Jackson Hinkle

Jackson Hinkle
Born	September 1999 (age 25) San Clemente, California, United States
Education	San Clemente High School
Occupation(s)	Social media influencer, political commentator
Known for	MAGA Communism, conspiracy theories, misinformation
Television	The Dive with Jackson Hinkle
Movement	American conservationism, anti-Israel, pro-Russia

Jackson Hinkle (born September 1999) is an American political commentator and social media influencer, who hosts the political show The Dive with Jackson Hinkle. He has also appeared on right-wing cable news, such as Tucker Carlson Tonight and One America News Network, and RT. As of November 2023, he is one of the most viral users on the social media site X (formerly Twitter) but banned from WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, Paypal, and Twitch for misinformation.

Initially a high-school environmentalist, Hinkle and his show shifted to an American conservative and conspiratorial tone, and holding a pro-fossil fuel stance. Hinkle describes himself as an "American Conservative Marxist–Leninist", among other labels, and is known for promoting MAGA Communism and conspiracy theories, as well as for his support of Vladimir Putin in the Russo-Ukrainian War. He attracted international attention for his viral misinformation in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, being described as Twitter's most viral misinformation spreader due to his near-frenetic tweeting. His bans from certain platforms were initially in response to spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine.

Early life and education

Hinkle was born in 1999 in San Clemente, California. Hinkle was a member of his middle school surf club, played the guitar, and painted. Hinkle attended San Clemente public schools. Attending Shorecliffs Middle School and then San Clemente High School, he graduated high school in 2018. Hinkle fought plastic waste since he was 17 years old, his understanding of the environmental issue stemming from him being a surfer. Hinkle also learned of the abuses done by corporations.

In March 2016, during his sophomore year at high school, Hinkle founded the Team Zissou Environmental Organization (the name came from Steve Zissou, the protagonist of the Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), an environmental association that does lobbying and volunteer work, such as beach cleanups in Orange County. Under Hinkle's guidance, the club gathered hundreds of students to work collaboratively towards improving the environment.

In 2017, Hinkle became Water Ambassador for The Water Effect at The Ecology Center. Hinkle was also named one of "The 17 Most Inspirational Kids of 2017" by Reader's Digest. In 2018, recently graduated Hinkle went to Washington, D.C., as a representative of nuclear safety advocacy group San Clemente Green. He spoke at a congressional briefing on the subject of safely dealing with decommissioned nuclear plants and met with congressional members. That same year, Hinkle attended Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, to pursue political science.

Political and activist career

Hinkle began his political activism in the late 2010s, running in a San Clemente city council special election in 2019, a year after graduating. During this campaign, he advocated that the city of San Clemente have its own police department, he "categorically and unconditionally" opposed the legalization of prostitution, and proposed combatting the presence and effect of nuclear waste in the area. Hinkle ultimately lost the election, winning a little less than a third of the vote. In 2020, Hinkle launched the political show The Dive with Jackson Hinkle on YouTube, which reached 300,000 subscribers by 2023, and on Twitch as JacksonHinkleTV, which was subsequently banned for "harmful misinformation", later expanding to Rumble.

In January 2022, Hinkle debated progressive political commentator Sam Seder on his talk show The Majority Report with Sam Seder. In the debate, Hinkle attacked Seder's support for the Squad and argued that they had backed the American government's imperialist foreign policy by funding the State Department, which he said "is leading coups across this world and is launching hybrid warfare through the National Endowment for Democracy." He also attacked the Squad for accepting money from billionaire investor George Soros, which Seder countered by asking if Hinkle believed the Squad "sold out for over $2,700 from George Soros?" Seder challenged the idea that the Squad is given preferential treatment in the media and said their funding for the State Department is of limited importance, saying "I don't care" repeatedly in reference to that and Hinkle's argument about the Squad being a part of the establishment.

