Mike Cernovich

Cernovich was born on November 17, 1977. He grew up in a devout Christian family in the farming town of Kewanee, Illinois. The family was poor, and his mother suffered from mental illness. He graduated from the University of Illinois and later attended the Pepperdine University School of Law.

In 2004, Cernovich started a legal weblog entitled Crime & Federalism, and his blog was selected for syndication by American Lawyer Media.

In his early writings Cernovich focused on anti-feminism, men's empowerment, and how to meet women. The title of Danger and Play came from a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, "The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything." In 2014, Cernovich promoted Gamergate, the harassment campaign that targeted several women in the video game industry, goading opponents with tweets such as "Who cares about breast cancer and rape? Not me."

In 2015, Cernovich wrote a self-published self-help book, Gorilla Mindset, in which he talked about how women should submit to "dominant alpha males". He believes that "date rape is a liberal fiction". He saw Donald Trump as a kindred spirit and began to engage in political commentary.

Cernovich became influential on social media, initially as part of the manosphere movement, and more recently has helped to shape far-right narratives in the United States. He falsely claimed during the 2016 United States presidential election that Hillary Clinton had a "seizure disorder" and Parkinson's disease. By September his #HillarysHealth hashtag had gotten 240,000 page views and had become a national trending topic on Twitter. During the month of September, Cernovich's tweets were seen more than 100 million times.

Cernovich frequently calls his adversaries "cucks", a variant of the alt-right slang word cuckservative, a pejorative term for conservatives who supposedly betray conservative social values. In reference to this he has written, "To beat a person, you lower his or her social status. Logic is pointless." Cernovich admits to sometimes using trolling tactics, which he says he uses to build his brand rather than for his own amusement.

Cernovich advocates IQ-testing for all immigrants and ending federal funding of universities.

Cernovich opposes the two-party system and his support for Trump is not based on public policy. "What are Trump's policies? I don't particularly care". In another post on his website he stated, "If Trump offends you, it's because you live in a cucked world where no one speaks their minds".

Cernovich helped popularize the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory through his blog posts and believes that child sex rings run rampant in Washington, D.C. He has accused his opponents of being pedophiles on multiple occasions, and in a YouTube video maintained that most people employed by the news media and "every A-list actor" in Hollywood were also pedophiles.

In October 2016 Cernovich said:

"The left likes to talk about power structures, right? Well, the media still thinks of itself as speaking truth to power. What they don't realize is that someone like me is perceived as the new Fourth Estate. Maybe they should check their structural privilege." The "paternalistic" media, he said, was giving way to a more democratic one. "It makes journalists crazy, because they used to be in control. They can't control people anymore. Everyone has a voice now."

Following an August 2016 appearance on Fox News's Red Eye, the show's producers felt compelled afterwards to say that they had made a mistake in booking him when later learning of Cernovich's history of online disputes.

Cernovich has accused the Democratic Party of attempting to assassinate him. In 2016, Cernovich criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for speaking at a gender-segregated mosque. In August 2012 Cernovich wrote that date rape "does not exist". In October 2016 he wrote, "Lying about being in love to sleep with someone isn't rape. Getting played isn't rape. Regret isn't rape. Thinking, 'I might have been date raped,' means you weren't raped."

Although describing himself as on the political right, he supports single-payer healthcare and "some form of universal basic income".

In April 2017 Cernovich promoted the conspiracy theory that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack in Syria was a hoax funded by an American financier. Cernovich has said he joined the alt-right after realizing that "tolerance only went one way and diversity is code for white genocide" (see white genocide conspiracy theory).

In November 2017, Cernovich spread misinformation linking the Sutherland Springs church shooting to Antifa. In mid-November 2017, Cernovich offered $10,000 for information about congressional sexual harassment settlements. The next week, he sent documents concerning a case settled by John Conyers to BuzzFeed, which vetted them and reported on them. Cernovich encouraged all victims of sexual assault by congressmen to speak up and offered to cover their legal expenses.

Smear campaign against Sam Seder

On November 28, 2017, Cernovich published a post on Medium which resurfaced a deleted 2009 tweet made by progressive talk radio host and MSNBC political commentator Sam Seder, in which he joked about convicted child rapist and fugitive film director Roman Polanski. The tweet read, "Don't care re Polanski, but I hope if my daughter is ever raped it is by an older truly talented man w/ a great sense of mise en scène." Cernovich insisted the tweet proved Seder tacitly endorsed Polanski's pedophilia. He then approached multiple journalists and news outlets, including MSNBC, to break the story.

