MSNBC Attempts To Tie Physical Fitness To Neo-Nazis, Laments Those Pursuing A Healthier Lifestyle

In an MSNBC opinion article, author Cynthia Miller-Idriss attempted to tie the rise of personal, at-home fitness that was caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic and white supremacy, arguing that “fascist fitness” groups were growing online and recruiting young men to be neo-Nazis through fitness and combat sports. 

While the article seems like that of a satirical news site, the content is entirely true and comes straight from MSNBC. Miller-Idriss uses buzzwords and red herrings to draw the audience reading into believing the tale that she is spinning, but ultimately her article is just a way to create an issue out of a non-issue. 

She spoke on how “researchers reported that a network of online ‘fascist fitness’ groups on the encrypted platform Telegram are recruiting and radicalizing young men with neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies.” She also makes the random claim that “Physical fitness has always been central to the far right,” adding that “In ‘Mein Kampf,’ Hitler fixated on boxing and jiu-jitsu.”

Miller-Idriss points to nations like Ukraine, Canada, and France where supposed “far-right groups” are launching mixed martial arts (MMA) gyms to train them on “violent hand-to-hand combat and street-fighting techniques.” 

Of course, no fitness equals white supremacy article would be complete without teasing anti-masculine ideas. Miller-Idriss points to the “shared obsession with the male body, training, masculinity, testosterone, strength, and competition” that the far-right and fitness have. Again, these claims are simply the author grasping at straws, trying to find any connection between the two to support her ridiculous point. 

The article ultimately works as an anti-fitness piece above anything else. Rather than making a legitimate point, Miller-Idriss attempts to argue that pursuing a better lifestyle inherently makes you a far-right extremist. Now, if the push is that fitness is simply more right-leaning, that would make far more sense.

Keeping a healthy body improves the state of mind, drawing people out of self-centered mindsets that feed into modern liberalism and bring them into a more community-driven mindset, allowing them to connect with conservatism. 

But claiming that fitness draws people to neo-Nazis is utterly ridiculous. In the few cases that she had to work with, it’s far more likely that people who already align with such belief can find common interests in fitness, among other things, and not fitness making them far-right neo-Nazis. MSNBC just wanted an easy article attacking the right for anything they could find and somehow this idea got approved.