratorial views have been around in New Zealand for some time within the anti-1080, anti-5G and anti-UN movements.

But we began to see the formation of a loose political community around the 2020 general election. It was notable, for instance, that online material from the Advance NZ party had 30,000 followers and their anti-COVID material was viewed 200,000 times.

COVID gave new impetus to these movements, partly because the pandemic fed many of the now well-established tropes of those inclined to believe in conspiracies the role of China, government overreach, the influence of international organisations like the UN or WHO, or the malign influence of experts or institutions.

Read more: What are the rights of children at the parliament protest and who protects them?

COVID not only encouraged others to be convinced that conspiracies were at work, the lockdowns also meant more were online and more were likely to engage. QAnon proved to be a key influence.

The election saw Advance NZ (and the NZ Public Party), along with the New Conservatives, the Outdoor Party and Vision NZ all peddle versions of COVID scepticism, the distrust of elites or of ethnic and religious others.

Combined, they received 2.73% of the party vote and 3.01% of electorate votes. Not large, but related online activity was still troubling.

By mid-2021, when the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD, a UK-based research organisation) undertook a study for the Department of Internal Affairs of New Zealands extreme online activity, things had ramped up yet again.

The ISD looked at 300 local extremist accounts and 600,000 posts. In any given week, 192 extremist accounts were active, with 20,059 posts, 203,807 likes or up-votes and 38,033 reposts/retweets.

Read more: The NZ anti-vax movements exploitation of Holocaust imagery is part of a long and sorry history

When it came to far-right Facebook pages, there were 750 followers per 100,000 internet users in New Zealand, compared to 399 in Australia, 252 in Canada and 233 in the USA.

Those numbers should give us all pause for thought. The volumes, the relatively high density, the extensive use of QAnon and the mobilisation of a not insignificant part of the New Zealand community indicate the alt-right and its fellow travellers were now well and truly established here.

This is reinforced by the Department of Internal Affairs digital harm log. Not only are the numbers growing, but the level of hate and threats directed at individuals and institutions remains high.

In this context, its not surprising to see these ideologies surface at the occupation of parliament grounds, or the fractious and divided nature of those attending, and that their demands are so diverse and inchoate.

Nor should it come as a surprise that the protesters display a complete unwillingness to trust authorities such as the police or parliament.

For some time, the so-called sovereign citizens movement has been apparent in New Zealand, again heavily influenced by similar American politics. Laws and regulations are regarded as irrelevant and illegal, as are the institutions that create or enforce them.

Whats perhaps more surprising is that New Zealanders have generally not known more about these politics and the possibility they would produce the ugly scenes at parliament.

Read more: The occupation of NZs parliament grounds is a tactical challenge for police, but mass arrests are not an option

While there has been some excellent media coverage, there has been a sense of playing catch-up. The degree of extremism fuelling the protests and the various demands appeared to catch parliament and the police off guard.

Our security and intelligence agencies are devoting more resources to tracking these politics but they need to be more public about it. The Combined Threat Assessment Group and the SIS provide updates and risk assessments, but these often lack detailed information about local activists and actions. We need to be better informed.

Read more: What the 'freedom convoy' reveals about the ties among politics, police and the law

The police are enhancing existing systems to better record hate crimes and activities (Te Raranga), which should become an important source of information.

And the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will be announcing some of the details of the new centre of excellence, He Whenua Taurika, that will provide evidence of local developments.

If many New Zealanders have been surprised and saddened about the extremist politics visible at the parliament protest, there is now little excuse for not understanding their background and momentum. The challenge now is to ensure further hate crimes or violence do not follow.

Go here to read the rest:
The extremism visible at the parliament protest has been growing in NZ for years is enough being done? - The Conversation

Voters in far northern California have solidified the ouster of a Republican county official, giving control of the Shasta county board of supervisors to a group supported by local militia members.

Leonard Moty, a retired police chief and Republican with decades of public service, lost his seat in a recall election in one of Californias most conservative counties. The Tuesday recall came as tensions reached a high in the county after two years of threats and increasing hostility toward moderate Republican officials over pandemic health restrictions.

