Benito Bernardez

Benito Marco Bernardez (born October 21, 1984) is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, and podcast host. Formerly a co-host on the MeCast talk show Right About the Right, he is best known for hosting his self-titled talk show, The Benito Bernardez Show, on which he discusses politics, religion, and current events from a right-wing perspective. He is also the owner of the BB Net website, on which he publishes opinion-based articles and videos.

Bernardez is often described as promoting a "hypermasculine" and "" lifestyle. He has been criticized by left- and center-wing websites for his frequent racist, homophobic, and ableist comments, as well as his controversial conspiracy theories about the and the  and his condoning the.

As of 2023, Bernardez is banned from Boxread,, MeCast, Mixpod, , and various other social media platforms. He was suspended from in 2019 and had his account reinstated following the  in 2022. His online activity is mostly restricted to BB Net and strictly right-wing social media platforms. In August 2023, he was arrested and charged for a racially motivated assault, pleaded guilty, and is currently awaiting sentencing.

Early life and influences
Bernardez was born on October 21, 1984 in. His father was a dentist, while his mother was a. He has, and  ancestry. Both of his parents were conservative, and they sent him to. As a teenager, he frequently read conservative newspapers, which had a major influence on him, along with the book Liberal Attack by conspiracy theorist Mark DeLuca.

The Bernardez family came to when he was 5 years old, attended elementary and middle there, and then went to high school in. He came to in 2002, and briefly attended Roslindale College in the Boston neighborhood of  before he dropped out in 2004.

Political views
Bernardez has variously been described as a, , and. He identifies as "economically but ", and has also voiced support for  and the. The Worcester Beacon has called him "conservative to the point of self-contradiction", while The Orlando Times has noted his "hypocritical rightist political perspectives".

Bernardez has been obsessively critical of. He has described in particular as "a laughable leftist brainwashing scheme". He has accused the left of using popular culture, telecommunications, the news, and academia as means of distributing propaganda and reinforcing their ideologies while "simultaneously not allowing mine". He has also criticized, purporting that they are hateful toward majorities such as , , and , and lying that they suppress -protected topics like and.

COVID-19 pandemic
Bernardez has purported that the is an "international governmental conspiracy". He has also called "evil" and lied that they are actually filled with dangerous, and he has accused the government of "directly targeting [W]hite people". During the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Bernardez routinely called "COVID simp" and others who believed in the dangers of COVID-19 "gay Fauci simps". He has repeatedly called the "Gay Fauci Simp Club", or GFSC.

Throughout the pandemic, Bernardez extensively criticized, calling them "a stupid way to enforce 's on the rest of America" in July 2021. In September 2021, he stated that "there needs to be a law passed banning these [vaccination] mandates nationwide" and called those who enforce such mandates "the endorsers of radical left propaganda and refusers of human decency". He initially criticized the use of, but changed his opinion after vaccines were released, misinforming his audience that "a thick enough mask prevents the spread of airborne COVID-19 vaccine pathogens". Critics called this opinion "bizarre".

In May 2022, Bernardez wrote in a Boxread post that he condemns, writing in part that "physical distancing should never be called 'social distancing' because you're being antisocial and pointlessly avoiding a disease that—by leftist propaganda logic—you're going to be infected by anyway". He then called M News journalist Skylar York a "stupid broad" for criticizing his remark in a video on the website titled "The COVID-19 Social Distancing Battle".

In an August 2022 BB Net post, Bernardez purported that vaccine mandates for children are tantamount to child rape due to both involving "the involuntary penetration of a minor", said that such mandates "warrant a response equal to that of watching a parent whip a child in public", and called those in favor of vaccine mandates and administer vaccines to children "child rapists". His remarks garnered massive public backlash, with Michael Harbour, the host of RKO News Network's The Michael Harbour Show, saying that Bernardez "went way too far with this comment".

Government
Bernardez is an avid supporter of the. In a July 2019 interview, Bernardez said, "I guess you could say that I'm sort of a Republican Party party fanboy." The quote was heavily ridiculed by leftist personalities and spawned the slang term Republican Party Fanboy (RPF), which is used to describe Republican Party fanatics and Republican radicals. It also became an Internet meme.

In 2020, Bernardez supported 's, calling him "the bravest president America has had in a very long time". He published a BB Net video titled "" in which he talks about why he supports Trump's run and why  "doesn't stand a chance, even if he is a ".

