Sargon of Akkad, Count Dankula Are Running For Political Office
Absolute Mad Lads Sargon of Akkad, Count Dankula Are Running For Political Office. As two fairly prominent figures in the culture war they have been the subject of smears and lies from the far left and social justice activists. Naturally now they are being called "far right" and accused of pulling UKIP further right even though both are relatively centrist.As the culture war elevates more extreme individuals it is no surprise that activists on the far left and in media are going to smear and label Carl Benjamin and Mark Meechan as far right. Because the center has mostly fallen, and both are rather opposed to left wing identity politics, individuals such as Sargon and Dankula are smeared as being associated with extreme groups.Now whether or not either will win is to be seen but it would be very interesting to see Sargon win and become an MEP but then have Brexit happen only to see him booted shortly thereafter.
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Anti-feminist YouTuber Carl Benjamin, who goes by the name Sargon of Akkad Online, has announced that he will be campaigning to become a member of the European Parliament.
The Independent is reporting that he has been selected as an election candidate by UKIP.
Now this news comes just about a week after we heard from Count Dankula.
that he would be a candidate as well.
Dankula, whose real name is Mark Meacham, became famous when a video he made of his girlfriend's pug
doing a Nazi salute resulted in him being arrested and convicted of a crime.
Interestingly, Sargon is rather pro-Brexit and opposed to the European Union.
I'd have to assume if he does become a member of the European Parliament and Brexit happens,
they'd probably just kick him out.
But, as both of these individuals are prominent figures in the culture war, we're naturally seeing a pretty heavy reaction from the far left and left-wing digital media as they lament the rise of the far-right YouTubers running for office.
Today, let's take a look at what's going on with his candidacy and take a look at how the left has reacted to Sargon running for office.
Now before we get started, I want to give a quick shout out to today's sponsor, VirtualShield, who helps make this podcast possible.
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But now, back to the story.
Naturally, the Independent which leans left is going to be a bit of a biased source, but we'll use it anyway.
They say, Sargon of Akkad, anti-feminist YouTuber selected as UKIP election candidate.
Social media commentator previously drew condemnation from party spokesman over clash with Labour MP Jess Phillips.
Now I do want to point out, labeling Sargon is rather difficult.
He calls himself classic liberal, they refer to him as an anti-feminist, other people have called him far-right and alt-right, and I think those are absolutely incorrect.
But I do think it's fair to point out, based on Sargon's own interpretation of his work, that he is rather anti-feminist.
And he is a classical liberal.
The story says UKIP has selected an anti-feminist Eurosceptic YouTube commentator as a candidate should the UK take part in European Parliament elections next month.
Carl Benjamin, who posts online using the moniker Sargon of Akkad, is one of two candidates the Eurosceptic party named on Thursday to stand in the southwest region.
We went through an exhaustive process to sift over 190 potential candidates down to those the National Executive Committee representatives and I felt were more suitable, UKIP leader Gerard Batten said.
The list is based on a number of factors that we felt would select candidates to fight for a real Brexit after the European elections.
UKIP's priority is to have MEPs who will fight to make Brexit happen.
Mr. Benjamin has close to 1 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, on which he produces videos criticizing feminism, left-wing politics, and the European Union.
He gained mainstream attention after being accused of promoting a series of rape threats from Twitter users against Labour MP Jess Phillips in 2016.
Ms.
Phillips had written, People talking about raping me isn't fun, but has become somewhat par for the course.
On the social media site, leading Mr. Benjamin to reply, quote, His followers went on to repeat his statement, and Ms.
And Ms. Phillips later tweeted, "'600 odd notifications talking about my rape in one
night.
I think Twitter is dead.'"
A UKIP spokesman had previously condemned Mr. Benjamin's comments, telling The Independent
at the time he joined the party, the exchange with Ms.
Phillips was unpleasant.
Mr. Benjamin is one of several prominent social media activists to join the party under the
leadership of Mr. Batten, who has been accused of pulling the party towards the hard right.
