Substack Does(n't) Have a Nazi Problem?

Look What the Katz Dragged In

"Those who appear the most sanctified are the worst" -Elizabeth I

Some time ago, Substack was aflame with drama relating to a particular circumstance. While some are sick of the drama, others are hunting through the wilds of Twitter for Nazis with as much fervor as the Spainards did the Huguenots. Myself however, debated whether or not to jump into the fray after the smoke seemed to clear. The war of freedom however is a never ending one, and this battle is but one in many to come. So, I decided to write this for those that come after and wonder “Why did you side with the Nazis”?

Plainly spoken, dear grandchildren a hundred years from now, I didn’t. Ms. Elle Griffin put forth a phenomenal argument for free speech in light of Mr. Jonathan M. Katz’s article called Substack Has a Nazi Problem. No dear child, I looked to Voltaire, an atheist with whom I’d likely disagree with on many things but as his saying goes: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” A purely ideological one but not without reason.

[Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s] book described an incident involving the French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius who in 1758 published a controversial work titled “De l’esprit” (“On the Mind”). The book was condemned in the Parlement of Paris and by the Collège de Sorbonne. Voltaire [aka François-Marie Arouet] was unimpressed with the text, but he considered the attacks unjustified. After Voltaire learned that the book by Helvétius had been publicly incinerated he reacted as follows according to Hall:^[1]

‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that!

‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now. -Quote Investigator

However, there is one area me and Mr. Katz agree: Nazis are bad. No, they are the scum of the earth. Where we disagree is how to deal with them. I can see the logic with nipping it in the bud or popping a zit before it becomes a boil, but to treat humans like that makes one no better than the evils he fights. This then devolves into nothing more than “The Nazi Question”.

Indeed, I even wrote an article on Medium and here titled “Medium Is Communist” because I was mad that Medium was promoting atrocious views. Namely, that the “Male Loneliness Epidemic is a Myth". So, I understand completely the emotion of, “Substack should do something!” because I was saying that Medium should do something (or do less of something). More like I wish they were more even handed. If they promoted 50/50 both ways or heck, 25/25/25/25 for left, right, center-left, and center-right or something I would be exceedingly happy. However, I don’t run Medium but I also never asked for the demonetization or censor of the offending author. My grievance was with Medium the company for maybe not giving the mic around. So far to my knowledge, Substack does that just right.

However, Katz would seem to disagree, and this little disagreement has spawned stories on the NYT and other places so lets get started with his claims.

An informal search of the Substack website and of extremist Telegram channels that circulate Substack posts turns up scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters on Substack—many of them apparently started in the past year. (Bold added by me.)

Many readers attempted “an informal search of the Substack website” and came forth with nothing. I myself only saw one come crawling out from the depths and they ran for the hills at the first sign of light. In all actuality, many of the people he accuses of being Nazis aren’t Nazis at all. As we are about to see, the biggest prize horse was Richard Spencer and others involved with the Unite the Right Charlottesville debacle. Spencer, Christopher Cantwell (who defends himself here), and I think one or two more of those “gentlemen” will show up. For anyone who may not know, or far in the future unaware, this event was a racially charged protest where Spencer and co. regularly chanted something akin to “the Jews won’t replace us” and it all ultimately ended with intentional vehicular homicide. The Left alleges that this slogan was part of the “great replacement conspiracy theory”… despite them then writing op-eds titled “We Can Replace Them” and Time Magazine saying: It’s become something of a cliché in Washington for Democratic strategists to assert that “demographics are destiny.” What they mean is that the diversifying electorate—and the shrinking role of white voters—will render Republicans incapable of sustaining power for much longer.

“Several, including Spencer’s, sport official Substack “bestseller” badges, indicating that they have at a minimum hundreds of paying subscribers. A subscription to the newsletter that Spencer edits and writes for costs $9 a month or $90 a year, which suggests that he and his co-writers are grossing at least $9,000 a year and potentially many times that. Substack, which takes a 10 percent cut of subscription revenue, makes money when readers pay for Nazi newsletters.” (Bold added by me.)

