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Top social media influencers in the Make America Great Again movement aren’t even American.
X, formerly Twitter, introduced a new feature on Friday that lets you see where accounts are based. As a result, we now know that dozens of the largest MAGA influencing accounts come from outside the U.S.
The xxxxxx’s Sam Stein has a X thread where you can skim through many of them.
For just one example, a Charlie Kirk fan account called “Charlie’s Voice Rising,” @CharlieK_news, with the tagline, “Voice for Charlie Kirk — Truth. Faith. Freedom. Fighting censorship & lies. For the people, for God, for America,” with 188.9k followers, is based in Eastern Europe.
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X’s new feature confirms what many of us already suspected. As we’ve written about in this newsletter before, foreign actors, especially Russia, have long been influencing the MAGA movement.
In September 2024, we wrote about right-wing media figures Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern being duped by Russia.
And in October 2024, we wrote about Russia’s Storm-1516 disinformation campaign.
What You Can Do About Russian Disinformation | ||||||
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At least 50 disinformation campaigns have been launched by Storm-1516, a Russia… | ||||||
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These disinformation campaigns work because too many of us will simply follow, like, and share accounts that post things we agree with, without caring about who is behind the keyboard. Share this story with your MAGA friends, and hopefully they’ll be more careful with what they post, and let us commit to doing the same.
What Else We’re Reading
The Atlantic: “People Are Underestimating America’s Groyper Problem”
The notion that American anti-Semitism is an outside influence operation rather than a homegrown menace is a comforting story. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Fuentes followers punch above their weight in American discourse because they are young and disproportionately online; some foreigners no doubt found this far-right niche useful for generating engagement and revenue. But the rise of American anti-Semitism is not a foreign phenomenon, and it is not an online illusion.
Cato Institute: “5% of People Detained By ICE Have Violent Convictions, 73% No Convictions”
Of people booked into ICE custody this fiscal year (since October 1, 2025):
Nearly three in four (73 percent) had no criminal conviction.
Nearly half had no criminal conviction nor even any pending criminal charges.
Only 8 percent had a violent or property criminal conviction.
Only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction.
A majority of criminal convicts had vice, immigration, or traffic convictions.
GPAHE: “TPUSA’s Holy Hustle: How Conservatism Went Apocalyptic”
How TPUSA Went From Secular Libertarianism to Religious Extremism
In 2019, Kirk was 26, touring college campuses with his libertarian pitch. Free markets. Limited government. Fiscal responsibility.
The organization that would become synonymous with religious nationalism hadn’t started that way. “Turning Point USA educates students about the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and capitalism,” tax forms from back then read. “Through non-partisan debate, dialogue, and discussion, Turning Point USA believes that every young person can be enlightened to true free market values.”
Washington Examiner: “Matt Walsh’s ‘America Only’ is neither Christian nor American”
Worse still, after suggesting that all critics are secretly working on behalf of a “favored foreign country” — wink, wink — Walsh mocked religiously focused critics of his comments, including myself, by claiming that “none of these commentators can point to a citation for any of their claims because there isn’t one.”
Imagine thinking it’s impossible to find a citation in the Bible for the idea that all people, no matter their nation of origin, are owed moral consideration!
The Bible doesn’t just disagree with Walsh here — it relentlessly hammers the point. Whether it’s Genesis 1:26–27 expressing that all people are made in the image of God, or Leviticus 19:33–34 stating that foreigners are to be loved as ourselves, or Matthew 25:35–40 that captures Jesus telling his followers that “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,” countrymen or not, “you did for me,” the biblical foundation for defying Walsh is overwhelming.
The Atlantic: “‘An Example MUST BE SET’ The pursuit of Mark Kelly in the military-justice system sends a clear message to service members and veterans.
In the week since, it has become very much more than that. President Trump suggested trying and executing the lawmakers for sedition. A wave of violent threats against them followed. Then Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth launched a review of what he termed “serious allegations of misconduct” into Kelly, who retired as a Naval captain in 2011. Kelly now faces the possibility of being recalled to active duty to be court-martialed for his statements. If convicted, he could be dismissed from the service, lose his pension, and possibly be imprisoned. (Kelly is the only lawmaker in the video who reached 20 years in the service, therefore making him an official military retiree eligible for recall.)
If the first 10 months of the second Trump administration showed how willing the president and his Cabinet were to use the criminal-justice system against their perceived enemies, the pursuit of Kelly extends that retribution campaign to the machinery of military justice in a potentially destructive way.
Experts in military law say Hegseth’s gambit is unlikely to stand up in court, because Kelly’s apparent transgression consisted of restating service members’ oft-cited responsibility to act within the law, as defined by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the services’ equivalent of the U.S. criminal code.
But even if the pursuit of Kelly—who flew combat missions in the Gulf War and was later sent into space by NASA before becoming a U.S. senator—ultimately fails, the move sends a clear warning to other officers and military retirees who might want to speak up.
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