The White Supremacist In Trump's Ear

Reflecting on Laura Loomer and the danger she poses to us all.

Laura Loomer (left) and Donald Trump (right).

“They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

These were the words Donald Trump uttered during the presidential debate against Kamala Harris, accusing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of stealing and eating pets. The claim was shocking, grotesque, and completely false. Local authorities had already debunked the story, which started as a baseless rumor on Facebook. Despite this, the lie spread rapidly, with prominent figures like Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, amplifying it for political purposes​. What began as a local piece of disinformation quickly spiraled into a dangerous myth, stoking fear and hatred toward an already vulnerable community.

As absurd as this claim is, it didn't just fizzle out after the debunking. Instead, it became a viral sound on TikTok, where users mimicked Trump’s words, often in a comedic tone. Something so harmful has been turned into entertainment, but there’s nothing funny about it. For Haitian immigrants and others in Springfield, the consequences are real. Since the false claims by Donald Trump, the community has been gripped by harassment and bomb threats that have forced evacuations of schools, government buildings, and other local sites.

Even Republican leaders in Springfield have urged both Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance to stop spreading the false claims, recognizing the harm it has caused their community. Despite these pleas, Trump and Vance have refused to retract their statements, continuing to use the baseless rumor for political gain.

These kinds of lies sink deep into the skin, sowing a fear that reshapes how we see each other. It’s not just the words that carry weight but the way they carve people into caricatures—flattening their humanity until they’re seen only as threats. This is how xenophobia festers, in the sharp edges of these stories, where truth is swallowed by what we’re willing to believe. And so, a rumor becomes an excuse to hate, and hate becomes the architecture of the world.

One might ask, where Trump originally heard such a thing? How does a lie so absurd make its way to the podium of a presidential debate? Well—many believe the answer to that question rests on the shoulders of Laura Loomer.

It would make sense if you haven’t heard of Laura Loomer before. She is a far-right activist, conspiracy theorist, and former congressional candidate who operates on the fringes of political discourse, where misinformation is the currency and facts are optional. It was Loomer who first sparked the conspiracy about Haitians in Springfield. Her narrative, wild and vicious, leapt from her social media posts, snaking its way into the minds of those already prepared to believe the worst about immigrants. Loomer’s words—baseless, reckless—became fuel for a fire that was already burning beneath the surface.

She understood something vital: it’s not just about creating a lie, it’s about knowing who will want to believe it.

But this lie did not reach Donald Trump because he was scrolling through the endless sludge of the internet, as some might assume. No, it came directly from the mouth of Loomer, who has recently become one of Trump’s most trusted confidants.

Though she is not officially tied to Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, Loomer has become a constant presence by his side, traveling with him and appearing at his public events. This proximity has not gone unnoticed. In fact, her presence has stirred concern among Trump’s allies and opponents alike, as her history is one marked by a brazen embrace of bigotry and division.

Many Republicans see her as a liability, a figure whose extremism risks alienating mainstream voters. But Trump’s refusal to distance himself from Loomer speaks to the peculiar calculus of his political strategy—one that prioritizes attention and loyalty over the alienation of those outside his base.

A racist rant on Twitter by Laura Loomer about Kamala Harris.

Loomer’s rhetoric and actions are so toxic that even figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene—herself no stranger to conspiracy theories and xenophobic outbursts—have publicly condemned her. It’s a startling reality when individuals who have built their careers on sowing division and hate find someone in their midst too extreme for their own liking. But Loomer, with her relentless, unhinged attacks on immigrants, Muslims, and even Black women in power, has managed to surpass the bounds of acceptable bigotry within far-right circles.

In one particularly telling instance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, known for her wild conspiracy theories and inflammatory statements, was forced to call out Loomer’s remarks about Kamala Harris. Loomer had launched a racist tirade against Harris, referring to her in terms so vile that Greene labeled the comments “appalling” and “extremely racist.” It is rare for Greene to draw a line in the sand when it comes to hate speech, yet with Loomer, she felt compelled to do so. That speaks volumes about just how dangerous Loomer is.

Far-right political figure, Marjorie Taylor Greene, condemning Laura Loomer’s racist remarks about Kamala Harris.

This distancing wasn’t limited to Greene. Senator Lindsey Graham, another figure known for playing into the worst fears of the Republican base, also weighed in, dismissing Loomer as “toxic” and calling her influence a serious liability for the Republican Party. When a man like Graham, who has made a career of navigating the murky waters of Trumpism and white nationalist sympathies, calls you out, it’s clear that you have crossed into territory most won’t follow.

