What do you get when you use other people’s content to promote far right talking points? The Grand Rapids Businessman FB page

Even when the Facebook page was called Commies of Grand Rapids it was pretty clear that whoever is behind the social media site that they embraced a far right agenda, which I pointed out at the time.

Since they changed their named to Grand Rapids Businessman their page has become even more “popular,” although they continue to demonstrate ideological perspectives, such as being pro-Capitalist, pro-cop, anti-unhoused and regularly make posts that is through a racist/white supremacist lens.

The FB page known as Grand Rapids Businessman doesn’t do journalism, nor do they have any original content. What they primarily do is to use content created by someone else and then respond to it with brief commentary which often reflects their ideological position(s). For instance, in a post from September 8 they write:

The city is on its 5th police Chief in just 12 years, as activists press officials to use taxpayer funds for things like alternatives-to-policing endorsed by Black Lives Matter, increase equity-based programs, adopt sanctuary city policies, and develop “climate action plans.”

Commissioners Lisa Knight, Marshall Kilgore, and Mayor David LaGrand recently endorsed Abdul El Sayed who previously called to defund the police as Grand Rapids struggles to hire more officers.

In just these two sentences the person(s) behind Grand Rapids Businessman reflects an anti-DEI, anti-BLM, anti-sanctuary, climate denying and pro-cop bias.

I say the person(s), since they aren’t very transparent about who they are, which is pretty typical for those on the far right. Numerous people posting on the page have asked who is behind Grand Rapids Businessman, but they have never responded to such inquiries.

In addition, Grand Rapids Businessman receives lots of comments, from both liberals and conservatives, although my guess would be that their target audience are those on the far right. I say this, because if you read the Grand Rapids Businessman page, the bulk of those commenting are people on the right, mostly white dudes.

Using content created by other people and then simply responding with shallow far right talking points is nothing more than lazy. However, besides using other people’s content the Grand Rapids Businessman will regularly engage in misinformation. Here are two recent examples of how they engage in misinformation.

The first example is from four days ago, where they wrote: Mayor David LaGrand refuses to attend Democratic Socialists of America town hall demanding sanctuary city status and flock camera removal. LaGrand has sparred for months with local agitators who are now publicly shaming him for declining the invitation. The rest of the Grand Rapids city commissioners have been silent on sanctuary status as activists target the mayor and protest inside his personal business, Long Road Distillery.

The first misinformed comment was that they referred to a town hall meeting that Mayor LaGrand refused to attend, but called it a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) event. The event was host by the immigrant-led Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE, which is reflected in the image they used that had of the logos from these two groups, but not the DSA logo. The second comment they include which was wrong is that the Grand Rapids Businessman stated these groups were demanding “sanctuary city status.” The fact is that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been pushing for the City and the County to adopt six sanctuary policies. These six demands are very different than calling for the city to declare itself a sanctuary, which is pretty meaningless designation. The person(s) who run the Grand Rapids Businessman would know this if they watched or shared the livestream of the event that Cosecha organized last Thursday, which you can view here.

A second example of how the Grand Rapids Businessman engages in misinformation was also from last week where they post a video with this brief commentary:

Rep. Hillary Scholten votes to block federal aid for universities that boycott Israel. The Grand Rapids Democrat appears agitated and passive aggressive with Dropsite News reporter, Julian Dreone when he asks, “what do Jewish people in Michigan have to do with Israel?” She responds, “who are you again?”

What is instructive is that the video clip they use from Dropsite news was just 35 seconds long, when the Dropsite news video much longer and includes some background information from the reporter, who also speaks with several more members of Congress to get some answers on the issue of denying funds to universities that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign that began several decades ago.  

I wrote a more informative piece about Rep. Scholten’s vote on this issue, which the Grand Rapids Businessman doesn’t seem interested in. In fact, the Grand Rapids Businessman only seems interested in promoting their own far right positions by using and misusing content created by other people. Then again, this is what the far right usually does, which is to use simplistic, ideologically driven talking points to push their agenda and provide a platform for white supremacists to chime in.