I really thought my community would step up to the plate and they didnt and thats very discouraging, Moty said in an interview with the Guardian earlier this week, warning the recall would shift the area to the alt-right.

Updated polling numbers released on Friday showed about 56% of 8,752 voters supported recalling Moty. Cathy Darling Allen, the county registrar of voters, said there were about 121 ballots left to count. The results wont be finalized until next month, but the two candidates in the lead to replace Moty attended a celebration on Tuesday with members of an area militia group, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The recall is a win for the countys ultra-conservative movement in their efforts to gain a foothold in local government in this rural part of northern California and fight back against moderate Republicans they felt didnt do enough to resist state health rules during the pandemic.

Though Shasta county was among the least restrictive in California amid Covid, residents unhappy about state rules and mask requirements have showed up to meetings in large numbers since 2020. Moty and others were subjected to what law enforcement has deemed credible threats and personal attacks in meetings one person told him that bullets are expensive, but ropes are reusable.

Experts have warned the pandemic and eroding trust in US institutions has fueled extremism in local politics and hostility against officials. In Shasta county, the successful recall campaign will likely set up more conflict between the local government and the state government, said Lisa Pruitt, a rural law expert at the University of California, Davis.

Carlos Zapata, a local militia member who helped organize the recall efforts, in 2020 told the board there could be blood in the streets if the supervisors didnt reject state health rules such as mask requirements.

This is a warning for whats coming. Its not going to be peaceful much longer. Its going to be real Ive been in combat and I never wanted to go back again, but Im telling you what I will to stay in this country. If it has to be against our own citizens, it will happen. And theres a million people like me, and you wont stop us, he said.

Read more here:
California county recalls top official, giving militia-aligned group a path to government - The Guardian

Loose group of white nationalist activists, provocateurs, and internet trolls

Political party

Groypers, sometimes called the Groyper Army, are a group of white nationalist and far-right activists, provocateurs, and internet trolls who are notable for their attempts to introduce far-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States, their participation in the 2021 United States Capitol attack and the protests leading up to that, and their extremist views. They are known for targeting other conservative groups and individuals whose agendas they view as too moderate and insufficiently nationalist.[3][4] The Groyper movement has been described as white nationalist, homophobic, nativist, fascist, sexist, antisemitic, and an attempt to rebrand the alt-right movement.[2][5][6][7]

While Groypers are a loosely defined group with no formal leadership structure, they are generally considered to be followers of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, far-right political commentator and podcaster.[8][2] Michelle Malkin, a conservative blogger and political commentator, has referred to herself as the "mommy" of the Groyper movement.[9][10]

In February 2021, the Groyper movement splintered between Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey over fears of infiltration by federal informants and doxing at the 2021 America First Political Action Conference, held by Fuentes. Jaden McNeil of America First Students joined in support of Fuentes' conference and accused Casey of disloyalty to Fuentes.[11][12]

Groypers are extremely conservative and critical of more mainstream conservative organizations, which they believe to be insufficiently nationalist and pro-white. Groypers and their leaders have tried to position the group's ideology as being based around "Christian conservatism", "traditional values", and "American nationalism". Some Groypers downplay the extremism of their positions, and instruct others on how to engage in entryism and radicalization tactics such as slowly introducing their targets to increasingly extreme ideas. Despite attempts to brand themselves more moderately, the group is widely recognized as white nationalist, antisemitic, and homophobic.[1][15]

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Groypers blame the mainstream conservative movement as well as the political left for what they view as "destroying white America". They oppose immigration and globalism. Groypers support "traditional" values and Christianity and oppose feminism and LGBTQ rights.[1]

Describing the relationship between Groypers and the Republican Party, Nick Fuentes has stated, "We are the right-wing flank of the Republican Party." He summarized his political ambitions by stating, "We have got to be on the right, dragging [moderate Republicans] kicking and screaming into the future. Into a truly reactionary party."[16]

Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named "Groyper", which is a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Groyper is depicted as a rotund, green, frog-like creature, often in a sitting position with its chin resting on interlocked fingers.[17][18] There is some disagreement around the specifics of Groyper: it is alternatively said to be a depiction of the Pepe character,[5] a different character from Pepe but of the same species,[19] or a toad.[17] The Groyper meme was used as early as 2015, and became popular in 2017.[20]

