The name “Laura Loomer” is something of a political Rorschach test: if somebody knows who she is, then it can be confidently said of that person that they spend a lot of time online, and a lot of time browsing the more colorful parts of the right-wing ecosystem on the internet.
Loomer is no ordinary media figure, nor could she be accurately described as a journalist in the traditional sense of the word. She is instead – to use charitable language – a provocateur; a self-promoter; a self-made woman; and perhaps the definitive product of the competitive right-wing ecosystem supercharged by Elon Musk, which often seems to reward the loudest and most controversial figures with disproportionate exposure.
So when the president of Ukraine decides to sit down with Loomer, it is news. And the decision is bound to be controversial and to raise eyebrows.
Loomer's Ugly Greatest Hits
To explain why, let us examine some of Loomer’s greatest hits.
Responding to a tweet about Kamala Harris’s Indian ancestry during the last US election, Loomer tweeted: “The White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.” It was a statement so objectively racist that even hardcore MAGA figures such as then-congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene were forced to denounce it.
She has claimed that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were an “inside job”. She once alleged, with apparent seriousness, that migrants from Haiti to the United States were cannibals who “eat humans”. She has publicly stated that people of the Muslim faith should be banned from working as taxi or Uber drivers in the United States.
Further, for many years she was one of the most deranged supporters of Russia in its war against Ukraine, repeatedly demanding the cessation of all Western support for Zelensky and his military. She derided the Ukrainian president as a “jihadi” and said that Ukraine was a country full of “Nazi apologists”.
So why is Zelensky meeting her? Well, two reasons.
Reach and Influence
The first is simply that Loomer, for whatever reason, has suddenly done a 180-degree turn on Ukraine and is on something of an apology tour in public. She now says that she was entirely wrong about the country and seduced by Russian propaganda. She now claims to advocate full support for Zelensky and his people.
Yet some internet personality veering from one extreme to another is hardly, by itself, a reason for the president of Ukraine to sit down with her for an interview. The other, somewhat more depressing reason, is that Loomer reaches an audience that Zelensky and the Ukrainians consider they desperately need.
Anti-Ukraine conspiracism on the political right, particularly in the United States, has been a problem for the Ukrainians for years. The roots of that conspiracism are multifaceted, but much of it seems to center on the notion that Vladimir Putin’s Russia represents a “traditionalist” society, while Ukraine represents the liberal and progressive Western order that many reactionaries on the right associate with social, economic and moral decline. This view of the world was probably best summed up by Tucker Carlson’s infamous visit to Moscow, in which he marveled rather unconvincingly at clean subways and crime-free streets, presenting Russia as some version of the West as it might be, absent feckless progressive policies.
The Unchangeable Anti-Ukraine Worldview
The popularity of this worldview – which sits nicely at the nexus of a whole range of accompanying conspiracy theories about how there is an orchestrated project to destroy the West and therefore Russia – should not be underestimated. Nor should Loomer’s reach to the audience that is prone to believing such things.
It is this reach – Loomer’s ability to talk to people unreachable by mainstream media – that explains Zelensky’s decision to legitimize her. It also probably helps that Loomer, for many years, has at least been able to get the ear of President Trump, even if he does not necessarily listen to her.
Unfortunately for Ukraine, despite Zelensky’s willingness to do the unconventional, his approach is not likely to work.
Can Zelensky's Gamble Work?
One of the keys to understanding the right-wing ecosystem from which Loomer emerged is that it is primarily audience-driven rather than thought-leader-driven. It should not be imagined that the extremism of the audience is derived from the content that they consume. Rather, the content itself is a reaction to market demand.
The idea that Loomer’s sudden course adjustment on Ukraine is likely to bring much of her audience with her seems fanciful. In fact, the far more likely outcome is that her trip to Ukraine and her sudden embrace of the Ukrainian cause will lead a significant portion of her audience to believe that she has been “gotten to” or in some way compromised.
Nevertheless, this is all worth a shot for the Ukrainians. It costs Zelensky little to talk to anybody, and there is at least a chance his message reaches somebody who he could not reach by more traditional methods. But whether that limited benefit is worth the reputational cost of sitting down with someone like Loomer is a more open question.