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MAGA influencer who stirred ICE attacks reveals βgrimβ future: columnist

An analyst Wednesday described how the ICE attacks in Minneapolis and deadly shooting of Renee Good were all prompted by a MAGA influencer "chasing clicks" β and showed the potentially grim future of MAGA journalism.
The Bulwark's Andrew Egger revealed how MAGA influencer Nick Shirley's "highly misleading gonzo video" led to the chaos in Minnesota. Shirley was confronting workers at Somali-run daycares and health care centers over claims of fraud in a now-viral video created unfounded allegations that spurred into a new campaign under the Trump administration to target the Somali community.
"Within days, the White House was surging immigration enforcement to Minneapolis; Vice President JD Vance said Shirley had 'done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer] prizes,'" Egger wrote.
"If this sort of person doing this sort of work can be so richly rewarded on the right right now, itβs safe to say both that Shirley will be a major fixture of the online right for a while, and that many others will try to follow in his footsteps," Egger added. "But if heβs the future of right-wing journalism, the future is very bleak indeed."
In the past, and in traditional media, Shirley would have had oversight or rules to abide by. But that's not the case now.
"Much of the old press model has collapsed entirely, especially on the right," Eggers wrote. "Guys like Nick Shirley arenβt trying to join a publication, theyβre picking up a camera and trying to go viral on their own. They have no safety net, no sounding board, no mentorship, no way to grow beyond what theyβre doing this minute. All they have is the zero-sum game of the algorithm: Get noticed or die. Of course theyβre going to do what the algorithm demandsβwhich, on todayβs right, means snappy, confrontational, fact-agnostic propaganda for the regime. Thatβs what the ecosystem rewards, so weβre going to get more and more of it. If you think thatβs grim today, wait till you see the future."

