Prominent pro-Trump activists are melting down online after the influencer who helped fuel President Donald Trump’s racist “fraud” crusade in Minneapolis endorsed an antisemitic video.
MAGA world was unified behind influencer Nick Shirley when he was peddling bigoted, debunked allegations of fraud about Minnesota’s Somali community — claims that the Trump administration has boosted and is now using to justify withholding millions of dollars in Medicaid funds from the state. Vice President JD Vance has suggested Shirley is deserving of a Pulitzer Prize for the propaganda campaign, and Shirley attended Tuesday’s State of the Union address as a guest of Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn.
Shirley’s stock began falling on Wednesday after he responded enthusiastically online to a blatantly antisemitic video from influencer Tyler Oliveira that purports to expose a “Jewish invasion” in New Jersey. (Oliveira faced backlash last year from some corners of the right-wing online ecosystem for a racist video targeting Indian people.) “EXPOSE IT ALL,” Shirley replied in response to Oliveira’s post.
The outraged reactions from some in the MAGA movement are best summarized by this post on X from far-right propagandist Laura Loomer, who once described herself as a white nationalist opposed to “left-wing globalist Marxist Jews.” Loomer wrote, “A lot of people have buyers remorse for supporting another influencer who took the bait. How many GOP lawmakers were photographed with this person? How many White House officials praised him? GOP heading into the midterms with a massive optics issue. And we get nothing but silence.”
“The GOP has a massive Nazi problem,” she said.
Loomer’s reaction was just the tip of the iceberg as far as the right-wing backlash is concerned (other critical posts can be seen here and here). In response to Loomer, Shirley doubled down, saying that, despite having endorsed a brazenly antisemitic video, he’s not a Nazi or antisemite, but “simply anti-fraud.” Meanwhile, Oliveira and his allies, like Hitler fanboy Nick Fuentes, have been attacking conservatives for supporting Shirley’s propaganda against Somali people on the one hand but denouncing him for targeting Jews on the other. Despite coming from some abhorrent sources, the accusations of hypocrisy are accurate. Republicans invited bigotry into their ranks when they touted Shirley’s anti-Somali crusade. And it was foolish for anyone to think this bigotry wouldn’t eventually be turned on other groups. Yet again the conservative movement appears unified in its willingness to tolerate or embrace prejudice toward just about every group except Jewish people. Numerous controversies over the past year in particular suggest the biggest threat to conservative solidarity these days is the inclusion of antisemitic activists and influencers, whose open bigotry proves every once in a while to be a bridge too far even for some staunch MAGA loyalists.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
