Far-Right Intelligentsia Struggles To Come To Terms With Norway Tragedy
It’s been less than 2 weeks since the tragic terrorist attacks in Norway carried out by anti-Muslim extremist Anders Behring Breivik, and already far-right commentators have started justifying them. The most recent and egregious example is a blog post from Pamela Geller — the conservative commentator who started the false “Ground Zero mosque” rumor last year — which implies that Breivik was justified in murdering teenagers at summer camp because they were not white.
On Monday, Geller posted a picture of the summer campers murdered by Breivik, along with this caption: “Note the faces that are more Middle Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.” The rest of the post pointed out that the teenagers were interested in politics and members of a political youth organization, “Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking,” similar to the “College Republicans” and “College Democrats” organizations in the United States.
Geller later edited out the racist line, but retained the information about the campers’ politics. Geller’s insinuation that the teenagers were a legitimate target because they supported a political party she dislikes has been a common refrain on the far-right. Last Thursday, former Fox News host Glenn Beck compared the terrorist victims to “the Hitler youth,” since they were politically active.
Geller may be blaming the victims to distract from her links to Breivik. Reports have emerged that someone — possibly Breivik — left comments on Geller’s site saying he was “stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment.” Geller prominently featured these comments, while keeping their author’s identity anonymous. Breivik was certainly familiar with Geller’s site, and cited her approvingly numerous times in his manifesto.
Meanwhile, other ultra-conservatives took to the opinion pages to defend Breivik’s views. Bruce Bawer, the author of such Islamophobic books “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within” and “Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom” was also referenced approvingly in Breivik’s manifesto. After the attacks, he wrote a piece published in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal that seemed less concerned with the victims of Breivik’s rampage than with the damage it could do to Islamophobic movements in Europe. Bawer says that once he learned one of his fans — rather than Al Qaeda — committed the attacks, “it was immediately clear to me that his violence will deal a heavy blow to an urgent cause.”
That cause, of course, is religious discrimination against Muslims in Western Europe. Bawer admits that the attack by an anti-Muslim terrorist on a government he felt was not discriminating against Muslims enough has made him fearful — of the government. “It will, I fear, be a great deal more difficult to broach these issues now that this murderous madman has become the poster boy for the criticism of Islam,” he concludes.
Pat Buchanan, the former Republican presidential candidate best known for his Holocaust denial and hardline views on immigration, wrote an op-ed for the conservative website World News Daily. In the piece, Buchanan argues that “Breivik may be right.” Buchanan condemns Breivik’s violence, but argues that he was right to prepare for a religious war in Europe on the scale of the Crusades, “a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries.”
Buchanan also seems to approve of Breivik’s choice of targets, noting that he “chose as his targets not Muslims whose presence he detests, but the Labor Party leaders who let them into the country, and their children, the future leaders of that party.” Like Beck and Geller, he frames the campers killed in Utoya as dangerous political operatives, rather than innocent teenagers.
RFK Jr. Campaign Director Reveals Her True Allegiance Is To Trump
Angela Stanton King, a far-right commentator working as a director for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign, said on a conspiratorial podcast last month that she loves Trump and that Kennedy is “another option” because her “fear is that they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning.”
She also said that she's working to take away votes from President Joe Biden and “if Trump or Kennedy gets it, I don't lose either way.”
Stanton King’s remarks resemble those of then-Kennedy official Rita Palma, who argued that the independent candidate’s presence on the New York ballot would help Trump defeat Biden, which she said was her “No. 1 priority.” (Palma was later fired.)
Kennedy has frequently attempted to appeal to right-wing audiences. He has also promoted numerous conspiracy theories as a commentator and has populated his campaign with conspiracy theorists.
Stanton King fits the Kennedy campaign's attempts to cater to right-wing media audiences. She is a far-right speaker, author, and guest on right-wing programming. She has claimed that the election was stolen from Trump, promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, and made bigoted remarks about LGBTQ people.
She works as the Black voter engagement director for Kennedy and has participated in events and door knocking with him. He also recorded a song with her. This past weekend, Stanton King appeared at a campaign event with Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan.