They add Mark Meacham, known as Count Dankula, and noted for the court case surrounding a video he posted online of his girlfriend's pug, Dog, performing Nazi salutes, joined the party last year.
Paul Joseph Watson, the editor-at-large of Alex Jones' far-right InfoWars website, and a YouTuber with more than 1.6 million subscribers, also joined the party in 2018.
I'm certainly no expert on European politics, but according to Wikipedia, in the European election 2014 for Southwest England, UKIP got 32.29% of the votes.
And because it's proportional representation, this meant that many UKIP members did get elected.
So potentially, Sargon stands a pretty decent chance, should they actually participate in European elections.
The issue being Brexit, however.
If Brexit happens, and Britain leaves the European Union, then they likely would not have elections.
But, it seems like they're not leaving anytime soon, due to a bunch of problems, and thus, Sargon is going to run.
And as they stated, one of the main goals of UKIP is Brexit.
So it may result in Sargon of Akkad showing up in plain old street clothes, no suit, and just saying, we wanna leave.
Which would be really interesting.
And if they eventually do succeed in Brexit, I imagine they'd just remove Karl from office.
He'd just leave the European Union, however that would happen.
But Karl's not the only person, because as I mentioned, Count Dankula is potentially going to be running as well.
Dankula tweeted on April 8th.
Since Brexit is being betrayed, there is an extreme likelihood we'll be taking part in the May European elections.
I will be a candidate.
UKIP are crowdfunding the costs for the campaign.
If you can help in any way you can, please do.
Now, of course, I want to reach out to Dankula for a comment on his plans.
However, he posted this tweet.
To any journalists that try to reach out to me for comment, here is my official statement.
Honestly, I have no idea what that is, but it's a funny video I guess, so
obviously Dankula is making a joke in this regard.
But I will add, Dankula describes himself as a professional shitposter, quote, comedian, pro-free speech, anti-PC, UKIP member.
Humble salt farmer.
If he wins, it will be rather interesting to see a self-described professional shitposter in European Parliament.
Now, while this development is rather recent, that Sargon is going to be campaigning, and that Count Dankula may as well, we actually heard about them joining UKIP back in December.
This story from politico.eu.
The rise of UKIP's YouTubers.
A trio of social media stars are helping push the UK's Brexit party to the right.
But I have to say, I actually think, at least as far as Count Dankula goes and Sargon goes, it's actually a pull to the center.
But let's read what they say.
It started as most things Marcus Meechan does with a social media post.
If this gets 10,000 retweets, I will join UKIP.
Meechan, a Scottish political YouTuber known online as Count Dankula, wrote on Twitter on June 15th.
I'm not joking.
This is not a meme.
I'm being completely serious.
The next day, Meechan and two other rising stars on the video sharing platform joined the United Kingdom Independence Party in what one of them described as a soft coup.
The coup description was meant as a joke, but they might as well have been serious.
Less than half a year later, the party that put Brexit on the political agenda is undergoing a transformation driven in no small part by the online star power of Meechan and his fellow YouTubers, Paul Joseph Watson and Carl Benjamin.
The story goes on to say that with the departure of Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall, this will swerve the party toward the far right.
Farage and other internal critics have said, from a party that billed itself as representing the true voices of Little England, to one that's more eager to embrace the European or American-style nationalism embraced by Meechan and his friends.
The story adds, the new UKIP is part of a wider international freedom movement alongside the American conservative right, said Benjamin.
They very much consider each other brothers in arms, despite the many thousands of miles
that separate them," he added.
Watson agreed.
It's one unified effort to preserve Western civilization, he said in an email.
It's hard to know exactly what's true when you're dealing with the culture war, because
many mainstream publications will push a left-wing narrative or not do any research to actually
understand the people they're writing about.
Carl refers to himself as a classical liberal.
In fact, Mark Meechan has a big communist star on his chest, and I think it's fair to point out, when they take political compass tests, they're just rather centrist.
