Positive views of capitalism among American adults have hit a record low of 54%. Sixty-five percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction. And 54% of Americans say they have little to no confidence in the FBI to investigate Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination impartially. Support for this nation is eroding, and it’s being accelerated not just by the predictable agitators on the Left, but increasingly by figures on the horseshoe Right.
Tucker Carlson sits at the center of this grievance party phenomenon, where progressive socialists and former-right podcasters converge to paint a portrait of a broken America. As someone whose friends and colleagues are being pulled in by these takes, it’s time we acknowledge that &#8220;just asking questions&#8221; has gone too far, it&#8217;s tiring, and it&#8217;s doing real damage.
Carlson has been telling audiences that the American capitalist system is &#8220;completely doomed,&#8221; made up of a &#8220;corrupt oligarchy&#8221; that hoards wealth while destroying the working class. He says this with the same energy as Hasan Piker and Bernie Sanders. You can dress it up in flannel, a navy blazer, or a Twitch hoodie — the message is still a lie.
The U.S. unemployment rate sits at 4.3%. Prime-age labor force participation is at a multi-decade high. Young people are not “screwed,” they&#8217;re competing in the most dynamic economy on earth. Over the last century, free markets lifted America to the world&#8217;s largest GDP, providing the tax base for infrastructure, defense, and schools. Because companies compete for your money, they are forced to innovate. That competitive drive gives you the internet, the iPhone, and medical treatments keeping your grandparents alive. The American Dream exists because capitalism rewards labor, skill, and entrepreneurship, regardless of starting point.
Tucker even wants to thwart capitalism’s future. He told Ben Shapiro he would ban self-driving cars to protect Midwest truckers — a specious position that would cost the rest of us dearly. Autonomous vehicles are projected to cut logistics costs 30–50%, add upwards of $70 billion to the GDP, and create high-skilled jobs in software, fleet management, and data analytics. Tractors didn&#8217;t kill farming; they multiplied output, allowing farmers to do more with less, and freed labor for entirely new industries. Every major innovation follows that same pattern. Short-term disruption equals massive long-term gains for everyone. Tucker&#8217;s demagoguery doesn&#8217;t save families; it raises prices, slows growth, and guarantees the stagnation he claims to hate.
His position is not conservative. It is the exact mirror of the grievance-party Left.
Tucker’s worldview, that nefarious forces are conspiring against the American people, doesn’t stop at the economy. In his recent New York Times interview, he stated explicitly that President Donald Trump &#8220;had no choice&#8221; but to join Israel in striking Iran, calling him &#8220;more a hostage than a sovereign decision-maker.&#8221; He claims Israel, Jewish donors, and evangelical Christians control U.S. foreign policy. He said Citibank poses a bigger threat to Americans than Hamas and Hezbollah. When asked about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — a proven 1903 forgery by Russian secret police — he waved it off: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what that is. I&#8217;ve heard references to it. It&#8217;s like czarist forgery or something.&#8221;
There’s a lot to unpack there.
First of all, Trump’s decision to strike Iran was driven by the nuclear and ballistic missile threat that the Islamic regime posed and a decades-long urge to take out the world’s largest funder of terrorism, which had been bullying America and her allies for decades. That is America First. That is not some slavish loyalty to Tel Aviv. Trump defied neocons, pressured NATO, brokered the Abraham Accords without a single American troop, and has repeatedly pressured Netanyahu to stand down. He is not anyone&#8217;s puppet. He never has been.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbies like every other interest group, including Saudi Arabia, Big Tech, and public sector unions. There is no evidence of &#8220;control.&#8221; Tucker&#8217;s &#8220;spell&#8221; and &#8220;hostage&#8221; language is the same occult-tinged conspiracy he once mocked when it came from the Left.
As for the Protocols, that document was debunked in 1921 by The Times of London, weaponized by the Nazis to justify genocide, and has zero basis in reality. Tucker knows this. His &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221; is not intellectual humility. It is a deliberate wink. There are 15 million Jewish people worldwide, 6 million of whom live in America among 340 million citizens. Jewish Americans succeed through the same merit, education, and entrepreneurship available to everyone. If you want to talk about foreign influence operations, look at Qatar funding Ivy League campuses, Chinese influence in our social media ecosystem, and Shanghai billionaires funding anti-American protest movements. Those are documented. Those are real.
On Citibank being a threat to Americans…there was a Hezbollah-linked shooting in Michigan last month, and I use Capital One, pay my bills, and budget monthly. So no, Citibank isn’t keeping me up at night, and if it does for Tucker, I would suggest he lay off the ALP pouches.
Tucker&#8217;s final avenue for institutional sabotage is the FBI&#8217;s handling of Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination. Listen, friends, I understand why many of us are skeptical of the FBI. Both President Barack Obama and Joe Biden&#8217;s DOJ weaponized federal power against conservative leaders, grandmothers, and a sitting president in ways this country had never seen. That consequential distrust was justified, but here the goalposts have moved to an unrecognizable place: Trump is in office, Kash Patel is running the FBI, Dan Bongino walked out and told us everything, and somehow, even now, it&#8217;s all still a cover-up. At some point, the conspiracy has to end, and the evidence has to begin.
The fact is that Tyler Robinson’s guilt is overwhelming. Prosecutors have matched DNA on the rifle trigger, the towel wrapped around the bolt-action, and the spent casing to Robinson. ATF ballistics confirmed the weapon. Before the shooting, Robinson wrote a letter to his roommate stating he &#8220;had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I&#8217;m going to take it.&#8221; He posted confessions on Discord. Video placed him on the Utah Valley University campus hours before the shot. He surrendered voluntarily within 33 hours after his father tipped off authorities. The investigation wasn&#8217;t sabotaged; it was solved.
Carlson isn&#8217;t defending Kirk&#8217;s legacy. He&#8217;s exploiting a martyr&#8217;s death to erode trust in the institutions conservatives fought to reclaim.
Carlson has been transparent about where this is all heading. He wants a new political party: isolationist on foreign policy, restrictionist on immigration, and — crucially — interventionist in the economy. Ben Shapiro identified it correctly: that&#8217;s a National Socialist Party, and history has a unanimous verdict on that experiment.
Every government that has tried centrally managed economies — the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Venezuela, Cuba — followed the same arc. First, they promise protection from the chaos of the market. Then, they pick winners and losers. Next, shortages, stagnation, and repression follow, inevitably. The Soviet Union&#8217;s GDP per capita in 1990, after 70 years of central planning, was one-seventh of America&#8217;s. Venezuela, once the wealthiest country in Latin America, saw its economy collapse 75% between 2013 and 2021 after nationalizing industries and freezing prices. These aren&#8217;t outliers, they’re the rule. Carlson&#8217;s &#8220;carve-outs&#8221; for truckers and banks are just the polite, populist entry point to a far uglier destination.
Here is the uncomfortable truth about why we&#8217;re even having this conversation: America is so extraordinarily prosperous that we have the luxury of entertaining these ideas. Our poor have air conditioning. Our working class has smartphones. Our life expectancy, even accounting for recent dips, is historically high. When you&#8217;ve never known genuine scarcity — not theoretical scarcity, but Cuban-pharmacy-shelf scarcity — it becomes very easy to romanticize the idea that the system is rigged.
That’s precisely the audience Carlson is playing to: comfortable enough to be frustrated, not desperate enough to remember what actually fails.
Tucker Carlson is not a conservative. He&#8217;s not America First. He is Tucker Carlson First. He’s a man who has found that grievance sells, that &#8220;just asking questions&#8221; about Jewish cabals and FBI cover-ups generates more clicks than defending the free market ever will. His brand is built on the premise that America is broken. He loses his audience if America heals. That is not patriotism. That is a business model.
Reagan proved the alternative. Trump is proving it again. Free markets, applied honestly, have produced the greatest reduction in poverty in human history. They’ve lifted over a billion people out of it in the last three decades alone. Strong borders, enforced consistently, are not racist; they’re necessary. An America First foreign policy means striking Iran when our nation is threatened, not when Tel Aviv asks. Rejecting antisemitic conspiracy theories is not defending Israel — it&#8217;s defending logic, because 15 million people do not secretly run a planet of 8 billion. Sorry.
Tucker Carlson is a talented broadcaster who chose the wrong hill to die on. He can come back, but until he does, I would treat his content the way you&#8217;d treat a teenager having a tantrum: acknowledge the emotion, reject the premise, and don&#8217;t let her near the car keys.

