A Government Of Influencers, By Influencers, For Influencers
The perverse race to find—or gin up—viral footage in Minnesota and other ICE hotspots.
The Minneapolis Influencer Wars
LIKE MANY OF HIS FELLOW right-wing influencers, Nick Sortor came to Minneapolis this month. Sortor—made famous last year when he was briefly arrested after a scuffle with left-wing activists outside an ICE facility in Portland—once again had come to a troubled city looking for content.
But Sortor’s plans to shoot video of the unsettled city were delayed on Sunday after, in his telling, a woman stole his $1,000 camera.
As fellow influencer Cam Higby faced off near Sortor with a crowd of people filming on their own smartphones, Sortor tried to grab hold of the woman’s car. Instead of giving up the camera, the woman drove off down a snowy sidewalk with Sortor clinging perilously to the side.
While the FBI has vowed to find justice for Sortor, the bizarre incident has become just one more scene in the flood of social-media content coming out of Minneapolis. Following the ICE deployment and the shooting of Renee Good, much of the fight over who the good guys and the bad guys are in Minneapolis has played out among social media personalities.
Of course, there’s no bigger name in Minneapolis content at the moment than another twentysomething Nick S.: Nick Shirley, the 23-year-old right-wing influencer whose video on supposed fraud at Somali-American daycares went viral in late December. While many of Shirley’s claims have been debunked, and there are obviously other reasons daycares might not be willing to open up and allow Shirley to inspect their children, the controversy provoked by his video was used by the Trump administration to justify the surge of ICE agents in the city.
Watching Shirley in a follow-up video this month as he pursues supposed fraud in healthcare transportation companies, I’m struck by the looseness of his connection to what qualifies as evidence. He’s led around by an older Minnesota activist who has called Muslims demonic, and quips to Shirley that Somalis are “the most violent community.” That guy takes Shirley to various storefronts or apartment buildings where transportation companies are registered—and if no one opens the door, Shirley declares that it has to be fraud.
It sure seems like a libel lawsuit waiting to happen, but for now, it’ll also win Shirley some more attention and give Republicans more reasons to cut funding from Minnesota or surge federal agents into the state.
SHIRLEY’S VIDEO and the shooting of Renee Good set off waves of social media content in Minneapolis. There are countless posts in which Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino is mocked for his height, or how he dresses, or for being kicked out of a convenience store. And ICE opponents had their own social-media disaster over the weekend after protesting in a church.
There are some precedents for MAGA social media craze over Minneapolis . The protests and counterprotests last year outside the Portland ICE facility that eventually earned Sortor a trip to the White House serve as the blueprint here, with right-wing influencers putting their bodies on the line in attempts to get explosive video that could double as an excuse for the Trump administration to intervene.
And going back even further, in 2019 a crew of MAGA influencers that included Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl traveled to Minneapolis to “investigate” whether Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) married her brother. The trip produced a “documentary” that saw the crew furtively traveling around Minneapolis like their lives were constantly at risk, but the project ultimately unraveled after Wohl was caught faking death threats to himself and reporting them to the police.
The Minneapolis tumult has attracted even less savory right-wing figures. Over the weekend, Jake Lang—a Hitler-saluting January 6th rioter whose hateful remarks about Muslims and Jews have prompted even those on the right to accuse him of being a federal agent out to make Trump supporters look bad—held a small rally against “fraud” that collapsed after he fled attacks from counterprotesters.
As for Shirley, he has apparently struggled with his newfound Minneapolis fame, revealing that he didn’t know the meaning of the word “benevolent” in an appearance on popular YouTube channel “Channel 5,” then feuding with host Andrew Callaghan for claiming he was unfairly edited.
Still, Shirley spoke Wednesday at a congressional hearing, saying the really big fraud is happening in California—a call that’s already been echoed by right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson, and that has the added appeal on the right of undermining California governor and potential presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom. Clearly, the right’s Minneapolis model is going nationwide.
Fishback Rising
There are plenty of reasons why Florida gubernatorial hopeful James Fishback will never be governor. He faces a legal bill to his former hedge-fund employer that could reach $2 million—due, in no small part, to failed schemes Fishback devised himself. He’s also running a wildly racist campaign against primary rival and Trump pick Rep. Byron Donalds, calling him “By’Rone” and vowing to send him back to the “ghetto.”
And then there are those court allegations that, as an adult, Fishback dated a 17-year-old high school student while involved in an anti-woke debate nonprofit.
And yet, since I last wrote about Fishback in December as the electoral face of white nationalist groyperism, he’s only gotten bigger.
In focus groups featured on an upcoming episode of The Bulwark’s The Focus Group podcast, Gen-Z Trump voters brought up Fishback without prompting as someone they’d like to hear more from. They’re big fans of his proposed 50 percent tax on earnings from OnlyFans creators, an idea that prompted angry replies from a top OnlyFans celebrity and, in turn, brought even more attention to Fishback. He’s followed that up with a proposed (and almost certainly illegal) $50,000 tax on New Yorkers moving to Florida.
It also now appears that Fishback isn’t as much of an outcast in Florida politics as his critics portray him to be. On Sunday, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s top aide, Christina Pushaw, admitted to advising Fishback’s early campaign. Pushaw, a pugnacious X personality in her own right, acknowledged this as part of her attempt to cut ties with Fishback, in part because of “allegations involving additional minors.” Fishback responded by posting text messages that purport to show Pushaw urging him to delete evidence of her support for his campaign.
Fishback’s electoral prospects still look bleak. He’s set to make an announcement “about the future of the Florida governor’s race” later today. But he appears to be well on his way to obtaining a job much more fun and lucrative than governor: right-wing media celebrity.
But one thing could still hold him back: his genetic code. In December, Fishback, racist as ever, challenged Donalds to publish genetic results from 23andMe, saying he would post his own results “soon.”
More than a month later, Fishback hasn’t posted his genetic results, and fumed in an online chat this week when he was asked when he’d finally release his ethnic background. Perhaps he saw something that might damage his brand as a leading white nationalist. For his part, Fishback tells me he just doesn’t have his results back yet.
You are seeing the danger of the so-called sovereign citizen movement. I am an attorney and with my co-author, have investigated this pseudolaw community now spread over 13 countries. we've written papers, lectured to other attorneys and law enforcement officers about how they have nothing but contempt for the entire rule of law, wherever they live.
About 30 years ago when I was a line Medicaid caseworker we received an application from the hospital. It was an application for a 16 year-old girl who was admitted with a high risk pregnancy. She was from an anti-government, religious commune that was living off grid. She had no birth certificate, thus no proof of citizenship and no SSN. It was amazing how quickly her parents and leaders of this anti-government commune suddenly were demanding us government workers find ways to approve her application for government assistance as they faced a major medical bill.