The Tragedy of Will Stancil
Will Stancil is one of the most extraordinary men writing about politics, which is strange because he looks like one of the most ordinary men writing about politics. There are hundreds of people who look like him in Westminster — never mind Washington — writing little-read papers for obscure think tanks.
But Stancil is extraordinary. What makes him extra…
ordinary is not his worldview but his spirit. He is absolutely indomitable.
To be clear, I don’t say this with unqualified affection. Stancil is the sort of radically censorious left-winger who thinks people who disagree with him about the facts of life must be absolute scum — deserving of only shame and misery.
Still, as much as he would hate me, I can’t help liking him. He has that unwavering dedication to his causes that makes someone a legendary poster.
Stancil’s fierce criticisms of online right-wingers inspired a lot of bullying. I mean a lot of bullying. I mean that people somehow memed an AI chatbot into posting lurid rape fantasies about the man. That there is a colourful absurdity to this does not mean that it is not disturbing — on a micro level and a macro level.
Lesser men would have gone into hiding — or at least logged off. Stancil was unbowed. He kept posting.
Next came an AI-generated web series satirising Stancil’s earnest activism. Millions of people watched. I must emphasise that bullying someone on this scale would have been technologically impossible until the last couple of years. Stancil could have been excused for going completely mad. As it is, he kept posting.
Then came the ICE raids in Minneapolis, and Will Stancil took the streets to, as he saw it, defend his community — recording ICE activities to document arrests. Whatever you think about immigration control, there’s something admirable about someone who is most comfortable in front of a computer throwing themselves into street activism.
Alas, this isn’t how Stancil’s comrades saw it. You would think that someone so courageous and energetic would be a valuable ally. Not for everyone.
For all that I disagree with him about the world, I think Stancil really cares about his community. But a lot of his fellow activists care about activism less as a means to an end than as an end in itself. So, Stancil quite reasonably complained about activists lighting fires and got punched in the head.
Over on Bluesky — the left-wing competitor to X — a lot of posters are more concerned about signalling their ideological purity than getting stuff done. Stancil, with earnest willingness to compromise in pursuit of progress, has become a target for abuse. As an example, take this accusation of “misgynoir” — which, apparently, means prejudice against black women — which apparently must be accepted without evidence:
“Opening Bluesky makes me want to actually walk in front of a truck,” says Stancil — and remember what this poor guy went through on X!
The tragedy of Will Stancil is that his virtues make him a victim. His stubborn and earnest independent-mindedness exposes him to abuse from ideological purists. His willingness to take action exposes him to abuse from people who are only comfortable criticising things.
I disagree with Mr Stancil about the world. Indeed, I’m not entirely sure that he wouldn’t have me jailed. But as someone who, like his critics, is more comfortable grumbling about things than actually trying to change them, I can’t help respecting his unconquerable spirit. As someone who also struggles to balance the online and the offline worlds — I mean, there’s really no good reason for my even knowing who Stancil is — I also respect that he can put the rape-mad chatbot, viral cartoons and seething Bluesky denizens out of his head and focus on the local and the concrete.
I would only suggest that one has to know the truth of something before it is possible to change it — for the better, anyway — and that the resentment radicals can feel towards their peers might be symptomatic of a deeper bitterness that underpins their politics.