Some Swiss news about far-right publisher Vox Day

The infamous Vox Day is back in the news despite his apparent relevance to right-wing extremists having faded. The man who so often has promoted sinister conspiracy theories about the “elites” has apparently bought a castle in Switzerland.

“It is a place steeped in history and, according to the Confederation, a “cultural asset of national importance”. The castle of Cressier, in the canton of Fribourg, is a delightful residence of blond stone, with salons decorated with frescoes and surrounded by a vast garden. It has just been bought by a foreigner, and not just any foreigner: its new owner, T. B., is a blogger in view of the American radical right, who intends to save “the Whites” (white people).”

Google Translate from French of Tribune de Genève article https://www.tdg.ch/une-figure-de-la-droite-radicale-americaine-sempare-dun-chateau-suisse-896279767594?idp=OneLog&new_user=no

The article in Tribune de Geneve is entitled “Une figure de la droite radicale américaine s’empare d’un château suisse: Le château de Cressier, à Fribourg, a été acheté par le blogueur misogyne et nationaliste Vox Day. Il veut le louer pour accueillir ses sympathisants. La Commune dit «surveiller la situation».” I’m not familiar with the reliability or otherwise of Swiss media outlets but there is an article on the paper on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_de_Gen%C3%A8ve

At his own blog, Vox Day is threatening to sue and also has his own translation of the article. It looks pretty factual to me but Day is objecting to the claim that he has expressed some admiration for Hitler:

“As usual, the inept hit piece relies heavily upon both misinformation and disinformation, omitting those aspects of my words that provide the context necessary to understand their meaning. For example, it’s not hard to see how this sentence could be portrayed as “a certain admiration for Hitler”, right? “National Socialism is not only human logic, it is also much more logical and true than communism, feminism or secular Zionism.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20220601195704/https://voxday.net/2022/06/01/a-portrait-in-criminal-defamation/

Gosh! Day’s argument is that the quoted sentence leads into more overt criticism of Hitler. I’ve zero idea about Swiss libel laws but given that the article makes a limited claim (that Day has expressed some admiration for Hitler), even out of context, the sentence supports the claim. It’s the usual dance around logic-chopping sentences to obscure meaning that we’ve seen before.

As always with any fuss around Day, we should approach with a degree of scepticism about the nature of the fuss. If the purchase is a commercial venture for the general public then the publicity will help people avoid, perhaps, spending money on extremism. However, if it is a new way of sucking in money from far-right internet fools then the controversy will help.

On another note, I’ve generally avoided the surrounding speculation about where Vox Day lives. It’s largely not relevant to the criticism of his politics and his awful writing. However, this article confirms that he lives in Switzerland rather than Northern Italy as he has been claiming.