On the evening of Jan. 29, 2017, a 27-year old opened fire in a mosque in Quebec City, killing six people and injuring 19. The shooter was apprehended rather than being killed, allowing a rare glimpse into the potential motivation for such a senseless and racially charged mass killing.
After Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was going to allow more refugees in the country, fueled by a fear and hatred of Muslims poured on him by right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson and ex-Klansman David Duke, the shooter took matters into his own hands and committed an unspeakable hate crime.
Although he previously had a few traffic violations, he had no meaningful criminal record and wasn’t known to the police. But investigations revealed the shooter was a white nationalist who had been heavily radicalized online by multiple far-right figures. The commentator he most searched for was Ben Shapiro, a hugely popular right-wing podcaster who previously tweeted statements such as “Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage.”
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This past Saturday, May 6, a gunman opened fire outside of a mall in Texas, slaughtering eight people, including children. (The shooter was killed by police at the scene.) The sheer brutality of this massacre was captured profoundly in the statement of a witness who tried to find a pulse on a little girl—only to turn her over and reveal that she had no face.
This time the shooter wasn’t white. He was a 33-year-old man of Hispanic heritage, which immediately allowed some far-right pundits to play off any suspicions that this might again be related to white supremacist rhetoric. But as should be obvious by now, white supremacy can be upheld by non-white people (just as white nationalists can be superfans of someone who practices Orthodox Judaism, like Ben Shapiro).
Shoppers leave with their hands up after police responded to a gunman who shot and killed eight people and wounded at least seven others at Allen Premium Outlets mall.
Reuters TV/ReutersOnce again, the shooter was heavily inspired by previous mass shootings and idealized the kill count like it was a high score in a video game. He had both a large SS and a swastika tattoo, and frequently praised Hitler. He also posted a very blunt meme demonstrating that Latino men have a choice to either become white supremacists or imitate Black people. While the term “incel” is overused as a descriptor, the shooter also spoke of women owing men sex and the frustrations of being denied this assumed arrangement.
He was also a fan of both Tim Pool—a right-wing podcaster who calls himself a “disaffected liberal”—and Libs of TikTok, a popular anti-LGBTQ account on Twitter run by Chaya Raichik, who was part of the crowd outside the Capitol during the attempted coup on Jan. 6.
Pool and Raichik are not Nazis, nor have they called for violence, nor have they praised mass shooters. There is no evidence that they directly inspired the shooter’s massacre. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t contributed to the spread of fear and hatred.
Libs of TikTok has spread false conspiracy theories about kids identifying as cats and accused Pete Buttigieg’s husband of being a “groomer” simply for getting kids to sing a variation on the pledge of allegiance to the rainbow flag. After anti-trans activist Chris Elston in August 2022 falsely claimed that Boston Children’s Hospital was performing genital surgery on children, Libs of TikTok shared the video to its 1.3 million followers. That effectively launched a far-right campaign against the institution.
Anti-trans commentator Matt Walsh (who, like Ben Shapiro, works for the right-wing culture war site Daily Wire) amplified the message by mirroring calls to contact the staff at the hospital—and posted their publicly available information. Once the story had been picked up by Tucker Carlson it became national news and it wasn’t long until multiple nurses and doctors reported receiving death threats.
The hospital eventually got multiple bomb threats, which disrupted the healthcare of all children attending the clinic. While such actions could be described as stochastic terrorism, an entire network of plausible deniability had already been established.
Were the people threatening the lives of nurses and doctors inspired by Libs of TikTok? Or was it Matt Walsh? Or did they just watch the Tucker Carlson segment?
Almost always, that answer is unknowable. But the end result is the same.
The Texas mall shooter was also a fan of Tim Pool, whose persona is built on a thin resume which included brief stints for “lefty” sites like Vice and Fusion many years ago. Those supposed liberal bona fides are his shield against accusations that he’s a far-right propagandist—as he frequently hosts friendly interviews with Proud Boys, Holocaust deniers, alt-right pundits, and Christian fascists. (Disclosure: I recently appeared on Pool’s show to debate him on transgender rights issues, and the vigilante killing of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway.)
Perhaps Pool’s lowest moment in a career full of them came after the November 2022 mass shooting at a Colorado LGBTQ nightclub called Club Q, where five queer people were killed.
The shooter in question was a troubled young white male with a history of anti-gay hatred and who ran a neo-Nazi website. He had rainbow-colored practice targets, and his own father appeared to be more concerned with the prospect of him being gay than he was with him being a mass murderer. After the Club Q shooting, Pool tweeted that “We shouldn’t tolerate pedophiles grooming kids... Club Q had a grooming event…” No more “thoughts and prayers,” the right was now blaming the victims.
And like the rhetoric used to demonize undocumented immigrants, Muslims, and other marginalized groups, violence against queer people didn’t lead to any soul-searching among anti-trans culture warriors. In fact, they’ve since doubled-down on their hate. To cite just one example, anti-trans commentator Michael Knowles (yet another Daily Wire employee) said earlier this year that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”
The Texas mall shooter was not white. And though it may seem counterintuitive, Jewish people and people of color can inspire (and in some cases, become) perpetrators of white supremacist violence. And the people stoking hatred, which all too often plants the seed of violence, never want to be confronted with the fact that their apocalyptic fear mongering is taken quite literally by some in their audience.
A body of evidence already exists to prove this point. And, tragically, it will almost certainly continue to grow.