Following Trump's loss and Biden's win in the, Bernardez began lying that "the entire election [was] rigged from the start", enforcing the idea that Canadian nationals "infiltrated the U.S. to rig our elections and wrong Trump's rights". He repeated these claims throughout 2021 and 2022, receiving negative feedback from leftist and centrist commentators and being the subject of a new slate of Internet memes. According to The Pacific, Bernardez then accused "memers" of "trying to damage his reputation using 'the power of modern Internet humor' and repeatedly commented that they suffer from 'severe liberal brain rot'".

In June 2023, Bernardez stated that he supports Trump's. In July 2023, however, he announced that he would be endorsing SmartThinkersMedia founder Harry Auvinen's run for president.

LGBT community
Bernardez is a firm believer in and thinks that people are "born [...], then persuaded by the liberal media to become ". He is also known for his frequent misrepresentation of statistics and data related to topics. He often treats the LGBT as being less than human, often calling them "The Queers" with proper noun capitalization.

Bernardez's opinions on the have been shown to contradict one another. In June 2019, he began perpetuating the, claiming that chemical  are "the real reason why there are so many goddamn fruitcake pansies in this once-glorious nation". In August 2020, however, he "did a 180" and began perpetuating the, opining that "U.S. schools need to stop getting to cozy with The Queers" and that "this coziness leads to children being inappropriately touched by Queers and coerced into playing gender dress-up and identifying as woke    people". In 2022, he also participated in the spread of the, lying that "American schools are woke agenda schools and enforcing of gay trans ideologies".

Bernardez has called for fans to organize rallies protesting and calling for laws favoring the community to be overruled, and to keep pushing the idea that the LGBT community "seeks to abolish procreation, empower the females, and save its own persons while risking the livelihood of Western civilization". He has also pressured fans to anti-LGBT businesses, saying that "the same people preaching acceptance get PISSED when I hate them, so lets  [sic] buy from the enemy".

Race and religion
Since the beginning of the in 2020, Bernardez has been a firm believer in the existence of, stating in a 2020 interview on Robert Levin Tonight that "a lot of  have developed this sort of  complex and if you look at them the wrong way, you're automatically a racist". He said in response to criticisms of his blatant racism, "I'm not even racist. I just prefer my own race. Everybody prefers their own race. Don't act like you don't. We all do." These comments attracted further negative reactions both in the press and on the Internet.

In 2021, Bernardez posted a video on his Freepost site of himself throwing white paint on a sign while narratively chanting "!" Leftist commentator Angela Sandoval criticized the video for "just being racist in the most obvious manner possible", noting the use of white paint as "a means of voicing support for ". Bernardez then called Sandoval—who is —an "". He later expressed regrets for making this statement, worsening the situation by saying that "she's just a, [not] an ALAP".

Bernardez has additionally criticized and  and perpetuated, saying that the religion is "brainwashing" and "essentially being a breeding ground for terrorists". He has repeatedly stated that "the caused " and discouraged practicing Islam. In August 2023, upon being accused of on  by Outstare News journalist Karim Farid Abdul, Bernardez claimed that "I'm not an  and my right to the freedom of religion is threatened by liberals' persistent pro-Islam bias and their condoning of terrorism". Later that month, he retweeted an Islamophobic comic strip by Canadian conservative cartoonist Michael Eddie and accompanied it with a.

Personal life
Bernardez has married Andrea McGowan, an immigrant from the, in July 2017.

In January 2023, Bernardez announced on BB Net that Andrea had filed for divorce in December 2022. Shortly after, journalist Sara Marino published a video supposedly sent to her by McGowan, showing Bernardez screaming at her for not "submitting to her husband", constantly slapping a table next to her with a, repeatedly shouting "I own you, bitch! You're my property, bitch!", and—after she called him an abuser—telling her to "stop antagonizing men like a weak little bitch".

Assault conviction
On August 1, 2023, Bernardez was arrested for the assault of his 68-year-old Chinese American next-door neighbor Percy Tan. A public information officer with the Prosecutor's Office said that he assaulted Tan outside the victim's house, repeatedly punching him and "making unsolicited racial remarks, calling [Tan] a 'yellow ' and a 'stupid goddamn yellow ' while being detained by the authorities". Tan also told detectives that Bernardez had previously screamed slurs at him and even threw a rock at his house. Bernardez was charged with, and on August 20, he pleaded guilty to one count of felony. As of September 2023, he is awaiting sentencing.

"Police Arrest Benito Bernardez", a video of Bernardez being handcuffed by the police, went viral on later that month, garnering 30.2 million views as of September 8, 2023. Social media users—especially those previously unfamiliar with him—began unfavorably comparing his haircut to various animals, such as wolves, goats, falcons, eagles, and chickens, turning Bernardez into an. Since then, a number of images and videos have been published online in which his hair is replaced with the fur or feathers of different animals.