Latest news with #MehdiHasan
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Revealed: Debate opponent of Mehdi Hasan organized violent far-right protests
A debating opponent of the leftwing media figure Mehdi Hasan in a controversial viral YouTube video was previously the organizer of two violent far-right protests in Berkeley, California, in 2017, the Guardian can reveal. The video debate session with Hasan, published to the 10 million-subscriber Jubilee channel, has already attracted scrutiny due to platforming a self-described 'fascist', Connor Estelle, who reportedly lost his job after he was identified by online researchers. Unidentified until now was another of Hasan's opponents in the debate video, Richard Black. In conversation with Hasan, Black refused to condemn violence against police officers, claimed that the Los Angeles police department was directed by 'liberal Marxists' and described his own political position as being 'white nativist', adding that 'neocons, libertarians, all those mainstream people, [they] might as well be leftists to me'. In March and April 2017, meanwhile, Black organized counter-protests – later referred to as the first and second 'battles of Berkeley' by the US far right – that pitted members of the Proud Boys and the Rise Above Movement against protesters who opposed a campus speech by the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Those rallies helped herald an era of 'alt-right' street violence that culminated in incidents such as the Charlottesville riot in 2017 and the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The Jubilee debate has gone viral, with many viewers praising Hasan's expert dismantling of his opponents' far-right views, and others criticizing Jubilee's platforming of far-right extremist opponents. Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and an expert on extremist movements, offered 'three possible explanations' for Jubilee's decision to include far-right voices on the panel. Burghart said: 'Either Jubilee producers were unbelievably negligent in the vetting of debaters, or they chose to stack the room with racists and fascists against a lone person of color in the hopes of capturing a viral moment to increase channel engagement … [or] they were trying to surreptitiously sound an alarm that many young Republicans are being drawn to fascism by having Mehdi systematically expose them during the debate.' He added: 'None of those explanations speaks well of the company or the format, and highlights the peril of sharing a platform with disingenuous far-rightists seeking eyeballs.' The video recording Hasan appeared in was an episode of Surrounded, a series published by Jubilee, a YouTube-only channel run by Jubilee Media. The program's format sees one prominent individual with well-known beliefs debate against a room of people with opposing views, with the lone person making claims and the group taking turns challenging them individually, for up to 20 minutes per claim. The opposing group can vote out individual debaters by raising red flags when they feel that person is not representing their position well. Black first appeared as a sole opponent to oppose Hasan's claim that 'Donald Trump is pro-crime'. He began by asking Hasan, a British American of Indian ancestry: 'What's your ethnic background, if you don't mind me asking?' Then, referring back to an example Hasan had used with a previous debater of Trump pardoning January 6 protesters, Black said: 'I am happy that he released J6. In fact, so much so that I was prepared to protest if he didn't.' When Hasan then asked if that meant he was OK with Trump being pro-crime, Black replied: 'Sure, because you know what? We're changing the definition of what crime is.' When Hasan asked, 'You don't think stomping on police officers' heads is a crime?', Black said: 'It's no longer a relevant conversation any more.' He added: 'Have you seen the US in the last four or five years, BLM protests? I myself have been involved in these protests.' Black then claimed: 'I've seen egregious things, things that you couldn't even imagine being done to conservatives.' He concluded: 'It's not about that. It's about tribal warfare. That's where we're at in the US.' Jubilee provided links to social media accounts associated with each of Hasan's interlocutors. In Black's case, they linked to an Instagram account which, although bare bones, did feature the name 'Richie Black'. The account indicated that he is located in Costa Mesa, California, and featured a headshot of Black and another man along with text and a link to another Instagram account belonging to Safari Journal Co. That account in turn linked to a Safari Journal Co website, whose about page says: 'We mentor young Men and Women to elevate their understanding and grounding of the Nationalist Doctrine, Post-Industrial Revolution, the Mythic State, Cultural Homogeneity, American History and