A Growing Menace
No.174: August 24, 2023
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Dear Friends,
Long unbeknownst to me there has been a dark menace metastasizing in certain corners of the online world. I always knew intellectually about platforms like 4-Chan and Reddit and Tumblr and so forth, and knew they were often cesspools incubating all manner of depravity. I assumed it was fringe and probably not terribly consequential in the grand scheme of things. Juveniles forming little online clubs while sitting in their parents’ basements doesn’t seem very noteworthy. But over the past year I have been encountering this menace more and more. I am now paying attention. You should pay attention, too.
My own consciousness started waking up over this affair. You may remember it. Celebrated (in certain circles) author Stephen Wolfe’s compatriot and podcast co-host Thomas Achord was “outed” as the owner of a pseudonymous Twitter account devoted to white supremacy. Wolfe himself lamely and unconvincingly claimed that he never could have imagined that his podcast partner held such odious views, but to this very day has never explained why he followed, “liked,” and interacted with said Twitter account, especially if, as he claims, he didn’t know it belonged to his close friend. That would imply he liked it because… he liked it. Moreover, given certain Tweets of his own (interracial marriage can be a “relative sin”), his promotion of Achord’s straightforwardly “kinist” book Who Is My Neighbor: An Anthology of Natural Relations, his fascination with Johann Gottfried Herder’s 18th century racial theories, and his outspoken advocacy of prioritizing one’s “natural affinity” with one’s own ethnic group, one is quite justified in being skeptical of Wolfe’s disavowal. For what it’s worth, his rather incurious publisher stands by him and he continues to have a platform provided to him by various ministries and figures in Moscow, Idaho.
No need to rehash all of that. It was my first real introduction to the world of the online “Alt Right.” Legions of anonymous Twitter users, obsessed with Greco-Roman pseudonyms, inside jokes, and secret wink-wink code words crawled out of the woodwork. Again, I knew they existed. Some of these were no doubt the trolls who for years kept sending David French photoshopped images of his (black) adopted daughter in Auschwitz ovens. Yes, I knew there were actual Nazis hiding in the dark corners behind pseudonyms.
What I didn’t know is that some of them are among the ranks of mainstream conservative organizations and that many of them are young professing (emphasis on “professing”) Christians. Not long ago I highlighted some excellent observations from Alastair Roberts on the “NETTR” principle, short for “No Enemies To The Right.”
From that essay:
And do you know what the far right thinks of those more straight-shooting, responsible [media] outlets? Traitors. Aides and abettors of ‘the enemy.’ You see, when you hold the NETTR worldview, any criticism to the right is an act of sabotage. This is a raw and highly potent form of tribalism. If ‘we’ are in a war with ‘them,’ we must have each other’s backs for the sake of the cause. No criticism may be directed toward anyone who identifies with ‘us.’
I experienced that firsthand, of course, when I published my highly negative (and substantively unanswered) review of Wolfe’s book. How dare I criticize this earnest young scholar and professing Christian!? I experienced it again—albeit on a different topic—just this week: how dare I criticize this earnest young musician and professing Christian!? They are entitled to my unquestioning sympathies and my loyalty. I am supposed to “have their backs.” They are fighting the right enemy, and training fire their direction is viewed as betrayal. The result of this worldview is this:
[Roberts] points out that in the conservative political world the NETTR worldview has provided cover and space for really odious elements to fester. Last week it was an outbreak of antisemitism. He writes, ‘They may not personally see themselves as racist, antisemitic, or misogynist, but they will treat anyone firmly criticizing people on the right on these issues as an opponent, even if the critics are on the right. Any critics are supposedly damaging the movement.’
The NETTR principle has left the back door to conservative institutions wide open for infiltration. And when it isn’t outright infiltration, it is at least outsized influence. I don’t know if you noticed when a young staff writer for the Ron DeSantis campaign, Nate Hochman, got fired for sharing on Twitter a video with Nazi imagery. In an essay reflecting on that episode, John Ganz writes of Hochman:
My own experience debating with [Hochman] did not make me very impressed with either his powers of argument or discernment. He’s read some books, sure, but he seemed to have absolutely no capacity to judge anything properly. This is not to just gratuitously insult the fellow, but I think it helps to understand what really happened here: he got caught up and swept up in things he didn’t really fully understand or really think about. The hip and edgy thing—the avant-garde pose—on the Right is to f- around with far right imagery and ideas and he went along. When people pointed out any fascist origin or valence to anything, he just didn’t really take it seriously. There just was no process of reflection. You see this all the time on the Right now: the embrace of the themes of the far right, while at the same time as dismissing concerns around fascism as hysterical lib sh-t.
