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Friday, November 1st, 2024. I’m at home going through my nightly routine (trying but failing to muster the courage to pull the trigger) when I suddenly start to get dozens of texts from unknown numbers.

The first one reads “Is this you? Fuck FUCK holy shit!”

Another Thomas Sowell text? No, can’t be; I’ve got the restraining order.

The texts kept coming: “You’re one of the GOOD ones.” “We’ll spare you from the oven.” “Traitor!” “Hero!” “Scum!”

“Hey Jew, good for you!!!”

I never should’ve downloaded the Goebbels Daily Affirmation app.

I pick a text that seems sane in comparison (“You’re getting lots of shit, but I stand with you!”) and I reply, “I have no idea what’s going on. Why am I getting so many random texts?”

And the person responds with an X link.

Okay, mystery solved. A Nazi account—and by “Nazi” I don’t mean “far-right”; I mean an account that posts nothing but “Hitler was right,” “Hitler was the good guy” memes, excerpts from Protocols of Zion and International Jew, Holocaust denial, “Anne Frank was a hoax,” “Jews drink baby blood,” “Jews did 9/11,” “Jews are pedophiles”—had posted clips from one of my early-1990s talk show appearances.

The account’s called “Uncommon Sense,” and I’m not gonna link to it. Sure, a professional journalist would show his sources. Also, fuck off. I know you assholes too well. Every time I link to the worst, most sieg-heil-y accounts on X, you follow them just to mess with me, because you’re such adorable little scamps. That’s why I don’t link to X anymore. I’ve given you the name, so sure, go follow the Nazi. But at least I’ve shorn five minutes from your miserable life by making you work for it.

So this Nazi account, with 160,000 followers, had been frenetically, obsessively posting my old stuff. The anonymous account owner had taken videos of my early-’90s talk shows and created a thread: “DAVID COLE: A JEW DEMOLISHES THE HOLOHOAX!”

Before Musk banned me for life from X, I used to do my best to shut that shit down by reaching out to the deniers to explain that in 1992 I was a kid in the process of studying a field, and I was wrong to have accepted those talk show invitations because my level of knowledge wasn’t ready yet. But NBC and CBS wanted ratings, and I thought the exposure could assist my work, so I said yes.

As an arrogant boy I thought I knew everything, but after a dozen research trips to Europe, by 1994 I realized I didn’t know everything, so I stopped doing media (even turning down Mike Wallace’s personal invitation to do 60 Minutes in January 1994). By summer 1994 I vigorously and publicly affirmed the reality of the Nazi extermination program and homicidal gas chambers.

But the deniers are obsessed with the two talk shows I did prior to that, regardless of how many times I explain that I wasn’t some child guru gifting sacred tablets to the world but rather a cocky little bastard who, like all people that age, thought he knew more than he did, and you couple that with my Ashkenazi verbal IQ and my skill as an actor—remember, I was a semipro teen actor with multiple awards, including the 1986 Best Actor MACY Award—and you get a kid who did too well on those shows for his own good, creating clips that will outlive him.

Yet another reason I hate far-rightists: They always claim everyone’s a “crisis actor.” Toddlers shot at school? CRISIS ACTORS! Grieving parents? CRISIS ACTORS! But then you get me, an actual bona fide actor, a guy who did summer stock in high school and whose Malvolio in a 1985 Anglo-American production of Twelfth Night is considered by some to be the defining interpretation of the role (disclaimer: “Some” refers to me and my cat), yet they take everything I did as a kid like it’s holy writ even though I was a literal fucking actor.

Which is not to say that I was lying on those shows. Everything I said, I said in good faith. And I was correct 50 percent of the time. But a good actor can sell weak material. I spoke with unwarranted conviction regarding the other 50 percent.

I’ve written a million words on the Holocaust since 1994, but nobody—not the Nazis, not the ADL—wants to read them. As I explained in this Substack piece, my cultists and foes alike have decided to freeze me in 1992. For the rest of my life, I will only be held to things I said in 1992.

[Once again tries and fails to muster the courage to pull the trigger]

So this Nazi account on X had “serialized” my 1990s talk show appearances, and by the time I checked in on the thread thanks to the anonymous texter who sent me the link, the clips had already amassed 5.1 million views. And somebody had put my cell number in the thread. That’s where the texts were coming from (that some troll had my number isn’t a shock; I include it in every column-related email I send).

Of course, I reported the tweet that had my personal info, and Musk’s admins deleted it…eventually. Two months later, when the thread had gone cold anyway.

Look, me being cited by Nazis on X is a constant thing. I tried fighting it before I was banned, but it’s like fighting Moonies or Scientologists…these people have surrendered their mind, and even I—the guy they celebrate—can’t talk them down. Jake Shields, Dan Bilzerian, Stew Peters, all of them post my early vids. Last month Owen Benjamin did his own video titled “Cole Crushing It!” It’s him watching my videos while excitedly commenting on them (think Mystery Science Theater 3000 but nobody’s funny and you come away dumber from having seen it).