Health.' The Guardian compared videos and images of Black from Instagram and his Jubilee appearance to news photography of the organizer of the 2017 protests in Berkeley, named as Rich Black in contemporary reports. The photos, eight years apart, appeared to depict the same person. Black was reportedly the organizer of rallies in Berkeley's downtown to defend free speech in March and April 2017, which set a pattern of violent far-right protests in liberal cities, a pattern that would be repeated in subsequent years in Portland, Oregon; Charlottesville, Virginia; and Washington DC. A 4 March 2017 rally, billed as 'March 4 Trump', was a response to a planned protest against a campus speech by the rightwing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, then an alt-right darling but who would soon fall from grace after appearing to relativize pedophilia in a podcast appearance. Archived posts from Black's now-defunct Twitter/X account show him promoting the March event, and whipping up alt-right supporters with images of the event in progress. Clashes there resulted in seven injuries and 10 arrests. The event saw Kyle Chapman, hitherto known as 'Based Stickman', become a Maga celebrity after he assaulted counter-protesters with a wooden signpost while dressed in makeshift riot gear. That rally also attracted members of the Rise Above Movement, a southern California white supremacist group that was reported as having 'a singular purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes'. Following the March rally, Black, described at the time by Time magazine in its reporting at that time as a 'libertarian grant writer from the Los Angeles area' who decided to organize a 'comeback' event in Berkeley where 'rightwingers could 'come and speak, from start to finish, without being physically shut down''. The April event was even more violent, with opposing groups at first clashing in Berkeley's civic center park but then spreading into surrounding streets, and fighting with 'wooden poles, pepper spray, mace, explosives, bagels, milk, and fists'. The following Monday, on a since-deleted Twitter/X account, Black reportedly posted a video of himself in which he said, 'I could not be more satisfied with the outcome of the event', claiming that attenders including those on the far-right had taken a 'stand against radicalism and domestic terrorism'. The events also saw members of the neo-Nazi Rise Above Movement (RAM) charged over their alleged premeditated violence at both protests. A labyrinthine prosecution finally concluded last December when the one-time fugitive and RAM founder Rob Rundo was sentenced to two years of time served and two years of supervised release. Jubilee has 10 million subscribers at the time of writing, and has had some 2.8bn views across its videos, according to the analytics platform Social Blade. This puts it just inside the top 400 channels by subscribers and 6,120th by views. The channel was founded in 2010, over which time it has issued about 1,430 videos. But it enjoyed growth spurts and renewed media coverage during the last US election season, when episodes of Surrounded featuring mainstream political figures such as the senior Democrat Pete Buttigieg. In the context of this renewed interest, the CEO and founder, Jason Y Lee, told Variety that the platform aimed to 'provoke understanding and create human connection', to show 'what discourse can and should look like', and to be 'the Disney of empathy'. The Guardian contacted Lee for comment on this reporting, but received no response. The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods. Secure Messaging in the Guardian app The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said. If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Select 'Secure Messaging'. SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and post See our guide at for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each. In a January YouTube interview, the journalist Taylor Lorenz asked Lee if he was 'worried about getting played by the far right', given 'their ability to weaponize the attention economy and move the Overton window further to the right' by being platformed on Jubilee. Lee said 'we actually do rounds of interviews' with potential panelists, and 'we'll talk to them about their ideology, their points of view and perspectives'. Lee added: 'We don't want to favor one side or the other, but we are very careful in trying to make sure that we're not spreaders of misinformation or ideologies that might be hateful or bad.' Meanwhile, it is not clear what Black has been doing between his initial burst of prominence and his Jubilee appearance. Burghart, the extremism expert, said: 'It's not uncommon to see a figure engaged in street-level activism drop off the radar for a time and appear later in more mainstream settings.' He added: 'It's a good reminder that monitoring the far-right needs to be a long-term project, keeping an eye on both the margins and the mainstream.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Revealed: debate opponent of Mehdi Hasan organized violent far-right protests
