Anti-Vax Influencer Stew Peters Has a New Fixation: “The Jews”
/Stew Peters Network
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.In October, I wrote about how bounty-hunter-turned-far-right-livestreamer Stew Peters was using the conflict in Gaza as an excuse to indulge in flagrantly antisemitic rhetoric. Back then, Peters mostly used coded language, ranting about “Zionists” and the “globalists.”
In the past few weeks, though, Peters has dispensed with the euphemisms, instead leveling his accusations against “the Jews.” On a segment on his show last week, for example, he argued in a passionate diatribe that the United States was controlled by Jewish people. “Every institution in this country is led by somebody who claims to be a Jew,” Peters ranted to more than half a million Rumble viewers. “Are they practicing Jews? No, of course they’re not. They hide behind the Jew label so that they can get people like Elon Musk to kick me off of X for saying that they’re a Jew.” (Peters’ account has not been removed from X.)
In that same segment, he hosted far-right influencer Evan Kilgore, and the two conversed about the need for an insurrection. “Do you think that America needs to see an insurrection—a violent one?” asked Peters.
Kilgore responded: “I think that if we can’t get this country back under control, then we certainly need to do something, and does it need to be an insurrection? Possibly. If we’re going to go take over the Capitol, there needs to be a list of demands saying we’re not going to leave unless these are satisfied.”
Over the past several years, Peters has attracted attention beyond just extremist circles; his anti-vaccine movie Died Suddenly, viewed by at least 16 million people on Rumble, helped popularize a suite of conspiracy theories blaming celebrity deaths on Covid vaccines. Before Peters was a far-right personality, he did stints as a rapper in Los Angeles and a bounty hunter in his hometown of Minneapolis. His turn to outright antisemitism is reaching a wide audience.
In another segment last week, about X owner Elon Musk’s visit to Auschwitz, Peters mused that the Holocaust may have been a hoax. “The gas chambers, the crematoriums—they were destroyed at the end of World War II, if they were ever there in the first place,” he said.
In a segment on Monday, Peters hosted Joe Minadeo II, the neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist who leads the hate group Goyim Defense League. “It’s time we look into Hitler and go, ‘hey! Is he as bad as the Jews are saying he is?’” Minadeo said.
“You’re studying up on Hitler,” said Peters. “Could he have been a terrible person and a dictator and a ruthless murderer and a genocider? I don’t know, because there is so much propaganda.”
Later in the same segment, Peters indulged in a lengthy monologue about powerful Jews. “Who are the primary shareholders in Pfizer?” he thundered. “Are they Jewish? What about our state department? What is the percentage of people that are Jewish in the Biden administration or in the cabinet?”
In addition to his show on Rumble, Peters also treats his 542,000 followers on X to a stream of antisemitic vitriol, fuming about “the Jewish lobby/mafia” and “the Talmud’s sick gender ideology.” On Monday, he boasted on X about his anti-vaccine movie:
NEVER FORGET that when ALL of these other “dissident” media COWARDS were scared to “lose their platform”, I went right into the belly of the beast and dismantled the murderous, Jewish-funded, genocidal mainstream media to save the lives of children. pic.twitter.com/JdJRHH7kAX
— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) January 30, 2024
Even in the notoriously unfiltered version of X that has emerged since Elon Musk took over, Peters’ remarks stand out, particularly given his large following. Some users have called for his removal, but Peters seems to delight in defying them:
.@elonmusk this loser is trying to run a coordinated campaign to get everyone in Europe to report me.
A free speech platform cannot exist when butthurt babies like this guy are allowed to openly plot to get an account banned bc they don’t actually support free speech. @X… https://t.co/mOkzgAAjHp
— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) January 30, 2024
Neither X nor Rumble responded to a query from Mother Jones asking if they were aware of Peters’ antisemitic rhetoric, or had any plans to address it.
