The large sum represents an unprecedented annual haul for an American white nationalist group and suggests that big-money donors of the conservative movement may be moving their riches to more extreme causes in the aftermath of Trump’s rise.
In an era where white nationalists increasingly embrace decentralized online activism, VDARE stands out for its organizational prowess and links to power.
#Hatewatch connected former Trump administration officials Stephen Miller and Julia Hahn to its founder, Peter Brimelow.
Extreme right discourse is *everywhere*.
Celebrity anti-immigrant columnist Ann Coulter contributes to the group’s online publication. Even with visible ties to the mainstream right, VDARE embraces an agenda that cultivates a radical far-right world view in its sympathizers.
VDARE promotes the white genocide & Great Replacement conspiracy theories - very concerningly now gaining traction in Britain - which many view as having inspired far-right terror attacks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; El Paso, Texas; & Christchurch, New Zealand, in recent years.
Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler published a post on VDARE’s website titled “Yes, Virginia (Dare), There Is Such A Thing As White Genocide,” less than two months before a neo-Nazi murdered an antiracist demonstrator. VDARE also romanticizes the Capitol Hill insurrection.
“The Dissident Right is an intellectual movement,” Brimelow wrote of the Capitol insurrection. “Our ideas are considered dangerous by [mainstream media] Cultural Marxists, but we’re actually quite few.. (the) movement was the American people.”
VDARE’s recent fundraising prowess coincides with the Republican Party’s embrace of the anti-immigrant, anti-democratic worldview promoted by Steve Bannon & Donald Trump & his followers.
Total donations to the VDARE Foundation surged throughout the Trump era.
DonorsTrust, a right-wing funding vehicle tied to Charles Koch, the Mercer family & other like-minded billionaires - who influence the UK by helping fund publications like Spiked & Tufton St think tanks like the IEA - pumped $1.5 million into VDARE in 2019.
JOIN 👏THE 👏 DOTS.
In February 2020, VDARE paid $1.4 million in cash to purchase a castle in West Virginia, establishing a base that is less than a two-hour commute from Washington, DC.
The purchase provides a small window into how VDARE may be spending their newly acquired wealth.
During the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations in June 2020, VDARE impersonated journalists from VICE Canada & asked antiracist protesters to identify themselves by name & face to their large #racist audience on YouTube.
Facebook & YouTube have since suspended VDARE’s accounts.
The group also stumped for the defense team of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer a jury convicted in April of murdering Floyd.
The big increase in revenue worked out well for Brimelow, whose salary nearly doubled from the year before, making £345,000 in 2019.
DonorsTrust - the “dark-money ATM of the conservative movement” - & other similar funds, donate to many US hate groups every year.
'Donor-advised funds' (DAFs) manage individual charitable accounts for its clients for a fee, who can then shield their identities from the public.
In 2019, DonorsTrust also provided $10,500 to the New Century Foundation, the nonprofit behind Jared Taylor’s white nationalist American Renaissance magazine & website. An associate of Brimelow, he shared a stage with him & Richard Spencer at an “alt-right” event in 2016.
Jared Taylor promotes dehumanizing pseudoscience on his website, including the myth that Black people are predisposed to be less intelligent than other races - something else with support in Britain, & a view that exists within the Govt, & in the past, amplified by Boris Johnson.
One foundation that formally ended its funding of VDARE is the Innovia Foundation. For years, it facilitated a wealthy donor’s contributions to VDARE.
Despite pleas from its CEO, it was only after national press attention that the foundation’s board adopted an anti-hate policy.
Like many extreme far-right figures, Brimelow invests in Bitcoin.
His cryptocurrency donor list included French computer programmer Laurent Bachelier, who donated to open admirers of fascism such as Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer & white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Anyway, what happens in the US generally happens in the UK shortly afterwards. Brexit, Bannon & Farage mainstreamed far-right rhetoric, & now it is increasingly normalised: it's already *crystal clear* that the fastest growing terrorist threat in Britain comes from the far-right.
Last year it was reported that for the first time, the largest number of Prevent referrals in the UK related to far-right extremism.
Of cases referred on to Channel, 43% were for rightwing & 30% for Islamist radicalisation.
