Torba the Turncoat?

Posted By Nicholas R. Jeelvy On In North American New Right | Comments Disabled

[1]1,384 words

On January 24, Andrew Torba made the announcement [2]that Gab will be sponsoring AFPAC 3, the America First (AF) conference modelled after Conservatism Inc.’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), to the tune of $20,000 dollars. He claimed that “AFPAC is group of grassroots young Christian thinkers who, like it or not, are the future of right wing politics in this country.” The announcement was met with a wave of people scrambling to cancel their Gab Pro subscriptions, regretting that they’d given Torba their hard-earned money just to see him donate it to a group which tried to derail Gab and insulted its long-time user base not one month ago. The reactions from groypers were that they now run Gab and soon, they’ll convince Torba to start banning “wignats.”

Donating to AFPAC is pretty uncontroversial in Right-wing circles. Donating company money to AFPAC that was given to the company so that it could keep the Gab service running looks like a betrayal of Gab Pro users and donors, however, especially given that the America First groypers actively despise a good percentage of these users as “wignats” and would ban them from the platform given half a chance.

Before proceeding further, I’ll say loud and clear that I am a “wignat.” By this I mean I am a White Nationalist, and I believe that white identity politics are the way forward. I am also a big believer in the power of revisionist history [3] and in the importance of countering Semitic lies [4]. This is apparently what wignat means these days. I remember a time when wignat meant “wigger nationalist,” which is to say a White Nationalist or other white dissident Right-winger who has a behavioral profile of being low IQ, prone to criminality, self-destructive and self-defeating, often a habitual drug user, and unnecessarily violent and conflict-prone. Nowadays, a wignat is anyone who calls out the conservative grift machine — and increasingly, Populist Inc. — while espousing white identitarian politics, supporting revisionist history, and professing awareness of the Jewish problem. Either that, or anyone whom the groypers and Nick Fuentes don’t like. Which includes me and everyone else on Counter-Currents, apparently.

Believe it or not, I’ve listened to Nick Fuentes since before the Groyper Wars. I defended him against charges of cuckery: he’s got all the relevant information, as he used to say back then. I’ve written in support of America First when they were fighting against Turning Point USA and disrupting their attempts at corralling Right-wing youth into the Conservative Inc. establishment. I’ve spoken in support of Fuentes when others were ready to denounce him for his aesthetics, for his support of Donald Trump in 2020, or for his agitation against the 2020 election theft, which ultimately led to the disastrous January 6 Stop the Steal rally.

It took some truly egregious behavior from Baked Alaska and Beardson Beardly, which went unsanctioned and tacitly supported by Fuentes, in order for the America First movement to lose its luster for me. Even so, I still gave it a fair hearing on The Writers’ Bloc [5], even pulling out all the stops to get notorious recluse Travis LeBlanc to appear on the show, just so there would be an America First sympathizer there to make the case for them. After that episode, I was done with the groypers. To them, I’ll always be a wignat.

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You can buy The Alternative Right, ed. Greg Johnson, here [7]

But hey, if they normalize pro-white talking points, who cares? Let them make their noises. Let them trot out their based Jews and negroes. Maybe some of these kids will level up from mestizo incel edgelordism and start on the road to white identitarianism. Even their hysterical woman-hatred can be forged and tempered into a red pill on the woman question, something which is sorely lacking even in hardcore White Nationalist circles. (The trick is to be indifferent to or bemused by female antics rather than shaking with anger at women in general, but that’s a story for another day.)

About a month ago, AF-related accounts, led by Fuentes himself, tried to “take over” Gab, generally by being obnoxious to the already-established community by calling everyone wignats and declaring themselves “in charge” of the place. Hence the outrage on Gab over Andrew Torba’s decision to now give company money to the very group which tried to disrupt the website and insulted many of the people paying for it. Still, even within the context of this immoral act, the fierceness of the reaction surprised me. The degree to which people despise Nick Fuentes and America First was astounding.

It could be a case of many enemies, much honor, or genuine distaste for Fuentes’ habit of picking fights with other Dissident Right people over trivialities, or maybe fears that his particular brand of he-man woman-hating mestizo conservatism serves as a deradicalization agent, bringing young radical men back to supporting the GOP and other anti-white cuckservative organizations. His support for Donald Trump in 2020 and participation in the Stop the Steal grift certainly makes the last allegation believable, but then again, it is entirely possible that he serves as a gateway rather than as a gatekeeper — or at least did up to a certain point. A massive percentage of AF’s resources and attention are directed at fighting “wignats” — which I will remind the reader also includes everyone on this website by their definition (yes, even you, Mr. LeBlanc, no matter how much you defend them). Thus, all I can conclude is that at this point, Fuentes and the AF higher-ups are more concerned that people will accidentally stumble onto explicit white identitarianism than with scoring tangible victories against the anti-white forces.

This is all well and good, but ultimately it’s about Gab. If it remains a free speech website where the Dissident Right can have its message heard, all is well. However, this comes on the heels of prominent black AF member Philip Anderson [8] publicly asking for ways to sanitize Gab and “filter out the most intensely racist and anti-Semitic posts that wignats make.” This gab, posted before Torba’s announcement about sponsoring AFPAC, caused no end of controversy in itself, considering that this self-proclaimed free speech king was apparently upset at the idea that newcomers might encounter racist and anti-Semitic content (it could be argued that this is the point of a free speech website), especially considering that he’s part of an organization which attempted to disrupt Gab.

This has some of the most prominent users on Gab worried that the alliance between Gab and AFPAC will lead to the introduction of censorship on the platform which would favor not only AFPAC but also elements of Populist Inc., such as federal agent and known grifter Wendy Rogers (currently running for the State Senate in Arizona) or unreconstructed adulteress Marjorie Taylor Greene. Gab users, myself included, have questions. Many groypers were indeed celebrating their “victory” by proclaiming that soon, Torba will be purging “wignats” from the platform. If Gab’s free speech credentials are now to be called into question, then it is no longer just a question of immoral conduct on Torba’s part, it’s whether there will be a space for White Nationalists even on alternative tech platforms.

On January 26, the groypers mass-reported longtime Gab user Joe Prich while he was streaming on Dlive, and his Dlive account was terminated mid-stream. Joe is among the biggest critics of Torba’s donation to AFPAC and his promotion of the AF/groyper brand on Gab. This for me is the final piece of evidence I need that AF and the groypers are dangerous and hurtful to the Dissident Right and our cause.

Torba has since come out defending his decisions [9] as “generating controversy.” He has also written that it’s his website and he can do with it as he wishes, and I agree. Gab depends on our traffic and donations to keep going, however. Since there’s now a real chance that money donated to Gab will end up in America First’s coffers, I will not be upgrading to GabPro, joining GabTV, or donating any money to Gab. I will also discourage anyone who’ll listen to me from doing any of those things.

I had high hopes for Gab, and Torba may yet change my mind, but the Dissident Right must learn to walk away from people who hate us. Sadly, in the year 2022, this includes the fellow Right-wingers of America First.

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