Pro-America conservatives should take a great deal of ‘dissident’ content with a few caviar spoons of salt, so to speak.
I nternet users recently witnessed a very odd phenomenon.
After Israeli warplane strikes caused a day-and-a-half-long internet outage in Iran, during the quick but sharp war between the two Middle Eastern powers, dozens of Twitter and Facebook accounts that back the independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom “abruptly” went quiet.
These social media profiles, most of which contain user-specific bios — an example might be “Pro-white Glaswegian socialist gal” — are normally active on an hourly basis. They have posted hundreds of thousands of messages during the past few years. The obvious conclusion is that these accounts, focused on the potential breakup of a European great power, were in fact stage-managed by or from Iran.
This is not, to put it rather politely, the first time something like this has happened. Just a few days ago, after an intense internet dispute, pro-Israel activist Eyal Yakoby took to Pastebin and 4chan to dig up the location of the hard-right Red Pill Media. He came up with “Karachi, Pakistan” as the account’s base and the name “Abdul A.” as the site’s primary manager. Known for such MAGA-coded tweets and blog posts as “I am an American citizen . . . born and raised in America . . . I refuse to die for Israel,” Abdul turns out to have previously and unwisely posted about his (real) home country. Among other things, he is on the record saying: “I love Pakistan! I would sacrifice my LIFE for Pakistan!!!!!!!!”
Red Pill Media’s may be the most notable recent case, but half a dozen others from across the hard/alt/dissident right immediately spring to mind. Prominent hard-right pundit Ian Miles Cheong — who, to his credit, has never hidden his background — talks almost entirely about goings-on in the U.S. and yet hails from and remains based in Malaysia. The person behind Radio Genoa, by appearance a passionately “pro-white” European nationalist, is quite probably Cambodian. The sometimes funny but frankly racist Garbage Human series of accounts is managed by an Australian man who has never lived in the United States. It goes on and on.
There is a serious point to be made here about a real concern. Just as it was very obviously the case on the left during the heyday of the Russia-funded anti-nuke and anti-war movements, some individuals on the modern hard right are clearly serving as active assets or as “useful idiots” for the U.S.’s foreign opponents, in addition to others who are simply foreign-based.
Less than a year ago, recall, it was conclusively established that “a media company linked to (major) conservative influencers . . . was secretly funded by Russian state media employees to churn out English-language videos that were ‘often consistent’ with the Kremlin’s ‘interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions’ in order to weaken U.S. opposition to Russian interests.” This primary recipient of Russian funds was Tenet Media, a significant brand employing Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, Benny Johnson, and numerous others. All told, agents of RT and other Russian-bear-affiliated state media shoveled roughly $10,000,000 toward various conservative and edge-right influencers.
Russian nationals Kostiantyn Kalashnikov — admittedly, a top name for a spy — and Elena Afanasyeva are currently charged with violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and with money-laundering conspiracy in connection with the Tenet scheme. “They remain at large,” the Associated Press drily noted, regarding two individuals who presumably reside in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. Some of this is disturbing, some again almost funny — but all of it has a few clear implications.
Most notably, pro-America conservatives should be careful not only when consuming left-leaning media; they should also take a great deal of “dissident” content with a few caviar spoons of salt. The foreign origins of a great deal of alt-right and “red-pill” content, paid or not, may well explain some of the . . . odd trends that we have all been witnessing online of late.
For instance, while about 75 percent of Republicans are generally quite pro-Israel, Twitter/X and Facebook are full of content like Jake Shields’s viral “Never forget what Israel did” post — a caption he used for a video of the destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on 9/11. Similarly, whereas by 1920 the U.S. had recognized the coast-to-coast right of women to vote, today we see dozens of popular online petitions arguing for a “repeal of the 19th Amendment.” There is an Occam’s razor explanation for this: The people posting this sort of junk, whatever their profile pictures might look like — remember the “Scots” from Iran — are not your average citizens of the United States. What we are seeing is not the edgiest imaginable content from Cleveland or Queens but rather everyday stuff from, say, Karachi.
Consider this: If you were an Iranian agent and wanted to create widespread dissensus in a diverse rival country, what better technique would there be than setting up two rival websites or accounts called — just for a laugh — “Blacks Taking Losses” and “I Expose [White] Racists and Pedos,” building them both up by mixing a bit of news and humor with racism, and arguing essentially with yourself about which American racial or ethnic group is the worst and most criminal?
Don’t fall for it. Keep a weather eye on that white, or black, “advocate” online. He probably is a fed . . . but not necessarily one from this country.