A debating opponent of the leftwing media figure Mehdi Hasan in a controversial viral YouTube video was previously the organizer of two violent far-right protests in Berkeley, California in 2017, the Guardian can reveal. The video debate session with Hasan, published to the 10 million-subscriber Jubilee channel, has already attracted scrutiny due to platforming a self-described 'fascist', Connor Estelle, who reportedly lost his job after he was identified by online researchers. Unidentified until now was another of Hasan's opponents in the debate video, Richard Black. In conversation with Hasan, Black refused to condemn violence against police officers, claimed that the Los Angeles police department was directed by 'liberal Marxists', and described his own political position as being 'white nativist', adding that 'neocons, libertarians, all those mainstream people, [they] might as well be leftists to me'. In March and April 2017, meanwhile, Black organized counter-protests – later referred to as the first and second 'battles of Berkeley' by the US far right – that pitted members of the Proud Boys and the Rise Above Movement against protesters who opposed a campus speech by the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Those rallies helped herald an era of 'alt-right' street violence that culminated in incidents such as the Charlottesville riot in 2017 and the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The Jubilee debate has gone viral, with many viewers praising Hasan's expert dismantling of his opponents' far-right views, and others criticizing Jubilee's platforming of far-right extremist opponents. Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and an expert on extremist movements, offered 'three possible explanations' for Jubilee's decision to include far-right voices on the panel. Burghart said: 'Either Jubilee producers were unbelievably negligent in the vetting of debaters, or they chose to stack the room with racists and fascists against a lone person of color in the hopes of capturing a viral moment to increase channel engagement … [or] they were trying to surreptitiously sound an alarm that many young Republicans are being drawn to fascism by having Mehdi systematically expose them during the debate.' He added: 'None of those explanations speaks well of the company or the format, and highlights the peril of sharing a platform with disingenuous far-rightists seeking eyeballs.' The video recording Hasan appeared in was an episode of Surrounded, a series published by Jubilee, a YouTube-only channel run by Jubilee Media. The program's format sees one prominent individual with well-known beliefs debate against a room of people with opposing views, with the lone person making claims and the group taking turns challenging them individually, for up to 20 minutes per claim. The opposing group can vote out individual debaters by raising red flags when they feel that person is not representing their position well. Black first appeared as a sole opponent to oppose Hasan's claim that 'Donald Trump is pro-crime'. He began by asking Hasan, a British American of Indian ancestry: 'What's your ethnic background, if you don't mind me asking?' Then, referring back to an example Hasan had used with a previous debater of Trump pardoning January 6 protesters, Black said: 'I am happy that he released J6. In fact, so much so that I was prepared to protest if he didn't.' When Hasan then asked if that meant he was OK with Trump being pro-crime, Black replied: 'Sure, because you know what? We're changing the definition of what crime is.' When Hasan asked, 'You don't think stomping on police officers' heads is a crime?', Black said: 'It's no longer a relevant conversation any more.' He added: 'Have you seen the US in the last four or five years, BLM protests? I myself have been involved in these protests.' Black then claimed: 'I've seen egregious things, things that you couldn't even imagine being done to conservatives.' He concluded: 'It's not about that. It's about tribal warfare. That's where we're at in the US.' Jubilee provided links to social media accounts associated with each of Hasan's interlocutors. In Black's case, they linked to an Instagram account which, although bare bones, did feature the name 'Richie Black'. The account indicated that he is located in Costa Mesa, California, and featured a headshot of Black and another man along with text and a link to another Instagram account belonging to Safari Journal Co. That account in turn linked to a Safari Journal Co website, whose about page says: 'We mentor young Men and Women to elevate their understanding and grounding of the Nationalist Doctrine, Post-Industrial Revolution, the Mythic