Despite explaining the tweet to MSNBC Senior VP of Communications Errol Cockfield Jr. via email, on December 4, 2017, TheWrap announced that MSNBC had elected to sever ties with Seder by not renewing his contract (due to expire in February 2018) due to the controversial tweet. Seder defended the tweet by pointing out that, taken in context of the current events around the time he posted it, it was a satiric response to a petition urging Polanski's release from detention in Switzerland. That he was, in fact, mocking Polanski's apologists. After news of the termination broke, Cernovich released a Twitter video celebrating his triumph.

By then, Seder noted that advertisers on The Majority Report with Sam Seder podcast were also being contacted and pressured by Cernovich and his team to cut ties with the show over the tweet. In response, Seder launched a GoFundMe campaign to ensure the show is funded if the advertisers decided to bail. In an episode of the podcast titled, "I'm Under Attack By the Nazi Alt-Right", Seder said, "this smear involves the willful misinterpretation of a tweet that I posted in 2009" and that he will "never be ashamed of criticizing those who would excuse the predation of women or girls." Seder also revealed plans to use a portion of the GoFundMe proceeds to produce a three-minute video educating people on Cernovich's tactics. He surmised this was retribution for his frequent criticism of US President Donald Trump as well as Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Further, Seder chided MSNBC's decision to terminate his employment concluding, "I think they’re afraid of those people."

The news of Seder's dismissal received immediate backlash. Over 12,000 people signed a petition protesting Seder's termination, arguing that Cernovich had acted in malice and was deliberately mischaracterizing the tweet. Multiple news publications pilloried MSNBC. MSNBC primetime anchor Chris Hayes tweeted, "The entire culture and our politics are now dominated by people who have weaponized bad faith and shamelessness." Hayes tweeted several times against the decision by his own network, including: "Also, I reiterate my longstanding position that people shouldn't be fired for a tweet, *particularly* one that is obviously being read in manifestly bad faith." Actress Sarah Silverman also tweeted in support of Seder.

There was considerable dissent within MSNBC over the termination. Employees worried firing Seder incentivized other far-right personalities to launch similar campaigns. MSNBC's management itself was unsettled by the celebratory reaction from the far-right. On December 7, 2017, MSNBC decided to reverse their decision to terminate Seder's employment. MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement, "Sometimes you just get one wrong, and that’s what happened here. We made our initial decision for the right reasons—because we don’t consider rape to be a funny topic to be joked about. But we’ve heard the feedback, and we understand the point Sam was trying to make in that tweet was actually in line with our values, even though the language was not. Sam will be welcome on our air going forward." In response, Seder issued a statement while accepting his job back:

I appreciate MSNBC’s thoughtful reconsideration and willingness to understand the cynical motives of those who intentionally misrepresented my tweet for their own toxic, political purposes [...] We are experiencing an important and long overdue moment of empowerment for the victims of sexual assault and of reckoning for their perpetrators. I’m proud that MSNBC and its staff have set a clear example of the need to get it right.

Columbia Journalism Review cited the incident as an example of a broader pattern of far-right media personalities using online smear campaigns to get mainstream journalists fired. Cernovich, for his part, acknowledged that "some are saying Seder was making a joke or being sarcastic." However, he still insisted he didn't misrepresent the tweet. He later admitted that the whole incident was a stunt while claiming victory explaining, retroactively, it was meant to bring attention to what he perceived was a double standard and a lack of "diversity of viewpoint" in the media, He also tweeted that he was "thrilled" MSNBC offered Seder his job back while threatening to "bring Sam Seder's Tweet out every time the media goes after someone else for a Tweet." On December 9, 2017, having failed to get Seder fired, Cernovich claimed that his wife was being stalked at the behest of the media.

Cernovich was charged with rape in 2003; he denied the allegations. The charge was reduced to misdemeanor battery, for which he performed community service.

Cernovich married his first wife as a law student in 2003. Cernovich has said the marriage was "ruined by feminist indoctrination". His wife became an attorney in Silicon Valley and earned millions of dollars from an initial public offering of stock. She filed for divorce in 2011, and Cernovich received what he has described as a "seven-figure sum" in the settlement. Cernovich met his second wife shortly thereafter, and lives outside of Los Angeles, California.