I keep coming back to the same question: who benefits from weakening American conservatism before the post-Trump succession?
China and Russia are obvious suspects. Islamist networks have plenty to gain too. The original source of the money may not be provable.
But the point of entry is obvious: white racial consciousness and white victimhood.
None of this is new. Racial grievance has been used for 80 years to recruit alienated men and inject extremist ideas into right-wing political spaces. Leonard Zeskind’s classic Blood and Politics documents the American version. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s Black Sun covers some of the same territory. I’ve included my own videos on that book below.
These movements probably didn’t begin as foreign influence operations. But anyone looking for fractures in American politics would’ve found this one and understood how useful it could be.
The thing is, the influencer doesn’t need to know he’s being used. In fact, it works better if he doesn’t.
First, he believes the story. He becomes convinced that he’s uncovered some gnostic "hidden truth" everyone else is too frightened or compromised to say aloud.
That makes him sincere, and the sincerity makes him convincing.
Then the money comes in: subscribers, donors, investors, venture funds, media companies. Layers of intermediaries.
The influencer may have no idea where the money originated. The people paying him might not know either.
But by then, the influencer doesn’t even think he’s been bought.
He thinks the money is proof that he was right.
Serious question: Who’s funding all these Nazi speakers, shills, and bots? Where’s the money ultimately coming from? I mean, aside from the SPLC.