Before alleging fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community, right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley built a following with anti-immigrant clips.
The day after Christmas, far-right YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to have exposed fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota. Portions of the 42-minute video — mostly scenes where Shirley is turned away at the day cares — went viral in conservative circles, catching the attention of the Trump administration, which was already at work targeting Minnesota’s Somali community amid its broader war on immigrants.
The video, which has been viewed more than 2.2 million times on YouTube and millions more on other platforms, sparked a renewed crackdown in Minneapolis, with the Department of Homeland Security announcing on Monday it would visit 30 sites suspected of fraud across the city.
This isn’t the first time the conservative YouTuber has gotten the attention of the Trump administration. Shirley participated in Donald Trump’s “Roundtable on Antifa” in October after an altercation at an anti-ICE protest. At age 23, his videos aren’t merely influencing his audiences — they’re also influencing government action.
Imagine if we could just shitpost some nonsense about an oil company CEO and have a Democratic president just nuke all their subsidies within a day or two
This unironically needs to happen next so that dumbass MAGAs can see why the presidents behavior is…problematic? No no… the phrase I’m looking for escapes me - let’s go with “batshit fucking insane” for now, and come together to put an end to executive overreach.
Which is not to say there can’t be a debate about ending oil subsidies, mind you. Just that the president shouldn’t be able to make such broad knee-jerk unilateral decisions in response to shitposts. Or even non-shitposts.
It wouldn’t work. They are incapable of that kind of self reflection