Tucker Carlson, former FOX News host and current host of The Tucker Carlson Show

In Tucker Carlson’s World, It’s Not America First, It’s Tucker First

America First

DW Opinion

Social Media

Tucker Carlson

In her first public remarks since the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Erika Kirk delivered a sweeping and emotional response to critics. 
Accusing the media and broader cultural forces of fueling violence and distorting the truth, she blamed them for contributing to the climate that she says led to her husband’s death.
“Seems to me that nothing will ever be enough for the evil in this world. Our country has become unrecognizable,” Kirk said. “These people have perverted the truth to the point that they motivated the murder of my husband.”
Kirk framed her comments not only as a defense of herself and her late husband, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, but as a broader indictment of what she described as systemic “indoctrination” and dehumanization in American institutions, particularly media and education.
“They have continuously tried to assassinate the president, and anyone who stands in their way is labeled hateful, racist, fascist and every other trigger word that is grossly dishonest,” she said, referencing multiple attempts on the life of President Donald Trump.
Kirk pointed to the alleged background of the shooter as a school teacher as emblematic of a deeper problem. “He [Charlie] didn’t trust the radicalized liberal teachers, and this past Saturday, it was a school teacher, of all people … that attempted to change our history for the worse with bullets,” she said. Much of Kirk’s statement focused on her experience attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner itself, where she said she went in part to confront members of the press directly.
Kirk described the event as surreal, saying it was strange to see that “for one night, you’re able to put aside all of your differences for the sake of freedom of speech, and then by Monday morning, things will go back to being an absolute bloodbath.”
That sense of contradiction, she argued, was underscored by the chaos that erupted when gunfire broke out. “If you were in that room, you had no way of knowing what the status of the shooter was … it was just utter chaos,” Kirk said. “And so during an act of shooting, these journalists are using their phones to find moments to capture for clips.”
She accused members of the media of prioritizing content over safety. 
“They were so concerned about getting a video in a room with an active shooter that they could have accidentally … filmed themselves being shot,” she said. “Many of those people have become so desensitized that fight or flight became secondary to the opportunity of putting themselves into the story.” 
Kirk tied that moment to a broader critique of what she sees as a culture increasingly detached from basic human empathy, adding, “This culture we’re living in absorbs disagreement as a form of personal betrayal. It turns having an opposing viewpoint into a moral crime worthy of punishment.”
She argued that this environment leads to something far more dangerous: “If you strip someone of their humanity long enough, you will arrive at the chilling conclusion that they don’t deserve to exist at all.”
Kirk also addressed the personal toll of the past several months, saying she has been the subject of relentless attacks. “Every morning, I wake up to a new headline lying about me,” she said. “I have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/t-mobile-distances-itself-from-chief-switching-officer-druski-after-sketch-mocking-erika-kirk">comedians dressing up in whiteface</a>. I have people saying I’m not fit to be CEO, and I have Candace Owens claiming I murdered my husband.”
She reserved particular criticism for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, revisiting remarks he made following a recent assassination attempt. “That is what Jimmy Kimmel did to the First Lady,” Kirk said. “He said that she had the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jimmy-kimmel-hits-back-at-critics-over-melania-widow-joke-and-refuses-to-apologize?author=Amanda+Harding&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Jimmy+Kimmel+Hits+Back+At+Critics+Over+Melania+%E2%80%98Widow%E2%80%99+Joke+And+Refuses+To+Apologize">glow of an expected widow</a> … just 48 hours before that nightmare almost became a reality.”
Kimmel is a familiar foe for Kirk, as in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing, Kimmel drew outrage after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/an-affront-to-human-decency-kimmel-ripped-for-falsely-claiming-suspected-kirk-assassin-was-maga?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=%E2%80%98An+Affront+To+Human+Decency%E2%80%99%3A+Kimmel+Ripped+For+Falsely+Claiming+Suspected+Kirk+Assassin+Was+MAGA">attempting to link</a> the suspected assassin to the MAGA movement. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said during a monologue. 
He went further, mocking Trump’s public response to the killing: “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, okay.” Kimmel was suspended and later reinstated, giving a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jimmy-kimmel-returns-addresses-charlie-kirk-comments-in-teary-non-apology?author=Amanda+Harding&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Jimmy+Kimmel+Returns%2C+Addresses+Charlie+Kirk+Comments+In+Teary+Non-Apology">teary non-apology</a> on air for the rant.
Kimmel now insists his comment about Melania should be taken as “a very light roast joke” and “not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination.”
Melania, for her part, sharply rejected that explanation. “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country,” she wrote. “His monologue about my family isn’t comedy — his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.” She went further, calling the host “a coward” and urging ABC to act: “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.”
For Erika Kirk, these incidents are not isolated missteps but part of a broader pattern — one she argues reflects a media environment increasingly willing to blur the line between commentary and dehumanization. “There has never been a president who has faced this many assassination attempts in American history,” she said. “And after each one, the reaction from the far left has been at best a shrug and in some cases a sick disappointment that the shooter was unsuccessful.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://t.co/hJGlNvggZI">pic.twitter.com/hJGlNvggZI</a>
— Erika Kirk (@MrsErikaKirk) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrsErikaKirk/status/2049534498514383108?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
She also expressed growing distrust in institutions she once may have taken for granted. “I have to tell you, we have an even bigger problem when it comes to the systemic indoctrination and radicalization of our own citizens,” she said, again pointing to education as a key concern.
Despite the tone of frustration and anger, Kirk closed her remarks with a call for unity and a return to dialogue, something she said was central to her husband’s mission in founding Turning Point USA. “This is why my husband created Turning Point USA, so we could have civil discourse and debate and open dialogue,” she said. “Because when we stop talking to each other, bad things happen.” Quoting the book of Romans, she added: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
“I am choosing to fight for America, for my children, for your children, and for our humanity,” Kirk said. “By the grace of God, we will succeed, and America will remain what she was always called to be — a shining city on a hill.”