Stanton King has been a strong supporter of Trump, who pardoned her in 2020 for a 2004 car theft sentence. In 2021, for instance, she said: “Trump can’t be President forever and I know that. But he’s the only one bold enough to fight these evil Demonic Satanic forces from the pits of HELL and I’m standing with him.”
Stanton King is still praising the former president, including while doing surrogate work for Kennedy on the April 20, 2024, edition of Nino’s Corner. That show is hosted by David “Niño” Rodriguez, a far-right podcaster who has said that Biden “stole the election”; 9/11 “was an inside job”; and COVID-19 “was a hoax and vaccines would kill u.” He has frequently promoted QAnon, including offering programming that analyzes “Q drops” and “Q posts.”
During the start of his interview with Stanton King, Rodriguez said: “I will say, I'm one foot in, one foot out with RFK. I'm a Trump supporter. Everybody knows that.” Stanton King replied: “Me too.” She later said that she’s “in a pickle here because I love” Trump and Kennedy and said:
ANGELA STANTON KING: RFK is liked by a lot of people. Like, we love Trump, but we know that RFK is not afraid to stand up to the establishment either. And I think that's what many of us respect about RFK. And for me personally, I made this decision because I was tired of being on one side where all we're doing is constantly fighting, and I was tired of not being able to work with certain people in my community because I was being labeled as a Trump supporter. And I just honestly believe that in order for us to come together that we do have to stop fighting.
She later stated that part of her efforts is to take away votes from Biden:
DAVID RODRIGUEZ: Throughout history, right, it's shown that third-party candidates kind of siphon votes from one or the other. And it looks like in this instance with RFK, he's going to probably take a lot of the votes away from Biden. Correct? I mean, that's what you're looking [inaudible]--?
STANTON KING: Well, yeah, that's true because he, and not to cut you off, but for my community — and you know how it is, you know how the media has created this stereotype that Trump and the Republicans are all racists — so for people in my community that aren't necessarily comfortable with coming over to the Republican Party, this provides a space for them. And to me, I'm like, listen, we've got to get away from the Democrats. So you guys have two options, right? If you don't want to vote for Trump, then Kennedy is a much better option than Joe Biden. And for me, shifting my community is very important. And I think that the independent space provides a safety net for those that are just not comfortable with the Republican Party but want to step away from the Democrats.
Stanton King continued offering Trump-friendly rhetoric during the interview (“I love Trump”), including stating that she loves Trump and views RFK Jr. as “another option” because she fears that “they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning”:
STANTON KING: My fear is that they're going to stop at nothing to keep Trump from winning. And I don't want to just give it over to Joe Biden. If for some reason we see another 2020, we need to have another option. And I think that RFK may be that. So that's kind of like where I'm at. I love Trump, my Republican friends that have supported me so much, I love them too. But even sometimes when it comes to the Republican Party, we've seen where the Republican Party didn't even stand behind Trump. Like, they let them get indicted four times. We saw what Mike Pence did with the vote. You know what I'm saying? So, I think it's time for us all to put people over party.
She later said that while campaigning with Trump she saw him draw vastly bigger crowds than Biden, asking, “How in the world was Joe Biden able to win or steal or whatever an election from Trump?”
She also suggested that she'd be happy if either Trump or Kennedy wins the election, stating: “If Trump or Kennedy gets it, I don't lose either way.”
STANTON KING: I love them both very dearly. A Trump-Kennedy ticket would mean the world to me because they're both guys that have shown me that not only do they care for me, but they care for my community. So for me, it's the winning ticket. Like I don't lose either way, right? If Trump or Kennedy gets it, I don't lose either way. But for both of them to get in, to me that would be a dream come true. And I don't know what those guys are doing. Trump hasn't picked a VP yet, and I'm thinking like Trump still may want to — if Trump got in and Kennedy didn’t, Trump still may want to pull Kennedy and make him, you know, the director of health administration. There are just so many options here. But I don't think that the Kennedy campaign and the Trump campaign are enemies.
Stanton King later portrayed the 2024 election as “us against the Democrats, either way it goes. It's the Republicans and independents against the Democrat Party. And we've gotta all unite.”
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.