The third right-wing influencer Trump was likely referencing as being on the receiving end of alleged antifa attacks was Andy Ngo, another Post Millennial blogger and right-wing influencer, who was also in attendance on Wednesday. Ngo has spent years attending protests across the country filming them and defining the right-wing narrative of antifa as a domestic terrorist threat. Ngo has spent years targeting Mark Bray, a Rutgers historian and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Following social media posts from a number of right-wing influencers, including Ngo, Bray is now trying to flee the US after receiving death threats.
Samuel Woolley, a researcher who studies digital propaganda at the University of Pittsburgh, believes the blurring of lines between state messaging and influencer content serves a strategic purpose. “Politicians and government officials will use influencers as a means to legitimize either the information they’re spreading or the actions they’re taking,” he says. “Oftentimes, influencers are now used to create the illusion of popularity for particular ideas to manufacture consensus around those ideas.”
The feedback loop created by these influencers and leveraged by the Trump administration is exemplified best by Johnson’s own X account. Johnson, a right-wing creator and former Turning Point USA contributor, shared clips of his Portland trip with Noem, including a video of the secretary praying at the start of a meeting and later interrogating someone who was purported to be an immigrant in the back of a government vehicle. From there, those clips are reposted and shared by other right-wing creators and sometimes plastered onto television news. In this case, Johnson was interviewed by Newsmax about his experience in Portland on Wednesday.
“Kristi Noem had to walk the premises with body armor men standing beside her, because the left is so violent here. Every time we came or went, left-wing protesters had to be cleared out of the streets,” Johnson said on Newsmax. “They spat on the vehicles.They screamed at us.”
These creators were some of the few media figures allowed to tour the Portland ICE facility. On Wednesday, The Oregonian reported that its reporters were denied access to the facility despite multiple conservative news outlets and creators being granted access. The paper first asked for access on September 25. Eight days later Fox News reporter Bill Melugin filmed a report on the facility’s roof. Reporters for the paper tried again on October 6, receiving no answer. Three days before, Daviscourt had toured the building.
“They can be used as a conduit for pushing manufactured stories or pushing particular propaganda messaging,” Woolley says of these right-wing creators. “They’re incredibly potent.”
The Trump administration has created a seamless loop of content inspiring policy and policy inspiring new content as the government performs its own justification in real time. First comes the boots on the ground. Then comes the content. Rinse and repeat.
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