HOW WE GOT HERE

I watch a lot of TV, and I often draw parallels between what I see on screen and what I see playing out in this country. In the most recent episode of IT, there is a scene where a masked lynch mob of angry white men storms a military base, hunting a Black soldier they falsely believe killed local children. When the Black soldiers aim their rifles back in self-defense, the mob retreats but locks dozens of Black and white townspeople inside a barn and sets it on fire.

The only thing that gave those men the courage to commit such evil was the anonymity of their masks. They knew their faces were covered, their identities protected, and their violence would come without consequences.

It is not that different from today’s anonymous Twitter accounts that hide behind cartoon avatars, flaming skulls, and American flags. And in a more nefarious twist, many of these accounts have been traced back to users in Nigeria, Russia, Germany, and Eastern Europe. Their goal is simple: stir racial resentment in the United States.

And when you combine that with Elon Musk, who now owns one of the most powerful communication platforms on Earth, you get a megaphone for a very old American poison.

THE ELON MUSK FACTOR: FEAR AS A BUSINESS MODEL

I spend a lot of time online. Too much, probably. And because politics has become so toxic, I often have to step back and ask a simple question whenever a narrative begins to take hold:

Why is this story being pushed?

Elon Musk is the richest man on Earth. He could be using his enormous wealth to uplift communities or tackle long-term problems. Instead he has chosen to stoke racial resentment, not just in America but globally.

He reposts twenty-year-old videos of violent crimes with captions that echo ancient racist tropes.

“it’s always white women they terrorize...”
“non Whites have been calling for our extermination for years”
“Civil war.”

Almost every post is crafted to make his 230 million followers believe that violent Black people are lurking everywhere, waiting to steal their property, their dignity, their women, or even their lives.

The formula is not complicated. In a country where thousands of crimes occur daily, Elon only needs one or two examples framed strategically to manufacture a sense of racial panic.

And when you ask who benefits from that panic, the answer is as old as American racism: Those who need a distraction from their own failures.

Of course, none of this discussion is possible without trump’s permission structure. Without his infamous golden escalator speech ten years ago, many white Americans would still feel shame for their racism. Trump removed the shame. He turned it into a badge of honor.

Since then, we have seen the rise of “Karens Karening,” and certain names now live forever in internet history: Central Park Karen. BBQ Becky. Permit Patty.

Each incident revealed the same panic: the fear of being caught on camera acting on racist impulse. The fear of consequences.

In the Cinnabon case, the white woman clearly realized she was being filmed. And instead of backing down, she seemed to lean in, as if performing for her fellow racists.

Nobody who is not racist uses the hard R with that much ease.

But here is where it gets darker. Trump had just spent two weeks targeting Somalians in his speeches. The pattern is unmistakable. The moment he calls a group “garbage,” a viral racist incident emerges involving that same group.

And when the Cinnabon Racist was fired, racist donors immediately showered her with over one hundred thousand dollars. Many of them wrote a version of the same comment:

“They must have done something to provoke her.”

No evidence. No facts. No interest in the truth. Her whiteness alone earned her their sympathy. The Somali victims were dismissed instantly.

This is the America Elon and trump are building together.

THE FUENTES PIPELINE: MANUFACTURING EXTREMISM

Nick Fuentes has been back on Twitter for a long time now. This was not a one-time reinstatement. This was Elon intentionally bringing a holocaust denier into the mainstream and letting the algorithm push him into prominence.

Fuentes now has over one point one million followers. That is almost as many as I have, and I worked years for my platform. He was handed his through Musk’s manipulation of visibility.

Fuentes is not merely offensive. He is strategic. He tailors his rhetoric for insecure young men looking for identity. Many of the same boys who consume Rogan clips and Andrew Tate lectures find in Fuentes a kind of rebellious “middle finger to the establishment.”

Elon has effectively given him a recruitment center.

And then there is Tucker Carlson, who spent over two hours interviewing Fuentes and framing him as a legitimate political thinker. Tucker helped mainstream “Great Replacement Theory,” a bedtime horror story conservatives tell each other about immigrants stealing jobs, houses, and status.

I still have no idea how they think people who barely speak English and often work far below minimum wage are buying up homes and stealing wealth. But the truth never mattered. The narrative did.

THE BIGGER GAME: WHY THEY ARE DOING THIS

Elon, Tucker, Fuentes, and trump all operate from the same core grievance: that any effort to level the playing field for people of color is “anti-white racism.” They have rebranded DEI and CRT into existential threats rather than modest attempts to correct long-standing inequities.

This would be laughable if it were not so effective.

These men are not stupid. They know exactly what they are doing. They are tapping into something primal:

Fear.

Fear of losing status.
Fear of losing privilege.
Fear of losing imagined entitlements.
Fear of becoming the “other.”

And when you are desperate politically, you push the oldest American story there is:

The lie that white Americans are under attack.

And the moment they believe that lie, they are ready to fight imaginary enemies while ignoring the real dangers at the top.

THE CINNABON INCIDENT IS NOT RANDOM

So how does this all connect? Let’s zoom out.

Trump recently began attacking Somalians again. He does this whenever he needs a new scapegoat. Two weeks ago it was Venezuelans. Last week it was Somalians. Next week it will be someone else. The pattern is always the same.

And almost immediately after those remarks, a Somali couple walked into a Cinnabon and were violently berated with racial slurs. The video went viral. The employee lost her job. Then she raised over a hundred thousand dollars on GiveSendGo.

Republicans have mastered the art of turning white wrongdoing into white martyrdom.

Elon amplifies it.
Tucker intellectualizes it.
Fuentes weaponizes it.
Trump justifies it.

Each one plays a part in the same machine.

This is how you manufacture a race war without firing a shot. You flood the zone with grievance, paranoia, and fantasy. You convince ordinary white people that they are victims. You give them villains with dark skin and foreign accents.

And while they are busy hating the people below them, billionaires are stealing everything above them.

THE REAL QUESTION

Are Elon Musk and right-wing influencers trying to start a race war?
Or are they trying something even more cynical:

A distraction.

A distraction from trump’s economic failures.
A distraction from rising prices.
A distraction from promises he continues to break.
A distraction from the Epstein files he still has not released.
A distraction from the fact that his approval is sinking.

Fear is the oldest political trick in the book.

And America keeps falling for it.

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FINAL TAKEAWAY

The Cinnabon incident is not just a racist meltdown in a mall. It is a symptom of something much bigger and more intentional.

A billionaire amplifies white fear.
An extremist mobilizes white rage.
A cable host legitimizes white grievance.
A president targets communities for political gain.

This ecosystem is not organic. It is engineered.

And unless we name it and expose it, it will grow.

If pieces like this help you connect the dots no one else is talking about, becoming a paid subscriber is one of the best ways to support this work.

How do you think we should respond, collectively and politically, when fear is used as the justification for sweeping crackdowns? Do you believe a “race war” is about to erupt, or is that just right-wing fearmongering?

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