In the wake of massive layoffs at HuffPost Tuesday, far-right meme creator Carpe Donktum invited Ali Alexander, the far-right lead organizer of the so-called Stop the Steal movement, to his streaming show to celebrate the layoffs of journalists whose reporting led to them being deplatformed from major social media entities. At the same time, they mourned the loss of their ability to spread disinformation on mainstream social media platforms.
Alexander, who has been in hiding since Trump loyalists attending the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally laid siege to the Capitol, predictably attacked those who have reported on his rhetoric and organizing, including the HuffPost and a former Right Wing Watch reporter. He suggested an apology was in order for the death of a Trump loyalist as she took part in the storming of the Capitol, and even went so far as to defend the former president’s golfing habits.
The HuffPost layoffs were the first small win the hard-right operatives have had since Jan. 6, when the nation watched in horror as MAGA protesters gathered at a Stop the Steal rally marched to the Capitol and stormed the building looking for Congress members inside. Right Wing Watch captured footage of Alexander standing on a balcony overlooking Trump loyalists swarming the Capitol, with Alexander telling the camera, “I don’t disavow this.” Shortly after, and as more reporting came out about his calls for violence and his role pushing the big lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, Alexander and other far-right personalities were banned from numerous social media platforms.
One of those reports was published Sunday by the HuffPost’s Luke O’Brien, who detailed the ways in which Alexander and his far-right extremist politics were linked to the GOP establishment. On Tuesday, Buzzfeed, which had acquired the HuffPost, laid off 47 employees, including O’Brien, in a massive “restructuring.” Alexander and Donktum (whose real name is Logan Cook) spent no time taking to various streams to, in Donktum’s words, “do a little victory lap” before evoking the Washington Post’s motto, saying that the two would “talk about how sad we are that democracy just died in darkness.”
On Donktum’s live YouTube stream, some 100 viewers listened to Alexander attack the HuffPost’s reporting and describe the outlet’s layoff process. “Sad,” Alexander said smiling, pointing at his eyes and drawing a tear down his face. “Sucks to suck, as the kids say.”
It is unclear how Alexander was able to appear on Carpe Donktum’s livestream, as Alexander has been banned from YouTube. Right Wing Watch has emailed YouTube for comment and will update this post should the company respond.
“Look, you don’t want to wish anyone personal harm, but these people are hurting all of us, they’re saying mistruths to, for example, to try to put your family in harm’s way, to try to incite the radical fringe leftists to commit violence against us,” he baselessly claimed. “So I celebrate the demise of the Huffington Post.”
Donktum followed up with a transphobic attack, claiming the outlet pushes that “transgender is really good for children,” “we should all be changing our sexes,” and “pedophilia is not a problem, it’s misunderstood.”
“Yeah, the Huffington Post is pro-pedophile, pro-deep state, they’re anti-cop—that’s deeply ironic. They’re just fringe freaks,” Alexander said, adopting some of the conspiracy theory-laden language of QAnon. QAnon followers have committed violent crimes based on their belief they are saving children from deep state pedophiles.
Alexander lamented the consequences his so-called Stop the Steal campaign have yielded, but he claimed he did nothing wrong and would face no legal consequences. “I’m in the process of rebuilding after getting libeled in the media,” he said. “People are like, ‘Ali is about to get arrested.’ Nope, I’m not.”
He did, however, lose his favorite mode of communication with his followers: Twitter. “Even if I wanted to be back on Twitter, what would it serve me? It’s just a left-wing Parler,” he claimed, referring to a smaller, barely moderated platform favored by right-wing actors. But he later admitted to missing Twitter.
Turning to a discussion about former president Donald Trump, the man in whom they had put so much faith, the two applauded his recent golfing. “I like how he’s transitioned into this to just playing golf,” Donktum said. “I think it drives the media nuts because they wanted to see him kicking and screaming getting dragged out of the White House. He was just like, ‘All right, I’ll leave.’”
“I also told people we need to use this moment to survey,” Alexander said. “So it’s good that Trump is golfing.”
Alexander also claimed that he had some sway in Trump’s decision to refer to his current status as the occupant of “the office of the 45th president,” claiming, “one day, I’ll have a story on it.”
He later claimed that both he and then-president Trump were set up, and that no one had wanted the violence that took place at the Capitol to happen. It’s unclear how Alexander’s chanting “Victory or death!” at a rally the day before the insurrection fits into that narrative.
“What’s worse about it is the gaslighting. They killed one of ours,” he claimed, speaking of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol Police officer while in the midst of a mob that was storming the building. “Here’s a patriot who didn’t believe everything I believe, but here’s a patriot, a veteran that did something stupid, but they killed her. There’s no apologies from their side. We don’t even know the identity, the confirmed identity of the officer that killed Ashli Babbit.”
“They killed a veteran who marched for the cause of election integrity. And we’re somehow the people that need to answer for that? No. They need to answer for that. They killed her. And then they made up all these other deaths and tried to link them,” he continued. “There was no insurrection. If we wanted an insurrection, there would’ve been one. We did not want one.”
On Wednesday, Alexander’s Stop the Steal campaign sent an email to followers, claiming the campaign was back on and asking for $100 donations.
