Three Far-Right Influencers Converge on Baltimore

As of Thursday, three far-right influencers have been spotted in Baltimore engaging in incendiary behavior: Nick Shirley, Josh Fulfer, and Ben Bergquam.

Thursday evening, Bergquam, a self-described “Christian warrior” and host of TV propaganda show “Law and Border,” posted a video to X of him crashing a People’s Power Assembly (PPA) meeting at the Southeast Anchor branch of Enoch Pratt Free Library. Since he arrived in Maryland, he’s been participating in ICE ride-alongs in PG County and shouting at Kilmar Ábrego García on the street.

He was joined Thursday evening by Fulfer, a California streamer and rightwing activist who attended the Jan. 6 insurrection.  In 2024, WIRED documented Fulfer’s disturbing efforts at the US-Mexico border as he “hunted” undocumented immigrants.  He’s also been involved in protests affiliated with white supremacist group The Proud Boys and connected to attempts to incite violence at trans protests. One Tiktok video shows Fulfer assisting a woman as she brandishes a gun at a crowd of trans rights protesters.

According to PPA organizer Andrew Mayton, the PPA had reserved a space in the library to discuss the impacts of recent events on the local community and collect testimony to send to city officials.  However, due to the presence and increasingly disruptive actions of Bergquam and Fuller, library security called off the meeting. In his video, Bergquam grins wide as both he and Fulfer are escorted out of the building by library security.

In a longer video of the meeting, again posted by Bergquam, he repeatedly claims he wants to “have a dialogue” — a point immediately contradicted by his efforts to shout over testimony from speakers and his determination to zoom in on individual speakers’ faces, exposing everyday people to potential threats of doxxing from his 60,000 followers.  

Shirley, on the same day, was filmed in Penn North being called out by local activist and photographer, Sima Lee.  In the caption of the video, Lee said Shirley was filming around and in a Black church, which has been highlighted in previous reporting about the opioid crisis.  In the video, Lee delivers a resounding indictment of Shirley’s faux innocent act, as he claims he’s working on a video about fentanyl: “Stop targeting us.  It’s not about fentanyl. … You have an agenda, and I’m not interested.”

Lee’s concerns are well-founded.  Shirley went viral in December for alleging fraud in a Somali-run daycare center in Minnesota.  His unsubstantiated allegations, which seemed to have spun out of fraud claims that had already been addressed by the state and local media, had far-reaching consequences in Minneapolis.

They were held up as a key reason for the violent ICE siege of Minnesota, which ultimately resulted in the murder of Renee Good, and just today, another Minneapolis man killed by Customs and Border Patrol, Alex Jeffrey Pretti.

“He’s a professional provocateur,” Mayton explained, when I asked him about why Bergquam would show up at their meeting in the first place.  He told me when he saw Bergquam and Fulfer with their tripods, he instantly recognized their gambit and even warned library security they’d try to heckle.  Before entering the event, Bergquam discussed his plans on air with Neonazi media mogul Steve Bannon, and Bannon scolded him for his tendency to troll.

If it isn’t obvious: Bergquam and Fulfer did not come to this city to have a dialogue.  And Shirley didn’t come here to investigate fentanyl.  There’s a bigger goal they’re trying to achieve.

He’d never admit it, but when Bergquam insisted on a dialogue repeatedly at that PPA meeting, he used a rhetorical tactic called sea-lioning. Amy Johnson, Associate Director at Harvard Law, defines sea-lioning as a rhetorical tactic that “fuses persistent questioning … with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate … to portray the target as unreasonable.”

Put more simply, it’s ragebait with a darker twist.

Shirley displays a similar pretension of ignorance in Lee’s video that he’s employed elsewhere before. In one infamous clip, as a Minnesota woman warned neighbors that ICE was nearby, Shirley responds, “What do you mean … ?  I’m literally a Youtuber.”  As if he simply appeared in the city one day of his own accord.

On the contrary, Minnesota House Republican Lisa Demuth said her caucus had coordinated with him on his investigation, which Shirley denied. Shirley’s also had a close relationship with the Trump administration and its flock of influencers, including attending an “antifa” round table with President Trump and getting inside access to CECOT, the inhumane El Salvadoran mega-prison.

Political influencers like these three use a shield of plausible deniability to mask their participation in what savvy observers will recognize as state-sanctioned action.  If you aren’t familiar with the alt-right media machine, that might sound conspiratorial, but it’s a well-known political tactic for manufacturing consent for authoritarian action.

After generating the content, they farm the resulting outrage for clicks, money, and most importantly, anger.  On X, Bergquam has spent the past couple days reposting racist commentary on library security, conspiracy theories, and claims that Baltimore is “so ghetto.”  He’s also reposted baseless allegations about corruption by local Democrat city officials, echoing concerningly close to the discourse that surrounded Minneapolis before ICE’s presence increased there.

Mainstream media often struggles to cover subjects like these three because they adopt the false victimhood narrative of white supremacist provocateurs, who are experts in giving lip service for liberal values.  This failure distracts from the actual problems afflicting places like Minneapolis and Baltimore and, ultimately, creates a permission structure for real law enforcement action that directly leads to deadly consequences.

Mayton echoed concerns I’ve heard from other Baltimore locals that rightwing media would use this content to try to justify more extreme government measures in Baltimore like funding cuts and increased militarized presence, in addition to the ICE surges that have already begun.

“My advice,” said Mayton, when I asked him what people in the city should do if approached by one of these three camera-toting vultures, “Don’t engage.”  

Already, though, The Baltimore Banner has taken the bait.  Their recent headline reads: “YouTuber Nick Shirley came to Baltimore to talk about fentanyl. People weren’t happy.”

While their reporting highlights the concerns of community members, it neglects to speak to Shirley’s unscrupulous connections to far right organizations like Project Veritas, known for its deceptive and unethical propaganda videos on subjects from Planned Parenthood to Covid-19 antivax conspiracies.  It doesn’t mention Shirley’s alleged ties to Minnesotan Republican lawmakers.

Instead, they made the critical media mistake: they let the alt-right frame the conversation. They accepted Shirley’s premise, and they focused on fentanyl.

I’ve reported before on how Baltimore welcomes the downtrodden with open arms.  Despite — or perhaps because of — its unglamorous reputation, Baltimore is a city with a defiantly proud identity and sense of belonging.

Ironically, while these three horsemen of the racist apocalypse decry a mythical plague of migrant crime, they are the only outsiders trying to bring ruin to Baltimore.

Did you catch last week’s coverage? If you want to hear about an influencer who’s using her power for good instead of evil, check out my interview with Jess Britvich. She’s a gem.

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