Canada’s shameful bigots find a home in the US alt-Right

Ezra Levant

Back in 2011, there was concern over the formation of the Canadian far-Right TV channel Sun News Network, not-so-affectionately known as “Fox News North”, which promised to bring the same brand of poisonous jingoistic garbage to our northern airwaves. The channel lasted all of less than four years before it imploded without so much as a whimper in early 2015. If you want a laugh, read its Wikipedia page – it was a nonstop parade of xenophobic clowns constantly forced to apologize for their bumbling bigotry.

Chief amongst them was Ezra Levant, accompanied by other former hosts who all belong to the Canadian equivalent of what’s now known as the alt-Right. Just as they left the dying Sun News, they formed Rebel Media (or The Rebel), more or less “Breitbart North”, because one terrible American wingnutty import wasn’t enough. And now that’s falling apart as well, in part because their brand of hate doesn’t have much traction in Canada, and also due to popcorn-worthy infighting over how they should deal with neo-Nazis and White nationalists.

Read Scaachi Koul’s lengthy exposé at Buzzfeed on all the flailing. It’s particularly satisfying when contrasted with their m.o. of smearing Muslims, mocking trans people and trying to make Canadian “White genocide” a thing. (But don’t call them Nazis.) Unfortunately, there’s enough demand for benighted bigots willing to air their opinions that they’re all guaranteed to find new platforms before long, particularly south of the border.

It’s easy to assume that the ongoing implosion of The Rebel is good news for those who aren’t fans of its race-baiting Muslim-anxiety content. […] On one level, it is: Maybe a media company whose entire diet is dedicated to stories like “Nice Try, BBC: Niqabs Are Not Normal!” or “In defense of of ‘racist’ jokes" can’t really thrive (at least in Canada). But many of its contributors will inevitably end up working at other outlets — or already do. Whether Americans know it or not, many of their foremost fascists, like their pop stars, are coming from Canada.

[…]

The influence of Rebel contributors, and how far they’ve managed to spread into the States, is a testament to Levant’s ability to find young, hungry, angry people and foster whatever talents they might have to make them semi-powerful figures in the alt-right media world. What he hasn’t been able to do is keep them on staff.

Levant’s responses to his staff leaving all seem clipped and somewhat bitter: He raised these kids, fed them, made them who they are, only to watch them flee. But this says nothing good about the character of the contributors who won’t stand by The Rebel, and nothing good about Levant either. Sure, neo-Nazism is bad, but backtracking now only ensures that they have a spot somewhere else in media, in Canada or elsewhere.

I’m conflicted. Should I feel glad that these roaches are leaving the Canadian media to infest somewhere else, or should I be sorry for the US, whose shrieking wingnut fringe is about to get a little bigger from our refuse?

I offer a compromise: We can continue to expose and fight back against the slimy offal from both countries together.

(via @BuzzFeedBen; RT: @Popehat)