Jackson Hinkle
Jackson Daniel Hinkle is an American political commentator and influencer who hosts the web television show Legitimate Targets with Jackson Hinkle on YouTube, Rumble, and X. A co-founder of the American Communist Party, he is known for his support for Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War, for his opposition to Israel and support for Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and for taking a pro-Pakistan stance on the Kashmir conflict. Hinkle has been accused of disseminating false statements and misinformation on social media, and using social media platforms to support various authoritarian regimes around the world.
Born in San Clemente, California, Hinkle has dubbed himself an "American Conservative Marxist–Leninist". Promoting a syncretic mix of conservative and communist ideas, he is a self-described proponent of "MAGA Communism", an ideology which calls for supporting Donald Trump voters but opposes Trump himself for his pro-Israel stance. As such, Hinkle has called on those who support the American working class to ally with the MAGA movement against an alleged globalist threat. Initially an environmentalist during his high school years, Hinkle has turned to promoting pro-fossil fuels stances in recent years.
Journalists and fact checkers have said that Hinkle has spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. His show, The Dive with Jackson Hinkle, was banned from Twitch for violating misinformation policies and propagating disinformation about the war in Ukraine, motivating its move to Rumble. He was banned from YouTube on grounds of disinformation, before being reinstated in 2025. Since the start of the Gaza war, his posts on X attracted virality, with some described as disinformation in the war. His posts and commentary have been cited by Russian and Iranian state media, and he has appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, One America News Network, and RT.
Early life and education
Hinkle was born on September 15, 1999 in San Clemente, California, where he also attended public schools, graduating from the San Clemente High School in 2018. He was an active member of his middle school's surf club, which made him familiar with the impact of plastic pollution and became the catalyst for his entry into activism. He became active in anti-plastic pollution movements at the age of 17, founding the Team Zissou Environmental Organization, which engaged in environmental lobbying and organized volunteer beach cleanups in Orange County.In 2017, Hinkle became Water Ambassador for The Water Effect at The Ecology Center, and was named one of "The 17 Most Inspirational Kids of 2017" by Reader's Digest, with him also being covered in Teen Vogue as one of eight young environmentalists "working to save the earth" that same year. In 2018, Hinkle went to Washington, D.C., with representatives of the nuclear safety advocacy group San Clemente Green. He spoke at a congressional briefing on the subject of safely dealing with decommissioned nuclear plants, and met with congressional members, an event covered by the Los Angeles Times, where Gary Headrick, the San Clemente Green founder, told the paper about Hinkle: "He's the kind of guy who gives you hope about the future. It's hard to find young people who take these things seriously, but Jackson is fearless and well-informed."
The same year, Hinkle attended Saddleback College, a community college in Mission Viejo, to pursue political science.
Political and activist career
Hinkle began his political activism in the late 2010s, aligning with the "Bernie Bro" movement and running in a San Clemente city council special election in 2019. During his campaign, which was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Orange County Employees Association, he advocated that the city of San Clemente have its own police department, he "categorically and unconditionally" opposed the legalization of prostitution, and proposed combating the presence and effect of nuclear waste in the area. Hinkle ultimately lost the election. In 2020, Hinkle launched the political show The Dive with Jackson Hinkle on YouTube, on which he reached 300,000 subscribers by 2023, later expanding to Twitch. The show moved to Rumble, when he was banned from YouTube and Twitch for "harmful misinformation" related to the war in Ukraine.On February 4, 2021, Hinkle announced on Twitter that he had joined the People's Party.
In October 2022, Hinkle and fellow Twitch streamer Haz Al-Din went to Twitchcon, where they filmed themselves "harassing seemingly random attendees" and mocked topics like COVID-19 face masking, support for Ukraine, and calls for online content moderation. A few days later, the two were joined by "Dark MAGA" streamer Jon Zherka in their attempts to engage with UCLA students on campus.
In June 2023, Hinkle spoke at the Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington, D.C., which included the involvement of the Libertarian Party, the People's Party, and the far-right conspiratorial LaRouche movement, among others, amplifying Russian disinformation narratives and demanding an end to Western support for Ukraine and to NATO's existence. At the rally, Hinkle expressed support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In February 2024, Hinkle appeared on NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo's podcast, being described as at the forefront of "political thought in the country" for the next-generation, and according to Mediaite, advocated for "cessation of all American aid to Israel". Cuomo defended his interview with Hinkle saying "It is clearly untrue that I have ever, or would ever, give any deference to any kind of anti-semitism."
In March 2024, Hinkle began posting on Weibo following a collaboration with Guancha and Fudan University's China Institute.
In July 2024, Hinkle participated in a Russian sponsored press briefing at the United Nations, during which he talked about the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine he visited.