*Mr. Katz added later in a Note claiming that Spencer alone could be making between 9k-108k. It is unclear to me if the publication he shares with gets a cut or how much Uncle Sam gets back on a 10-99. “Many of the blogs I found have tens of thousands of readers.” (Katz) As we shall see, “many” don’t.

Richard B. Spencer, a public Joe Biden voter in 2020, does indeed have an orange checkmark signifying that he has a few hundred paid subscribers. His publication has three writers so supposing all the cuts betwixt them are equal, their hypothetical net pay from their work (after the 10% and Stripe’s 3.9% rounded up to 5 in my math) is a little over 7,500 dollars a year. Divided by 3, that’s 2,500 a year. Maybe a car payment for a rusty Model T under a three-year finance plan. Especially with Bidenomics. That’s probably with me getting the taxes wrong as well. Katz with his 13k subscribers could teach how much one nets from Substack better than myself.

Their newsletter claims to be dedicated to “Apolloism”; a philosophy purported by Friedrich Nietzsche. His excerpt from Wikipedia might suggest that Spencer could be piggy backing off of Nietzsche’s sister’s Nazi beliefs. Two posts that might suggest this are the pods talking about Nietzsche’s opinion on the Jews and Spencer’s opinions about the recent decision of congress to deem Anti-Zionism as antisemitism, but I will leave that to you, the reader, to decide.

“After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R. J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, poetry, politics, and popular culture.” -wikipedia, accessed 12/23/23

The second named Stack is Andkon’s Reich where a “recent post features a racist caricature of a Chinese person.” This “recent” post was all the way back in February 2023 here. Next is the Tribalist & White Papers (1k subscribers) which are indeed White-Nationalist stacks. Cornbread the author of the Tribalist has a whopping following of: 2 people (probably his alt and Mr. Katz). Andkon’s Reich only has 100. Far from any actual threat. Samara, a newb to Substack grew 100+ in two days for his independent reporting of just this drama here.

Several are run by nationally prominent white nationalists; at least four are run by organizers of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—including the rally’s most notorious organizer, Richard Spencer.

Katz then blithely states: “Other Substacks amplify anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” conveniently ignoring the conspiracy theories prompted by those of whom he is politically aligned with. For example, Gov. Pat Quinn once tweeted comparing Black Republicans to Jewish Nazis: “As a general rule, individuals will sell out the interests of their groups in return for personal benefit,” Steinberg said. “It isn’t just a black thing. Jews collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, helping them to round up their own people in the hopes they’d be the last to go.” As well as the “callous” response to Oct. 7th from many Democrats. More on that at the end.

Katz mentions a Rolling Stone article in August about PINE aka The People’s Initiative. Rolling Stone goes on to explain that this is a front for NSC-131 (or Nationalist Social Club-131). This “giant front” consists of a single post with less than 10 comments at the time of this writing since it’s publishing in July 2023. Another mentioned post from a different newsletter, “Vaccines Are Jew Witchcraftery” was not able to be found. The newsletter however was found here named Turning Point Stocks which talks about stocks and the Jewish Question rather openly. He doesn’t even have 50 if 30, subs despite several articles.

“Patrick Casey, a leader of Identity Evropa, a defunct neo-Nazi group, had been banned from Twitter and TikTok and suspended from YouTube after running afoul of those platforms’ terms of service. (Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, subsequently announced an “amnesty” that restored Casey’s account, among others.) Perhaps most damagingly to a content creator, Stripe had prohibited Casey from using its services.” (Bold added by me.)

Patrick Casey, has recently been a commentator on the recent Israel v Hamas conflict as evidenced by his recent articles at least. His organization Identity Evropa was disbanded 3-years ago, yet Mr. Katz claims Casey promotes fellow Nazis in his recommendations page. If this was so, then the Orthodox Christian “World War Now”, the cultural commentator Morgoth’s Review spreading word of the plight of women in today’s economy, The Contra, the nerdy retro-tech-oriented Default Wisdom, the Orthodox Christian historian Prudent Perceptions, John David Erbert’s News and Views, and The Forbidden Texts are all Nazis. Looking through most of their work, they are not.