State, Cultural Homogeneity, American History and Health.' The Guardian compared videos and images of Black from Instagram and his Jubilee appearance to news photography of the organizer of the 2017 protests in Berkeley, named as Rich Black in contemporary reports. The photos, eight years apart, appeared to depict the same person. Black was reportedly the organizer of rallies in Berkeley's downtown to defend free speech in March and April 2017, which set a pattern of violent far-right protests in liberal cities, a pattern that would be repeated in subsequent years in Portland, Oregon, Charlottesville, Virginia, and Washington DC. A 4 March 2017 rally, billed as 'March 4 Trump', was a response to a planned protest against a campus speech by the rightwing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, then an alt-right darling but who would soon fall from grace after appearing to relativize pedophilia in a podcast appearance. Archived posts from Black's now-defunct Twitter/X account show him promoting the March event, and whipping up alt-right supporters with images of the event in progress. Clashes there resulted in seven injuries and 10 arrests. The event saw Kyle Chapman, hitherto known as 'Based Stickman', become a Maga celebrity after he assaulted counter-protesters with a wooden signpost while dressed in makeshift riot gear. That rally also attracted members of the Rise Above Movement, a southern California white supremacist group that was reported as having 'a singular purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes'. Following the March rally, Black, described at the time by Time magazine in its reporting at that time as a 'libertarian grant writer from the Los Angeles area' who decided to organize a 'comeback' event in Berkeley where 'rightwingers could 'come and speak, from start to finish, without being physically shut down''. The April event was even more violent, with opposing groups at first clashing in Berkeley's civic center park but then spreading into surrounding streets, and fighting with 'wooden poles, pepper spray, mace, explosives, bagels, milk, and fists'. The following Monday, on a since-deleted Twitter/X account, Black reportedly posted a video of himself in which he said, 'I could not be more satisfied with the outcome of the event', claiming that attenders including those on the far-right had taken a 'stand against radicalism and domestic terrorism'. The events also saw members of the neo-Nazi Rise Above Movement (RAM) charged over their alleged premeditated violence at both protests. A labyrinthine prosecution finally concluded last December when the one-time fugitive and RAM founder Rob Rundo was sentenced to two years of time served and two years of supervised release. Jubilee has 10 million subscribers at the time of writing, and has had some 2.8bn views across its videos, according to the analytics platform Social Blade. This puts it just inside the top 400 channels by subscribers and 6,120th by views. The channel was founded in 2010, over which time it has issued about 1,430 videos. But it enjoyed growth spurts and renewed media coverage during the last US election season, when episodes of Surrounded featuring mainstream political figures such as the senior Democrat Pete Buttigieg. In the context of this renewed interest, the CEO and founder, Jason Y Lee, told Variety that the platform aimed to 'provoke understanding and create human connection', to show 'what discourse can and should look like', and to be 'the Disney of empathy'. The Guardian contacted Lee for comment on this reporting, but received no response. In a January YouTube interview, the journalist Taylor Lorenz asked Lee if he was 'worried about getting played by the far right', given 'their ability to weaponize the attention economy and move the Overton window further to the right' by being platformed on Jubilee. Lee said 'we actually do rounds of interviews' with potential panelists, and 'we'll talk to them about their ideology, their points of view and perspectives'. Lee added: 'We don't want to favor one side or the other, but we are very careful in trying to make sure that we're not spreaders of misinformation or ideologies that might be hateful or bad.' Meanwhile, it is not clear what Black has been doing between his initial burst of prominence and his Jubilee appearance. Burghart, the extremism expert, said: 'It's not uncommon to see a figure engaged in street-level activism drop off the radar for a time and appear later in more mainstream settings.' He added: 'It's a good reminder that monitoring the far-right needs to be a long-term project, keeping an eye on both the margins and the mainstream.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
This Viral Debate Clip Highlights A Scary Reality About Today's Conservatives
