Brett Stevens

For the conservative columnist, see Bret Stephens.

Brett Stevens is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi blogger.^[1] He edits the blog Amerika.org, a far-right site that describes itself as a "more extreme" version of the neo-Nazi forum Iron March and which helped facilitate the LD50 conference. Stevens inspired and expressed admiration for Anders Breivik, the far-right terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.

Early activities

Stevens founded A.N.U.S., the American Nihilist Underground Society, which was a precursor to Amerika.org. He said he changed the website’s name so that it would not be perceived as “deviant”. He was also the creator of the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party, a website for a purported political party that school shooter Jeff Weise cited as an inspiration.^[2]

Amerika.org

The logo as seen on the homepage of Amerika.org

Stevens edits the blog Amerika.org, a far-right site that has described itself as "ult-right".^[3] Some time after the neo-Nazi forum Iron March was shut down (its users had been linked to several murders and also to terrorist groups^[3]), an unknown source leaked user information from the site, including email addresses. Stevens used the leaked emails to reach out to former Iron March users in 2019, suggesting that, "If you liked the Iron March forum, you might find Amerika.org to be even more extreme.... We are Nietzschean, pro-Western, and anti-egalitarian. While our approach is more traditionalist than National Socialist, it is uncompromising."^[3]

The Daily Dot described Amerika.org as a site preoccupied with race, promoting the establishment of a caste system, the expulsion of US citizens to their ancestors' countries, the end of global immigration and trade, and support of what the site terms a "new hierarchy" that places a small number of people at the top of society.^[3] The Daily Dot described the website's writing as "long-winded and nonsensical".^[3]

Amerika.org is described as being among a number of alt-right sites that "fuse deep ecology with explicit white supremacy", taking concerns about species extinction and habitat loss and relating them to the white genocide conspiracy theory and a purported replacement of indigenous white people with invasive foreigners.^[4]

LD50

Stevens presented a talk titled "The Black Pill" at the 2016 LD50 arts conference in London and helped promote and gatekeep the event on Amerika.org. The title of Stevens' talk references the term used in manosphere and anti-feminist circles inspired from the term in The Matrix. In these contexts, "the red pill" means accepting truth of these ideologies, beyond which Stevens drew a further boundary with "The Black Pill", describing this further pill as rejection of every possibility of "illusion" and "positive action" in a manner amounting to total nihilism. Stevens presented alongside Iben Thranholm, VDARE founder Peter Brimelow, Mark Citadel, and neo-reactionary Nick Land.^[5][6]

Influence

Anders Breivik, the far-right terrorist who murdered 77 in attacks in Norway in 2011, described Stevens' writings as inspirational. Following the attacks, Stevens wrote about Brevik, "I am honored to be so mentioned by someone who is clearly far braver than I, no comment on his methods, but he chose to act where many of us write, think and dream."^[6][5]

References

1. Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (22 February 2017). "Art gallery criticised over neo-Nazi artwork and hosting racist speakers". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 May 2024.
2. "In Unearthed Audio, Laura Loomer Calls Herself 'Pro-White Nationalism'".
3. Reed, Jason (8 November 2019). "The neo-Nazi data dump has been a boon to Nazi recruiters". The Daily Dot.
4. Forchtner, Bernhard (10 September 2019). The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-10402-9.
5. Gogarty, Larne Abse (April 2017). "The Art Right". Art Monthly. No. 405.
6. Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (22 February 2017). "Art gallery criticised over neo-Nazi artwork and hosting racist speakers". The Guardian.