And yet, despite this, Trump has not only embraced Loomer but elevated her within his inner circle.

To understand the danger of Laura Loomer, we must look at the makings of her. She came into the world in Arizona, 1993, to unremarkable beginnings in the way many far-right provocateurs often are. Raised in a middle-class Jewish family, Loomer attended Mount Holyoke College, a historically liberal institution, before transferring to Barry University in Miami, Florida, where she would ultimately graduate with a degree in broadcast journalism. It is from this seemingly benign starting point—liberal education in hand—that Loomer would begin to craft her identity as a far-right activist, eventually finding herself at the center of America’s most toxic political debates.

Loomer's public trajectory began in the shadows of larger, more infamous figures. She worked briefly for James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, an organization known for its sting operations aimed at liberal institutions and politicians. It was here, among O’Keefe’s gang of grifters, that she sharpened her teeth. Project Veritas’ tactics of secret recordings, selective editing, and public shaming were the perfect training ground for someone like Loomer, who would soon take her own methods of disruption to new heights.

Her rise to prominence came during the 2016 presidential election, a period in American politics defined by chaos, conspiracy, and an erosion of public trust. While Donald Trump was busy transforming the GOP into a vessel for his particular brand of nationalist populism, Loomer found herself increasingly drawn to the fringes of the far-right, espousing ideas that would eventually get her banned from social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Her early activism was erratic and theatrical: she interrupted Shakespeare in the Park's performance of Julius Caesar in New York City, accusing the production of endorsing violence against Donald Trump because the titular character, Caesar, was portrayed with a resemblance to the then-president. The stunt earned her temporary headlines but, more importantly for Loomer, it cemented her status as a firebrand willing to say and do what others would not.

But it was her attacks on Islam that would propel her to infamy. Loomer’s anti-Muslim rhetoric found a home in the broader ecosystem of far-right discourse that linked terrorism, immigration, and Islam in a singular, dangerous narrative. She referred to Islam as a “cancer” and Muslims as inherently violent. She harassed elected officials like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, two of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, accusing them of supporting terrorism simply because of their faith. These incendiary comments, while baseless, endeared her to a growing audience of white nationalists and far-right activists who felt emboldened by Trump’s presidency. To them, Loomer was a truth-teller, a woman unafraid to attack the supposed threats to Western civilization.

Social media was, for a time, the perfect vehicle for Loomer’s brand of politics. Her tweets and videos went viral not because they were insightful or thought-provoking, but because they were outrageous. In a world where attention is currency, Loomer cashed in by courting controversy at every turn. Her followers saw her as a warrior for free speech, a victim of “Big Tech censorship” when platforms like Twitter and Facebook eventually banned her for violating hate speech policies. Loomer, for her part, embraced the role of martyr. In 2018, after being banned from Twitter, she famously handcuffed herself to the door of Twitter’s New York City headquarters, protesting what she called the silencing of conservative voices. But even in protest, there was a certain spectacle to her actions—Loomer didn’t bring the key to unlock herself, ensuring that the stunt would end with the police cutting her loose. The protest wasn’t about the message; it was about the moment, the image, the attention.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Her reputation as an agitator opened doors within far-right circles, and in 2020, Loomer decided to capitalize on her fame by running for Congress. She chose Florida’s 21st congressional district, a predominantly blue area that includes parts of Palm Beach County, where Donald Trump himself voted. Despite raising over $2 million dollars—much of it from far-right donors—Loomer’s campaign was more theater than serious politics. She railed against Islam, immigration, and the “liberal elite,” but her message found little resonance outside of her base. Loomer ultimately lost to the incumbent Democrat Lois Frankel, though she did garner 39 percent of the vote. Her defeat, however, did little to diminish her following. Like Trump, she claimed that the system was rigged against her and continued to build her brand on grievance and outrage.

To understand Loomer is to recognize that she is a reflection of a larger sickness within American politics—a sickness that elevates performative outrage over substantive discourse. Her rise is inseparable from the rise of Trumpism, where the truth is not as important as the perception of victimhood, and where political success is measured not in terms of policy achievements but in how much anger can be generated in 280 characters or less. Loomer does not deal in facts or ideas; she traffics in hatred, harnessing the anxieties of a nation fractured along racial, religious, and cultural lines.