CBS News Town Hall With Erika Kirk

Erika Kirk Blasts Media, ‘Radicalization,’ In First Remarks Since WHCD Shooting

Erika Kirk

Media

Politics

The President has had enough. Many of us have had enough. Enough of the fake MAGA grifters who absurdly sought to hijack the political movement he created and, having failed miserably, now plot to destroy it. I don&#8217;t call them Woke Right because they are not Right, if by that we mean conservative. Indeed, their rantings and ravings, written screeds (to the extent they write), and platforming of preposterous and vile guests — when they&#8217;re not interviewing each other to reinforce their cackle-laced bigoted theories and crackpot conspiracies — are every bit as repulsive and foul as the racist and antisemitic poison spewed by the Klan and neo-Nazis. Hence, it&#8217;s more accurate to label them Woke Reich. Indeed, they have more in common with newly arrived Islamist insurgents, Trotskyite and Maoist college faculty, and present-day Democrat Party officialdom than anything akin to MAGA patriots.
We are familiar with some of these individuals from their past broadcasting careers, which typically ended in public humiliation and abrupt firings. Others were largely unknown comics, backbencher politicians, or basement-dwelling recluses. Most have no real accomplishments or proficiencies, shallow experiences, and depthless knowledge. There is simply nothing profound or compelling about the Woke Reich, especially the biggest, loudest, and nastiest among them. In fact, the most memorable part of their daily diatribes is the many applications of their favorite word: f*ck. They use it so often that it&#8217;s as if they have a medical condition, like an uncontrollable tic or disorder.  They use it as a noun, pronoun, verb, and adverb, all in one spittle-fuming daily rant.
Of course, there are those who try to deliver their sordid dingbat and Jewish conspiracy theories with high-toned, pseudo-sophistication, which can be extremely difficult when plagiarizing thoughts and ideas from Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And still others seek to present themselves as Socrates, always inquisitive and asking questions in the supposed pursuit of truth and facts when they are nothing more than thuggish, incoherent buffoons rewriting history and babbling incoherencies about the news, politics, or the culture, as if unwittingly imitating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin_Corey">Professor Irwin Corey</a>.  From time to time, they lurch into unhinged invectives about President Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Erika Kirk, or more rational and unneurotic broadcasters and podcasters.
You wouldn&#8217;t think that this cabal could draw a crowd, other than curious rubberneckers. Yet, they do, albeit inclusive of foreign government-generated bots and assorted overseas American-hating audiences. But there are also those who are attracted to the cult of personality created by some of these grifters. Indeed, a word has been invented to describe them: “influencers.” Who do they influence? Poll after poll suggests they don&#8217;t actually influence anybody. It appears to be a word generated by the liberal media to exploit and promote the worst of them as foils against the president, MAGA, and the GOP, intended to create the false impression that these reprobates and miscreants hold enormous power over all of them. They don&#8217;t.
For example, the Woke Reich podcasters almost uniformly oppose the president’s decision to preemptively attack the Iranian terrorist regime and eliminate its nuclear capabilities and 47-year history of murder and terrorism against our country. They are zealously opposed to virtually any American military action, stridently insisting on an unwavering adherence to an absolute pacifism and, hence, rote isolationism. America, they chant, is colonialist, imperialist, the geniture of immoral forever wars, and so forth, as if they are mouthpieces for Vladimir Putin or some other anti-American fascist or Marxist despot. They insist the president campaigned on that platform, ignoring his repeatedly stated &#8220;Peace Through Strength&#8221; foreign policy doctrine and first-term actions. Today, several of them have joined numerous congressional Democrats, leftist manipulators, and Islamist agitators in openly rooting for the genocidal Iranian regime against our own armed forces, despite the fact that it has killed and maimed thousands of Americans. And, of course, the Israelis — that is, the Jews — dragged us into this war, as they have manipulated all of our foreign policy decisions.
The internet junkies and podcast fanatics who do swallow this up, as opposed to the mere onlookers and oddly entertained, seem to think these are the only forms of communication worth digesting. For many, this is their entire communications diet. It&#8217;s not part of their world but all of it. They live in this bubble. All day long. Every day. It’s not a way to get information, communicate, and socialize. It’s a myopic existence. Cult followings develop. Many business models are developed around it. Many of the most successful are essentially grifters who are the best at manipulation — not persuasion — through communication techniques developed and honed by past propagandists. This is one reason foreign governments, particularly the most heinous governments, spend time and resources on the internet. There are no limits to what they can do. One of the best ways to demonstrate this is to look at the comments certain posts and posters attract. It doesn&#8217;t tell you everything, but it tells you a lot.
It also explains how some of the biggest podcasters are among the least accomplished outside the internet environment, and even more succeed in preaching like old-time bigots, antisemites, and demagogues. Draw a crowd by any means, grow it, and maintain it. For too many, the more repulsive and cancerous, the more successful.
The Woke Reich are the useful idiots of the Left, the Democrat Party, and even foreign adversaries. They have nothing in common with MAGA, the GOP, or conservatives.
***
Mark Levin is a legal and constitutional scholar, host of The Mark Levin Show on the radio and Life, Liberty &amp; Levin on the Fox News Channel, and the author of 10 New York Times bestselling books.

American Media Control

Mark Levin: Woke Right ‘Influencers’ Are Poisoning The Country With Anti-American Rhetoric

