Content Warning: Nazis, racism, mass shootings, antisemitism, sexual humor
If I’ve missed anything above please let me know in the comments. Thank you.
[Alt text pending. Apologies.]
Why another post?
My last post looked into ‘Rahul Ligma’ and ‘Daniel Johnson’, two trolls who briefly fooled the media into thinking they were Twitter employees laid off in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company.
There I stated that ‘Rahul Ligma’ seems to harbor fascist beliefs, specifically those of Julius Evola, Bronze Age Pervert, and Savitri Devi. It felt best to make this new post to fill in a few gaps on:
Rahul’s accomplice Daniel
Rahul’s apparent agenda and recent meeting with Elon Musk
Let’s go.
‘Daniel Johnson’
At the risk of delaying the main issue, would it be a problem to start by looking at ‘Daniel Johnson’?
At the time of my first post, growing_daniel—the account presumed to be ‘Daniel Johnson’—had gone protected, rendering non-followers such as myself unable to view its Tweets. This seems likely done for privacy purposes.
growing_daniel is once again public. Does his activity support his identity as Daniel Johnson? Does he harbor fascist views?
It seems yes. First, Daniel’s now-visible, updated bio seems to clearly reference the stunt:
And he’s verified? As reported by Travis Brown, Daniel has recently purchased a Twitter checkmark, so it appears that this aspect does not prove him a known public figure. More conclusive-feeling evidence will be presented below. For now, is it unfair to claim that growing_daniel’s profile seems to add credence to the tweets crediting BroductManager as ‘Rahul Ligma’ and him as ‘Daniel Johnson’?
Is he a Nazi?
Daniel’s Beliefs
Daniel’s fascism feels more sporadic—and possibly a bit less sincere—than that of Rahul. That said, he seems to exhibit casual racism, and to often reference known far-right memes:
Below, Daniel uses one common such meme, in which far-right comedian Sam Hyde is jokingly alleged to be responsible for any latest mass shooting, using images of Hyde with an AK-47:
One final tweet seems to be about George Soros:
Locked jaw? Dogs? What is this last tweet? Comparisons between pit bulls and black men feel common among fascists, who seem to hold both as genetically predisposed to violence. In that context, this final tweet seems to be a thinly veiled reference to the ‘Great Replacement’/‘White Genocide’ conspiracy theory, that powerful Jewish bankers like George Soros are—among other things—encouraging white women to marry and have mixed-race children with black men.
All that said, there do not seem to be clear overt references to Savitri Devi or Julius Evola, as with Rahul. In spite of this increased ambiguity, and even at risk of hedging, it feels clear that Daniel, like Rahul, harbors fascist beliefs.
Rahul and Daniel met with Elon Musk
On a recent Loopcast episode, extremism researcher Moustafa Ayad noted that
A lot of these [extremist] communities that…are doing that performative stuff, is primarily to do performative stuff. It is simply to make sure that someone sees it and someone likes it, and now they’ve got more clout.
-Moustafa Ayad, The Loopcast
Shortly after the stunt, Daniel tweeted about ‘trying to keep the last shred of clout from this alive as everybody moves on’. And later about ‘crafting the perfect Elon bait to get a response’.
In my last post, I wondered how close Rahul and Daniel were with Elon Musk, and how they planned to use their newfound clout.1 Both questions seem to have been illuminated somewhat by Elon Musk inviting the pair to Twitter headquarters for a meeting:
How did the meeting go? Daniel writes:
I was honestly expecting to meet Elon for 3 minutes and a pic between meetings and instead we had a 20 minute convo about the future of Twitter. Super nice guy just to take that time but also wanted to talk to us and hear our takes.
-‘Daniel’, Twitter
This ‘nice’ seeking-of-feedback came amidst Elon firing multiple senior engineers for criticizing his policies, and stating that ‘I have too much work on my plate, that is for sure’. Overall, it seems to fit in with Elon’s recent catering to the right.
So What?
What are the takeaways of all this?
Both Rahul and Daniel seem to harbor fascist beliefs or sympathies. More troubling, they seem to have successfully gained clout amongst Silicon Valley executives including Elon Musk. As said in the last post, this can be viewed as an extension of the preexisting links between Silicon Valley culture and fascism.
Many questions remain. How self-awarely is Elon mingling with far-right circles? What are Elon’s own political views? Is he a cryptofascist? Unclear.
Whatever the case, it seems that, unlike Twitter’s senior staff, fascism now has free access to Elon Musk’s ear.