I've written elsewhere about the dangerous rise in right-wing populist nationalism, & the increasingly dangerous & cavalier rhetoric of the Tory Govt, the mainstream press, & publications such as Spiked & the Spectator - as well as Govt links to Viktor Orban & other extremists.
And now, with #GBNews funded by questionable US Libertarians & overseas hedge-funders clearly becoming Britain's Fox News & normalising & mainstreaming further explicitly "anti-woke" (ie intolerant, demonizing & scapegoating rhetoric), I fear for Britain.
Imho, you should too.
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The most absurd thing about this Alex Belfield & Jeremy Vine thing is not that anyone claiming to be "THE VOICE OF REASON" almost certainly isn't, but that Belfield is labouring under the mistaken belief that Vine, who RTd notorious far-right crank "Peter Snowden", is "a lefty".
Alex Belfield has form. Plenty of form.
The right-wing YouTuber once called a mother of triplets a "slapper" live on air, & recently referred to the women who escaped fines for walking by a reservoir during lockdown as “hotties”.
In 2010, when he was a @BBC local radio dj, he was forced to apologise after he was suspended for making "totally inappropriate" on-air remarks to Look North weather presenter Keeley Donovan.
Can't imagine why the #GBeebies superfans love him.
Boris Johnson’s former race adviser has warned of another Stephen Lawrence or Jo Cox tragedy if members of the government continue to inflame the culture wars gripping parts of the nation.
Reminds me of a certain TV opinion channel masquerading as news.
Speaking publicly for the first time since he resigned two months ago, Samuel Kasumu said he feared there were some in government pursuing a strategy of exploiting division for electoral gain that could result in severe consequences for the country.
It's Steve Bannon's strategy.
“There are some people in the government who feel like the right way to win is to pick a fight on the culture war & to exploit division. I worry about that. It seems like people have very short memories, & they’ve already forgotten #JoCox.”
A short #THREAD on RIGHT-WING BOYCOTTS OF TV CHANNELS & other media, companies & brands in the US.
It's based on Terrence Witkowski's 'Broadening Anti-Consumption Research: A History of Right-Wing Prohibitions, Boycotts, & Resistance to Sustainability'.
The wider article seeks to broaden the scholarship field of anti-consumption research through a historical counternarrative illustrating right-wing prohibitions, boycotts of media content, brands, and companies, and, most recently, resistance to sustainable consumption.
Manifestations of anti-consumption include boycotts & consumer resistance, brand avoidance, culture jamming & more, often motivated by concerns over environmental sustainability, consuming ethically, materialistic values, or opposition to corporations & capitalism more generally.
Five years ago today, Jo Cox MP was murdered by a racist shouting "Britain First".
Yesterday, @BBC journalist Nick Watt was harassed & abused.
Politicians, the press & TV & radio presenters MUST #STOP using divisive, provocative & inflammatory populist nationalist rhetoric.
Mair was a #racist, radicalized by the Far-Right, persuaded that white people were being erased.
But his greatest obsession & deepest bitterness was over those white people whom he condemned as “the collaborators”: the liberals, the left & the media - in other words, the "WOKE".
The 'culture war' is not merely an argument between 'two sides' about Britain's future: it's a deliberately divisive, antagonistic, & extremely dangerous political strategy that mobilses polarizing rhetoric to radicalize millions of people, with sometimes deadly consequences.
Pretty much every #GBNews presenter has demonized & voiced vicious & divisive criticism of "woke" academics & Universities for sensibly considering the legacies of British colonialism & Empire & their potential role in contemporary #racism.
At least three other brands have suspended advertising on the divisive populist nationalist #GBNews: Kopparberg, Grolsch & Nivea have bravely distanced themselves from the toxic free-market supporting #propaganda channel. The LAST thing we need is more US style culture war crap.
Andrew Neil's "anti-elite" "news" channel, puking out divisive populist nationalist tripe, is funded by LORD Farmer & LORD Spencer (both ex-Tory Party treasurers), hedge-funder SIR Paul Marshall, US BILLIONAIRE run media group Discovery, & the Dubai-based pro-free-market Legatum.