ALI BRELAND
@alibreland.bsky.social
writer, reporter at the atlantic alibreland.com
When @alibreland.bsky.social told me about a Latvia-based US politics clipping campaign with a budget of 300k/month, my jaw hit the floor. It's a tactic many have suspected, but the documentation here (of many such efforts) is next level: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
A service run from Latvia offers payment for short, social-media-friendly clips designed to look like grassroots GOP support.
theatlantic.com
Stumbled onto a new dark-money, conservative digital influence operation. Every month, someone is giving a Latvian company six-figure sums to manufacture support for the right online via the internet manipulation technique du jour: clip farming www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
A service run from Latvia offers payment for short, social-media-friendly clips designed to look like grassroots GOP support.
theatlantic.com
A Latvian clip farm is offering payment for social-media videos designed to look like grassroots GOP support, @alibreland.bsky.social reports. He followed clues on Discord to determine who is behind the operation:
Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
A service run from Latvia offers payment for short, social-media-friendly clips designed to look like grassroots GOP support.
bit.ly
James Fishback’s rage-bait campaign, which included bigoted comments, didn’t win him the Republican nomination for governor in Florida—but it did grab the attention of younger GOP voters, @alibreland.bsky.social reports:
James Fishback Is an Unsettling Glimpse Into the GOP’s Future
The candidate lost badly in Florida but showed that there’s support for bigotry among the young.
bit.ly
Hundreds of masked men descended on Washington, D.C., on July 4 in a demonstration that appeared to be tailored for social media, @alibreland.bsky.social reports. The group, Patriot Front, is simultaneously unserious and threatening, he argues:
What Is the Point of Patriot Front?
The masked men in Washington on July 4 are both unserious and threatening.
bit.ly
Wrote about how the San Diego mosque shooters and how neo-Nazi accelerationism and nihilistic violence is now just much a vibe and mood to emulated online, as it a sincere doctrine www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
The Glorification of Mass Murder
The San Diego mosque killings were part ideological, part performance for an audience on Discord.
theatlantic.com
The alleged D.C. attacker represents the phenomenon of “normie extremism”—people with conventional and widely held beliefs that they are willing to kill for—and the incident is reminiscent of another recent case, @alibreland.bsky.social argues. theatln.tc/1qq9ZDbD
Listening and learning to Erik Prince’s thoughts on coffee
I wrote about the White House Correspondent's Dinner assassination attempt and our new era of normie extremism, in which political violence no longer just comes the fringes, but from otherwise normal people www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
The Era of Normie Extremism Is Here
What the alleged Washington hotel attacker has in common with Luigi Mangione
theatlantic.com
"The Court’s decision is consonant with the philosophy, articulated by Kilpatrick in his earlier days, that the state is oppressive when it interferes with the right to discriminate, and respects liberty when it allows discrimination." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Voters Can Be Disenfranchised Now
Just say it’s because they’re Democrats.
theatlantic.com
Had a great time talking to Lizzie on Slate’s TBD pod talking about how Trump got out Chadded online
Lizzie O'Leary@lizzieohreally.bsky.social · 7mo agoOn today’s show, I talk to @alibreland.bsky.social about the shitpost war. And how Iran is … really good at trolling. Iran is hitting Trump right in the shitposts. slate.com/podcasts/wha...
Using facial recognition tech, the Knicks surveilled a trans woman, tracking her every move out of fear she'd show up on MSG's tv broadcast And they can do it to any "enemy" of Jim Dolan, who's built his own deep state. From @noahshachtman.bsky.social & me @wired.com www.wired.com/story/madiso...
The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden's Surveillance Machine
Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.
wired.com
MAJOR UPDATE: I found the best free restaurant bread in the United States www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America
Thirteen thousand miles. Infinite contenders. One beautiful loaf.
theatlantic.com
Caity Weaver@caity.bsky.social · last yr.IMPORTANT QUESTION: What is the best free restaurant bread in the United States? (ANY restaurant is eligible, but the bread must be free provided free to *every* table.)