“Casey’s newsletter remains active; through Substack’s recommendations feature, he promotes seven other white-nationalist and extremist publications, one of which has a Substack “bestseller” badge.” A/N: Two of them do, but none of them are flaming Nazis.

When confronted with many Substackers saying there were little to no Nazis on Substack he released a graphic as follows.

(*Photo provided by Ian Nolan, he also addressed this issue here. Used with permission. Looking closely, one can notice that The Tribalist’s page is blurred out. Alkon’s Reich is slightly obscured in the top right corner. Center left is an article by Barbaric Disciple, from a manliness stack. SurrealPolitiks in the center is by Christopher Cantwell that I mentioned earlier.)

Katz claims that, “When tech platforms are quick to banish posters, partisans of all stripes have an incentive to accuse their opponents of being extremists in an effort to silence them. But when platforms are too permissive, they risk being overrun by bigots, harassers, and other bad-faith actors who drive away other users, as evidenced by the rapid erosion of Twitter, now X, under Musk.” All the while ignoring the downfall of Disney, the flop of Threads and proverbial kamikaze dive of mainstream media. He even came to Substack because of the destruction of corporate media but still remains blind as to why that it’s collapsing in on itself.

I started my newsletter in 2019, at a time when the platform was known for hosting freelance journalists and bloggers, many on the left and center-left, attracted by the promise of a new way to scrape together a living amid the collapse of the journalism industry. (Bold added by me.)

What didn’t make the cut is the timing of that turn. The arrival of the contrarians, several of whom got hefty advances to join the site, coincided with two big investment rounds spearheaded by tech billionaire and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.

What also didn’t make the cut were two points presented in his free Substack version about Marc Andreessen’s investments and N.S. Lyons about a “paean” to Carl Schmitt. He even smeared Lyons’ “NS” as shorthand for “National Socialist”. Only Mr. Katz’s knows why his Atlantic version seemed to remove these portions. Looking into this let me try to break down what I see. Andreessen Horowitz the venture capital firm put at least 70 million dollars into Substack recently. He is also alleged to be bankrolling Richard Hanania. More material on him and our other (usually hard left) reptilian overlords here from Vanity Fair if you wish, linked from the original Katz Substack post.

“Andreessen Horowitz has bankrolled many prominent tech businesses and become a kingmaker in Silicon Valley, with Airbnb, Coinbase, Facebook and Instacart among the marquee names in its portfolio. The firm, co-founded by billionaires Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, announced on Thursday a foray into political financing--though many details including the extent of their would-be donations and targets remain unclear. […] Andreessen Horowitz's announcement echoes a screed written by Andreessen in October called "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto." That piece rails against the firm's various "enemies," among which are "statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism," the billionaire financier wrote. Andreessen has been cited as a proponent of a newish ideological fad in Silicon Valley circles called "effective accelerationism," which advocates for the rapid development of bleeding edge tech and strives to reclaim the industry's progressive image in the face of widespread condemnation after years of scandal related to privacy and other issues.” -Inc.

N.S. Lyons wrote a biographical piece observing Carl Schmitt here. Omitted from the article in “totally honest fashion” was how Lyons insinuated that people today was pursuing similar things to Schmitt. One such excerpt is here:

In our own time, meanwhile, we might consider again the potential reasons for why Schmitt has returned to the forefront of debate at this particular moment in time. For ours is a moment yet unfolding in the wake that traumatic, revolutionary, never truly reckoned with year of 2020, when the United States witnessed some of the most widespread and destructive political riots in its history. Riots that, citizens across the country observed with shock, the forces of order were not merely unable to suppress, but actively forbidden from suppressing – by a state that in large part openly proclaimed its allegiance to the insurrectionary faction bent on intimidation and destruction. Though certainly not as deadly as the events witnessed by Schmitt, this revelatory moment, in which the state betrayed its most fundamental obligation to its citizens, was perhaps sufficient for many to begin calling into question all those “legitimate and normative illusions with which men like to deceive themselves regarding political realities.” -N.S. Lyons (used with permission.)