Conservatism

Influencers

Woke Right

In the immediate aftermath of the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — an incident that forced the evacuation of President Donald Trump and underscored once again the real-world consequences of escalated political rhetoric — a Wisconsin brewery owner and former Democratic candidate sparked outrage by publicly rooting for the president’s assassination.
Kirk Bangstad, owner of Minocqua Brewing Company and founder of the affiliated Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC, sparked outrage after posting online that he was disappointed Trump survived a recent attempt on his life.
“Well, we almost got #freebeerday,” Bangstad wrote. “Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle. We’ll never know. Regardless, we stand at the ready to pour free beer the day it happens.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
HOLY CR*P 🚨 This brewery called Minocqua Brewing Company in Wisconsin upset that Donald Trump didn’t get assassinated tonight is owned by Kirk Bangstad
Kirk Bangstad is a Democrat who ran for Wisconsin State Assembly
He founded a Democrat Super PAC that raised millions to… <a href="https://t.co/WFAZ2pZtkB">pic.twitter.com/WFAZ2pZtkB</a>
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) <a href="https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/2048251323263672650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 26, 2026</a></blockquote>
The remark was not an isolated one. Bangstad’s brewery has openly marketed merchandise tied to the idea of Trump’s death, including <a href="https://minocquamarketplace.com/products/is-he-dead-yet-unisex-t-shirt?_pos=1&amp;_sid=27c660dfd&amp;_ss=r">shirts</a> emblazoned with phrases like “Is he dead yet?” and <a href="https://minocquamarketplace.com/products/free-beer-day-yard-sign?_pos=4&amp;_sid=dd17ae6b5&amp;_ss=r">references</a> to a “free beer day” that would take effect if the president was assassinated. They also sell <a href="https://minocquamarketplace.com/products/trump-voodoo-doll?_pos=2&amp;_sid=27c660dfd&amp;_ss=r">voodoo dolls</a> with the faces of President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Stephen Miller, FBI Director Kash Patel, and an anonymous ICE agent. The brewery’s online store features political products such as “WOKE Coffee” and “Progressive Beer,” tying its commercial brand directly to left-wing activism.
Bangstad, a Democrat who previously ran for Wisconsin State Assembly, has long positioned himself as a political agitator. His Super PAC has raised millions of dollars to support liberal causes and Democratic candidates, while also launching a series of lawsuits targeting Republican policies and figures, including an effort to remove Trump from Wisconsin’s ballot.
But Bangstad’s rhetoric has often been just as controversial as his political efforts. According to <a href="https://www.wpr.org/news/minocqua-brewing-company-kirk-bangstad-oneida-county-controversy-donations-criminal-defamation">reporting</a> from Wisconsin Public Radio, he has been at the center of multiple defamation cases and legal disputes. In one incident, he posted a sexually explicit parody image targeting a local newspaper editor, prompting criminal defamation charges and significant personal distress for the victim. The editor reportedly told police she began sleeping with a knife near her bed after seeing the image.
Bangstad has also been found liable in a separate civil defamation case, resulting in a $750,000 judgment, later settled for $580,000, one of the largest such penalties in Wisconsin history.
Despite these legal setbacks, Bangstad has embraced a combative public persona. He describes himself as a “fighter” and frequently frames his disputes as battles for free speech and justice. 
Bangstad’s political organization operates in a similarly controversial way. <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?data_type=processed&amp;committee_id=C00765529&amp;recipient_name=NCPS&amp;recipient_name=effervescent+blue">Financial records</a> show that the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC has spent large sums on opaque or unexplained expenses. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been paid to little-known entities with no public presence, while former employees allege that PAC funds were used to pay brewery staff for non-political work.
Several former workers <a href="https://www.channel3000.com/news/investigates/former-employees-question-minocqua-brewing-super-pacs-use-of-donations/article_ab03c045-1864-4cad-b2e9-ad89bc111775.html">told local reporters</a> they were paid through the Super PAC despite performing routine bar duties. One employee described receiving checks labeled “organizing” even though no such activities were conducted.
While such practices may raise ethical questions, Super PACs operate under looser rules than traditional political campaigns. That regulatory gap has led some watchdogs to warn about so-called “scam PACs,” where political donations are redirected toward the organizers themselves rather than meaningful advocacy.
Bangstad has dismissed criticism of his spending and business practices, often responding aggressively to those who question him. Former employees and associates say he has used social media to target critics personally, including their families.
At the same time, Bangstad has cultivated a reputation among some leftwing activists as a provocative, anti-establishment figure. His newsletters reportedly reach tens of thousands of subscribers, and his brewery has become a destination for politically aligned customers.
The most recent episode underscores the increasingly volatile intersection of politics, activism, and commerce, where businesses double as ideological platforms and public figures blur the line between advocacy and provocation. Ironically then during his 2020 Assembly campaign, his website <a href="https://www.bangstadforwisconsin.com/">prominently declared</a>, “PUT THE HEALTH OF WISCONSINITES AHEAD OF PARTISANSHIP.” 
At a moment when law enforcement officials are still investigating the motive behind the White House incident, Bangstad’s response underscores a deeper problem in American politics: a culture in which outrage and extremism is tolerated, celebrated, branded, and monetized, no matter the human cost.

66204c21654c6.image.jpg

Dem-Owned Brewery Promising ‘Free Beer Day’ If Trump Is Murdered Whines About Failed Attack

assassination attempt

Donald Trump

A pregnant woman on TikTok posted a video of herself playing music next to her stomach so her unborn son would turn out gay.
The video, posted to X by independent journalist Cam Higby, shows user Katie Frank playing ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” with the caption: “POV you’re pregnant with a boy and gotta make sure he turns out a little gay.”
“No toxic masculinity allowed in this house,” the caption said.
“This is DISGUSTING,” Higby said in his post.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A mother posted on TikTok that she’s playing “gay” music next to her baby bump hoping that it will make her son gay.
The entire comment section is FLOODED with to-be mothers and mothers sharing techniques they used or are using to make their own kids gay.
This is DISGUSTING. <a href="https://t.co/HqpybMv469">pic.twitter.com/HqpybMv469</a>
— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) <a href="https://twitter.com/camhigby/status/2047704691992043876?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The video has 4.3 million views on TikTok and more than 950,000 likes.
The comments of the video, which Higby also posted, were filled with moms talking about wanting their sons to be gay.
“My son is four and exclusively listens to sabrina carpenter [sic]… hopes are VERY high,” one comment, which has more than 97,000 likes, said.
Another comment with more than 150,000 likes was from a mother celebrating her son wanting to go to theater camp.
“My son just officially came out a few months ago,” yet another comment said.
“I can confirm this worked for me,” a third commenter said. “Manifesting for you.”
“My son LOVES the new lady Gaga song. He’s on 1 1/2 but I have high hopes,” another stated.
Other comments were from self-described gay users thanking moms in the comments for being supportive.
“Didn’t start my transition until just recently because I never [sic] given the space to explore who I was as a child,” one commenter said. “Seeing the moms in the comment section who let their kids be who they are without judgement gives me a bit of hope.”
Another wrote, “As a gay man this comment section is making me tear up, thank you for being so loving and accepting Moms!”
The only negative comment from the woman&#8217;s video was one user who wrote, “Hope yall get better soon.”
Conservatives, on the other hand, shredded the video in Higby’s comments.
“But they say gay people are ‘marginalized and oppressed’…so they want their kids to be oppressed???” conservative commentator Riley Gaines posted.
“Not sure who needs to hear this, but this is child abuse,” conservative actor Kevin Sorbo wrote on X.
Others said listening to ABBA music was the wrong strategy.
“I grew up listening to air supply and ABBA, this technique doesn’t work,” Andrew Gruel posted in response to the video.

