The Unz Review

The Unz Review
Home page of the website on October 18, 2025
Website type
Alt-right, white nationalism
Available inEnglish
Country of origin
United States
FounderRon Unz
EditorRon Unz
Websiteunz.com
LaunchedNovember 2013; 12 years ago (November 2013)

The Unz Review is an American website and blog founded and edited by Ron Unz, an American far-right activist and Holocaust denier. It is known for its publication of far-right, conspiracy theory, white nationalist, and antisemitic writings.

History

Ron Unz, far-right activist, conspiracy theorist, and Holocaust denier, launched The Unz Review in November 2013. Unz is editor-in-chief and publisher of the website. The Unz Review was launched after Unz was kicked out of The American Conservative for publishing contentious content. The website was created as a collection of Unz's increasingly radical political writings. Unz said that the reason why he created The Unz Review was because mainstream media ignored certain political and racial content, so he created the website as a platform to share "controversial perspectives".

According to The Spectator, the website was not seriously radical in its early years, but was "edgier" than The American Conservative. Later, Unz began inviting nationalists to write for the website, justifying this by saying that he did not share their views, but that they deserved to be heard in public. Unz's writings initially leaned towards paleoconservatism and libertarianism, but later took on an extreme far-right tone, according to Megan Squire, an analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The website hosts writings of various far-right figures, as well as extremist literature, such as the 1976 holocaust denial book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.

In May 2020, Facebook removed fake accounts tied to The Unz Review. These accounts had spent $114,000 to advertise on Facebook.

Editorial positions

The Unz Review describes itself as a publication presenting an "alternative media selection", and "controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American mainstream media". It has been described as "alternative conservative", far-right, white nationalist, and a publisher of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. The Associated Press describes the outlet as "a hodgepodge of views from corners of both the left and right". According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the website is an "outlet for certain writers to attack Israel and Jews". Debunk.org has written that The Unz Review articles promote a pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine narrative based on conspiracy theories about COVID-19. Tablet said that The Unz Review was frequently quoted by David Duke.

Writers

The Unz Review hosts blogs of far-right writers Steve Sailer and Anatoly Karlin. The Review of General Psychology describes Sailer as "a political writer who uses the language of IQ and genetics to further a White nationalist political agenda" and Karlin as a promoter of "antisemitic conspiracy theories and associates with alt-right political activist Richard Spencer". In October, 2021, Karlin posted on his personal blog that he would no longer be a regular contributor to The Unz Review, while noting his "respect and appreciation" for Ron Unz.

In June 2023, an article in The Guardian observed that "[a]mong those whose writings Unz republishes are Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website ... and Eric Striker (real name Joseph Jordan), a founder of the neo-Nazi National Justice Party". Writer Stephen Sniegoski said in The Unz Review in June 2016 that the New Deal of United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt had a greater "connection to fascism than anything Donald Trump has said".

Controversies

In September 2017, former CIA operative Valerie Plame apologized after receiving attention for sharing Philip Giraldi's antisemitic The Unz Review article "America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars" on her Twitter account. The article's depictions of Jews controlling the media and politics echoed long-running tropes blaming them for a variety of social and economic ills.

In November 2019, Eric Rasmusen, professor at Indiana University, posted a quote on Twitter from The Unz Review article titled "Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably", which the university's Executive Vice President described as "racist, sexist, and homophobic". The quote said: "geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and Moderately low Conscientiousness". The post led to Rasmusen receiving widespread condemnation and demands for the university to fire him. Despite this, the university said it would not fire him because doing so would violate the First Amendment.

In May 2021, Luisa Neubauer accused Hans-Georg Maaßen, the former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Germany's intelligence agency), of antisemitism for sharing links to The Unz Review and using terms like "globalists" on his Twitter account.