On September 6, 2022, Hinkle went on Tucker Carlson Tonight, denouncing United States president Joe Biden as "beholden to the military-industrial complex" and "extremely out of line with what average Americans need right now." He attacked the Biden administration, saying that it was ignoring the needs of American working-class communities, arguing that they "don't have clean drinking water in Jackson, Mississippi, yet we're sending $7 billion over to Ukraine", and referred to Biden's efforts to militarily aid Ukraine as "funding this insanity in Ukraine". He also stated that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator who was building a "fascist, dystopian state" in Ukraine.

In June 2023, Hinkle spoke at the Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington, D.C., which included the Libertarian Party, the People's Party, and the far-right LaRouche movement, among others, opposing United States support for Ukraine. On July 26, 2023, Hinkle debated television personality Piers Morgan on the subject of the Russo-Ukrainian War on his program Piers Morgan Uncensored, with Hinkle arguing that Ukraine and Zelenskyy hold a neo-Nazi ideology, while Morgan held that this was a "bonkers" notion given Zelensky's Jewish heritage.

In 2023, Hinkle began appearing on RT. He appeared on September 20 to denounce the West's foreign policy and state that they amount to a "hollow skeleton of power". Hinkle added that he believed Zelenskyy would suffer the same fate as Osama bin Laden. Hinkle also visited Russia and expressed a positive view of his trip there, stating that the patriotic will of the Russians is similar to the sentiment of people from the American heartland. On October 27, Hinkle appeared on RT to denounce Israeli policy in regards to the Gaza Strip, having previously interviewed Vladimir Solovyov in February 2023.

Controversy and misinformation

Hinkle and his show have been a source of controversy. In April 2022, the Tech Transparency Project stated that the show was peddling "Putin propaganda" in violation of the site rules of Twitch, where the show was hosted on. The show violated the three new policies outlined by Twitch, namely "(1) persistently sharing (2) widely disproven and broadly shared (3) harmful misinformation topics, such as conspiracies that promote violence." The show was eventually taken off Twitch and YouTube for misinformation about the war in Ukraine. Since then, Hinkle has attracted attention for his reporting regarding the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, gaining 1.4 million followers on X by October 2023, and has been labeled as one of the "most viral misinformation spreaders" in regards to the conflict. In November 2023, Hinkle reached 2 million followers on X.

Hinkle's reporting style has come into question, with much of it being criticized as misinformation. His posts were cited and referenced repeatedly by Iranian state-affiliated media, and Colombian president Gustavo Petro mentioned one of Hinkle's tweets, which showed Tel Aviv protesters demanding Benjamin Netanyahu's resignation. In the wake of this conflict, Hinkle was deplatformed from YouTube, calling himself the "most censored man on YouTube", and has published misinformation. For example, Hinkle falsely wrote in an October 28, 2023, post on Twitter that Haaretz had reported that the Israeli government inflated the death toll for the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Haaretz quoted the post in a tweet and said that Hinkle's post "contain[ed] blatant lies" and was not substantiated by their reporting on the attack. He also shared a fake release stating that the United States was sending billions of dollars in aid to Israel, and falsely claimed that Yemen had announced they were at war with Israel.

Views

Hinkle has been variously described as a conservative commentator, a right-wing influencer, a far-right social media influencer, and a far-right YouTuber. Hinkle describes himself as an "American Conservative Marxist–Leninist", a "Marxist–Leninist anti-imperialist American patriot", and a "MAGA Communist". Hinkle has also been described as a pro-Russia operative, and grouped as part of the anti-Israel far-right. Emanuele Ottolenghi and Marina Rosenberg, respectively the Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Senior Vice President for International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League, wrote that he is a "known conspiracy theorist, and a staunch admirer of Russia's Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar al-Assad; he has denied China's brutal repression of its Uyghur minority as well as the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people." Russian-American journalist Cathy Young described Hinkle as a "ragebait-monetizing 'MAGA communist' troll".

Hinkle refers to himself as an American patriot against the perceived White House's imperialist foreign policy. He has been described as vocally pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine. He tweeted that Zelenskyy is "responsible for every death in the Ukraine war" and shared posts on Instagram that praised Putin. He has urged the Republican Party (GOP) to reject Zionism, and called for MAGA-aligned GOP Representative Jim Jordan to focus on American domestic issues rather than backing additional military aid to Israel. The 2023 Israel–Hamas war also showed a division within the MAGA movement, with Hinkle criticizing the likes of conservative pundit Ben Shapiro and white nationalist activist Laura Loomer for supporting Israel.

