groypers? groypers! groypers...

Is it weird to apologize for not updating your own free newsletter for a few months? Yes. Am I going to do it anyway? Also yes.

If you must know, I fled the country for Europe for nearly a month. The only major news story I paid close attention to during that time was an attempted mutiny in Russia by ex-hot-dog-salesman-turned-warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin. Sometimes you need that (the vacation, not the mutiny, to be clear).

This week, my colleague Megan Squire and I revealed that a designer who has collaborated with pro-Hitler livestreamer Nick Fuentes, whose fans call themselves "groypers," since at least 2020 worked for Marjorie Taylor Greene's campaign. He earned over $55,000 in the process. This story ended up being pretty technical. You can delve into the details here.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Employed White Nationalist Collaborator

A web and graphics designer who collaborated with white nationalist Nick Fuentes worked for pro-Donald Trump lawmaker Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., throughout 2022 and into 2023, a Hatewatch investigation found.

Southern Poverty Law CenterHannah Gais and Megan Squire

None of this should come as a surprise. Greene spoke at Fuentes' CPAC offshoot, AFPAC, in 2022, and defended it by calling Republicans who dared to criticize her "Pharisees." Plus, we're living through a time where a major Republican presidential candidate had to fire a prominent staffer for slapping a sonnenrad at the end of some memefied garbage he and his Signal chat put together.

One thing that's stuck with me since we released this story is how much impact figures like Fuentes continue to have despite a seemingly waning influence in the movement. Spencer Sunshine (subscribe to his Patreon!) brought up a great comparison on Twitter the other day, saying that Fuentes was sort of a young, modern-day Willis Carto. Carto, for those who don't know, headed an organization called Liberty Lobby and published a newspaper called The Spotlight, both of which reached hundreds of thousands of people in their prime. He helped popularize Francis Parker Yockey's neo-fascist tome, Imperium, in the United States. Some of the organizations he was tied to or founded, like the Institute for Historical Review, are still around today.

The content that Fuentes produces is for a different far-right audience and a different time. But the comparison is apt, I think. Carto, like Fuentes, existed on the fringes, but his activism has nevertheless intersected with mainstream politics in curious ways.

On a slightly different note, last week Rachel Janik and I published a quick article on the arrest of one of the main "Unite the Right" speakers, Augustus Sol Invictus, on charges related to an Aug. 11, 2017, torch march on the University of Virginia campus.

Speaker at ‘Unite The Right’ Rally Charged

Virginia authorities have arrested and charged a white nationalist once prominent in the “alt-right” for his involvement in a torchlit march the night before the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Hatewatch has learned.

Southern Poverty Law CenterHannah Gais and Rachel Janik

Invictus now joins a handful of other men who have been charged with burning an object with the intent to intimidate. His trial starts next year.

Speaking of court proceedings, Robert Rundo, a violent white nationalist who tried, and failed, to flee U.S. authorities, is back in the United States to face federal rioting charges related to "Unite the Right" and several other rallies throughout 2017–18.

That's it for now. I have a few big projects that I've been working on for several months dropping soon, I hope. Stay tuned.