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A new poll finds that a plurality of Gen Z would hop in a time machine and leave their life behind as many young people grow disillusioned with modern technology and increasingly pessimistic about their economic futures.
If given the option, nearly half (47%) of 18-29-year-olds said they&#8217;d choose to live in the past, according to an <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28059030-genz-nbc-news-decision-desk-poll-march-2026-topline/">NBC News Decision Desk Poll</a>. One in three surveyed said they’d pick a time period less than 50 years ago, while another 14% would choose more than 50 years in the past. Only 38% of young people said they’d prefer to live in the present.
Members of this generation, born in 1997 or later, yearn for an era “right before social media and computers mediated life,” Clay Routledge, a nostalgia researcher and existential psychologist, said in an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/discomfort-modern-technology-gen-z-desire-live-past-poll-rcna340897">interview with NBC News</a>.
Ben Isaacs, a 20-year-old Colorado student, said he’d choose to live in the 1990s, arguing smartphones are eroding young people’s ability to connect face-to-face and live beyond “the realm of the phone,” according to NBC.
The survey captures Gen Z’s deepening dissatisfaction with the country’s trajectory, social cohesion, and their financial futures.
A whopping 80% of Gen Z—more than any other generation—said the United States is headed in the wrong direction, according to the NBC poll, and 62% expect their lives will be worse than those of previous generations.
Plus, a majority rated the economy—especially inflation and the cost of living—as their top political concerns.
Artificial intelligence, which is transforming the higher education landscape and entry-level job market, is adding to the uncertainty and economic anxiety. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/704087/college-students-weigh-impact-majors-careers.aspx">One in six college students</a> has changed their major because of AI, and 48% of Gen Z workers now say its negatives outweigh its benefits—an 11-point increase from 2025, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Unemployment among recent college graduates has risen since the pandemic, reaching 5.6% at the end of 2025 and extending well beyond the humanities, according to the <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:unemployment">Federal Reserve Bank of New York.</a> Computer engineering now has one of the <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:unemployment">highest unemployment rates</a> among college majors at 7.8%, a sharp reversal from 2021, when it ranked among the lowest at 3.2%.
Economic, cultural, and political turbulence is helping drive a cultural shift among some young people, especially men. Another Gallup poll released this month indicates that young men have become more religious in recent years.
<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708410/young-men-religious-young-women.aspx">The survey</a>, released April 16, finds that 42% of men ages 18–29 now say religion is “very important” in their lives, up sharply from 28% in 2022–2023. Monthly religious attendance among young men also rose to 40% from 33%, the highest level in more than a decade, surpassing women for the first time.
&#8220;When there’s a lot of disruptions — political divisiveness, or, you know, worries about AI or other kinds of societal, technological or social, cultural changes — people tend to become more nostalgic for the past to help them with the things that they’re worried about,” <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/discomfort-modern-technology-gen-z-desire-live-past-poll-rcna340897">Routledge told NBC</a>.

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An Indian scammer is bragging about making money by conning “super dumb” conservative men with AI-generated social media accounts.
The 22-year-old med school student, identified in an <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/">interview</a> with Wired by the pseudonym “Sam,” said he created a fictional character named &#8220;Emily Hart&#8221; to help pay for school. The sexy blonde AI-generated persona was active on Facebook, Instagram, and the OnlyFans competitor site Fanvue, which allows AI-generated content (OnlyFans does not).
Sam said he used Google&#8217;s Gemini chatbot to help identify a target audience, claiming it suggested the “MAGA/conservative niche” could be particularly lucrative because “the conservative audience (especially older men in the US) often has higher disposable income and is more loyal.”
He then tailored the account&#8217;s content accordingly. Photos depicted “Emily” as a nurse taking part in activities like “ice fishing, drinking Coors Light, and shooting off a few rounds at the rifle range,” Wired reported.
One caption on the account said, “If you want a reason to unfollow: Christ is king, abortion is murder, and all illegals must be deported,” while another said, “POV: You were assigned intelligent at birth, but you identify as liberal.”
Sam told Wired he didn’t expect much from the account, but it kept growing in popularity. “Every Reel I posted was getting 3 million views, 5 million views, 10 million views. The algorithm loved it,” he said. 
Sam also claimed that an “AI hot girl Nazi influencer” would “blow up” and “break all the records.” Meta commented in the article, saying Nazi content was flagged and removed from the platform. 
“I was basically doing nothing,“ the con artist said of Emily’s Fanvue account featuring nude photos generated with AI. “And it was just flooded with money.” 
Both the Facebook and Instagram accounts associated with &#8220;Emily Hart&#8221; have been taken down. Sam told Wired he has no regrets about what he did. 
“I don’t feel like I was scamming people,” he said, adding that the fans probably would have followed along even if they knew Emily wasn’t real because they might “like the sentiment of it.”

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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
It was a normal Saturday night in suburban Pennsylvania. Ashley Kavcak, a mom of four, was sitting on the couch mindlessly scrolling Instagram like she did all the time. But on this night, everything changed in an instant when a notification popped up saying her account had been disabled. 
The reason made her stomach drop. According to pop up, she had been banned for violating “Community Standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.”
&#8220;It made me want to throw up,&#8221; she told The Daily Wire in an interview. &#8220;I started immediately thinking, what did I do? Like oh my gosh, what could I have possibly liked or done that would make them think I&#8217;m something so horrible?&#8221;
Ashley had maintained a private Instagram account for 14 years, carefully curating who could see photos of her children because she, like so many moms, was creeped out by anonymous internet weirdos. She had roughly 200 followers mostly made up of family and close friends. 
She never found out what triggered the ban because Instagram doesn&#8217;t tell you.
There was an option to appeal the decision, but in her case that appeal came back denied in six minutes. &#8220;At this point I don&#8217;t think there are any humans working for Meta,&#8221; Ashley said.

