Meet the Black Lives Matter progressive who became a MAGA superstar and convert - RePost

Interesting read here on a former Black Lives Matter activist, who organized marches and protests who once he was introduced to PragerU, became a MAGA superstar. Via NY Times. And the article is long so we will just clip parts of it.

How a Black Progressive Transformed Into a Conservative Star

Xaviaer DuRousseau once marched in Black Lives Matter protests. Then he started watching PragerU videos — and they resonated with him.

In the summer of 2020, Xaviaer DuRousseau was preparing to appear on a Netflix reality show called “The Circle,” where a group of strangers, isolated in separate apartments, compete for a cash prize and occasionally adopt fake digital personas to trick one anotherMr. DuRousseau, then 23, was a progressive who marched in Black Lives Matter protests, had pushed his university to require ethnic studies courses as a graduation requirement and voted for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016. For the TV show, producers wanted Mr. DuRousseau, a Black man, to pose as a white woman and lecture others about racial injustice, before revealing his true identity.Mr. DuRousseau spent hours boning up on right-wing politics to get ready for debates with conservative contestants.But as he watched videos from PragerU, the conservative advocacy group, and Candace Owens, a right-wing influencer, he found himself nodding along.

Maybe, he began to think, the media really was targeting President Trump for taking on the political establishment. Maybe free college and free health care were unrealistic goals, despite what Mr. Sanders said. Maybe police brutality against Black people was less common than he thought.

“I was getting so frustrated, because I kept agreeing with some of the stuff that they were saying,” he said. “I just kept debunking myself, over and over.”

Days before he was set to fly to London to film the show, Mr. DuRousseau backed out. He no longer believed in the liberal politics he was supposed to champion on television.

Mr. DuRousseau’s transformation is complete. Now 28, he is not just a proud supporter of Mr. Trump; he works for PragerU, making talky, snarky videos under the brand “Respectfully, Xaviaer” for its website and for his hundreds of thousands of online followers. The influencer gig has worked out: He has been quoted in Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, lives stylishly in Los Angeles and recently flew to Washington for a Black History Month event at the White House.

Mr. DuRousseau is part of a new wave of conservative social media personalities who are gaining attention among Generation Z voters disillusioned with their economic prospects and tired of identity politics. Young men in particular turned to the right in the 2024 election, with 56 percent of men ages 18 to 29 voting for Mr. Trump, according to Associated Press VoteCast data, a 15-point swing from 2020, when 41 percent of them backed Mr. Trump.

This new cohort of young voters does not fit neatly into one political party, but instead comes from a hodgepodge of political perspectives. Some of these voters, like Mr. DuRousseau, admire both Mr. Sanders, for his authenticity and commitment to the working class, and Mr. Trump, for his disdain for civic institutions and what he considers cancel culture.

“Young people are inherently rebellious,” Mr. DuRousseau said. “Gen Z got tired of getting called racist and having to tiptoe and walk on eggshells.”

“Looking and sounding like a liberal, while speaking conservative values,” he said. “And making people realize, ‘Oh, I don’t have to be an old, rich, white Republican in order to align with some of these values.’”

That day’s video, part of his “Walk With Me” series, would be aimed at liberal online critics who might say Republicans would never welcome an outspoken Black man like him.

The MAGA cultural movement is nasty, liberals say, with conservatives freely using slurs to describe gay people, disabled people, transgender people — anyone the right considers weird. A widely read New York magazine piece about young conservative influencers at a party in Washington, D.C., dubbed this crowd the “Cruel Kids’ Table.”

Some on the right said the article unfairly portrayed the group as racist and lacking diversity. Mr. DuRousseau, who was at the party, was not thrilled with it, either, but he also blamed some of his fellow guests.

“You don’t go up to a reporter and say wildly reckless, racist jokes,” as some at the party did, he said. “If that’s your sense of humor and your dark humor, don’t do that in New York mag. Do that with your friends.”

Mr. DuRousseau was not quoted saying anything controversial, though the author wrote that his TikTok “is full of sometimes transphobic rants.” Mr. DuRousseau has said that trans people “have no idea who they are,” has applauded efforts to bar trans people from serving in the military and competing in women’s sports, and said he does not support children having gender transition surgery.

He acknowledged he was sometimes “harsh” when talking about the trans community but said it was unfair to call him transphobic. He said he was primarily concerned with protecting women’s spaces and with the consequences of children having irreversible surgery.

Still, controversy leads to more eyeballs, which lead to more dollars. Mr. DuRousseau wouldn’t say how much money he earns, but he has an enviable lifestyle, working out at Equinox and dining at expensive restaurants.

Mr. DuRousseau’s viewers on social media sometimes wonder in their comments whether he has carefully crafted his transformation story just to get attention and an income.

He said he understood the skepticism, but insisted the change was legitimate — and painful. It destroyed relationships with his friends and family, he said.

“MAGA culture now is hot,” Mr. DuRousseau said. “Everybody wants to be a part of it.” But not long ago, “you were exiled from society.”

Mr. DuRousseau’s social media content is a potpourri of pop culture and right-wing politics, though his political takes sometimes deviate from the MAGA script. He praises Mr. Trump, mocks Kanye West, fact-checks Elon Musk, celebrates Beyoncé, assails pro-Palestinian protesters, compliments Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas — a rising Democratic star — and gleefully calls for deportations.

Several hours after filming his “Walk With Me” video, Mr. DuRousseau dined on the rooftop of the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills with his friend Emily Wilson, another Democrat turned MAGA influencer. She said her conservative transformation began after she lost her job during the Covid pandemic and began criticizing mandatory lockdowns on social media.

Now, she courts controversy and attracts attention on her podcast, called “Emily Saves America.” Ms. Wilson, 31, said the left’s policing of speech and scolding tone reached an extreme in 2020, amid racial justice protests and debates over vaccine requirements and mask mandates.

“The way I felt is probably how young Americans feel: I felt like I was literally bullied into a corner for the past four years,” she said, peppering her comments with expletives. “You just have to tiptoe: ‘Don’t make a racist joke. Oh, don’t be misogynistic. Oh, call them by their pronouns.’ You get to a point where you feel like you’re going to explode.”

Read the rest of the article here.