Would you buddy up to a neo-Nazi for a cut of crowdfunded “patriot freedom” cash? That’s the question facing some alleged Jan. 6 rioters awaiting trial.
This week on Fever Dreams, hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill visit new NPR reporting on the rifts and feuds inside a notorious section of a Washington, D.C., jail. That cell block, hailed by Jan. 6 apologists as a “patriot wing” of the jail, is host to multiple alleged Capitol rioters. Although the crew used to be friendly (one defense attorney described the atmosphere as “cult-like”), those alliances are reportedly fraying, especially over financial matters. Although private groups have raised more than $1 million in donations for the defendants, some told NPR that the cash hasn’t been equally distributed. Some defendants accuse a fellow detainee—an alleged neo-Nazi famous for his Hitler mustache—of gatekeeping access to those funds, forcing them to buddy up to him for money.
“These folks want to say that they are not Nazis, are not white supremacists, et cetera,” Weill says, “that they’re just God-loving patriots. And yet when this is the guy that you’ve gotta suck up to, to get that sweet, sweet donation money, you might start to infer things about your peer group.”
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Outside the prison, another Jan. 6 participant is claiming his own financial woes. Following a series of court defeats for Infowars founder Alex Jones, three of his businesses declared bankruptcy this weekend. Are they really broke, or are they just trying to avoid payouts to families of Sandy Hook victims? According to plaintiffs, Jones and his companies have shifted millions of dollars through shell companies, raising questions about whether the conspiracy news network is hiding assets.
“I think it’s pretty fair to say that Alex Jones has been untruthful through the legal process. He’s been accused of doing all kinds of financial lying already,” Sommer says.
But unlike Jones’ previous legal antics, which saw him refuse to sit for depositions in civil lawsuits, these new allegations could carry serious penalties. “When you start talking about lying in bankruptcy court, we’re talking about some—potentially—some criminal issues,” Sommer says.
Jones still owns a ranch in Texas, which he claims was used to film a baffling new special from Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Nikki McCann Ramirez, an associate research director at Media Matters for America, joins Fever Dreams to talk about Carlson’s testicle tanning film—and the darker message behind his clips about “bromeopathy.”
Although a viral clip from the special claims to be about the benefits of bathing one’s balls in red light to combat low testosterone levels, McCann Ramirez notes that Carlson is using pseudo-science to hype up a fictional war on men.
“If you’re suffering from low testosterone levels, which is a thing that Tucker is really interested in, there are medical ways to deal with that. But sending your viewers to go get a blood panel and talk to their urologist kind of gives up the opportunity to frame that issue as a culture war issue,” she says.
“My take on this isn’t necessarily that Tucker’s viewers are gonna go out and go to the nearest red light therapy salon and tan their balls. It’s that they’re gonna walk away with this idea that there is a crisis of masculinity and that they need to view themselves as strong men and enforcers in this culture war battle.”
Finally, QAnon fans are taking a conspiracy theory about snake-infused water to its natural conclusion: not showering.
“Why stop there?” Weill asks. “I’m thinking about all the things you can’t do without water. I mean, you could kind of try and keep a Mountain Dew-based diet, but you can’t boil pasta. Are you brushing your teeth at this point? It just seems very prohibitive.”
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