I've been sitting on this story for a few days because the editorial tone of the piece is at least mildly flippant, and vaguely reminiscent of prior fascist-normalizing debacles such as the New York Times' infamous "Meet the Nazi Next Door" piece. It's also absurdly long. That having been said, despite its flaws, I think it's worth examining because it offers insight into the world of fascist astroturf operations and attempts to create the illusion of popular support for Trumpism/fascism, even among minority communities who're being targeted by nazi political figures:
The piece itself is a lengthy examination of fascist "influencer" and general shitheel, Brandon Straka. Unless you're super plugged into the MAGA-sphere of babbling reactionary social media influencers, you might not know who Straka is (more on why below), but you're probably familiar with the two major reasons he's "famous" - the "WalkAway" social media hashtag campaign designed to give the impression that millions of marginalized Americans were "leaving" the Democratic Party and joining Trump, and his participation as a key "Stop the Steal" figure in the January 6th storming of the Capitol as part of an attempted fascist coup. In the time since his conviction, and extremely light sentencing for his involvement in that shitshow, Straka has become, with a great deal of help, something of a symbol of the "repression" meted out by "the tyrannical liberal establishment" - which turned out to be three months home detention, and three years of probation. Yes, you heard that right; the guy pretending Biden threw him in Gitmo for participating in a real as fuck coup, got 3 months of house arrest; a laughable sentence in light of the crime, as the article later points out: “If that had been a group of 2000 ISIS supporters that had broken into the Capitol,” Pape asks, “do you think we’d only be prosecuting them for trespassing?”
As interesting as all that is however, I think what's really worth examining here is Straka himself, and the process by which he became a well-funded, well-connected "MAGA influencer" because this guy's path to "stardom" and profit, has absolutely nothing to do with popular sentiment and everything to do with kayfabe fascist propaganda operations and the folks who promote and fund them. As the article makes clear, before he hitched his wagon to the MAGA train, Straka was an utterly inconsequential hair stylist with big acting dreams and a YouTube channel that had accrued a whopping 50 regular viewers. Desperate for fame and fortune, Straka decided to latch onto the rising fascist tide by becoming a pro-Trump influencer: "Eventually, Straka, a lifelong Democrat, figured out the time-honored strategy of getting noticed: He switched sides. In 2018, with help from his friend, the gay anti-trans activist Mike Harlow, he made a Facebook video declaring that he was “walking away” from the Democratic Party." As the article further explains without directly saying it, this "movement" is itself clearly astroturf, and Straka's impassioned plea to sign up people the fascists want to kill, to support the fascists online, was quickly picked up and rebroadcast by numerous key figures in fascist media and politics; folks like Donald Trump Jr for example.
I think it's key here to note that under no circumstances was WalkAway an actual grassroots movement, and indeed most of its supporters aren't liberals who "walked away" but fascists the movement calls (quietly) "Walk Withs." This is pure fucking astroturf, designed to give folks the impression Trump, Trumpism, and the fascist takeover has a broad base of popular support among people the fascists are openly targeting. Using his newfound fame, Straka immediately plugged into the network of far right extremists selling Trumpism/fascism to rubes online, on TV, in fascist conferences and public debates; collecting filthy lucre at every point along the way. By 2019, Laura Trump was interviewing him for campaign videos created in Trump Tower and he was openly signaling to QAnon freaks, before becoming a public figure in the Stop the Steal movement (more astroturf) and ultimately participating in the coup attempt.
You should read the entire story to get a sense of just how fake everything about Straka and his "struggle" really are, but the key point to take away here is this: fascism is not a popular, grassroots movement in our society. There is literally no such thing as organic, popular support for fascists and they certainly aren't attracting marginalized people to their worldview. This is manufactured, coordinated propaganda. All of these people on your screen are losers and freaks, willing to debase themselves for nazi money and YES, the rich guys running this shitshow are happy to pay for the ILLUSION of popular, grassroots support to get what they want - a fascist police state in total submission to neofeudalist overlords, them. It's an op.