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Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance follows several accounts on X that espouse far-right and white nationalist views, according to an analysis by The Independent.
The 39-year-old Ohio senator, who rose to fame with his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and was named as Donald Trump’s running-mate this week, follows 1,132 people on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Among them are two of the most popular figures in the Right Wing Bodybuilders scene — an online community in which many share a worldview that combines white nationalist ideas with anti-globalism, weight-lifting and nutrition.
One of them is Raw Egg Nationalist, an account that has shared Adolf Hitler memes, quoted Mein Kampf and promoted the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy — a theory positing that Western elites are intentionally replacing White populations with migrants — to its 200,000 plus followers.
Vance also follows Bronze Age Pervert, believed to be run by far-right bodybuilder Costin Alamariu. That account has also promoted the racist Great Replacement theory and eugenic breeding. His self-published book, Bronze Age Mindset’ is considered a foundational text for the scene, and was said to be circulating among younger members of the Trump White House.
He wrote in a 2021 essay: “I have said for a long time that I believe in rule by a military caste of men who would be able to guide society toward a morality of eugenics.”
Joshua Farrell-Molloy, an extremism researcher at the Accelerationism Research Consortium, described the two accounts as belonging to a “post-alt-right movement” that is “pretty much at the vanguard of white nationalism.”
“They are one of the main centers of gravity within the contemporary far right in the US,” he told The Independent.
Since Vance received the nomination on Monday, Molloy said there has been a “buzz of excitement” in the community, which is sometimes referred to as “anon Twitter” or “Frog Twitter,” in reference to the alt-right meme Pepe the Frog.
“They see him as being one of ‘our guys’ and some are excited about the idea [that] he has been exposed to their ideas or has at least seen some of their content,” he added.
Vance has described another controversial figure, political scientist Richard Hanania, as a “friend” and a “really interesting thinker.” A HuffPost investigation revealed Hanania as having written for several white nationalist websites under a pseudonym in the early 2010s — where he expressed support for eugenics, opposed “race-mixing” and cited neo-Nazis — although Vance continues to follow him on X.
Hanania later disavowed the views he expressed while writing under a pseudonym, writing in an essay titled ‘My Journey Out of Extremism’ last year: “I truly sucked back then.”
Just a couple of months before the publication of the essay, Hanania used his account on X to call for “more policing, incarceration, and surveillance of black people.”
Far-right social media influencer Laura Loomer is also on Vance’s follow list. Loomer has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe.”
Vance also follows podcast host Darryl Cooper, who said that the 2017 Charlottesville ‘Unite The Right’ rally included “a bunch of good people and wrote in a since-deleted tweet that “FDR chose the wrong side in WW2,” The Atlantic reported.
It is not clear how long Vance has followed each account, or if he has ever seen or interacted with any of their posted content, but Cooper congratulated his “longtime mutual” Vance after he was chosen as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
Following a person on X does not imply that the person agrees with the views shared on the account, but a review of Vance’s follower list does provide some insight into what the potential future vice president sees online.
Vance’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
Vance notably follows a relatively large number of journalists from liberal institutions, despite spending much of his time railing against the “liberal elite.”
He follows nine journalists from The Atlantic, one of America’s leading establishment liberal magazines, as well as an assortment of New York Times reporters.
Vance addressed the Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening as he accepted the party’s nomination for vice presidential candidate, sharing the story of growing up poor in Kentucky and Ohio.
“I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” he told the crowd.
