A notorious white nationalist used the ongoing natural disaster in North Carolina last week to fundraise and push anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiment on Elon Musk’s X and the long-running American Renaissance podcast.
Michael J. Thompson, who has operated online under the aliases “Paul Kersey” and “Because we live here” for more than a decade, claimed in posts on X (formerly Twitter) that he had been to the area affected by Hurricane Helene as a volunteer, and made false or unverified claims about “illegal aliens showing up” for aid, and that volunteers were “all white people.”
Thompson’s apparent travel to the disaster area comes amid broad efforts by right-wing and far-right actors to exploit the tragedy Hurricane Helene wrought on Appalachia by whipping up anti-government, anti-immigrant, and anti-Black sentiment.
The Daily Dot emailed Thompson for comment, but received no response.
In posts on X over two days last week, Thompson presented ostensible reports on his observations in Western North Carolina. He falsely presented the disaster as mainly affecting white people, who had been abandoned by government agencies.
On Oct. 10, Thompson posted, “Really emotional day helping the forgotten white people of Appalachia here in Western North Carolina.”
He added, “One family broke down crying telling the story of how the flood waters destroyed their neighbors’ home and it crashed into another, with two people dying.”
The post concluded with a claim he repeated over the length of his purported stay: “FEMA nowhere.”
Thompson repeatedly claimed that only white people were volunteering to help others in the disaster-affected areas.
In a post on Wednesday, he claimed “all white people volunteering.” On Thursday he wrote “99% of the volunteers are white.”
Thompson also repeatedly praised X’s owner, Elon Musk, presenting his efforts as superior to the federal government’s.
On Wednesday, he wrote, “Area I’m in volunteering in NC had no cell service for two weeks and Starlink was just set up. Perfect 5G.” The post added, “What’s the point of the Federal Government save to make life worse for White Americans?”
The following day, Thompson posted, “The work Elon Musk is doing in Western North Carolina is extraordinary. His team is supplying a group of incredible volunteers at Harley Davidson OP Center that has saved countless lives in the face of government failure… deliberate failure.”
Musk is something of a hero to many white nationalists, who love that white nationalism has flourished on X since he bought the platform, unbanned many accounts, and allowed white nationalist content to flourish there. He’s also personally made anti-Semitic posts.
Thompson’s main concern in posting, however, appeared to be to use the disaster to promote white nationalist talking points.
On Wednesday he wrote, “Shocking thing about volunteering in NC is all the illegal aliens showing up at the church to get supplies. None speak English. All with so many kids…”
Not long before leaving, Thompson offered his “main observation” from the trip: that the time was ripe for authoritarian white nationalism.
He wrote, “We could retake America so easily, round up EVERY illegal aliens with precision and, yes, imprison Leftists who utilize 3rd world immigration as a weapon against the American people,” adding, “It’s about the will.”
In that post Thompson claimed that the volunteers on site were “almost all-white” and that they “want their country back and to help their people—our people—impacted by the storm.”
Throughout the posts, Thompson included photographs purporting to show locations he was visiting. The Daily Dot was not able to precisely locate where the photos were taken, and there was no way to corroborate either his travel to the region or his claims that he had been part of the volunteer efforts. Thompson did not respond to questions sent via email.
Thompson also wrote about the trip on his blog, SBPDL (formerly titled “Stuff Black People Don’t Like”) which is hosted at the Unz Review, a website the Anti-Defamation League calls “a platform for antisemites and white supremacists.”
In that blog he linked to his posts on X, and added an appeal: “If you feel compelled, make a donation here and I’ll make sure it gets to the right group helping with debris removal (homes are gone), supplies, and with also helping people find new homes.” He offered readers an email address to contact for donation details, and there was no indication on the blog or elsewhere as to where the money would go, or how much he had so far collected.
Thompson has been a significant player in mainstreaming white nationalist ideas, and for many years acted as a bridge between white nationalism and mainstream conservatism by surreptitiously maintaining a foot in both worlds.
In 2020, reporting at Right Wing Watch, the Guardian and the Angry White Men website identified Thompson as the man behind the Paul Kersey persona. The reporting showed how he had worked under his own name at conservative movement institutions and right-wing media outlets while churning out white nationalist propaganda under his pseudonym at a blog and at far-right websites.
In 2010, he began writing at SBPDL as Paul Kersey while serving on the Campus Services Program at the Leadership Institute, a rightwing nonprofit that acts as a recruiting arm of the conservative movement, and publishes Campus Reform, a publication that highlights purported liberal bias on college campuses.
From as early as Jan. 29, 2012 to as late as Nov. 18, 2018, according to archived mastheads, he worked in the marketing department for the conspiracy-minded WorldNetDaily website, which has since rebranded as WND. Right Wing Watch reports he was simultaneously “moonlighting under a pseudonym at racist and white nationalist publications,” including VDARE and American Renaissance. VDARE’s founder, Peter Brimelow, has described the site as a forum to criticize the nation’s immigration system and said that, rather than a white nationalist, he’s a civic nationalist who supports “an ethnostate for whites.”
For years, along with American Renaissance founder and fellow white nationalist Jared Taylor, Thompson has co-hosted the organization’s podcast, which is focused on pushing white nationalist narratives about relationships between race, intelligence, and crime.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), American Renaissance is a hate group “that promotes pseudo-scientific studies and research that purport to show the inferiority of blacks to whites.” Per the SPLC, the group “presents itself as a forum for open-minded thinkers not afraid to take on the racial taboos of the time.”
In the last year, the white nationalist publishing house Antelope Hill has repackaged and put out two collections of Kersey’s writings. In 2022, the SPLC identified Vincent Cucchiara, Sarah Cucchiara, and Dmitri Loutsik as the people behind that publisher, which has links to the far-right National Justice Party.
The disaster in Appalachia has attracted a swarm of rightwing and far-right influencers who have opportunistically linked the events to their own political narratives. Last weekend, volunteers in the area reported witnessing an armed group of people confronting and threatening FEMA workers.
They have contributed to a torrent of disinformation about the FEMA response that the agency has been forced to address. These include former President Donald Trump’s claims that the agency had spent its money on “illegal immigrants,” claims the agency was seizing private property, and that locals were engaged in armed combat with agency employees.
Fueled by the flood of disinformation, on Monday, William Parsons, 44, of Bostic, North Carolina was arrested and charged with going armed to threaten the public, specifically FEMA workers. Parsons reportedly said that he believed that FEMA was withholding aid from residents. Upon arrival, he purportedly realized that the situation was different and instead volunteered all day. He insists he was merely exerting his Second Amendment rights.
In Carter County, Tennessee, an armed group reportedly confronted FEMA and volunteer aid workers last Saturday.
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