On July 21, 2024, Hinkle announced the launch of the American Communist Party – a political party where he serves on the Plenary Council. The party describes itself as " reconstitution of the Communist Party USA." Hinkle had previously stated that he had been expelled from the Communist Party USA, though his membership in the party was disputed by party officials. Later in July, Hinkle was invited as an international observer to the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election.
On October 7, 2024, Hinkle launched a new political show, Legitimate Targets with Jackson Hinkle, interviewing representatives from the Houthi movement, which is designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
On February 23, 2025, Hinkle attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon. In an interview with Al Mayadeen during this visit to Lebanon, he stated that he had been living in Moscow, Russia for the past five months, fearing U.S. government retribution for his support of Russia, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
On March 22, 2025, Hinkle attended a four-day Ansar Allah conference in Sanaa, Yemen hosting pro-Axis of Resistance figures, where he met Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree and made a speech condemning the U.S. strikes on Yemen.
Conspiracy theories and misinformation
Hinkle has a history of publishing misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, and The Dive with Jackson Hinkle has also been a source of controversy. In April 2022, the Tech Transparency Project stated that the show was peddling "Putin propaganda" in violation of the site rules of Twitch, where the show was hosted on. The show violated the three new policies outlined by Twitch, namely " persistently sharing widely disproven and broadly shared harmful misinformation topics, such as conspiracies that promote violence." The show was eventually taken off Twitch and YouTube for misinformation about the war in Ukraine. Hinkle also has a history of posting pro-Russian and far-right commentary.Since being deplatformed, Hinkle has attracted attention for his tweets regarding the Gaza war, gaining 1.4 million followers on X by October 2023, and has been labeled by The Jewish Chronicle as one of the "most viral misinformation spreaders" in regards to the conflict. In response to being characterized as part of a group of online reactionaries leveraging pro-Palestine views for clout and money, he once proclaimed: "I do everything for the clout, you will never see me do something not for the clout." Chinese state media outlet The Paper called Hinkle a "spreader of false information", although some advocates close to the Chinese Communist Party have promoted him.
Hinkle's tweeting style has come into question, with much of it being criticized as misinformation as well as misleading. His posts have been cited and referenced repeatedly by Russian and Iranian state-affiliated media. For example, the Russian news outlet Lenta.ru used a headline quoting Hinkle's suggestion that the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive be labeled as a suicide mission. In the wake of the Israel–Hamas conflict, Hinkle was deplatformed from YouTube, calling himself the "most censored man on YouTube", as well as the "most viral worldwide". With posts reaching over 20 million views as of November 2023, Hinkle reached 2 million followers on X, where he offers a premium subscription to those wanting to help him "DEFEAT THE ZIONIST LIES". In August 2023, Bloomberg reported that Hinkle had requested antisemitic AI-generated images of "satanic George Soros" using a tool called Midjourney, which a study found to be easy to generate racist and conspiratorial images. A Bloomberg article in November 2023 about misinformation on X said Hinkle was "known for spreading antisemitic hate speech in the past". The ADL identified him as one of five key far right influencers on X who had used the conflict to gain an audience, whose combined follower count increased by over 1070% in the period, Hinkle reaching over 2.6 million in late 2023.
A graphic image from the October 7 attacks was shared on X by Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. Hinkle subsequently claimed that the image was fake due to an inaccurate AI detector classification; however, the image was not determined to be fake by other AI detectors according to DW fact-checkers. Hinkle also falsely claimed on X that Haaretz had reported that the Israeli government inflated the death toll for the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Haaretz quoted the post in a tweet and said that Hinkle's post "contain blatant lies" and was not substantiated by their reporting on the attack.
In October 2023, Hinkle shared a fake news release stating that the United States was sending billions of dollars in aid to Israel. He also published fake news on the arrival of the United States Marines in Israel, using an image from July 2022 in Romania that was unrelated to Israel. Hinkle followed up by falsely claiming that Iran had declared war on Israel and that Yemen had announced they were at war with Israel. Before deleting his post, Hinkle also claimed that video footage showed Israel bombing hospitals; however, the footage instead showed an infirmary in Aleppo dated to 2016. He has also misled his audience after posting an old video from 2018 of a three-year old being detained by border police in Hebron, in the southern West Bank, receiving over one million views. On November 12, 2023, Hinkle posted on X a photo of a woman near a demolished building, with the caption: "You CANNOT BREAK the Palestinian spirit." Fact checking discovered that the captioned photo, which showed a woman stepping down the stairs of a demolished building, was not from Palestine but from Syria, and had been submitted in 2020 for the Siena International Photo Awards.
In December 2023, Hinkle called for a boycott of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI, linking the game to Zionism. Vice disputed the game's links to Zionism and described them as a conspiracy theory.
In July 2024, Hinkle was noted as one of the main social media influencers sharing a fake story about Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine, purchasing a Bugatti.