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Ashley&#8217;s case is part of a disturbing pattern affecting thousands of Instagram users nationwide. It all blew up around May 2025 when Meta reportedly rolled out new AI moderation models, which immediately triggered clusters of Instagram accounts around the world being disabled overnight. Journalists began documenting how images of cars, family photos, and art were all being improperly flagged as child sexual exploitation.
CBS Philadelphia <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/facebook-instagram-accounts-wrongfully-suspended-for-child-exploitation/">reported</a> that nearly 50,000 Facebook and Instagram users have signed an online petition claiming wrongful bans, with many involving false accusations of child exploitation. NBC Connecticut <a href="https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/investigations/nbc-ct-responds/glastonbury-brothers-claim-accounts-wrongfully-shut-down-meta/3654056/">documented</a> 77 complaints across NBC stations in six months, with 17 specifically for &#8220;child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.&#8221;
In June 2025, a law firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, began seeking plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit against Meta for those who believe they were wrongfully banned. The question at the heart of these cases: What happens when automated systems make life-altering accusations with no visible human oversight?
For Ashley, the accusation carried particular irony. She had kept her account private from the beginning, specifically to protect her children from online dangers. She was selective about whom she accepted as followers. In recent years, she started asking her children&#8217;s permission before posting their photos.
&#8220;I was worried about predators,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Now, according to AI, I am the predator.&#8221;
When the ban notification appeared, Ashley couldn&#8217;t identify what might have triggered it. Her last post was from January 17 and included photos of her family walking on a snowy trail wearing winter coats and hats. She had recently messaged her teenage daughter about going to Hobby Lobby, which made her wonder if that innocent conversation had somehow been flagged.
&#8220;She has a teen account. I am a moderator for her account and am listed as her parent,&#8221; Ashley explained. &#8220;There shouldn&#8217;t be a reason I was flagged for that … but now I’m questioning everything.”
Instagram&#8217;s notification was frustratingly vague. &#8220;They say click here for more information, and it tells you this could be this or it could be that,&#8221; she said. The possibilities ranged from posting inappropriate content to arranging to meet a minor, none of which she had done.
The mistake sent her down the Reddit rabbit hole of researching what she could possibly do to get her account back. What she found was less than encouraging. According to other users who went through the same thing, the ban is tied to her IP address. So trying to sign up and restart with a different email address wouldn’t work. 
&#8220;My email, my phone, everything has a mark on it,&#8221; she says. Users report having to buy new phones and use different WiFi networks just to access Instagram again. &#8220;The length that people have to go just to get Instagram back, it&#8217;s not even worth it,&#8221; she said.
The whole experience brought to mind the relationship people have with social media and their dependence on it always being there. With the ban, Ashley lost access to nearly 2,000 photos spanning 14 years, many of which she no longer has saved anywhere else. &#8220;There&#8217;s definitely years and years of stuff just lost forever,&#8221; she said. 
Beyond the photos, she lost her primary means of staying connected with far-away family and friends, people like an out-of-state cousin who loved seeing pictures of the kids and high school friends who kept up with her family through her posts. &#8220;These people that I once talked to probably think I fell off the face of the earth,&#8221; Ashley said. &#8220;Or maybe they think I blocked or deleted them.&#8221;
She missed a friend&#8217;s pregnancy announcement. She had to text another friend to ask about a mutual friend’s surgery, which is all information that would have appeared in her feed. &#8220;Social media is where people do their updates. That&#8217;s where you share your life,&#8221; Ashley said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t even think about it.&#8221;
The experience revealed how much of modern life is built on these platforms. &#8220;You don&#8217;t realize how dependent you are on it until it&#8217;s gone,&#8221; she added.
The accusation itself also left lasting damage. Ashley immediately worried about the implications: &#8220;Do they report me? Am I in trouble with the public? Can I even volunteer at my kids&#8217; school anymore? Like am I on some kind of list now?&#8221;
Redditors said she probably wasn&#8217;t on a government watchlist, but she still felt weird about it. She found herself adding disclaimers when explaining to people what happened. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t want anybody to think that of me,&#8221; she says. &#8220;What if somebody thinks this is true?&#8221;
The false accusation of exploiting children after spending years protecting her kids from online dangers remains deeply painful. &#8220;That&#8217;s one of those things that I&#8217;m like, well, this is ironic,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I was private to block things like this from happening.&#8221;
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Ashley&#8217;s experience is the impossibility of reaching a human at Meta for help.
&#8220;There are no humans,&#8221; she said. “You can&#8217;t bypass the robots to get in touch with a human.&#8221;
&#8220;I feel like this is a deeper conversation too about that aspect … there&#8217;s no customer service anymore,&#8221; she went on. &#8220;There are no people to plead your case to.&#8221;
Meta did not return The Daily Wire’s multiple requests for comment. 
Ashley has sent countless emails to support addresses with no luck at all. &#8220;I&#8217;m emailing nobody,&#8221; she said. &#8220;At this point they&#8217;re probably scanning my emails and thinking I&#8217;m a robot because I just keep sending the same thing over and over.&#8221;
Meta&#8217;s approach to content moderation has created a flagging system that appears to be malfunctioning on a massive scale. The company&#8217;s operating model of &#8220;remove first, ask questions later — or never&#8221; means AI is likely making decisions with minimal human oversight, and appeals are mostly processed by bots, according to reports.
“Ordinary users are being hit with these bans completely out of nowhere — no prior warnings, no real reasoning, no chance to appeal effectively,” one Redditor <a href="https://sfist.com/2025/06/16/instagram-users-complain-of-mass-suspensions-of-accounts-likely-by-ai/">observed</a>. “And while losing photos, messages, and memories sucks — and it does — the larger issue is that Meta is slapping these life-altering accusations onto people’s digital identities without context or due process.&#8221;
The European Commission last year initiated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/24/instagram-facebook-breach-eu-law-content-flagging">formal proceedings</a> against Meta for potential violations of the Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to provide clear reasons for removals and offer the chance for users to appeal. 
But for users like Ashley, slow-moving regulatory action feels like it won’t help much. She just wants her account back, her photos restored, and some acknowledgment that what happened to her was wrong.
&#8220;What they&#8217;re doing is really affecting people negatively,&#8221; she said when asked what she would tell Meta if someone was listening. &#8220;We lost something very personal to us and to be accused … it feels like an invasion.&#8221;
The broader questions remain unanswered: How many others have been wrongly accused? Are any humans reviewing the appeals? Or do they just not care? For Ashley, it’s been a painful education in how fragile our digital lives are and how little power we have against the algorithms ruling the world of social media.