In 2018, a group of computer scientists studying hateful speech on Twitter observed the Groyper image being used frequently in account avatars among the accounts identified as "hateful" in their dataset. The researchers observed that the profiles tended to be anonymous and collectively tweeted primarily about politics, race, and religion. Similarly, they detected that the users were not "lone wolves" and the individuals could be identified as a community with a high network centrality.[21] The same year, Right Wing Watch reported that Massachusetts congressional hopeful Shiva Ayyadurai had created a campaign pin featuring a variation of the Groyper image, which RWW described as an attempt to appeal to the far-right activists on 4chan, Gab, and Twitter who had adopted the meme.[22]

Followers of Nick Fuentes began to be known as Groypers beginning in 2019. Fuentes' followers are also sometimes called "Nickers".[2][23] In September 2019, Ashley St. Clair, a "brand ambassador" for the conservative student group Turning Point USA, was photographed at an event featuring several allegedly white nationalist and alt-right figures, including Fuentes, Jacob Wohl, and Anthime Gionet, better known as "Baked Alaska". After Right Wing Watch brought the photographs to Turning Point USA's attention, the organization issued a statement declaring that it had severed ties with St. Clair, and condemning white nationalism as "abhorrent and un-American".[24][25] At the 2019 Politicon convention, Fuentes tried to access several of the Turning Point USA events featuring its founder Charlie Kirk, including a line to take photos with Kirk and Kirk's debate with Kyle Kulinski of The Young Turks. Security repeatedly barred him from being allowed anywhere near Kirk, with Fuentes accusing Kirk of deliberately suppressing him in order to avoid a confrontation, as Fuentes had grown critical of Kirk's positions, which he believes are too weak.[18]

In the fall of 2019, Kirk launched a college speaking tour with Turning Point USA titled "Culture War," featuring himself alongside such guests as Senator Rand Paul, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, and Congressman Dan Crenshaw.[1] In retaliation for the firing of St. Clair and the Politicon incident, Fuentes subsequently began organizing a social media campaign asking his followers to go to Kirk's events and ask provocative and controversial leading questions regarding his stances on immigration, Israel, and LGBT rights during the question-and-answer sessions, for the purpose of exposing Kirk as a "fake conservative". At a Culture War event hosted by Ohio State University on October 29, eleven out of fourteen questions during the Q&A section were asked by Groypers.[26] Groypers asked questions including, "Can you prove that our white European ideals will be maintained if the country is no longer made up of white European descendants?" and "How does anal sex help us win the culture war?"[27] Fuentes' social media campaign against Kirk became known as the "Groyper Wars".[5][17] Kirk and others at Turning Point USA, including Benny Johnson and spokesman Rob Smitha gay black veteran of the Iraq War, and Kirk's co-host at the Ohio State speaking eventbegan labeling the questioners as white supremacists and anti-Semites.[18][28]

Another Turning Point USA event targeted by the Groypers was a promotional event for Donald Trump Jr.'s book Triggered, featuring Trump, Kirk, and Guilfoyle at the University of California, Los Angeles in November 2019. Anticipating further questions from Fuentes' followers, it was announced that the originally planned Q&A portion of the event would be canceled, which led to heckling and boos from the mostly pro-Trump audience.[29] The disruptions eventually forced them to cut the event short after 30 minutes, when it was originally scheduled to last for two hours.[30][31][8]

Groypers' targets for heckling quickly expanded beyond Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.[17] Groypers began targeting other mainstream conservative groups and individuals, which they sometimes collectively call "Conservative Inc.", including events hosted by Young America's Foundation and their student outreach branch Young Americans for Freedom, which included such speakers as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire, and Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch.[3] Questions posed to their opponents often focus on topics including United StatesIsrael relations, immigration policy, affirmative action, and LGTBQ conservatives.[4][5] They regularly use anti-Semitic dogwhistles in their confrontations with other conservatives, including numerous questions about the USS Liberty incident, and references to the "dancing Israelis" conspiracy theory alleging Israeli involvement in the September 11 attacks.[35][1]