A viral clip from a debate between political commentator and journalist Mehdi Hasan and a self-proclaimed fascist is bringing to light some troubling realities about the conservative movement and the general level of public discourse today. Hasan appeared in the latest episode of Jubilee's 'Surrounded' series titled '1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives,' during which the former MSNBC host at one point debated a participant by the name of Connor. When asked to describe his ideal vision of the U.S., Connor referenced deporting people and then expressed a desire for a 'benevolent' autocrat who puts an end to American democracy. He also insisted that he would not be harmed by such a dictator and started to quote Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt, leading Hasan to ask if he was a fan of the Nazis. 'We may have to rename this show because you're a little bit more than a far-right Republican.'@mehdirhasan called out a self-proclaimed 'fascist' on the show 'Surrounded' where he debated 20 far-right Republicans. — Zeteo (@zeteo_news) July 20, 2025 'I frankly don't care about being called a Nazi at all,' Connor responded, later adding, 'Well, they persecuted the church a little bit. I'm not a fan of that.' Asked about Nazi persecution of Jews, he said, 'I certainly don't support anyone's human dignity being assaulted.' And when Hasan suggested that his views make him a fascist, he proudly replied, 'Yeah, I am.' This particular exchange highlights a number of disturbing aspects of the modern far-right movement, particularly the extremist vision of government and dangerous delusions about how such a system would impact people. 'I don't think that it is terribly rational to believe that one couldn't be harmed by a benevolent dictator, should one rise to take power,' Jacob Neiheisel, associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, told HuffPost. 'Even 'benevolent' dictators have rarely remained so throughout their tenure in office and have a track record of hurting even those who are closest to them.' When Connor shared his vision of government under a 'benevolent' autocrat, he stated, 'I'm not going to be a part of the group that he kills.' But this viewpoint is particularly misguided and dangerous, in addition to callous. 'Excessive executive power is always dangerous because of the potential for capriciousness,' said Todd Belt, professor and political management program director at The Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. 'The autocrat who is friendly to you one day may not be the next. Also, power corrupts.' With this in mind, Neiheisel emphasized the value of a critical and engaged citizenry. 'I would also say that a healthy distrust of power is, on balance, a positive orientation to have in a democratic public,' he said. To maintain this kind of critical thinking and healthy distrust, however, the public must be educated and informed about historic events and politics. 'I think it is terrifying that fascism seems to be making a comeback among some young people who are terribly misinformed about what awful, immoral, murderous regimes they were,' said John Jost, a professor of psychology and politics at New York University. 'This guy seems to think that Francisco Franco was a good Catholic guy, but he is either completely clueless or in massive ideological denial. Even the slightest bit of research reveals that Franco killed much more than 100,000 innocent people, and it took many decades for the Spanish people to get over it, if indeed they have.' Jost published a paper in September titled 'Both-Sideology Endangers Democracy and Social Science' ― in which he points to evidence that 'false, misleading, and poor-quality information is more likely to populate conservative-rightist than liberal-leftist media ecosystems.' Thus, misleading and incorrect information about dictators like Franco can more easily spread and give rise to troubling views on government. 'The kind of rhetoric on display from the person Hasan was questioning appears to have become more prevalent on the right in recent years,' Neiheisel said. 'Although he doesn't say as much, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the individual in the clip is motivated by a desire to see some flavor of Christian dominion or theonomy come into practice in the United States.' He added that many others have come to support autocratic rule without a religious motivation ― as seen with influential far-right blogger Curtis Yarvin's argument for an American monarchy. 'I think that pro-fascist guy's comment about having a benevolent dictator speaks to a bit of a larger phenomenon that's happening in the United States where some portion of the electorate hungers for a strongman,' said Matt Dallek, a political historian and professor at The Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University. He pointed to a far-right vision of an all-powerful figure who expels immigrants, fosters a more white and native-born population, and unleashes law enforcement to go after alleged bad actors like 'the corrupt evil Deep State' with Democrats and 'Never Trumpers' and whoever the enemy of the moment is. 