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Since the war between the United States and Iran began nearly two months ago, the conflict has extended beyond the battlefield and into social media feeds. Across X, several official Iranian embassy accounts have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers while adopting a striking new tactic: meme warfare. 
While there have long been accusations that Iran uses anonymous “bot” accounts to push propaganda, its new strategy with many of its official embassy accounts is far more blatant and transparent. Since early March, many of these accounts have shifted from sharing Iranian news or embassy-related information to posting aggregated headlines, AI-generated content, memes, snarky commentary, and personal attacks aimed at maximizing likes, reposts, and impressions. 
Without seeing the name of the account, one might assume it belongs to a Gen-Z partisan influencer rather than a government run by religious fundamentalists who are wary of the West.
Creative content includes everything from Lego-style war videos to Jeffrey Epstein cast as the devil manipulating Trump into war — pushed across more than 70 accounts reaching over 1.1 million followers.
They are leveraging the algorithm to attack the United States, President Donald Trump, and Israel — and doing so effectively.
One of the most inflammatory <a href="https://x.com/IRANinTJ/status/2044138040650805495">posts</a> came from the Iranian embassy in Tajikistan on Tuesday, which shared a video depicting Jesus killing President Trump by punching him into a fiery pit — racking up 11.9 million views and 78,000 likes. 
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called the effort “disgusting” and “detached from reality&#8221; Thursday in response to a question from The Daily Wire’s White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan.
“Iran says a lot of things in the propaganda space based on complete lies,&#8221; he said.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1078667" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-3.40.13-PM-543x576.png" alt="" width="543" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-3.40.13-PM-543x576.png 543w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-3.40.13-PM-283x300.png 283w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-3.40.13-PM-768x815.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-3.40.13-PM.png 1184w" sizes=" (max-width: 543px) 100vw, 543px" /></div>
What explains the shift in strategy? The answer lies in both technology and audience.
As Iranian citizens remain in a near-total internet blackout now nearing 50 days, these official government accounts moved in the opposite direction.
Before Operation Epic Fury, many of these Iranian embassy accounts posted sparingly, often fewer than 10 times a day. Then a switch flipped. Data from 69 of the accounts shows a clear surge to between 50 and 200 posts per day, flooding feeds with a nonstop stream of content, according to data compiled by <a class="GI370e" href="https://networkcontagion.us" data-ved="2ahUKEwiTqN3XlvGTAxUh3RoGHYqBLGUQgK4QegQIARAB" data-hveid="CAEQAQ" data-processed="true">Network Contagion Research Institute</a> and shared with The Daily Wire.
<div id="attachment_1078721" style="width: 718px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1078721" class="size-large wp-image-1078721" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/a57a8014-8cdd-4edf-a9e7-381077a2eed2-708x576.jpg" alt="" width="708" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/a57a8014-8cdd-4edf-a9e7-381077a2eed2-708x576.jpg 708w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/a57a8014-8cdd-4edf-a9e7-381077a2eed2-300x244.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/a57a8014-8cdd-4edf-a9e7-381077a2eed2-768x625.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/a57a8014-8cdd-4edf-a9e7-381077a2eed2.jpg 1432w" sizes=" (max-width: 708px) 100vw, 708px" />(NCRI)</div>
That output is powered in large part by the rapid rise of generative AI. Content that would have required significant time, money and production resources can now be created cheaply and almost instantly. It relies heavily on what has come to be known as “AI slop” — low-cost, mass-produced AI-generated content that prioritizes speed and virality over polish or accuracy.
Much of the slopaganda still carries a distinctly American tone, closely tracking U.S. political discourse and online trends. This includes the embassies weighing in on controversies within pro-Trump circles, including a recent episode in which President Trump shared — and later deleted — a post that depicted him as Jesus healing someone.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1078669" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-5.59.01-PM-515x576.png" alt="" width="515" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-5.59.01-PM-515x576.png 515w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-5.59.01-PM-268x300.png 268w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-5.59.01-PM-768x859.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-5.59.01-PM.png 1188w" sizes=" (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px" /></div>
The Iranian embassy in Tunis has also tapped into American military humor, <a href="https://x.com/IranembTun/status/2040324503352328320">posting</a> a meme built around the U.S. military’s own joking nickname for the Air Force — the “Chair Force” — showing American pilots ejecting from their jets. The timing was notable: it came shortly after a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran in early April.
These accounts produce a steady stream of posts calibrated to the rhythm of the American news cycle, echoing trending topics and even internal political debates. This results in them frequently going viral.
That pattern is borne out in the data: an analysis of 18,246 tweets shows a spike in mentions of the United States, Israel and President Trump beginning in early March, coinciding with the broader surge in posting activity and the start of the conflict.
<div id="attachment_1078785" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1078785" class="size-large wp-image-1078785" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/PHOTO-2026-04-15-22-35-47-1024x480.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="480" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/PHOTO-2026-04-15-22-35-47-1024x480.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/PHOTO-2026-04-15-22-35-47-300x141.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/PHOTO-2026-04-15-22-35-47-768x360.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/PHOTO-2026-04-15-22-35-47.jpg 1412w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />(NCRI)</div>
One of the Tajikistan-based account’s most <a href="https://x.com/IRANinTJ/status/2041615428884279572">viral posts</a> was a video using a popular meme format, depicting Israel slamming the United States’ face into a balloon meant to represent Iran — only for it to refuse to pop. Set to the Jewish song “Hava Nagila,” the clip drew roughly 3 million views.
Another <a href="https://x.com/IRANinTJ/status/2044111103609974849">post</a> from the Iranian embassy in Tajikistan reached more than a million viewers. It featured a crudely produced video depicting Jeffrey Epstein as the devil whispering in President Trump’s ear, urging him to attack podcasters Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Alex Jones and to start wars. The video concluded with a song by the American rapper Eminem.
One of the most prominent embassy accounts accused of being used by Iran’s Islamic regime is its mission to South Africa. With more than 168,000 followers, the account posts dozens of times a day and frequently goes viral, particularly when mocking President Trump.
In a Wednesday <a href="https://x.com/IraninSA/status/2044342594629517561">post</a>, the account shared an AI-generated image depicting Trump as a baby playing a video game titled “Hormuz Strait.”
“Not a game, kiddo,” the account wrote alongside the image.
In another post, the account shared an AI-generated video portraying Trump as an ’80s-style singer with a mullet, performing a parody of Desireless’s Voyage Voyage, renamed Blockade with the lyrics: “If you block me, then I block you.&#8221; The video received 8.9 million views, 13,000 reposts, and 56,000 likes.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1078675" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.02.32-PM-478x576.png" alt="" width="478" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.02.32-PM-478x576.png 478w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.02.32-PM-249x300.png 249w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.02.32-PM-768x925.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.02.32-PM.png 1176w" sizes=" (max-width: 478px) 100vw, 478px" /> The message was echoed by the Iranian consulate in Hyderabad, India, which shared a map of the Strait of Hormuz declaring, “Iran will block the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.&#8221; This post that drew over 750,000 views. The Iranian embassy in Bulgaria posted a cartoon of President Trump wedged in the Strait and shouting “I can’t breathe!” — <a href="https://x.com/iraninbulgaria/status/2040517584294982123?s=46&amp;t=ghpHusspWPjTMisXwpsMaA">a post</a> that drew roughly 2.7 million views.
<a href="https://x.com/IRANinZIMBABWE/status/2043804966767214890">A post</a> from the Iranian embassy in Zimbabwe portrayed President Trump as a pirate in a fictional &#8220;Pedoflix&#8221; movie poster titled “Pirates of the Hormuz,” set against burning ships and chaos at sea, alongside the caption: “But they’re still just wandering around in the Indian Ocean.” The post drew over 196,500 views.
Another post from the Iranian Embassy in South Africa <a href="https://x.com/IraninSA/status/2044475025328099409">comparing</a> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler received 75,000 views and 6,000 likes just under two hours after posting. It was joined with the caption: “Of course, this comparison is an insult to Hitler.”
The account also interacts with other X users in a highly unusual manner for a government-run account, at times sounding more like an edgy teenager in a YouTube comment section than a diplomatic mission. 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1078677" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.06.23-PM.png" alt="" width="1020" height="286" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.06.23-PM.png 1020w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.06.23-PM-300x84.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-15-at-6.06.23-PM-768x215.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px" /></div>
In a March <a href="https://x.com/IraninSA/status/2033210860076683407">post</a>, the official Iranian embassy account in South Africa responded to a moderately followed user — purporting to be a political analyst from the United Arab Emirates — who had directed profanity at Iran’s spokesperson, writing: “I humbly ask you to shut your filthy mouth, you who are filthier than a dog.”
The regime has been explicit about why it is weaponizing social media. In a post on <a href="https://x.com/IraninSA/status/2044003277218443671">Tuesday</a>, the Iranian embassy in South Africa described social media as one of several “fronts of resistance,” alongside the battlefield, the streets and negotiations. These accounts are not just a sideshow, but a coordinated front in the conflict using modern propaganda warfare.

