From my vantage point, it’s not that hard to figure out Mike Cernovich. I’m not going to comment on whether I think he’s dumb or intelligent, but I will say that he seems to have a small legion of paranoid followers who have a hard time deciphering reality from fiction.
Cernovich is a blogger/author/social media figure who came to prominence disseminating and normalizing conspiracy theories. Now he’s trying to break into the mainstream, which means he has to spend some time walking back his past claims and leveraging his influence to move people — which apparently isn’t all that impressive.
Cernovich is also a vocal Trump supporter and he holds Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn in high regard.
On June 9, he called on his 420,000 followers to show up for a show of support for Flynn that was to take place this Tuesday morning.
“FLASHMOB ORGANIZED to support General Flynn,” Cernovich wrote in a tweet that now seems to be deleted.
The location for the rally was to take place at a D.C. courthouse where Flynn was scheduled to make an appearance, and a screen shot shows that the tweet got a fair amount of engagement. The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer decided to go check things out and found the turnout to be rather underwhelming.
The pro-Michael Flynn rally today at the federal courthouse ended up being just this guy. pic.twitter.com/gM57PtWyqj
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 10, 2018
In a follow-up tweet, Sommer pointed out that the one guy who showed up is a regular when it comes to right-wing social media causes.
“The turnout at the Flynn ‘rally’ is even less impressive when you consider that this guy shows up literally anywhere in the mid-Atlantic for right-wing protests,” Sommer tweeted. “Last seen at the Red Hen, and yelling ‘Maxine, where’s your niceness gene?’ at Maxine Waters.”
The turnout at the Flynn “rally” is even less impressive when you consider that this guy shows up literally anywhere in the mid-Atlantic for right-wing protests. Last seen at the Red Hen, and yelling “Maxine, where’s your niceness gene?” at Maxine Waters.
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 10, 2018
Needless to say, the flameout amused a fair segment of the Twittersphere.
https://twitter.com/Tedderman1/status/1016721213891235842
https://twitter.com/h1gg5b0s0n/status/1016748322676064257
https://twitter.com/KarenB4U2/status/1016731344943177728
https://twitter.com/Chuck_Thulhu/status/1016714555995688961
Ohhh The Deep State is that where all the trolls come from? pic.twitter.com/2y5TGFAKxB
— Chantel Gomes (@GomesChantel) July 10, 2018
Cernovich got his start being a men’s rights activist who dabbled in conspiracy theories, including the Pizza Gate nonsense. He also has a strange and fraudulent way of promoting his brand. One example is a speech he gave in October of 2017 and a viral photo of a protest that took place outside.
Gothamist’s Jake Offenhartz snapped a photo of a group of people unfurling a banner that had an eye-catching message:
NO WHITE SUPREMACY
NO PEDO BASHING
NO MIKE CERNOVICH
Cernovich tweeted the photo, claiming it as proof that the left, or “Antifa,” endorses pedophilia. At the bottom of the banner next to Antifa’s logo was an emblem for NAMBLA, a now virtually non-existent organization that gained notoriety in the 1980s for defending the rights of “man-boy lovers.” Apparently, the people who scream “false flag!” may have quite literally staged a false flag operation. Cernovich supporters, whether colluding with Cernovich or not, staged a fake protest to slander the real protesters as pedophiles. I wrote about this story in a piece from last year.
As this stuff still gets a lot of cover from the eternally dumb corners of web, there may be an trend of fatigue. Cernovich and his ilk of Twitter conspiracists and unskilled journalists appear to be starting to eat each other, and maybe the low turnout for his flash mob is confirmation that trying to mobilize intellectual deadbeats is a losing strategy.
Featured image via Twitter