But Uncommon Sense…that’s by far the hardest-core Nazi X account to make my life (more) miserable. The account is nothing but pro-Hitler, pro-Nazi propaganda.

So of course Musk retweeted the account. Yes, Elon Musk retweeted an actual, unapologetic pro-Hitler X account, on Feb. 9. To be clear, the specific tweet Musk retweeted was not about the Holocaust but “white genocide” in South Africa. But the fact is, he retweeted an overtly Nazi account to his 219 million followers. I’ve previously detailed Musk’s history of retweeting anti-Jewish accounts, but he’s never boosted one as 100 percent Nazi as this. And thanks to him, that account now has more than 215,000 followers.

Remember, Musk’s a guy whose grandfather was an actual Nazi. For some reason rightists never go to the dry-erase board on that. Grandfather’s a Nazi? Retweets Nazis? Nah, that “salute” was just how autists say “I love you.”

In my day, the second most important guy in a presidential administration tweeting outright Nazi propaganda would’ve been news. But damnedest thing…Musk’s Nazi retweet didn’t make news. I contacted a dozen mainstream reporters with the tip.

No takers.

That’s the real story. Why didn’t Musk retweeting a pro-Hitler account pique the interest of the press?

I posed that question to David Weigel, formerly of The Washington Post, now at Semafor. Dave’s the best shoe-leather political reporter of our time; his instincts are consistently rock-solid.

How’d we get from August 2024, when Rolling Stone breathlessly announced that John Cena follows Steve Sailer on X (a minor story; Cena’s no politician and Sailer’s no Nazi), to today, when Rolling Stone and every other media outlet ignored, even when presented the tip on a platter, Musk retweeting a genuine Nazi?

In Weigel’s view, first and foremost it comes down to “desensitization.” There are so many Nazi-related stories involving Team Musk, there’s no shock value anymore. This makes reporters and editors less likely to cover such matters. “Diminution of interest,” as Weigel put it.

Weigel also suggested that fear of lawsuits might play a role. Musk’s openly threatened “lawfare” against anyone who criticizes him (the rightist mind sees this as fair-play turnabout: “Leftists use lawfare against us, now we use it against them!”). Is yet another Musk/Nazi story, legitimate though it may be, worth a nuisance suit from the world’s wealthiest man-child?

Weigel brought up another potential newsroom fear: Musk was retweeting anti-Jewish hatemongers in 2024, yet it didn’t hurt the Trump campaign. Musk proved an asset, not a liability.

Maybe voters are okay with a little Nazism.

“Trump won in the face of [rightist Nazism],” Weigel told me, “so it’s not the same issue as prior to November, because they won.” Weigel’s take is that editors might be thinking, “What if we pounce on this stuff, and no one cares?”

MAGAs are screeching about how “the culture’s changed! Old leftist tropes no longer resonate.” And they’re screeching as victors, which commands grudging respect. Certain editors I’ve known (speaking for myself here, not Weigel) are just weak-minded enough to think that being anti-Nazi is the kind of “old leftist trope” that’s become a liability.

Weigel was the only journalist who’d speak with me on the record about this. And I reached out to twenty of my regular contacts.

Bookmark Semafor; Dave’s the best in the biz.

When I started out 35 years ago, I faced off against the ADL all the time. They were the well-heeled bullies bringing the cowards to heel. Today the ADL’s in submissive dog-belly position, cowering before Musk and Trump, who are the new well-heeled bullies bringing the cowards to heel.

It’s all “new boss same as the old boss” to me. “1992 Dave” was banned when the ADL was the big bully. “1992 Dave” is promoted now that Musk is the big bully, while “post-1994 Dave” is banned by the Musk regime. I was banned when the ADL labeled me a denier (which I’m not), and I’m banned now that Musk and crew have labeled me an anti-denier (which I am). Banned from X, YouTube, Amazon. No publisher will touch me, while Wikipedia forbids any mention of the 2019 judicial ruling declaring that I’m not a denier (the suppression of this ruling ensures that any conversation about me remains frozen in 1992).

It’s a unique hell.

But here’s what sucks the life outta me: the realization that it’s never been about the things I got into Holocaust historiography for—learning, teaching, accuracy, revision (not just of their errors, but yours). It’s never been about those things. Denier vs. anti-denier is simply a survival-of-the-fittest battle based on who has the money and power to influence the cowards and idiots. Only that, and nothing more. Not my words, not my work. Just who’s the dom and who’s the sub.

As much as I despise memes, here I am, on the moon, looking at earth.

“Wait, it’s just bullies and money on one side, cowards and imbeciles on the other?”

“Always has been,” says the astronaut behind me.

May he muster the courage to pull the trigger.