She is, in many ways, a product of the internet age, where the line between activism and entertainment has all but disappeared. What Loomer offers her audience is not solutions but spectacles, not conversations but confrontations. She thrives in the spaces where nuance is lost, and all that remains is the tribal warfare of us versus them. Her ideology is a collage of conspiracy theories, fearmongering, and deep-seated white nationalism—an ideology that is as dangerous as it is shallow.

Yet, it would be a mistake to dismiss Loomer as simply a fringe figure. She may not have won her congressional race, but the fact that she even ran, raised millions, and garnered nearly 40 percent of the vote in a major district says something unsettling about where we are as a nation. Now, she is flying across the country as a member of the Republican presidential nominee’s inner circle.

Donald Trump and Laura Loomer at a Bitcoin conference.

Donald Trump’s rhetoric has always been the purest distillation of white nationalism—bitter and unfiltered, unrefined by the camouflage of respectability that predecessors wore He is, after all, the president who rose on a tide of white grievance, who built his political empire on accusations of Mexicans being rapists, called for the blood of five innocent Black boys, who denounced entire nations as “shithole countries.” Trump has defined himself by being the full expression of an American lineage that decides who belongs and who is excluded. He didn’t invent this playbook; he just read from it in ways bolder and more dangerous than others.

But something in the air has shifted. The emergence of figures like Laura Loomer represents a new kind of threat—more pointed, more conspiratorial, more sinister. If Trump’s racism was blunt-force trauma, Loomer’s influence brings a scalpel.

She is a manifestation of the far-right internet’s wildest dreams. And now, her venomous worldview, honed in the darkest corners of 4Chan, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube, has found an ear in the former president of the United States. This is a level of danger that should not be dismissed.

Loomer is not content with merely spewing the old rhetoric of white nationalism. She is a creator of new conspiracies, birthing narratives that feel tailored to this moment, where distrust of institutions, fear of the “other,” and the hunger for scapegoats have converged into a singular toxic brew. In the Trump era, white nationalism has become mainstream, yes, but Loomer’s influence signals a terrifying evolution—a confluence of paranoia and political power that seeks not just to inflame but to destroy.

This is no longer simply about the president stoking fear for votes. This is about a fringe figure sitting at the helm of an already precarious ship, whispering into the captain’s ear. Loomer understands it’s not just about loud, public declarations of hatred but about how fear is sown through whispers, how lies—sharp and specific—can turn communities against each other, can turn immigrants into monsters and entire cities into war zones.

The union of Trump and Loomer is a dangerous symbiosis. Where Trump offers the platform, Loomer brings the fire. What Trump has always lacked in nuance, Loomer supplies in conspiracy theories tailored to a base that is increasingly untethered from reality. Loomer’s proximity to Trump is not simply about inflating his rhetoric; it’s about taking that rhetoric into new, darker territories—ones that Trump himself might not have ventured into without her hand guiding him.

And here lies the crux of the danger. Trump has always played to white nationalist sentiments, but Loomer—unlike him—is unrestrained by the constraints of traditional politics. In Trump, she has found the perfect vessel. Together, they represent something more than just a political campaign. They represent an assault on the very concept of shared reality, a belief that if enough fear is sown, if enough lies are told, then the institutions of democracy can be reshaped in their image.

This is what makes the moment so perilous. It is not that Trump has suddenly become more dangerous—he has always been dangerous—but that now, his most trusted confidants are individuals whose entire political identity is predicated on dismantling the last vestiges of truth and shared reality. Loomer’s influence is not just about rhetoric; it’s about power, about who gets to define reality in an era where facts have become negotiable.

We must reckon with this reality. The Trump-Loomer alliance is not simply another chapter in the long, sordid history of American demagoguery. It is a turning point. It is the moment where lies become policy, where conspiracy becomes governance, where the line between truth and fiction is not just blurred but erased. We have seen what happens when Trump has the ear of those willing to exploit his worst instincts—think of Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller—but in Loomer, we see the full potential of what Trumpism could become: a movement not just of hatred but of destruction.

This is no longer simply about winning elections or rallying a base. It is about something far more dangerous—reshaping the American political landscape into one where the most vicious lies are not just tolerated but rewarded, where white nationalism is not just a whisper but a guiding force. In Loomer, Trump has found the ultimate enabler, one who understands that the real war is not for votes but for reality itself.