'That sentiment has become increasingly mainstream over the past few years ― that if you are a citizen, you're native born, you're white, you're a man and you have resources, then the authoritarian forces that this benevolent dictator will unleash will only target the bad guys, not you,' Dallek said. This delusional viewpoint in service of a racist, extremist and even murderous vision for the future suggests public discourse might be reaching new lows ― which begs the question of whether these kinds of 'debates' involving extremists are in any way helpful or productive for the participants, viewers or society at large. 'I'm not sure how helpful these types of debates are,' Neiheisel said. 'The only possible way in which the exchange between Hasan and Connor could be seen as a normative good from my perspective is that it might showcase that there actually are people who believe what Connor professes to believe about what government ought to look like. Acknowledging that there are those who would turn the country into more of an autocratic state is the first step en route to understanding why this impulse exists.' Belt noted that rather than a censoring or 'cancelling' approach, the 'Surrounded' debate setup takes the position of 'counterspeech' ― responding directly to harmful or offensive speech and countering it with more speech. 'While this approach aligns with constitutional values theoretically, I think that in practice it does not achieve the thoughtfulness of dialogue implicit in the counterspeech doctrine,' he said. 'The incessant interruptions make the video look more like a game of who can score the most points by making the other look as radical as fast as they can, and that's not really thoughtful dialogue. I think this video appeals to audiences who are looking for someone to take the other side 'down a peg' ― there's a real schadenfreude appeal to this type of video.' He added that progressives disillusioned with the Democratic Party's 'milquetoast' response to Trump's second term might find particular satisfaction in these kinds of viral clips and seeing someone take their arguments more forcefully to the other side. 'On one hand, the old Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis shared the idea that 'sunlight is the best disinfectant,' and typically those who believe in free speech believe you counter bad speech with good speech,' Dallek said. 'So I understand the impulse of taking on someone with really hateful, horrific views, and trying to expose that person for holding those extremist positions.' On the other hand, he believes it is 'a little bit nuts' to platform someone who is a self-proclaimed fascist and seemingly refuses to condemn Hitler and the Holocaust. Sure, this choice might draw attention and traffic to your clip and to your platform, but at what cost to humanity? (For his part, Hasan has said the producers did not communicate the extreme nature of the conservative participants' views to him ahead of his appearance.) 'I don't think much, if anything, can be gained by providing a platform and legitimizing such extreme, repugnant views via a debate with someone who is so far out because you're helping put these horrific ideas ― which have mostly been confined to the fringe since World War II ― into the mainstream,' Dallek said. 'And in the age of the internet and social media, some people will listen to others who express hateful or conspiratorial rhetoric, and they will act on these ideas in violent ways. So it's really kind of perilous and a way of further debasing a public discourse that has already been debased quite dramatically.' He emphasized that he has a lot of respect for nonprofits, civic organizations and individuals who attempt to bridge divides in the United States by having conversations with right-wing Trump supporters in which they seek to listen and understand why people believe systems are rigged or corrupt. 'I think that kind of dialogue can be productive and is important, but it's very different from what seems to me to be an almost Jerry Springer-esque pie-throwing contest with a self-described fascist,' Dallek noted. 'That's a bad idea if you want to have a serious conversation about the divisions in the U.S. The country is awash in hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric, and these ideas have become more mainstream. Platforming a self-described fascist only serves to further that process.' Related... Former MSNBC Host's Reaction To Right-Winger Calling Self A 'Fascist' Goes Viral Trump Called MAGA Supporters 'Stupid' — But Do They Even Care? Experts Weigh In. Trump Leveled A Baffling Threat At Rosie O'Donnell — Experts Explain Why It's Truly Terrifying
Buzz Feed
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Connor From Jubilee Video Lost Job, Asks For Money
