Police in Allen, TX were terse in their admission that the killer in the latest mass shooting, at an outlet mall outside of Dallas over the weekend, had white supremacist beliefs. It is unsurprising, of course, that police in a suburban county that voted for Donald Trump might be less than enthused talking about how the shooter embraced an ideology that's been fired up by the sympathies of the current GOP leader. Unsurprising, as well, that journalists who followed up found that the situation was far uglier than these law enforcement hints were allowing.
The excellent team of far-right investigators at NBC News got the grim details of what Mauricio Garcia, 33, was up to online. His social media profile was a smorgasbord of every flavor of fascist subgroup that dwelled in the bowels of the internet, and now on Elon Musk-led Twitter. Garcia was into neo-Nazi stuff. He repeated all the incel garbage. He posted photos of himself wearing a "Right Wing Death Squad" patch, which was worn by at least one of the Proud Boys who participated in the January 6 insurrection. He was a fan of Nick Fuentes, dining companion of Donald Trump and an admirer of Hitler.
But for a security guard who died trying to save people, the victims fit the profile of the kind of people now-fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson loved to demonize regularly with the "great replacement" conspiracy theory: Three members of a Korean-American family. An immigrant from India. Multiple Latino people, two of whom, at least, were little girls.
There's no timeline available of Garcia's radicalization process, and with the chaotic nature of the internet, it's unlikely there ever will be. So it's not entirely clear what his entry point into the world of fascist politics was. Still, the prominence of incel rhetoric in his feed is a crucial reminder of how central misogyny and male insecurity are to far-right recruitment strategies. When a man buys into the mythology of toxic masculinity but also feels he's falling short of his own macho ideals, he's the perfect mark for fascists online looking to grow their numbers.
Once these guys get caught in the misogynist online underworld, they also become easy marks for white supremacists and other neo-Nazi recruiters.
As I wrote about last year, the "masculinity" influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently under house arrest in Romania on rape charges, is the clearest example of how this works. He puts out videos and other social media that purport to offer advice to young men on how to get laid and make money. But really, it's a bait-and-switch. He doesn't offer substantive advice at all, but instead bamboozles young men into believing that the pathway to ladies-and-riches is being a misogynist jerk. Of course, the opposite is true, as both women and employers back away from guys who are parroting Tate's rhetoric. That works to Tate's benefit. By keeping his followers in a state of failure and insecurity, Tate can keep squeezing them for money on more useless "lessons." Standard cult practice, really.
Once these guys get caught in the misogynist online underworld, they also become easy marks for white supremacists and other neo-Nazi recruiters. Once you buy into the idea that men are the "real" oppressed class, it's really not much of a leap to start believing that white men are especially oppressed.
White supremacists also know how to appeal to the deep insecurities of men who are caught up in toxic masculinity. The world of white nationalism is awash in the imagery of male overcompensation: Heavy weaponry, tactical gear, ugly tattoos, fighting poses. It's all about appealing to men who are feeling inadequate and want to play at being tough guys.
Researchers looking at Garcia's social media postings have flagged the centrality of misogyny and masculine insecurity, which is typical enough on the far-right. The team at the Southern Poverty Law Center writes:
Garcia also posted lengthy misogynist tirades to his Odnoklassniki account, often using derogatory terms for women, including "sandwich maker" and "baby factory," along with more typical slurs. He reposted content from a forum popular among incels using the words "foid" and "Stacy," terms incels use to dehumanize and stereotype women. One post that appears to be written by Garcia was titled "Nymphet," a term coined by Vladimir Nabokov in his novel Lolita and favored by his pedophile protagonist to sexualize young girls.
Garcia's "Nymphet" post begins, "I hate women. Their [sic] I've said it."
Gross, but typical for incels or other men who have been soaking in "men's rights" rhetoric. As with white supremacist chatter online, both the frequency and ugliness of the rhetoric have grown worse in the Trump era, because they're getting so much validation from sources like Fox News and GOP leadership. When Texas' Republican governor Greg Abbott ships immigrants out of the state to "dump" them like they're trash, that emboldens white supremacists to double down on their hateful language. When Trump insults the various women who have accused him of sexual abuse by saying they're not sexy enough to rape, that's a go sign for online misogynists to ratchet up their own nasty rhetoric.
Once you buy into the idea that men are the "real" oppressed class, it's really not much of a leap to start believing that white men are especially oppressed.
Garcia's last name and apparent ethnic identity have been the source of a lot of confusion online about how it is that he was a white supremacist. Much of that "confusion" is bad faith trolling by other racists, who are trying to muddy the waters about the direct line from their ideas to mass murder. But there are some well-meaning folks who get legitimately confused. Historian Kathleen Belew, author of "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America," tried to clear up some of this confusion on Twitter, by pointing out that many Latinos consider themselves "white" and white supremacists opportunistically recruit anyone they can, even those who are considered "people of color."
While all of this is complex, the goals and targets of the white power and militant right social movement is dead simple: they're interested in hurting vulnerable communities, antisemitism, anti-Islam, anti-trans, misogynist violence (12)
— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) May 8, 2023
The misogyny angle to this should also shed some light on how this works.
It's not for nothing that some of the most prominent MAGA extremists that are Latino or Black found their entry point into fascism through misogyny. Enrique Tarrio, who was recently convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 insurrection, led the Proud Boys, a group whose name and primary recruiting strategies center around pretending men are an oppressed group. Nick Fuentes of America First, who the shooter was a big fan of, also explicitly targets very young virginal men by appealing to their sexual insecurities. Most famously, rapper Kanye West went off the deep end and started hanging out with overt white nationalists only after he had fully immersed himself in the world of "men's rights," in response to his marriage to celebrity influencer Kim Kardashian falling apart.
The various warnings of an impending civil war miss the point. As Salon's Chauncey DeVega argues, "America is actually in a slow civil war."
For years, there's been an urge in the mainstream media to treat various right-wing ideologies as separate and distinct buckets of thought: the anti-abortion people. Or the racists. Or the anti-LGBTQ people. Or the "men's rights" people. Or the people who want the Bible taught in biology classrooms. But in truth, these groups have always been intertwined and overlapping, to the point where many of these distinctions are without difference. Turns out the Christian right isn't just sexist and homophobic, but also incredibly racist. Turns out that white supremacists also have rigid views about "traditional" gender roles. The enemy of fascism is never just one group of marginalized people, but anyone who steps outside of their strict ideas about racial, ethnic, religious, and gender hierarchy.
