DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis' comments online are once again raising eyebrows across the political spectrum after he recommended people follow two controversial online personalities on opposite sides of the aisle whose views have been deemed as "extremist."
On Sunday afternoon, Gov. Polis posted on X, formerly Twitter: “It doesn’t mean I agree with them most or all of the time, but I recommend following public intellectuals @RichardHanania and @captgouda24 who are doing actual thinking which is rare these days.”
Polis was referring to Richard Hanania, a right-wing personality and Nicholas Decker, an economics student at George Mason University.
In 2023, the Huffington Post revealed Hanania wrote under the pseudonym Richard Hoste and expressed support for the sterilization of “low IQ” people, especially Black people, in the 2010s.
He also wrote articles opposing “race-mixing” and said Black people could not govern themselves.
According to the Huffington Post, Hanania also wrote for a website arguing that Jewish people were trying to exterminate white Americans.
After the Huffington Post article was published, Hanania wrote a blog post titled “Why I Used to Suck and Hopefully No Longer Do” where he explains he no longer holds some of his beliefs. But in the blog post, Hanania offered no apology for his previous statements.
Nicholas Decker gained a lot of attention following his now viral essay titled, “When Must We Kill Them?” where he explored whether lethal violence was ever justified for what he viewed as the dismantling of the U.S. as a free nation by President Trump and his administration.
Decker has also made posts sympathetic to zoophilia, the sexual attraction to, or the seeking of sexual activity with, non-human animals.
Denver7 reached out to Governor Polis to learn which of Hanania's or Decker's writings or thoughts he specifically recommends.
A spokesperson for the governor sent the following statement in response:
“The Governor was clear in his post that he doesn’t agree with the majority of what these individuals post, including those that you reference in your question. He believes many of their views are abhorrent. Governor Polis’s focus remains on leading for Colorado, and that includes listening to opposing perspectives and finding ways to disagree better no matter where they land in the depths of social media.
The Governor vehemently disagrees with both of these individuals on many of their views, and was clear about that in his original tweet.”
Earlier this year, Polis received backlash on X after posting he was "excited" for the nomination of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying RFK Jr., helped "defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA"
An hour later, Polis issued a second statement in which he attempted to clarify his thoughts on RFK Jr. and the "shake up" he would like to see at the HHS and the FDA. But criticism of the governor's comments did not ebb, forcing his office to issue a separate statement in which they said the governor "had not changed his view as a whole on RFK Jr. or on the Governor’s previously stated concerns regarding some of RFK Jr’s positions."