I've finished "The Infernal Triangle: How America Got this Way." Farewell to the 5-book project that consumed some 30 years, over half my life! For the nonce, writing deadline-free on this Substack. First 50 subs get signed books or personal Zoom greetings. PAY ME!!! rickperlstein.substack.com
Rickipedia | Substack
Occasional reflections, mostly personal. Click to read Rickipedia, by Rick Perlstein, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
rickperlstein.substack.com
Wrote about the latest developing fracture on the right: how the conservative intellectual class is getting fed up with the growing antisemitic and conspiratorial tendencies of the right's masses, or what one source called "the retard right." www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
The Intellectual Right Is Mad at the Mess It’s Made
Conservatives are criticizing influencers for going too far.
theatlantic.com
Some powerful people have now decided that McCarthyism is good, actually, and that we should do it again on an even more profound scale: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
‘We Need to Do McCarthyism to the Tenth Power’
Conservative influencers are pushing for a return to the dark days of 1950s inquisitions.
theatlantic.com
"It’s probably going to become even more of a thing as younger people who have been more deeply steeped in the internet get older. So it is here, and it will be here for a long time," @alibreland.bsky.social says of what CJR calls "the far-right media bubble." www.cjr.org/the-intervie...
The Atlantic's Ali Breland on why it's important to cover the online far right.
An Atlantic reporter says far-right influencers such as Nick Fuentes offer clues to where US politics is going.
cjr.org
Peered into how Epstein’s interest in pseudoscientific racism prefaced the ideology’s ongoing renaissance amongst the powerful www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
The Epstein Emails Show How the Powerful Talk About Race
The files reveal the disgraced financier’s interest in “race science.”
theatlantic.com
A great piece from @alibreland.bsky.social on Epstein's race science obsession—one he shares with much of the contemporary right wing elite www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
The Epstein Emails Show How the Powerful Talk About Race
The files reveal the disgraced financier’s interest in “race science.”
theatlantic.com
Trump is clearly distancing himself from the bad pr of noem and miller, he’s not calling Alex Pretti a terrorist he’s calling him an insurrectionist who had it coming. Big difference in style and substance here
Important story from @alibreland.bsky.social about how the us government now speaks in the voice of an incel groyper www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda
Government social-media managers have transformed official feeds.
theatlantic.com
Wrote about how the teens are sharing Nazi occult memes w/ @willgottsegen.com This isn’t an exaggeration. Lots of them are doing this www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
Your Teenager May Be Spreading Himmler’s Favorite Myth
The Aryan utopia of “Agartha” is making a comeback.
theatlantic.com
Some official U.S.-government social-media accounts have become a reliable stream of xenophobic messaging that aims to redefine what it means to be American, @alibreland.bsky.social reports:
The Government’s Posts Just Took a Sharp Far-Right Turn
Government social-media managers have turned official feeds into streams of xenophobia.
bit.ly
This is the precise rationale that internet white supremacists use when they talk about immigration—especially when they talk about immigrants from African countries. Fully indistinguishable from something someone would say at an ethno-nationalist event
An entire economy of weird, atomized buy-my-course, infinite side hustle, grindset guys who are excised from the traditional job market is probably not good for society and is going to have a bunch of bad externalities.
Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 10mo agoThe man who committed arson against a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, sells "scripture-backed fitness" and "Christian diet/testosterone optimization." Toxic masculinity and antisemitism are so closely intertwined on the online right. forward.com/culture/7969...
At my first turning point USA America fest. This is amazing. They brought Ben Shapiro out to club level pulsing bass, red white and blue laser lights and plumes of smoke (I don’t think they can do tpusa standard pyrotechnics in here)
For the @thebaffler.com I wrote about how Nick Fuentes and "The Groyper Wars" changed Charlie Kirk thebaffler.com/latest/ready...
Ready for War | Eamon Whalen
Where Charlie Kirk sought to smooth the divisions within the conservative movement, Nick Fuentes wants to inflame them.
thebaffler.com