But of course, the media refers to them as far-right, and they claim that this will push UKIP to the far-right, when, if you actually look at their politics, while they are anti-identitarian, pro-free speech, it's not necessarily far-right, and Dankula and Sargon might actually pull UKIP a little bit to the center.
Now, admittedly, I'm not an expert on British politics, so I don't necessarily know what UKIP is or isn't pushing.
But it's not like they're not without criticism.
However, I think the culture war tends to make everything more extreme and exaggerated, and now we're seeing a bit of criticism from the mainstream media and left-wing activists.
Senior reporter for Buzzfeed Ryan Broderick tweeted this on the 10th.
For any Americans that may have missed this, the Nazi pug YouTuber Count Dankula announced he's running in the European parliamentary elections in May.
He went on to say, while European politics are a lot different than Brazilian politics,
here's me from October outlining what happens when far-right YouTubers actually run for office.
YouTubers will enter politics, and the ones who do are probably going to win.
He went on to highlight this tweet from a senior politics reporter from BuzzFeed UK.
There it is!
YouTuber Sargon of Akkad, who rose to prominence during Gamergate, is running in the European elections as a UKIP candidate.
He's the second right-wing YouTuber that UKIP has tapped to run as a candidate.
The age of YouTuber-turned-MPs arrives in Britain.
It is absolutely not out of the realm of possibility that Prison Planet also runs.
In one of the more funny responses, over on the subreddit for Gamer Ghazi, which they label themselves as SJWs, they say, Carl of Swindon is standing to be an MEP in the European elections.
The top comment says, WTF, I love Brexit now.
of Karlgan and the EU parliament is probably the single best argument in favor of Brexit
I've ever heard," to which one user responded, WTF I love Brexit now.
Another comment says, So, he's running as a UKIP candidate.
UKIP, the party whose founder left because of the racism and Islamophobia running rampant
That Ukip.
Does Carl Gahn still want to pretend he's not alt-right?
Another criticism says, Complains of SJW not following science and claims to be centrist.
Runs for populist right-wing anti-economics party.
I'm sure you get the point as the comments go on.
Now, of course, the response from the left-wing media is rather tepid, but alarmist.
Oh no!
Right-wing YouTubers are running for office!
And interestingly, one of the comments opposed to Sargon says that he claims to be a centrist, wants to follow science, but he joined a populist right-wing party.
If that's true, then my argument from before stands.
Sargon would actually pull the right-wing populist movement more towards the center.
He's very prominent, and the people who join because of him will likely be more in line with his politics, not the right-wing politics of Ukip.
Wouldn't that make sense?
Of course not.
Because politics only flows in one direction in the culture war.
If you talk with someone on the left, you are not left-wing.
If you talk with someone on the right, you are right-wing.
For some reason, that's how it works.
Sargon can be a centrist type, but simply by being associated with Ukip, he is now branded a far-right or alt-right or whatever.
If I take a photo with someone on the left, what they will do is point to the left-wing person and claim they're far-right, instead of saying that I'm far-left.
You see how it works?
It can only ever flow in one direction.
I've said time and time again, the platform that is the left, be it the UK or the US, is shrinking.
And they have no problem pushing people out and claiming they're not really left-wing.
They want to claim that I'm a conservative, when I'm actually more like a moderate Democrat, and have actively supported Democrats in this campaign cycle.
But it doesn't matter.
Sargon can be a centrist, so can Dankula, but by joining a right-wing party, they are inherently now far-right, and actually pushing the party to the far-right, at least according to Politico.
But, it is complicated, and I'm not going to claim that any of these people are to be without criticism.
Of course, there's always things to criticize people for, and I've actually been critical of Sargon's attitude in the past, where I felt that he used to be more divisive and mean.
I've actually seen him becoming a little bit better and calmer as time goes on.
More experienced, I would say.
But it's a complicated issue.
Now, I was hoping to do an interview with Sargon today, and unfortunately we weren't able to make it happen, but hopefully tomorrow, I will be able to have a conversation with him about what he plans to do and why he's running.
In the meantime, you can let me know what you think in the comments below and we will keep that conversation going.
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