Minnesota day care hoax is fueled by MAGA psychosexual weirdness [View all]

Minnesota day care hoax is fueled by MAGA psychosexual weirdness
The racism underlying MAGA's latest obsession is intertwined with misogyny

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published January 5, 2026 6:30AM (EST)


(Salon) Nick Shirley really wants the world to know that he’s never had sex. The YouTuber who moved from “prank” videos to the more lucrative world of creating MAGA disinformation apparently believes that sexual inexperience is an armor against accusations that he’s a liar. “I’m a virgin. I don’t have sex with random girls. You’re not gonna catch me on those sexual allegation charges,” he rambled on “PBD Podcast,” insisting that he is “religious” and doesn’t “have any vices.”

It was an odd rant, and not just because he conflated consensual hook-ups with rape. Shirley was responding to well-supported allegations that he’s perpetuating a racist hoax to terrorize Somali American day care workers in Minnesota. On the day after Christmas, the 23-year-old posted videos falsely accusing various day care centers of not having any real children as their charges, and then billing the federal government for fake work.

A simple viewing of the videos shows they are nonsense. Upon visiting the day cares, Shirley and his middle-aged male partner, David, discover the centers have locked their doors and won’t let them in to gawk at the children. This isn’t proof there are no children. Ideally, not answering the door is how any responsible caregiver would respond to strange, yelling men demanding to come in and film kids. But conservative audiences, ever eager to hear Black people are committing crimes, ignored that logic and spread the video rapidly online.

A deeper dig shows even more how ridiculous this situation is. Shirley has a history of dishonesty, which includes paying immigrant laborers to hold pro-Biden signs, clearly hoping voters would think they were self-motivated. In another video, he claimed Portland had “fallen” and “antifa” had taken “control of the city,” an unvarnished lie. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/01/05/minnesota-day-care-hoax-is-fueled-by-maga-psychosexual-weirdness/