Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the 2025 World Canals Conference has commenced in Buffalo, during the Erie Canal’s Bicentennial year. Bringing an international audience together of canal enthusiasts, historians, and waterway experts, the group will celebrate and discuss the rich history and future of canal systems worldwide, with a special focus on New York State’s iconic Erie Canal.
Governor Hochul Announces Commencement of the 2025 World Canals Conference in Buffalo
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MAGA influencer who stirred ICE attacks reveals ‘grim’ 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" — 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, it’s 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 he’s 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 aren’t trying to join a publication, they’re 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 they’re doing this minute. All they have is the zero-sum game of the algorithm: Get noticed or die. Of course they’re going to do what the algorithm demands—which, on today’s right, means snappy, confrontational, fact-agnostic propaganda for the regime. That’s what the ecosystem rewards, so we’re going to get more and more of it. If you think that’s grim today, wait till you see the future."