References

  1. ↑ Bevensee, Emmi; Ross, Alexander Reid (December 1, 2018). The Alt-Right and Global Information Warfare. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Big Data. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. pp. 4393–4402. arXiv:1905.02712. doi:10.1109/BigData.2018.8622270. ISBN 978-1-5386-5035-6. [PDF page 7 of 11] The most prominent and clearest connection between the Alt-Right and conspiracy theory sites in our conspiracy theory selection is called The Unz Review, which appeared very frequently amongst the Alt-Right twitter handles. The Unz Review is a 'mix of far-right and far-left anti-Semitic crackpottery, from 9/11 'truther' and conspiracy theorist Paul Craig Roberts to 'Holocaust industry' critic Norman Finkelstein, who believes Jews exploit the Holocaust to justify oppressing Palestinians'. This website represents the heart of Alt-Right disinformation landscape, in that it sees itself as a radical opposition to the mainstream that transcends the traditional left-right political binary in order to propagate white-supremacist narratives amidst a wide range of conspiracy and propaganda. Among the sites that support the Unz Review is the anti-Semitic and pro-Kremlin website russia-insider.com, which also featured in the Alt-Right websites linked. Russia-Insider keeps a running feed of articles posted on The Unz Review. Russia-Insider was founded in tandem with a larger effort to generate a more positive view of the Kremlin in the US by taking a critical approach to US politics from a Russian perspective while advancing pro-Russian conspiracy theories. Russia-Insider's top sources of traffic, according to Amazon's Alexa site overlap tool are searches for ZeroHedge, and the top sites visited before it were Sputnik News and RT.
  2. 1 2 Amponsah, Michelle (June 23, 2023). "Deep Within the Anti-Affirmative Action Lawsuit, a Holocaust Denier". The Harvard Crimson. Archived from the original on September 15, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  3. ↑ Sigler, Gall (June 29, 2023). "The Supreme Court just hobbled affirmative action — and an antisemitic conspiracy theorist helped". The Forward. Archived from the original on September 30, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  4. ↑ "Ron Unz: Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-israel Activists". Anti-Defamation League. January 20, 2014. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Should Anyone Be Able To Take A Job Anywhere?". NPR. November 6, 2013. Archived from the original on November 29, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  6. 1 2 Sixsmith, Ben (September 15, 2018). "The curious case of Ron Unz". The Spectator.
  7. 1 2 3 Pilkington, Ed (June 6, 2023). "Harvard affirmative action challenge partly based on Holocaust denier's work". The Guardian.
  8. 1 2 "Ron Unz: Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-israel Activists". Anti-Defamation League. January 23, 2014.
  9. ↑ Martin, Nick (October 7, 2021). "Congressman promotes Holocaust denial website". The Informant.
  10. 1 2 Stubbs, Jack (May 5, 2020). "Facebook says it dismantles disinformation network tied to Iran's state media". Reuters. Archived from the original on April 9, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  11. ↑ Clauw, Michael (May 21, 2020). "TTP Investigation: Facebook is Helping White Supremacists Organize and Spread Hate Online". Campaign for Accountability.
  12. 1 2 "Indiana U says it can't fire prof who made 'racist, sexist and homophobic' remarks". CBC Radio. November 25, 2019. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  13. 1 2 3 Tatum, Sophie (September 21, 2017). "Ex-CIA operative apologizes for tweet of anti-Semitic article". CNN. Archived from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  14. 1 2 Panofsky, Aaron (June 2021). "How White nationalists mobilize genetics: From genetic ancestry and human biodiversity to counterscience and metapolitics". American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 175 (2): 387–398. Bibcode:2021AJPA..175..387P. doi:10.1002/ajpa.24150. PMC 9909835. PMID 32986847.
  15. ↑ Harmon, Amy (October 17, 2018). "Why White Supremacists Are Chugging Milk (and Why Geneticists Are Alarmed)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 17, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  16. 1 2 Jackson, John P. (2021). "The Mythical Taboo on Race and Intelligence". Review of General Psychology. 25 (1): 3–26. doi:10.1177/1089268020953622. S2CID 225143131. Archived from the original on December 17, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  17. ↑ Kuras, Peter (2023). "The Strange Logic of Germany's Antisemitism Bureaucrats". Jewish Currents. No. Spring. Archived from the original on December 13, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  18. 1 2 Oxford, Andrew (September 21, 2017). "Ex-CIA agent sparks Twitter controversy by sharing commentary on Jews". Associated Press News. Archived from the original on March 14, 2022. Retrieved November 11, 2021.
  19. ↑ "COVID-19 Sceptics Turn to Pro-Kremlin Propaganda About the Russia-Ukraine War". Debunk.org. July 1, 2022. Retrieved February 16, 2025.
  20. ↑ Ingall, Marjorie (February 3, 2018). "Alt-Right Publication Accuses Jews of Attempting to Indoctrinate America's Young Via Subversive Children's Books". Tablet Magazine.
  21. ↑ Karlin, Anatoly (October 8, 2021). "The Last Reaction". Retrieved February 9, 2025.
  22. ↑ Rosenfeld, Gavriel (December 2019). "An American Führer? Nazi Analogies and the Struggle to Explain Donald Trump". Central European History. 52 (4): 570. doi:10.1017/S0008938919000840. JSTOR 26870257. S2CID 212950934.
  23. ↑ Kirchick, James (September 25, 2017). "Valerie Plame's Real Blunder". Tablet. Archived from the original on May 31, 2019. Retrieved May 20, 2019.
  24. ↑ "Eric Rasmusen: Indiana University professor gets to keep job despite posts school calls "racist, sexist and homophobic"". CBS News. November 22, 2019.
  25. ↑ Brice-Saddler, Michael; Paul, Deanna (November 21, 2019). "University says a professor's views are racist, sexist and homophobic — but it can't fire him". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286.
  26. ↑ "University says can't fire professor for 'bigoted' remarks". AP News. November 21, 2019 – via Yahoo News.
  27. ↑ "Neubauer erneuert und konkretisiert Vorwürfe gegen Maaßen". Die Zeit (in German). May 12, 2021. Retrieved November 28, 2023.