In December 2019, Fuentes announced and held the Groyper Leadership Summit in Florida. A small group attended the event in person, and attendees also joined via livestream. The event was held at the same time and in the same city as Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit (SAS); Groypers argued with SAS attendees outside of their venue, and Fuentes, Patrick Casey, and some Groypers were removed from the SAS venue after attempting to enter. At the Groyper Leadership Summit, Fuentes, Casey, and former InfoWars contributor Jake Lloyd spoke about the Groypers' strategy and ideology. While outside the venue where Turning Point's event was being held, Fuentes eventually crossed paths with Ben Shapiro, who was on his way to the event with his pregnant wife and two children. Fuentes confronted Shapiro over his Stanford speech, while Shapiro refused to acknowledge him.[37] Fuentes faced widespread condemnation from politicians and various punditsincluding Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain, Sebastian Gorka, Megyn Kelly, and Michael Avenattifor confronting Shapiro while he was with his family.[38]

In January 2020, Groyper and former leader of Kansas State University's Turning Point USA chapter Jaden McNeil formed the Kansas State University organization America First Students. The group, which shares a name with Fuentes' America First podcast, was conceived at the Groyper Leadership Summit, and Groyper leaders have helped promote the group. The America First Students organization, which states it was formed "in defense of Christian values, strong families, closed borders, and the American worker," is considered to push the Groyper movement.[6][7]

In February 2020, Fuentes spoke at several events that were held as rival events to the Conservative Political Action Conference. One such event, hosted by the online publication National File, featured Fuentes, Alex Jones of InfoWars, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.[39][40] Fuentes hosted the first annual America First Political Action Conference, which included such speakers as Patrick Casey, former Daily Caller author Scott Greer, and Malkin.[41]

Groypers are very active online, particularly on Twitter, and have engaged in targeted harassment against opponents.[26] Financial Times reported that many Groypers use "deceptively anodyne" Twitter biographies, describing themselves in terms that downplay their extremism, like "Christian conservative".[42] In April 2020, The Daily Dot reported that Fuentes and other Groypers had begun to move to the video sharing platform TikTok, where they streamed live and used the "duet" feature to respond to Trump supporters. Groypers particularly targeted one left-wing teenage girl for harassment, which began on TikTok but spread across platforms.[42][43] Fuentes and some other Groyper accounts were banned from TikTok shortly after the Daily Dot article was published.[44]

The Groyper Wars earned widespread media attention after the UCLA incident with Donald Trump Jr. Chadwick Moore of Spectator USA commented that the ordeal revealed deep divisions within the American right among young voters, particularly with regards to the political beliefs of Generation Z, or "Zoomers". This divide, Moore claims, is due to the Groypers viewing Charlie Kirk and others in the mainstream conservative movement as "snatching the baton and appointing themselves the guardians of 2016's spoils", despite holding beliefs that Fuentes and his followers believe to be in conflict with then-President Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda.[45] Another Spectator author, Ben Sixsmith, claimed that Turning Point's unwillingness to respond to controversial questions, and subsequent use of insults to dismiss their critics, revealed the organization's hypocrisy after having "promoted themselves as the debate guys".[46]

Several mainstream conservative commentators also weighed in on the matter. Addressing the increase in attention towards the far-right due to the aggressive questioning of Kirk, Ben Shapiro gave a speech at Stanford University in which he attacked Fuentes (without naming him) and his followers as essentially being a rebranded version of the alt-right.[47][48][49] Representative Dan Crenshaw similarly referred to the questioners as "alt-right 2.0" while American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said that "there is no place in our conservative movement for those interested in fomenting hate, mob violence, or racist propaganda."[50] Conversely, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote an article for American Greatness attacking Kirk for his immigration policies, and particularly his stance that green cards should be awarded to immigrants who graduate from American universities.[51] After defending Fuentes and his followers, Malkin was fired as a speaker for Young America's Foundation, a rival organization to Turning Point whose events had also been targeted by Groypers.[52] Malkin later would refer to herself as a mother figure among and a leader of the Groypers.[53]

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