Indoctrination Publication: Conservative Media as a Fast Track to the Alt-Right

Ben Shapiro is a popular conservative pundit active on YouTube, Twitter, and other social media. Photo by Gage Skidmore. 

“Ben Shapiro Destroys Transgenderism And Pro-Abortion Arguments”; “Political Correctness is Killing Comedy”; “Cancel Culture is a Dress Rehearsal for Mass Murder”. Conservative content on YouTube, among other platforms, is explicitly hostile to leftist ideals, as exhibited by the three aforementioned YouTube video titles. When a consumer of social media falls under the spell of conservative social media titans such as Ben Shapiro, Sargon of Akkad, or Stefan Molyneux, it is quite easy to forget the person they idolize is a crypto-fascist or an actual neo-Nazi. 

Conservative media thrives on controversy. It has become a general trend among the right wing to espouse views that anger the left, no matter how flagrant, or even hypocritical, they are. Despite claiming to adhere to libertarianism, an ideology which promotes the idea of universal individual choice, Ben Shapiro is a radical conservative who consistently antagonizes sexual minorities, spouts islamophobic propaganada, and advocates for a strictly biblical moral-based society. In established organizations like Fox News and Breitbart News, which Shapiro himself formerly associated with, right-wing dogwhistling becomes increasingly apparent. Fox’s own Tucker Carlson has pushed the Great Replacement conspiracy theory—a theory also propagated by former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke which states that the government is attempting to replace white people with minorities—on national news to denounce left diversity initiatives. Breitbart News is an unabashed hub for alt-right sentiments including racism and anti-semitism. It has become increasingly apparent that, slightly below the surface level of these publications, there lies a fertile breeding ground for dangerous radical right-wing thinking. In especially shocking cases, some conservative groups are almost completely open about their illiberal and undemocratic feelings, expressing a desire for people to be subjugated and controlled. For instance, Liberty Hangout, a news organization to which conservative YouTuber and gun rights activist Kaitlin Bennett regularly contributes to, publicly promotes monarchy over democracy. 

Across the political spectrum of the right, certain figures clearly use inflammatory rhetoric to prod the left into a reaction. Though this may seem generally harmless in and of itself, provocative content rooted in pitting individuals against each other and dismantling an equitable society can, and has, convinced people to act out of misplaced anger towards certain communities. In the 2019 white nationalist terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the perpetrator had donated to previously-mentioned Canadian neo-Nazi Stefan Molyneux prior to committing the shooting. During the live stream of his murder of 49 praying Muslims, he urged viewers to subscribe to Pewdiepie, the most subscribed-to YouTuber on the platform who has also expressed anti-semitic views. The power conservative influencers hold is undoubtedly formidable. The messages they both knowingly and unwittingly broadcast on the internet and on television are enough to inspire some of the most abhorrent acts of political dissent. 

Conservative media is especially effective for radicalizing audiences because of its appeal to the characteristically-human herd mentality. Herd mentality consists of the human tendency to aggregate themselves with groups that appeal to their individual beliefs and emotions, and stick with these groups when rationality suggests otherwise only for the sake of belonging to a collective. While conservatives often criticize the concept of “identity politics” on the left, it is equally, if not more, present in right-wing groups. One of the cornerstones of right-wing thought is the appeal to the idea of belonging—or, often, the inverse concept of excluding those who do not belong. Some of the notions promoted by conservatives include ideas that immigration and diversity dilute and destroy the population of real Americans; a cabal of Satanic Jewish leaders runs the United States and is out to get real Americans; the mask mandate of the COVID-19 pandemic is implemented to control and manipulate real Americans; the list goes on. 

This motif of pandering to “real Americans” and the patriotic right has the ability to spark violent action in vulnerable individuals who have been wronged by their society through using the left as well as minority groups as scapegoats. For instance, the perpetrator of the 2019 El Paso shooting—who, in fact, claims to have been inspired by the Christchurch shooter—expressed in his manifesto a disdain for the increase in immigration under democratic policies and the “stealing” of American jobs by foreigners, specifically Hispanic foreigners. In this case study, a clear media-to-terrorism pipeline can be identified: Stefan Molyneux radicalized the Christchurch shooter, and the Christchurch shooter inspired the El Paso shooter, who was also perhaps influenced by the far-right Great Replacement theory. 

Conservative groups and organizations often focus their radicalization and indoctrination efforts on certain segments of the population, targeting distressed and vulnerable people. From spurned teenagers to middle-aged workers struggling to provide for their families, right-wing propaganda seeks to harness impressionable individuals’ anger towards a larger system of inequality and direct it at easy sources of blame—namely, those who do not fit the perfect, white, American narrative. Conservative media consumers easily become plagued by misguided aggression. Right-wing public figures express their hatred for liberals and the decline of America to get a reaction from those who feel they have been disadvantaged by their system and maintain relevance. Individuals who fall prey to this act are often truly angry at the ways the system has  failed them and their communities. Contrary to the popular belief among the right, immigrants do not steal American jobs and rather take jobs Americans do not want. Similarly, minorities are not overtaking the U.S. government, as they are still underrepresented in politics. The true source of social and economic strife is the creation of antagonistic dynamics by elites, who pit individuals against each other in order to divert attention from their abuses of power, and the fundamental inequality ingrained into capitalism. We see this on the macro level of politicians like Donald Trump who create bigoted spectacles of racism to build a platform and draw attention away from their lack of concrete policies and proposals for reform while coincidentally failing to address such things as their own tax evasion. 

Misinformation is also a valuable tool of right-wing pundits and politicians. Trump, for instance, claimed that the 2020 election was stolen, an erroneous statement that incited the Capitol riot in an attempt to forcefully take back a rightfully-lost position in office. As conservatives intentionally combat political issues with strawman arguments to produce anger or, often, completely fabricate claims, vulnerable individuals fall prey to the herd mentality once again: it is difficult to recognize and reconcile falsities when they come from figures one trusts, and keeping with a group that may carry out even the most egregious acts is preferable to feeling wrong or humiliated in one’s formerly-held views. 

The tactics of conservative media have clearly seeped into the larger political arena. Beyond Donald Trump’s divisiveness for the sake of gathering votes rather than helping the disadvantaged people he convinced were being antagonized by minorities, the propagation of hate solely for political advancement runs rampant across the western world. This rhetoric especially gained traction during the modern era of globalization and internet connection that brings together individuals espousing radical right views through international media and acts as a crucible for alt-right sentiments. In France, the country’s far-right National Rally party plays on popular French xenophobic and Islamophobic sentiments to enforce French exceptionalism; in Hungary, the far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán promotes ethnonationalism in order to keep eyes away from the corruption that infests Hungarian governmental institutions; in Italy, far-right parties lead polls by appearing as patriotic conservatives seeking to return Italy to its past glory while being neo-fascists, albeit covertly. The dangers of hateful rhetoric in entertainment have begun to take on a new form in global politics, arguably posing threats to equality and democracy reminiscent of those during World War II as people once again begin to idolize concepts, parties, and leaders holding racist, anti-democratic values.  

Throughout the world today, political demagogues, both online and in person, seek to divide for their own gain. It is extremely easy to take their bait and blame systemic issues on vulnerable groups that have been targeted for centuries, but it is necessary for us, as media consumers, to separate propaganda from reality and dig deeper to understand how we can fix our world and create a better, safer society for future generations.     

Alexia Vayeos (CC ‘25) is a first-year at Columbia College and writer for CPR who plans to study history. She is interested in 20th-century United States history and politics, United States foreign policy, and the history of leftism.