Hitler comparisons are tossed about by writers all the time, especially at the Atlantic. So, the hypocrisy stinks to put it mildly and in a family friendly way.

Concerning some of his sources, Katz seems to use the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ADL quite a bit. This is despite SPLC’s recent history with one of their employee’s being arrested for domestic terror charges or the ADL’s long history of persecuting POC's. Hell, perhaps the tech bros part was taken out because Ms. Jobs (owner of the Emerson Collective and by extension the Atlantic) didn’t want a libel suit. I suppose I could forgive the SPLC though, on the condition that the Biden DOJ drops the charges against journalist Steve Baker going on as of this writing.

Mr. Katz also has a bit of a logic problem. His comments concerning the recent debacle about the Antisemitic Uni Presidents are “interesting”. The Left likes to do this a lot when the adopt a word used in prior movements for totally different things like “woke” from the 1930’s. For example, “intifada” once had a peaceful meaning in the 60’s, therefore it is not genocidal like the 2000’s intifada according to Katz.

If that logic is correct, then his whole Nazi-hating worldview is moot. For before 1920, the swastika was a sign of good health and fertility. Not unlike the Easter Bunny or the Rainbow. What skinhead told me this? The Encyclopedia Britannica. So perhaps his next campaign can be destroying all the facts in encyclopedias now. either way, I suppose I wish him the best and hopefully repentance.

Oh yeah, and these guys use swastikas too:

Shoutouts & Conclusion

Gotta thank Phisto for grabbing some of those links on the old edition before Katz went Atlantic only. Has a bit of a potty mouth but would summon the inner Voltaire like he was possessed if he thinks the censors are coming.

Dear SAN: Did You Even Read It?

Thank you, Ian, for allowing me to use your work. Luckily, I didn’t need a lot of it. If you get the time, reading his takes on this recent issue is a must to get a great picture of what was going down.

The Atlantic Has a Fallacy Problem: A Response to Jonathan Katz.

The Atlantic Has a Sloppiness Problem: A Response to Jonathan Katz, part 2.

Holly was a real trooper and kept up with their sides constantly changing demands in her notes.

Popper's "Paradox of Tolerance", part 1

The myth and the legend, Elle Griffin was at the spearhead of this battle and her article is still the top in fiction last I checked. In my feed since following her there were some that shamed her for her stance and then others wanting to follow everyone on the list. So if you could make mine a little bigger like John Hancock’s signature like I requested (you don’t have to if you don’t want to) that’d be awesome!

Substack shouldn’t decide what we read

Katz probably got his idea from Rolling Stone after they busted GiveSendGo with Neo-Nazis running around their site but who knows.

Verdict:

Richard Spencer, disavowed Nazi in support of Biden now

Addkon’s Reich, is a Nazi loser

The Tribalist, is even more of a Nazi loser

The White-Papers, are slightly more successful losers

PINE, NAZI LOSERS

Turning Point Stocks, NAZI SUPER LOSERS

Patrick Casey, unsure

World War Now, Innocent

Morgoth’s Review, Innocent

Contra, I saw an article on Vivek’s segregation plan and reached out for comment (could be out for the holidays), Innocent until proven guilty

Default Wisdom, innocent

Prudent Perceptions, innocent

John David Erbert’s News and Views, innocent

The Forbidden Texts, innocent

RESAVAGER (aka Barbaric Disciple), innocent proven by Ian

SurrealPolitiks, innocent proven by Ian

Marc Andreessen, reptilian (jkjk)

N.S. Lyons, innocent

Steve Baker, unrelated but innocent

Mr. Katz? You led me to 5-8 Nazi’s while claiming there was “scores” and “at least 16”. Over half of them were innocent before you tried to slander them and ruin their livelihoods. You sir should be ashamed, but you’re not. No, those who appear the most sanctified are the worst, and quite often the least deserving of any moral sanctity or moral comfort. People like you remind me of my favorite C.S. Lewis quote:

It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

And with that, I bid everyone a good day.