By now, you've surely seen clips of the viral Jubilee video where progressive journalist and author Mehdi Hasan debated 20 far-right conservatives. It was disturbing, to say the least. And one of the most controversial participants was Connor, a self-proclaimed fascist... ...who brought up Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt to defend his stance, and then refused to condemn Nazis. The clip was shared and discussed widely across social media. During an appearance on the Rift TV podcast, Connor gave an update, saying, "Unfortunately, I lost my job as a result. No one really is to blame for that. It's just the culture that kind of exists currently, surrounding the manner in which you're canceled for voicing a ... heterosexual, Christian, sort of moral belief." On the podcast, he said he condemns "the persecution of anyone, Jews included," but didn't want to "play" Mehdi's "game" because it was a "loaded question." After losing his job, Connor began crowdfunding on a GiveSendGo page with the title: "Fired for my Political Beliefs." He wrote, "Voicing fully legal traditional right wing political views results in real consequences. This is cancel culture and political discrimination on full display." At the time of publication, Connor has raised $36k and received 975 prayers??? Okay. People who gave donations also wrote comments supporting Connor and asking God to bless him. As you might imagine, the internet is having a field day with all this. Here's what people are saying: The entire video is up on Jubilee's YouTube page. For those of you who watched it, how did it make you feel? What are your thoughts or concerns? Share in the comments or in the anonymous form below.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Self-Described Fascist Begs for Donations After Claiming Viral Debate Got Him Fired
A man who admitted to being a fascist during a debate claims he's been fired from his job after sharing his 'traditional' right-wing political views, and is now asking for handouts. The man, who identifies himself as 'Connor' in a fundraiser asking for donations but uses the pseudonym Pinesap, was one of '20 far-right conservatives' who debated progressive broadcaster Mehdi Hasan as part of Jubilee's 'Surrounded' series. During the debate—which has been viewed almost 4 million times on YouTube alone—Connor said he believes in 'autocracy' and was asked by Hasan if he's a fan of the Nazis. 'I, frankly, don't care being called a Nazi at all,' Connor answered. Connor, who identified himself as a Catholic, also complained that the Nazis 'persecuted the church a little bit.' Asked about the Nazis' persecution of Jews specifically, Connor added: 'I certainly don't support anyone's human dignity being assaulted.' 'There was a little bit of persecution and stuff like that, which is bad,' he added, when Hasan pressed him on Jewish persecution again. 'We may have to rename this show,' Hasan said, 'Because you're a little bit more than a far-right Republican.' 'Hey, what can I say?' Connor replied with a smile. When Hasan suggested Connor could describe himself as a 'fascist,' Connor said: 'Yeah, I am,' before laughing maniacally and receiving applause from others in the debate. Connor now claims he was fired for his views and has launched a fundraising page on GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site which has faced criticism for hosting extremist causes. 'I'm raising money as an emergency fund and for other expenses while I look for a new job,' the page reads, without providing details of the role or company he was supposedly fired from. 'Unfortunately, voicing fully legal traditional right-wing political views results in real consequences. This is cancel culture and political discrimination on full display.' The page has already blown past its original $15,000 goal, with contributions hitting just under $20,000 as of Tuesday morning. 'We need a white nation! It's our only future! Vive le Fascisme,' one donor wrote while contributing $88. The number 88 is a coded far-right symbol used by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, which stands for 'Heil Hitler' as H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. 'We are rising and must look after one another,' another anonymous donor posted while chipping in $15. Connor discussed getting fired, without naming the company or his job title, during an appearance on the Rift Report podcast on Monday. 'Well, unfortunately, I lost my job as a result. And no one really is to blame for that,' he said of the debate. 'It's just the culture that kind of exists currently surrounding the manner in which you're canceled for voicing [...] any heterosexual, Christian, sort of moral belief that goes beyond sort of the secularism and the relativism that we're so used to in our time.' Connor did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. Solve the daily Crossword