Iranian AI posts

Slopaganda: Iran Weaponizes Brainrot To Attack The United States

Iran

Operation Epic Fury

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in active negotiations with several of the world’s largest advertising firms to resolve an investigation into whether the companies illegally coordinated boycotts against social media platforms, most notably Elon Musk’s X.
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According to a report from <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/ftc-in-settlement-talks-with-ad-companies-in-boycott-probe-99f687e9?mod=media_news_article_pos3">The Wall Street Journal</a>, the probe involves industry giants including WPP, Publicis Groupe, Dentsu, Havas, and Horizon Media. The inquiry, which began last year, centers on allegations that these firms engaged in anticompetitive behavior by collectively steering advertising dollars away from specific platforms based on political or ideological content.
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Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the advertising firms would commit to a &#8220;neutral&#8221; approach, agreeing not to direct client budgets away from media platforms solely because of the political viewpoints hosted on those sites. While the firms would be barred from coordinated efforts to withhold funds, the settlement would preserve the right of individual advertisers to make their own independent decisions about where their ads appear.
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The tension between advertisers and tech platforms is rooted in &#8220;brand safety&#8221;—a decade-old practice intended to prevent corporate ads from appearing alongside offensive or controversial content. However, the FTC is investigating whether this practice crossed the line into a violation of federal antitrust laws. The government is looking for evidence of whether these firms worked in tandem with advocacy groups to systematically starve certain platforms of revenue.
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The investigation gained momentum following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X) in 2022. Shortly after the takeover, many major brands paused their spending due to concerns over loosened content moderation. While X attempted to fight back through the legal system—suing an ad trade group and companies like Mars and CVS for an &#8220;illegal boycott&#8221;—those efforts have faced hurdles. Just last month, U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2026/03/26/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-from-elon-musks-x-accusing-advertisers-of-boycott-conspiracy/">dismissed</a> X’s antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers, ruling that the platform failed to prove an illegal conspiracy. The judge concluded that while advertisers collectively shifted budgets elsewhere, this reflected market choice rather than a violation of competition laws intended to restrain trade.
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A potential agreement with the FTC would likely mirror a deal struck last year with Omnicom Group, which barred the company from coordinating with others to boycott publishers based on ideological grounds. <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2510049omnicomdecisionorder.pdf">Key provisions</a> included that Omnicom could not agree with competitors to steer ad spend away from specific platforms due to their content’s politics; could not use or solicit shared lists that blackball publishers for ideological reasons; and that individual advertisers could still request custom exclusion lists for their own brands, but Omnicom could not share these lists with other clients.
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While talks are ongoing, a final deal is not guaranteed. If reached, the settlement would mark a significant intervention by the federal government into the relationship between the gatekeepers of digital advertising and the platforms that rely on their revenue to survive.
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forbidden sign on Open hand, NO Boycott sign painted

Who Controls Your Feed? Why The FTC’s Fight Against Ad Boycotts Matters For Your Online Freedom

Big Tech

boycott

Yesterday was Divine Mercy Sunday. This special day for Catholics around the world builds on the Gospel accounts of the resurrected Jesus&#8217;s appearances to his inner circle of followers. His most common and consistent message to his followers after rising from the dead?
“Peace be with you.”
Not long after Pope Leo closed the holy Easter Octave on this important liturgical day by leading an evening peace vigil at the Vatican, President Donald Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-pope-leo-xiv-02f6b4554ea4b83af02af15987ae1f2d">tore into the Holy Father on social media</a>, calling him “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible on foreign policy.”
In many ways, the post was classic Trump: the most powerful man in the world was not just writing with the random capitalizations and uppercase blocked phrases, but offering a series of unhinged attacks interspersed with increasingly questionable accounts of his own record. (How many times do we have to hear that someone who won the 2024 election by 1.5 percentage points did so “IN A LANDSLIDE”?)
Even as a Catholic who hated this post on multiple levels, parts of it do remind me of what makes Trump genuinely appealing to so many, even now. He refuses to play pietistic games and directly criticizes those whom he feels deserve it. He does so with a performative self-assuredness that, even as it misleads, makes easy, sweeping analysis more complicated because it often brushes up against something true. (He was not wrong to speculate that Pope Leo is probably not pope today if someone else were president.) Despite hurting so many people with his words and actions, he is also at times genuinely funny and engaging, not least because he puts his humanity on full display. His supporters (and sometimes even his detractors) love this humanity, especially when contrasted with the inauthentic, poll-tested, AI-scrubbed, robot-like affect we get from most other politicians.
But Trump’s humanity needs redemption. Badly.
Saying so isn’t a politically motivated attack; it is simply asserting the truth of Christianity. Human beings are born with fallen natures, with primordial wounds which play out in our desire to accumulate, to dominate, and to prove ourselves worthy of love and affection at the expense of others. Trump’s wounds in this regard are not different in kind from those writ large on the hearts of humanity.
But his wounds are on full display in front of the whole world. Not just on social media, but on the skyscrapers and other massive buildings with his name on them, in his renaming institutions after himself, and in his ferociously putting other people down in an attempt to build himself up. These are obviously not the marks of a man who is at peace with himself.
And then there was the assassin’s bullet in Pennsylvania, which came less than an inch from ending his life. At a <a href="https://cbn.com/news/us/it-changed-something-me-trump-admits-attempted-assassination-transformed-his-belief-god">recent prayer breakfast</a>, Trump said that this “changed something in me.” And in what appeared to be a moment of self-reflection on his own life, he told the crowd, “You can&#8217;t be happy without religion—without that belief.”
In speaking with those who know him and have discussed this topic with him, I’ve come to believe that we should take this shift in him seriously and not be cynical about it.
But we must also ask whether the person who said this believes it. Really, really believes it. In his bones. In the deepest part of who he is.
If Trump truly believes that faith in God is what brings one true happiness, would he be on social media launching unprecedented attacks on the pope? If the kid from Queens really knew that he is loved beyond measure—loved in this unimaginable way before he accomplished even one single thing in his life—would he still need to build himself up by tearing his perceived enemies new metaphorical holes?
We are now weeks away from celebrating the 250th anniversary of a founding document that declared we are created equal by God. Our equality and value come from one source and one source alone: the way God made us. Nothing about our position, age, size, level of dependence, IQ, net worth, families, health, successes, or failures—nothing—can add to or take away from the intrinsic dignity that makes all human beings equal. We are loved with the unconditional love of a heavenly father for a child. And in the president’s case, a son.
What would Trump’s life (including, but not at all limited to, his presidency) look like if he really believed that he was loved in this way? Unconditionally, warts and all? If he knew that if he sincerely asked for forgiveness, the Peace that Christ offers all of us (and in a special way at this time of year) could be his? Would he feel the need to portray himself as a Christ figure, King of Kings, and spiritual healer, as he did in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, over the weekend?
I feel comfortable saying that he wouldn’t spend time on social media attacking the pope and others like this. Reasonable people, including faithful Catholics, can and do disagree with the pope on prudential policy matters. But a man at peace doesn’t feel the need to humiliate someone else when offering a different point of view.
Perhaps the most important thing a Christian should do in this context is wish something for Donald Trump, the person, the child of God, quite apart from Donald Trump the politician and president.
Donald, you’ve been used by Christian leaders and others in the faith who wanted to advance their own agendas through you. I’m genuinely sorry that your primary exposure to the faith and to Christians over the last decade has been like this. I want to genuinely invite you to put aside the wisdom of the world, which has made you and so many others anxious and angry. I want to genuinely invite you to embrace the unimaginable good news of the Cross and Resurrection. It turns the wisdom of the world on its head: we lead authentically when we put others before ourselves; the proper way to respond to our enemies is with love; we receive in direct proportion to what we give away; and it is in dying to self that we find who we truly are.
The peace that comes from this divine wisdom is what you are missing, Donald. You know this on some level. It is the only thing that truly satisfies and makes one truly happy.
Mr. President, Peace be with you.
***
Charles Camosy is a professor of moral theology and bioethics at the Catholic University of America.

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