On the matter of Robert Bowers...

None of this comes out of nowhere

In light of the conviction of Robert Bowers today, it’s worth noting that the Bowerses of the world might be fringe but they have support networks not far at all from mainstream.

Case in point: racist and antisemitic GOP Congressional candidate Paul Nehlen, who was kicked off twitter in February 2018 for a racist tweet about Meghan Markle. 

In May 2019, Fox was citing Nehlen in a graphic and during a segment as one of eight conservative “Prominent Voices Censored on Social Media.” Laura Ingraham cited the eight as having been censored for “standing up for border security, standing up for national sovereignty.”

Nehlen was already known as an outspoken antisemite. The ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted to Ingraham: “Paul Nehlen is not being censored because he's a conservative. He was kicked off social media for repeatedly spewing anti-Semitism & racism, and for targeting Jewish journalists. Do better, @FoxNews.”

The month before Fox was defending Nehlen, he was defending his Robert Bowers “Screw Your Optics, I’m Going In” T-shirt (see below image).

On the antisemitic Goy Talk podcast, Nehlen described wearing the shirt on a trip to Michigan and said, “When your race is under attack it's absolutely justified in the Bible to defend yourself and to fight back. And so, you know, I wasn't taking the path of avoiding the situation, in fact I wore a nice sports, sports coat and underneath that I had my Bowers ‘Screw Your Optics, I'm Going In’ T-shirt on. Because I wanna make a point that it will ultimately take- – it might not take a million Robert Bowers – but it's gonna take a lot of people all pushing in the same direction to do what needs to be done. And that is to rid white lands of Jews.”

Again, this is a month before Fox defended him.

So: again, while Robert Bowers may be fringe, his support networks are one step away from the mainstream.