It’s just for fun, you see. It’s transgressive and gets a rise out of people. Ganz points out that at some point being a Nazi and pretending to be one as a “pose” becomes a distinction without a difference. And he’s right: you do, in fact, often see this on the right now, particularly among the shock jock, macho masculine, post-liberal, Greco-Roman pseudonym-loving crowd. Being avant-garde and “edgy,” and when somebody objects you just chalk it up to performance art or parody, and laugh at and mock mercilessly the hysterical “libs” who take it seriously. Proverbs 26 nailed this dynamic:
Like a maniac shooting
flaming arrows of death
is one who deceives their neighbor
and says, “I was only joking!”
Here’s the latest example. In a recent Tweet Jake Meador at MereOrthodoxy called attention to the alleged fact that American Reformer, a popular online outfit run by Nate Fischer and Josh Abbotoy, was partnering with an online personality named “Raw Egg Nationalist.” Meador alleged that American Reformer was literally going “into business with a neo Nazi.”
This earned Meador a letter from Josh Abbotoy at American Reformer threatening him with a libel lawsuit. In that letter he asserts that “Raw Egg Nationalist” (REN for ease) is a “leading influencer on health, fitness and nutrition.” That’s true, but a shrewd person would notice that REN’s company is called “Kindred Harvest,” which is not a dog-whistle to the racism of “kinism,” but a bullhorn. Abbotoy goes on (and here’s the move Ganz is identifying): “RENs online persona is a tongue-in-cheek performance making fun of this leftist smear tactic” of calling everyone to the right a “fascist” or “Nazi.” Abbotoy goes on: “You have asserted without evidence that he is a neo Nazi. That is an unfounded and damaging lie.” He demanded that Meador delete and retract the Tweet by a certain date and time.
He did retract the Tweet. And in the process Meador wrote one of the greatest Twitter threads in the history of the platform. You can and absolutely should read it in its entirety in its “unrolled” format by clicking here. I only warn you that you are about to get an education in what goes on in the dark corners of the Internet—the menacing places I’m talking about. It’s vile.
I will pause here to give you the opportunity to go and read it. If you don’t, I’m about to give spoilers.
He retracted the Tweet because he did make a mistake. American Reformer wasn’t partnering with REN. Rather, another organization called New Founding is partnering with REN. Who is New Founding? An outfit started and run by … Nate Fischer and Josh Abbotoy. The same guys. Its street address is the same address as—can you believe it?—American Reformer. Meador then publishes a mountain of detailed and damning evidence of just who this “REN” is. His punchline is amazing:
I am retracting [the] claim and have deleted the tweet. My new claim is that an organization called New Founding led by Nate Fischer and Josh Abbotoy and located at the same address as American Reformer in Dallas is working with a Nazi who also publishes pornography.
I regret the imprecision of my previous tweet.
Now, I’m willing to believe that much of the evidence Jake compiled was news to Fischer and Abbotoy. I don’t as-yet believe that American Reformer is run by closeted Nazis. But they’ve been playing footsie with the real thing, laughing it all off as “performance art” and lib-owning parody. And guess what? In the process it appears they’ve attracted an audience of actual Nazis.
The same week this happened, to their credit, American Reformer published an essay warning that, in the process of “retrieving” the theology of past ages, we must not retrieve antisemitism. The avalanche of response on Twitter to this essay was … well, I’ll paraphrase. F-you. And, while you’re at it, F the Jews! Oh my. This is their own followers! The inmates are running the asylum, and I fear this dynamic may be true of other conservative institutions who refuse to acknowledge “enemies to the right.”
The NETTR “principle” is wrong as a matter of fact, logic, strategy, and morality. But even worse, it is providing cover for a growing constituency of angry, rootless, and fruitless young men who really seem to want a rebirth of one of the worst and bloodiest ideologies the world has ever known.
We buried Nazism once upon a time, at great and terrible cost. So-called “conservatives” flirting with its ideas, imagery and ethos is beyond grotesque. It is diabolical. Platforming people flirting with it as edgy performance art is damned folly. Proverbs is right: these people are maniacs shooting flaming arrows of death.
Thank you for reading The Square Inch Newsletter. Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll be back in your inbox next week!
Thanks for the muckraking so we don't have to.
Outstanding, courageous, eloquent — and true.