In late 2022, Hinkle advocated for the concept of MAGA Communism, leading it to trend on Twitter. Vice described it as a "swirl of social conservatism, patriotism and subversive energy", and described Hinkle as coming from "the far-right entertainment playbook by agitating on livestreams". On September 19, 2022, Hinkle was interviewed by One America News Network host Addison Smith. Echoing George Soros conspiracy theories, Hinkle said: "Communism and Marxism historically have been conservative. It's a new era in the West that made it adhere to liberal-leftist values. This is not true Marxism. It's Marxism funded by George Soros. They don't want communists, left-wing populists, right-wing populists, uniting on common issues to fight the deep state." Hinkle was questioned on whether he actually supported communism; he stated that the United States can learn from the Soviet Union and Communist China, that Marxism–Leninism has historically been conservative, and that what he described as "liberal-leftist values" are a perversion "funded by George Soros".

MAGA Communism

Hinkle describes himself as a proponent of MAGA Communism, a political slogan that gained attention in early September 2022. Hinkle and other supporters of MAGA Communism argue that those who care about the working class should ally with the MAGA movement, which they consider to be the largest anti-establishment populist movement in the United States, to incite a populist revolution. They believe that MAGA Communism can serve as a force for American prosperity, working-class unity, and they emphasize patriotic strength and the benefit of the common good. MAGA Communists criticize liberal identity politics, reject American imperialism, and dismiss climate change efforts as virtue-signaling green fascism.

Observers and left-wing critics mostly see MAGA Communism as an alt-right spin to combine aspects of what Vice characterized as "authoritarian MAGA" with "tankie communism", and co-opting socialism, referencing a far-right strategy described in Blackshirts and Reds by political scientist Michael Parenti. One example of left-wing criticism is that of Ana Kasparian, who said: "We should be careful, because when you think of Nazis and fascists and how they brought people over to their sides. They co-opted socialist rhetoric to bring people in, and then their 'populist' movement was what? Extermination." Sam Seder, another left-wing critic, commented of an interview Hinkle gave about MAGA Communism, saying: "This is such a word salad that I can't follow what the hell he's talking about." Daniel HoSang, a professor at Yale University and an expert on modern American right-wing movements, told Motherboard: "But what's interesting about the 'MAGA Communism' phrase is that it doesn't necessarily mean communism in the literal sense of, say, demanding collective ownership. I think it's meant to be a kind of cultural invocation—a defense from that which the elites want you to believe. It suggests something about how people's political moorings are unsettled, and the search to find new bearings."

Hinkle's movement has been criticized as eschewing progressive values and placed within the context of an American conservatism that, in the words of Democratic Party strategist David Shor, was getting "really very weird", with The New Republic describing it as a movement that "combined American nationalism with praise for another authoritarian leader despised by most Americans, China's Xi Jinping." It has also been described as lacking ideological consistency and focusing its appeal to people disillusioned with modern American liberalism. Brian Hughes, the associate director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University, said: "Various figures are trying to take advantage of the moment. Skull-mask [neo-fascist] networks, and accelerationist networks more broadly, have been juicing MAGA Communism because they like to inhabit odd, esoteric subcultures. They're smaller, and easier to exploit. It helps that MAGA Communism has little ideological consistency, and can vibe with people who want to be edgy, on the political fringe."

Personal life

In March 2023, Hinkle publicized his relationship with Russian model Anna Linnikova, who won Miss Russia in 2022. They have been engaged since September, 2023.

Electoral history

2019 San Clemente City Council special election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Nonpartisan	Gene James	8,253	54.92
	Nonpartisan	Jackson Hinkle	4,683	31.17
	Nonpartisan	Dee Coleman	785	5.22
	Nonpartisan	Christina Selter	667	4.44
	Nonpartisan	Michael (Mickey) McLane	638	4.25
Total votes			15,026	100.0